A mark, a yen a buck or a pound, a buck or a pound, a buck or a pound....

Two of my female friends support their partners financially.  One of them I didn't realize it until a few months ago.  I met them as a couple, and it didn't occur to me that she was carrying the entire financial load.  The other I knew it from the beginning because she and I have been friends much longer than they have been a couple.

With my older friend, I really had a hard time accepting it.  She would say things like "we're a team; his my focus is his art and I care about the house, so he covers his art costs and I cover the costs of the house."  What she didn't say was that the costs of house included all the costs for their kids, their health insurance, their food (although he would occasionally take her grocery shopping), their heat, electricity, internet and the kids' clothes.  I didn't 'approve.'  And I tried to keep that to myself.

With my newer friend, I also don't approve.  Not only does she handle all the earning, but from what I can tell, she does 70% of the home-making.  This is not a partnership (in either case) where the guy handles all the house stuff and the woman works full time.  But again, I tried to keep my judgement to myself.  Until this week: I was at their place and he said that what I needed was an artist to be the father for my kids.  He said my career is settled and I could support an artist and have kids with him.  It really pissed me off.  It seemed an unparalleled bit of hubris.  He didn't mean that no guy would want to be with me unless I paid him--that isn't quite what he meant.  But it sure felt like a level of entitlement that he (and his ilk) were so valuable that a woman should support him and whichever guy he would set me up to support.  (I also make, I'm guessing, at least 50K a year less than his wife, and I'm not sure if he realizes how little I make.  I've never broken 6 figures.  I do own my own house.  And I've saved about 20K over the past 4 years so I have savings for childcare if I do have a kid on my own, but I'm not rolling in money.)

How did we get from the point where men were expected to be the sole providers and women were expected to do the housework, to the woman should make all the money and do a majority of the housework and child-rearing?  Are there really men out there that think they are so fabulous that they can just be supported by the woman? 

Here's where I am hypocritical: one of my friends is a writer, and she is struggling, and she hopes to get married and have a guy support her.  And I have a less visceral reaction to that (although I don't really respect her choices or think that she is making the compromises necessary to be happy).  But I also know that her job were never take her away for 6 months of the year, leaving him to raise the kids and also make all the money.  When men support women financially, the women generally do all the housework, and raise the kids.  When women support men financially, the men occasionally take the gal to go grocery shopping, but they aren't doing the cooking and cleaning.

There was an interesting NY Times article that said that marriages seem to go best when they guy provides 60% of the money and the gal does 60% of the house work (and raising kids and all that).  And that sounds SO right to me!!  Of course, I don't need a man who makes more than me, but it would help.  Because then I wouldn't resent it if I'm doing more.  With the "ex" he paid for half of things (never more) and I did all the housework. With Tony, he paid when we went out, and I covered everything at home, but we weren't ever going out and then he'd say "Do we have any wine?" and I got really frustrated that he wasn't, I didn't think, contributing to us. And it really pissed me off with both.  But I never once complained about doing laundry for "the ex" because he always said I could have any money he left in his clothes in the laundry, and there was almost always $20 in there.  More than enough to cover the quarters.  And it totally changed things.

I do want a man to take care of me.  And I want to take care of him.  But it can't be all one or the other.  It needs to be mutually cherishing.  In different ways, but mutually cherishing.