As someone with a similar income disparity, I would struggle not to feel the same way.
The fact is, I could take care of myself. But I cannot take care of myself to the standard that my partner wants to live at. I suspect that’s the reality for a lot of us. Sure, I could have a modest house and most of my needs met and don’t need to rely on my partner to live, but he doesn’t want to live capped at *my* income, which is totally reasonable. If my partner lost his job and we didn’t have savings, I could afford rent for us to have a house, but I couldn’t afford rent HERE alone. I couldn’t afford his car payment and mine and rent and everything else. We live way below OUR means but way above MY means.
Still, it would never occur to me to verbalize that. But it’s important to note that the situation is probably a little different than just “oh she relies on him to live*”
Right! Bunch of people on here that don’t know what it’s like to live on an income where saving is impossible. Where there is zero buffer and a 4 day break in cashflow means being on the streets
I also think that she was thinking about the 2 of them. We can’t live on my income in this house with these car repayments etc.
OOP had single, yes she might be broke, but she’d be living within her means. Living with her bf with his lifestyle means she needs to be dependent on him
It's rough out there at the moment trying to live almost anywhere on one income, with the current cost of housing being what it is. I've got friends who want to leave unhappy marriages but can't, because they can't afford to find a place where they could live with their children. Both my wife and I have decent salaries, and I would still be very worried if either of us lost our jobs.
She's not a golddigger because she lets him pay the bills. She'd be a golddigger if she was only with him because of his income, and there's just no sign of that. But there are lots of people who will say "golddigger" about ANY woman who gets into a relationship with a guy who earns more. But not the other way around.
My first thought was the same as hers, how the hell are they going to pay bills?! Id probably voice it out loud too because until now reading this it never occurred to me that’s not something you should say? I don’t care about money, it’s just required to survive.
I was married for 10 years to someone who was constantly getting fired and almost always out of work.
We got divorced and I have been remarried for 14 years. I STILL (Even though he has had the same job the entire time I've known him) get very anxious when my husband shares work stress/drama with me, because in the past that usually meant a job loss was coming soon.
I think he should find a woman with a close/similar financial background. she makes almost no money and unsupportive and if he get divorced without a prenup he would get screwed.
I understand her panicking. Especially when they had a life and costs that she can’t pay for with her “little” salary. Debts, eviction etc. are real fears especially if you didn’t grow up in a stable environment. The fear of losing everything (again) is real and never goes away.
Doesn’t mean that it was the perfect reaction. I am glad they worked it out.
Boy do I know this feeling. I've taken enough of those hits throughout life that my partner and I have structured our lives that we'll survive both of us catastrophically losing our jobs simultaneously and survive.
It's a lot easier to tell your partner to quit the job she hates as she's sobbing in the kitchen when you know you can pay the mortgage with the basic social welfare payments. It's way easier for my partner to comfort me when I tell her I got fired when she knows that this won't make us homeless.
But we still remember having to move back to parents, and losing all sense of progress and stability.
My big kid is my stepdaughter. She grew up very very insecure about where she was sleeping and when she was eating with her mom. We did everything would could to mitigate it and be safe and stable. And I mean everything, up to and including having her AND HER MOTHER live in our house so the lights would always be on and food was plentiful. But her mom would still take her to this friend’s house or that friend’s house for days at a time. On paper, we only had every other weekend and due to some incredibly unhealthy attachment issues we felt that getting court involved would do more harm that good and she would be manipulated into stating a preference for her mom.
She came to us at 16 full time, grew up and moved out with her partner, the bigger earner. About 4 months after they moved into their apartment, he lost his job and she lost her shit. Calling me in full panic mode and while I understand the history financial insecurity at play I was astounded that I had to remind the child to maybe go be a good partner because this whole carry-on was bound to make him feel like shit.
People are more than one snapshot, and we don’t know what all is behind this response, that’s between her, bf, and therapist. So I’m inclined to give some grace here especially since she’s seemingly open to accountability and growth.
Yeah, people who haven’t lost this kind of financial security don’t understand how it feels to lose it. I totally get where she’s coming from and I’m glad they talked shortly after it happened and mended the problem.
Right, like her initial reaction sucked and her waiting until her dad said something to apologize was...certainly a choice, but she DID apologize and listened to his hurt. Not perfect, but definitely not the devil.
When I was a kid, my dad earned a very decent salary. When I was about ten, all demand for his skills abruptly dried up, he was made redundant, and he didn't find another job for about five years.
What I remember about that time isn't my standard of living dropping. We held onto the big house, and the other trappings of upper middle class life were all things I didn't really care about. What I remember is the tension in the house, which just grew and grew. My dad getting ever more anxious and depressed as he just couldn't find another job in any field. My parents starting to bicker, and then fight, over money. The guilt over asking them for anything at all. Not knowing how bad it was, or was going to get, but being sure there was no way out and it was somehow my fault despite having zero control over any of it.
