Let’s Talk Finances, Ladies!

Well, this really could be helpful for anyone. I say ladies because that is generally my target audience but men, this may be eye-opening for you too if you identify yourself as the saver in the relationship. I remember being about 6 months pregnant when my lazy husband said to me that he wants to quit his job because he doesn’t want to work for a while. Yep… you read that right!

Let me give you some background first. We had only been married for about 9 months when he first mentioned doing an internship in California for the summer. He said it was so selective so he needed to do it for his career. I was all on board with it at first. Then he mentioned another internship on the East coast that he could do too. But he applied for the first one in California and got accepted. After reading about it, I realized it really wasn’t anything special. Funny thing, I did my RESEARCH before making a decision. Something totally foreign to him, even though he too is a RESEARCHER. And even wilder was that 2 other people in our department at the university were accepted to it (of only 15 interns). And one of them was an undergraduate student. Needless to say, I was already thinking this was a bad decision and mentioned that he should instead try for the second internship since it probably applied to more job opportunities. But he insisted that the first one was the way to go so I reluctantly agreed that he could do it. So on top of paying $1200/month rent (already cheap because we were renting my parent’s house), we had to pay another $1000/month for him to have half of a dorm room. We ended up going in the hole more than $3000 those 2.5 months because he ate fancy lunches and dinners out most days.

The first day he was there, he was already trying to quit and come home because he said “everyone here is dumb.” He hated California and said he’d never live there. However, just a few months before leaving to go to California, he was trying to convince me to move there because that’s where biotech is located. So this already tipped my hat to his hare-brained ideas and “quitter” personality. Well, he came back and all he did was cost me an additional $3000 in expenses. It also set him back from graduating school by about 4 months. So we lost 4 months of significantly higher income. But I hoped that he was back on track now.

He finally graduated and just a couple of short months later, he was already bringing up this other internship that he mentioned previously. I thought, my goodness, is he just never going to get a job? It is internship after internship. He applied for it without my consent because he is the only one who counts. We found out he got accepted and two days later, we found out we were expecting. I was floored. I tried not to let the baby sway our decision on whether or not the internship would help his career, but deep down, I knew he would go regardless of my decision. So I tried to tell myself it was a good idea. It was better than believing that my husband would again choose himself over me. They assigned him to complete it on the East coast and he was already saying how we should someday live in this bustling city. What?! Why would I uproot my life with a baby on the way and move away from my family, friends, and job (which I loved)?

The morning sickness was worse than I ever imagined. I was one vomit away from heading to the hospital for an I.V. the first 5 months of my pregnancy. And instead of staying to help me, off he went for his internship. My mom flew in to help me for 6 weeks and I can’t imagine how I would’ve gotten through it without her help. I was completely bedridden besides just trying to make it to and from work each day. And looking back, I get angry because now I wonder if the morning sickness was a symptom of the stress he continuously inflicted on me.

Alright, let’s get down to the finances. The city where his internship was located is not a cheap place to live. With debilitating morning sickness; I felt like I had the flu every single day for 5 months straight. I worked a tough job, on my feet all day, paying all the bills while my husband abandoned me to go live in another city for an unpaid internship. He cost me $8000 for that little 2-month jaunt. And it would’ve been much worse had I not refused to pay for his apartment or brand new computer he just had to have. So his parents paid $3200 for his rent for 8 weeks, and bought him a brand new apple laptop totaling ~$3600. So imagine the hole I would’ve been swimming out of if I had paid all of that. 8 weeks would’ve cost me an extra $15,000!!!

He said that he’s been in school for 30 years so he thinks he should have a break for a while. Turns out, that was another waste of time and money. So when he came back home when I was about 6 months pregnant and said he deserves a break from working, I felt like my head was going to blow off. What kind of man….scratch that, what kind of selfish boy puts his needs ahead of his pregnant wife and soon-to-be-born baby? I finally realized…I’ll never be able to out earn his stupid. Really think about this. If you’re the man or woman in the relationship who is constantly pulling the buggy and you have someone who is just blowing your money, you would probably be better off alone. I certainly am!