Questions and Answers: Fare Share

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Kathy writes:

“Help me please...

“I have been with my partner for three years after meeting on vacation. At first he was very giving, doing things around the house and working long hard hours and then staying up late into the evening to spend time with me and have sex before we went to sleep. Our sex life is still very good but we have come to a point where I don't feel like he is giving his fare share in the relationship.

“For over a year now his work and pay have been sporadic. I cover almost all the bills and would not have a problem with that if I felt that he made it up elsewhere. I asked him if he felt that this was a 50/50 relationship and he said no, he thought he gave more. I feel that he does very little around the house even when he is not working. I called him on my lunch hour one day and he said he was doing laundry and when I got home 6 hours later he only had two loads of clothes complete and had done nothing else in the house. Then to make matters worse his boss’s wife was going to drop by with some papers for him and I told him I really didn't want her in the house, that it was a mess, so he cleans the living room and the kitchen and starts dinner all within 30 minutes so she can come in the house. I told him that it upset me that he would do it for her but not me. He got angry and said he did it for me. He also didn't understand why I was bitching when he was standing there folding laundry. He did two loads all day and I am supposed to be thankful.

“I am the primary breadwinner but he said I was being selfish for not wanting to move closer to his job, so I now drive 45 minutes to and from work everyday. I have an SUV that doesn't get great gas mileage and I have to pay tolls. He said, yeah, I would be paying those things but he wouldn't be, but if I pay pretty much all the bills and then the extra gas, tolls and aggravation from fighting the traffic falls on me, where are the savings coming in?

“I feel like it is a partnership and so I should get the bills paid even when he can't because it will affect us both when we try to buy a home or anything else together, but he says, “you pay my bills because it helps you.” Well actually it helps us both. I am already responsible for an ex-husband’s IRS debt, and I am not going through that again.

“We are at a point were we just see it totally different. I know I have my faults, believe me. I have a very low threshold for stress and, well, to be honest, have been very angry about, well, everything lately. But I know this and work on it all the time by trying to remind myself that I have a problem and need to learn control. I am 34, have been married and divorced twice, and really want this relationship to work. I just don't know what to do, it’s like we are speaking Greek to each other. I am also at a point where my biological clock is not just ticking, it's about beat straight out of my uterus. I don't want to waste any more time, but I don't want to have a baby with someone that is not going to be a lifetime commitment. I know this is just my side of the story and believe me there is more, but maybe if you could head me in the right direction because right now I just feel I am beating my head against the wall. HELP!

Thanks,
Kathy”

Dr. Einhorn replies:

Kathy probably didn’t mean to use the homonym “fare” instead of “fair,” but I’ve kept it because it seems to embody the problem from her point of view. She feels that her boyfriend isn’t paying his fair share of the fare; the cost of their relationship, and that she has to support it for both of them. This raises the question of the role of money in relationships. As Kathy’s description indicates, how each person’s contribution adds up--or doesn’t--depends on who’s doing the calculating.

Although it may be unpopular to say it, most sexual relationships are also economic ones, in which the personal and material aspects of the relationship are all intermixed. Yet understanding the material aspects of a relationship is not just about doing the math of how much each person contributes; it’s about what each person’s contributions mean, both to the one making and the one receiving them. In this case, both Kathy and her boyfriend seem to feel that each is giving more to the relationship than the other.

Kathy seems to be experiencing several kinds of conflict (relationship, self-esteem, stage of life, etc.), and therefore may be at risk for depression or other emotional disorder, since multiple conflicts can produce emotional crisis. She certainly sounds distressed, so I’d strongly recommend that she find a mental health professional who could help her evaluate her current degree of distress and recommend steps to help her to cope.

Psychotherapy could be an important part of the plan. If Kathy were in a good therapeutic relationship, it might help her to calm down and take better care of herself emotionally on a day-to-day basis, and then provide the time and space for her to think and work through the various issues that she raises. Kathy’s done a good job of explaining the situation from her point of view, so we can see that there’s lots for her to consider. Having taken the time to describe her situation in this email, she might put it to further use in helping her to select a therapist. She could try doing that by showing her description to several therapists, seeing how they respond, and then selecting the one who seems to her to be most understanding of her situation and toward herself in their interview. (See my prior column on “Selecting a Therapist.”)

Working with her therapist, Kathy might want to explore the story of her two failed marriages, to see if there are patterns that might extend into her current relationship. Of course, I don’t know what Kathy’s situation is really about, but the way she describes it reminds me that some people try to take most or all of the responsibility for making a relationship work, rather than sharing it mutually with their partner. They might do this because of low self-esteem, fear of failure, or any combination of motives, but such an attitude is actually an obstacle to relationship.

Kathy’s description of her situation raises the question of whether she really is in an increasingly one-sided relationship or whether her boyfriend is giving in ways that she doesn’t recognize. This question is of foundational importance in her life, yet she doesn’t seem to trust herself to decide it. There’s no way that a reader can really answer for her, and no substitute for the careful exploration over time that would take place in a good therapeutic relationship, through which she would be able to sort out what really is happening in her situation. When we see our situations more realistically, the right decisions tend to emerge.

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