Now that my boyfriend and I are through, I want to talk about the problem I had with him because it is something more women should be aware of.
In short, when I started making more money than my boyfriend he felt so badly about it that he started giving me all sorts of horrors. It came to the point where I had to get out of that relationship or I would have gone crazy.
What hurts me most about our break-up is that we were friends for 16 years.
We met at secondary school and our relationship grew from this acquaintance, through to being good friends before we became involved.
He was the only man in my life. I loved him and all I ever wanted from the time I gave myself to him was to be his wife and lifelong partner.
I had dreams of us having two children, building a house together and living like two peas in a pod. I really thought this was possible because we were so good together. He was always so spontaneous and adventurous, while I am the total opposite – I think about everything I do first.
At school he was the one who used to do crazy things, and was the only person who actually got me to do anything like that.
Supervisor
After school he went to the Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic and then got a job in the trade he trained for. He is now a supervisor at a company. I went onto Cave Hill, got my degree and now work in finance. That’s why I ended up earning more than he did.
When I was studying, he used to brag about how much he was making. He would talk of us pooling our resources and building together when I eventually finished.
But after I graduated and got my first job earning nearly as much as him, all that talk stopped. Then, after nine months I got a jump in salary which surpassed his, and he started dropping remarks. His favourite one was that it wasn’t fair that accountants like me worked a few hours behind a computer a day but earned more than men like him who slaved in the sun.
At first I thought he was just being silly, but as he would go on and on about it I realised that this was eating away at him. I tried to reassure him that no matter what I earned,
I would continue to regard him as the man of our house. However, he didn’t take that well either and accused me of patronising him.
I still didn’t let that put me off. I loved him and was determined to show him how we could achieve more together than our parents ever managed or dreamed possible for us. All the while I kept telling him that I had no problem with the fact that I was making $4 800 each month, while he was getting $3 860.
The way I saw it, we could commit ourselves to monthly payments of $5 000 a month and in 25 years own a valuable property plus have solid savings and other security for our retirement.
All worked out I had it all worked out. We would get a mortgage of $2 000, a car with payments of no more than $650, life insurance and endowment policies at $800, save $750 in a joint retirement savings plan, and $800 for food, clothes and entertainment.
We already had between us a fridge, washing machine, living room suite, dining table and televisions so we did not have to look for those things. Â
The mortgage, car payments and half of the food bill, a total of $3 050, would have come out of my money. The remainder after taxes would go into my personal savings.
He would have paid the life insurance and endowment policies, our joint retirement savings plan and provided the other half of the food bill. That would have been $1 950 and the rest of his money after taxes he could save.
But this was not to be. He just could not take the idea that I was earning more than him and so could put more into whatever we did together.
He also allowed so-called friends to fill his head with thoughts that I would eventually leave him for somebody else, and as I was paying the mortgage from the outset I would get the house.
Actually, they convinced him that I chose to pay the mortgage and for the car because that was my plan. When he repeated these things, I could not imagine that he was talking about me – someone he had known for so long and who was devoted to him for years.
Downhill
But he was adamant about it and from then our relationship went downhill.
In the near five months after that before our relationship ended he stopped coming around, not returning my calls and, worse of all, started going out with somebody else.
I begged him to stop this because I loved and wanted him, but no matter what I said, he just seemed to lose interest in me. After I could not take his rejection anymore, I called it quits.
What I find disturbing is that a grown man, who is a professional in his own right, would have a difficulty marrying his long-term girlfriend just because she earns more money than him.
Men need to realise that if they don’t get qualified for high paying jobs but us women do, then they will always start behind. I want L to know that what he did to me was stupid. You could have had a good life with a decent woman that no man but you has ever had. I would have done the world for you.
But what do you have? A woman who has two children from two different men and drains your pocket.
How smart is that?
