In our previous conversation about financial dependence in relationships, we came to the conclusion that one shouldn’t expect anything good from such a situation. And especially not if you see that your partner has begun to abuse his influence. And it’s most definitely not worth it if you see that your needs are “reduced”, you’re being pressured, and trying to communicate isn’t working out.
It’s very rare that a situation that has begun to worsen suddenly “turns itself around” and goes in a good direction for you. This is not to say that history doesn’t know such examples, but you definitely shouldn’t expect it.
What to do? Take your life in your own hands, and move towards financial independence. Let’s see how the fate of our heroines has developed further, analyze their experience and learn how to change the situation in a similar way.
Polly, with four children depending on her, realized that there was no help coming from anywhere. That she had to act somehow and save the situation. Her fired husband was laying on the sofa, watching the economic news. He said little and smokes a lot.
To start with, to somehow “cheer herself up”, she signed up for the trendy free psychological marathon “Just Do It”. They were selling a dense training program at the end of it, but this measure was sufficient to build up the motivation. Also, she began to exercise in the mornings with an online trainer from the gym that was closed for a while. This has helped her to pull herself together and stop “wandering” from one thought of her own weakness to another.
Polly called her mother-in-law who was living at a summer cottage with her husband and asked her to temporarily take care of her grandchildren and of her son. The mother-in-law wasn’t too enthusiastic about this idea. However, she’s been primarily relying on her son for financial support for a long time – pension and savings came second. Polly had to tell her that she’d otherwise be forced to rent out her mother-in-law’s city apartment as there was no money.
Within a week, Polly has fully transitioned her youngest child to formula and porridge and stopped breastfeeding. On a cool sunny April Saturday morning she loaded the car with all the clothes, schoolwork, sports equipment, 40 kilos of food issued by the state during the period of home online learning, her husband and three children, and drove everyone to the
in-laws’ summer cottage. They’ll be fine, somehow. They won’t get “spoiled” by the mother-in-law.
She realized that it’d be quite difficult to begin her work experience from the bottom after almost 10 years. But what can you do? We must start from scratch. Polly took her husband’s electric scooter and went to work in Delivery (to deliver orders home) to “start a career”.
The job required a lot of attention to detail, close attention to different aspects of work and staying friendly 24/7. And say whatever you want, but a mother of three has these skills down to a T. 2.5 weeks later, Polly was promoted to be the coordinator of the delivery service of the non-food product division.
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Gradually, she began to restore her old media connections and the client base of companies she knew from her work in the print media outlet. Many managers and business leaders were enthusiastic about the idea of delivering their products to customers using an external provider. So, Polly brought several major strategic contracts into the company. Thanks to her efforts, concentration, and creative management decisions, she received a self-created position as a manager for the development of the delivery of non-food products with an increase in pay – both salary and bonus part. And merely 2.5 months after she started working, Polly, being the only breadwinner in the family, filed for divorce.
Alexandra sat in the yard on her bags and boxes without a place to live, a job or personal life. The online bank showed a critically small amount in the account, obviously not enough to rent another place right now and still hold out for a bit until she could find a job. She decided to take what was an extremely unpleasant measure for her – to return home to her parents. She bought a ticket for the first train and called a taxi. After 1.5 days, she was already sitting in the kitchen and talking to her mother. The news that she was expelled from the university didn’t please them, of course. But she wasn’t kicked out of the house, which was what she was afraid of. She began working for a small family business selling grocery products to retail outlets in the city. Soon, she was able to save up money to enter the paid course “Makeup and Hairdressing” at a local college.
Work during the day, studying or practising on first free clients in the evening. Plus, bimonthly therapy sessions. But six months later, Alexandra was able to fully support herself thanks to the clients that came in for haircuts, makeup or complex wedding hairstyles. With the family business, she insisted that they had to create a company website and started developing it. This decision has helped their business find new clients and reduce the number of payment errors. As an incentive for progress, Alexandra bought herself a further educational course in makeup and current hair trends offered by a famous school in the capital.
After missing the opportunity to get a job, Natalie has pawned off one of the jewelry pieces gifted to her by her lover and booked an appointment with a therapist. Her task was to take a sober look at everything and make a decision.
