How Gender Norms Mess Up Money In Relationships
Two stories about the way traditional modes of behavior ruin everything
Yes, there was a zoo that had to shoot a gorilla, and there was the set of parents in Japan who kicked their son out of the car to teach him a lesson only to come back after a couple of minutes and find that he had disappeared, but to me the really upsetting stories of the week both had to do with how straight couples do money. First there was the introductory segment on this Sunday’s This American Life (#587, “The Perils of Intimacy”).
The woman being interviewed, Rachel Rosenthal, was being dogged by an identity thief. No matter how many times she closed out one account and started another, or took basic measures to protect herself, her money would once again disappear. She became so paranoid, and she got so broke, that she ended with a total of $1,000 that she kept in the top drawer of her dresser, Great Depression-style.
Luckily she had a supportive partner:
I didn’t have that much money. Like, I was working at a nonprofit children’s museum, and trying to wait tables to supplement my income. But my boyfriend at the time was, like, helping me out. Like, I always paid my rent. I didn’t want him to, like, pay for me or anything. It was very uncomfortable for me. But he would, like, buy the groceries and do everything. I would pay my rent, and he would kind of take care of everything else.
Then she needed that $1000 and, when she went to get it, she found that it too was gone.
Maybe you can already see where this is going. The banks did. The police did. Even her boyfriend’s stepmom tried to warn her, though the boyfriend had been careful to tell Rosenthal that his evil stepmother couldn’t be trusted. Everyone, in short, told her it was the boyfriend, because apparently it’s always the boyfriend, and she didn’t believe them. But they were right: it was the boyfriend.
The story gets worse.
Reader, she stayed with him! She stayed with him because he told her he had “impulse control disorder” but that he was in therapy trying to get better, and because she wanted to believe he was fundamentally Good. And he seemed to be addicted to having her think he was Good.
He gaslighted her. He stole her money and then spent it on her so that she would need him. And he did it so that she would think he was the only one she could rely on, that he was her hero in a world full of villains. At some point, you have to figure, she let him. (She did finally break up with him, though, and she is broadcasting this story as a cautionary tale, so kudos to her.)
That brings us to this week’s Dear Polly letter, which is also about how gender norms can fuck up our finances, titled, “My husband can’t handle money and it’s ruining our lives.”
Ask Polly: My Husband Can’t Handle Money, and It’s Ruining Our Lives!
The LW is at wit’s end because she married a guy who can’t do money and she is being forced to handle the consequences:
there are some things I literally and legally cannot take care of for him. Like dealing with his student loans, which is the source of the current issue. He just … never set up a payment plan, or he didn’t make consistent payments, or he didn’t apply for repayment assistance, and he ignored (?) my daily reminders that I sent him for six months (before just saying “Fuck it” and giving up, and not wanting to ruin our otherwise good marriage with nagging). Soooo last summer, they started garnishing his wages. Thirty percent of each of his paychecks (after regular deductions) now goes to the student-loans collection agency. He has a decent job with a decent wage (for where we live), but even though he’s been there now almost seven years, he only works 20 to 30 hours a week. Losing 30 percent of his income has majorly impacted our way of life. I feel like we’ve taken a huge leap backward, and this past year has been hell for me, because most of the financial responsibility now falls on me.
Now that he’s driven his family into a swamp, he won’t do anything to help get them out.
I didn’t get mad at him when he told me this was about to happen. I knew it would! I knew that the only way for him to realize how serious it is to “take care of your shit” would be for him to deal with actual consequences, and I knew that it would impact the whole family. I didn’t even say “I told you so.” But I thought at the time (and he said at the time) that he would find a second job, get us more income to make up the difference … y’know, like a normal person would do. Like I would do if it were me. Take responsibility. Polly, the only jobs he’s applied for in the past year are the four that I submitted his résumé to on his behalf, out of desperation!
This letter makes my heart sag like an old floor. The LW is trying to be a Good Girl (TM), someone who can take care of everyone and not have any needs herself, and, of course, it’s not working.
I’ve exhausted every single resource I have. I barely sleep, eat once a day, bike to work and everywhere else, and don’t have the capacity to work 12 hours a day. Even if I wanted a divorce (which I don’t! I want to keep my family intact!), I can’t afford to leave).
She also Good Girl’ed her way into this mess by going to extreme lengths to avoid “nagging.” Polly calls her on that. (“Marriage is not about one person controlling herself so she doesn’t sound like a bitch.”) But doesn’t Polly understand that some women would choose bankruptcy over being called a bitch? That “nagging” feels, to some, like the worst sin you can accuse a wife or girlfriend of, short of adultery? Women are conditioned to want to be liked. We are told over and over again that our value comes from whether the people around us perceive us in a positive way.
Meanwhile, men are told that they’re expected to handle money, and are expected to know how to handle money. Being a provider is a key part of being a man. (See above.) They aren’t exactly taught how to ask for help when they need it, either. It’s more manly to STEAL. So, while we can’t know what made the husband go into turtle mode when it came to his student loans in the first place, Polly suggests that his major malfunction is related to our society’s idiot ideas about masculinity:
It doesn’t sound to me like your husband is smoking bong hits under the covers all day. He just avoids ballooning problems. Yes, that is enormously frustrating, but it’s not an uncommon phenomenon. Based on the experiences of the women I know, many men are massively avoidant and bad with money, and when things start to go wrong, they get secretive about it. It’s hard not to treat it like a massive failing, but it’s a common trait that needs to be discussed openly instead of catastrophized.
Polly is maybe too cavalier here, and I think she should have been more sympathetic to the LW overall, who is struggling to be a kind and responsible person at a time when she’s under enormous pressure and seems to be the only grown-up in the room. But the larger point is that gender norms are poison in the drinking water. In the long run, we need to get the poison out; in the short term, we need to inoculate ourselves.
Men, you are still worthwhile people even if you don’t have tremendous earning potential or if you’re weighted down with debt! Women, you are still worthwhile people even if you aren’t constantly acting in fear of someone calling you a shrew! In fact maybe we should accept that, on some level, we’re all shrews who are bad with money, and just strive to 1) get better, and 2) be kind to each other and ourselves.
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