Ask anyone in any sort of committed relationship what the most difficult thing to discuss with their partner is, and – I’ll bet you a box of Quality Street – money will feature highly as a contentious topic.
I never really acknowledged this much, as P and I may share a life, a home and a lifestyle, but we don’t share bank accounts. While we happily rally up our monthly spreadsheet and apportion out our household bills, what each of us decide to do with our personal income is really up to us. We have this rule – as long as the bills are paid, and we’re all fed, each really is to their own.
I’ve never had an issue with that, because it spoke directly to my inner single mom steel. I admit that I constantly lived in a state of ‘worst case scenario’ and survivor mode of ‘look, this is great and all, but really, you always need a backup plan’. In hindsight, I see how that’s not very fair to the person who chose me to spend his life with.
That’s why I’m glad this mini-crisis in my bank account happened.
Things looked a little thin on the bottom line for me a while ago, and it came as a bit of a surprise. A few things didn’t work out, plans didn’t prosper and well, life happened. In between moving homes and all that goes with it, I suddenly needed to lean a little.
Leaning. The one thing I have never, ever been able to do without being left to feel like I owed someone a favour or that I was forever tagging along in a shadow of debt. In fact, it took me nearly a full year before I even let P carry my groceries, much less make sure the household was taken care of. But, there it was. I needed to lean.
And while it went against every thread and fibre of my internal survivor mode that I had mentally clung to since the very first day I became a single parent, I did it. There were tears, protestations and clanging tantrums (all mine) but it had to be done.
In the midst of scrabbling through the household spreadsheets to see where we could fill in a gap or two, while we giggled nervously over too many zeroes and not too any heroes, he looked across at me, squeezed my hand and said something like: “this is what it’s about”.
A month later, and I wish I’d had that fall-apart-moment sooner. I’d been holding it in for so long because, you know, we’re taught that money troubles are a sign of weakness and, there’s nothing I can’t stand more than being or feeling weak.
Post-tantrum and ironing out of the household spreadsheet though, I didn’t discover weakness – instead, I found strength. It wasn’t forged out of iron from my inner single mom steel or carved out of sleepless nights. I found it in us.
Suddenly, I wasn’t afraid to have a difficult conversation with P anymore – I began to realise how often I’ve been actively avoiding them. He’s always going on at me about how I should be more direct with him and that I must not be afraid of spitting out the tough stones of life. He was right – there was strength to be uncovered in this mini-crisis that I had obstinately refused to let appear in our lives.
Now, we’re stronger than ever. Thanks, little crisis. I learnt from you, but please, don’t come round again.
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