She realized that no matter how encouraged she was, however pretty her lingerie was, her man wasn’t keen on her working at all. In fact, he aims to control and limit her as much as possible, monitoring her possible contacts and negotiations in the field they used to work in together.
After talking to a therapist, Natalie decided to completely change the situation. She changed her number. She rented out her large two-bedroom apartment and rented herself a room in an apartment with several other people. Not only it helps save money for a little while, but it’s also less lonely…
She dropped the idea of job hunting in large holdings and sent her resume to a small company that required the knowledge of English and admin skills. She was stronger than other candidates and got hired.
The company promoted mobile app development courses. Natalie received a significant discount for training and completed two such courses. After completing them, Natalie gradually began to take on the orders for developing mobile applications on a freelancing platform, thus organizing additional income for herself. The prospects for moving to another field with higher salaries and status loomed ahead.
So, what do we see? What can we learn from the decisions taken by the heroines? What did each story have in common?
The first thing we see is that each of them took responsibility for herself and accepted the situation as it is, with all the aspects of her vulnerable position (sitting on a mountain of bags in the yard and not being able to enter an apartment you thought was yours just yesterday, and almost zero money on your account). The heroines had to collaborate with the people they didn’t want to (make arrangements for mother-in-law’s support or confess problems at the university to your parents), choose what they’d previously consider to be beneath them (renting a room in an apartment with other people, a demotion, getting money from a pawnshop with jewelry as security).
In addition, we see that each of them had to concentrate all their emotional and psychological resources to achieve this. For some, it’s enough to take part in a free marathon and “do some press-ups”, others need a detailed conversation with a professional, and others a few sessions, but it’s important to understand that in order to decide on some new steps that aren’t like you, you need new thoughts that aren’t like you. And for that, you need good partners: friends, books, training sessions, individual support.
Starting over always goes hand-in-hand with a bitter parting with your old life, with the illusions that used to make us happy there. Natalie was forced to realize that her lover wants to control her and assert himself at her expense – not court her and help her. Alexandra was forced to see that she’s not the only one in her man’s life and there can be no future for them. Polly realized that not only does her husband not care for her, but he doesn’t care about the family as such. He can allow financial problems to occur and he won’t make any effort to help the situation. It’s goddamn unpleasant to realize all that and watch your expectations not come true. But blind trust in the future can in many cases simply be dangerous.
After you’ve done all that, you can act. You have to see the resources that you possess. For Polly, this resource was the ability to manage a large amount of processes at the same time, notice the details and control the result, as well as be pleasant 24/7. All these skills are really well-developed in mothers, especially mothers with many children. It’s otherwise impossible to manage taking care of three kids as well as the household.
Natalie realized that her resource was her home as well as professional skills, and if one takes a creative look at these resources, one can definitely find a “door” where everything looks like a “wall”. And Alexandra realized and accepted that in her small town where at first glance there were no perspectives, it’d be much easier for her to build a career by using the “thriving” social connections and people’s trust in her, than in a big city with many opportunities but without support of family and friends.
In other words, you need a desire to consider what you’re used to a resource, a readiness to grab opportunities rather than let them pass you buy – and you’ve got financial independence in your pocket!
Was it hard for them? Very likely! Were they sad, lonely, hurting, resentful? Very!!!! They had to cry into a pillow more than once. Why do you think they did it?
We see that each of our heroines, having thought about her future, came to a conclusion that there was no way out and she just had to endure. All of them thought that they weren’t ready to let their level of life go. But after seeing that a situation can suddenly get worse and that a person who was a rock – however unstable – just yesterday, can sink you down to the bottom, they accepted that it’s better to act on your own than be under someone’s control. It’s better to give up part of the resources on your own on the way to your goal than to be someone’s resource who’d be given up as soon as it’s not beneficial.
Finally, we’ll list a few more questions you have to ask yourself to make the transition to a dependant to financial independence quicker and clearer:
- What makes me angry in this relationship (not sad – angry)?
- What am I holding onto in this relationship? What benefits do I get?
- What resources do I have? How can I use them if worst comes to worst?
- What can help me stop being afraid and begin to act?
By answering these questions, you inadvertently create a plan of breaking up with This person and it’s not unlikely that you’d start following it.
Good luck!
