At first, Luu felt okay with the situation. Her relationship was the healthiest one she’d ever been in, and “we just felt like we were married from the get-go,” she says. They combined finances, and Luu took on more of the household chores. But as time went on, her feelings changed. “I love keeping a clean space, I love cooking, and I love doing the homely duties. But after a while of being the only person contributing [to the housework], it’s like, Damn, if I was making money, I could just be doing this on my own and not have to take care of someone else,” she says. “But you know, he was contributing financially. So then it’s like, How can I speak on that? That internal conflict just got stressful.”
People with common sense probably know this already, but the right wing obsession with “trad wife” or “stay at home mom” often do not work in real life.
My ex long-term partner of 10 years went through a couple large spans of time where they couldn’t find work, and so ended up being stay-at-home. This wasn’t a huge problem for me because my income was enough to support the both of us pretty comfortably, but I knew they didn’t feel great about not finding work :/
We had a pretty serious disagreement at some point in their long period without work, and the night after that happened, I considered the possibility that they might feel like they’re being coerced into staying because they don’t have a way to leave without being made poor if they did.
We already had a shared checking and savings account, but I knew they probably wouldn’t feel comfortable pulling from that if they wanted to leave (even though they would be right to take some of it; it’s theirs too), so I set aside a few thousand dollars and sent that to a checking account that only they have access to. I told them that if they ever feel like they were staying for financial reasons that they can use that as a safety net to help with becoming financially independent. I wanted them to have something that only have access to or knowledge of so they could leave on their own terms if they ever needed to. It’s not perfect, but it would have covered rent and cost-of-living for them for a few months if it ever came to that.
That probably has the potential for the other person to take advantage of, but we were together for a long time before and after that, and when we did end things, it was mostly amicable, and I don’t regret setting up a no-questions-asked way of getting out in the least bit.
Good for you for being respectful to your partner. Hope more people in the world are like you.