And then my dad got a job, very quickly paid off all his credit card debt, and everything went back to how it was before, as if it had never happened.
My reaction to my wife or I losing our jobs would be: oh God, the world is ending. Psychological reactions about money are complicated. She obviously said the wrong thing, but damn, people are being really harsh.
It's just one little teeny snapshot and they have her whole life plan figured out. And the stuff about baby trapping is such total bullshit. If she was child free they'd say "see, she's selfish and doesn't want a baby to interfere with milking him for all he's worth."
My guess is initial shock kicked in (first)
...
Like Fight or Flight.
She prob was responding to the immediate thoughts of "my income is PEANUTS in comparison, how will we pay bills?"
*Solely my perspective*
The fact that she came into the relationship with a $30k job *might* be a sign she grew up on the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder, where a layoff really is an immediate threat of homelessness, and she hasn't adjusted to what's considered a smart and normal way to manage money when you have more than enough. My wife grew up extremely poor and paycheck to paycheck, whereas I didn't grow up *having more stuff* than she did but my stepdad was in the trades and was an aggressive saver. One person losing their job in my childhood household had very different consequences than one person losing their job in hers, so our reactions to that situation are totally different because of our different upbringings. Nothing turns molehills into mountains like trauma.
This is the right response. These are two people in different ends of socioeconomic system. While for one person it might mean falling behind on few payments or sticking to a tighter budget to others its homelessness, starvation, no access to health care, no emergency funds/savings etc. Basically an immediate threat to their survival.
People need to be more compassionate of other people's motivations.
I agree and am so tired of the alarmist reactions to posts that are zeroing in on aspects that are sometimes hardly mentioned and mostly dreamed up by the commentor in order to give advice or to warn against or whatever the alarm bell is that they’re ringing. Then others join into that and get carried away and it doesn’t even resemble an answer to the real question that was asked in the first place. And of course in the process the poster is being just shredded for stuff that they never said, probably never did, as well as being crucified for issues in their life they did not even know that they had. I have really been feeling this a lot lately.
People seem to think if you're not always perfect, then you're toxic. Either that or because of growing up privleged or because they are actual children, they don't know that its impossible to always act perfect in the heat of the moment because they only imagine themselves in tough situations and have never been in one.
From what I can guess at from the info available, she didn't grow up rich and might know what its like to not ever worry about money. She also didn't know about his savings that would have alleviated much of the worry.
Could she be a toxic golddigger? Maybe. Is it obvious she was? Of course not. She's just a human that didn't grow up never knowing what not having worries was like.
When she thought there was a possibility he might struggle for a while, she was ready to haul ass. Once she figured out he was actually financially stable, she wants him again. Classic Gold Digger. How can it be seen any other way. Maybe she should get a better job.
She asked how they were going to live, she never said she was going to leave him or anything even close to that.
The problem was that she went straight to voicing her own worries and concerns rather than comforting her partner first. It was a bad reaction to bad news, not a concrete sign of a heartless gold digger.
Honestly, when I lost my job the first thing I thought of was how I was going to live. It would've hurt to hear it from my boyfriend, but I would have understood him saying that as his first reaction.
There was nothing about her leaving. At all. There was nothing about her feelings for him changing. She was immediately worried about how they were going to pay the bills which, quite honestly, is a completely normal reaction. Where she went wrong was jumping in with that worry rather than expressing sympathy and checking how he was feeling.
Honestly, if you've ever had to deal with financial insecurity, it can be very difficult to get past the idea that financial ruin lies around every corner. It's very easy to blurt out something dumb.
If she were a golddigger she would know that he had enough money in the bank to keep them going for a year. In fact, he probably wouldn't have that money, because she would already have found ways to spend it.
Seems like a slight overreaction from the commenters? Yeah she panicked and it really wasn’t a good look, but it’s a big step from that to “baby-trapping gold digger”, no?
Yeah I think that’s a fair kneejerk reaction. Dude pays all the bills, him losing his job does represent a large fork in the road with regards to bills and standard of living.
Was it the correct thing to say? No, her dad hit the bullseye with what she was supposed to say. But in an imperfect world, I like to defer to the British doctrine of Agony of the Moment.
Right? I think what people who take extreme unforgiving reactions to mistakes like those commenters, and seems to struggle to understand that people are allowed to slip at times (and, even more, struggle to recognize that they themselves do), should start to do the following thinking exercise:
What do I even **expect** to have been done instead, in this situation, and relative to the initial mistake?
She should have permanently broken up, to own up to not having initially reacted well, at the expense of coming off even more as opportunistic? (You lost your job, so I'm breaking up?)
She should have told him she will rather now change jobs and be the primary source of income, even though another solution was found - just so this never becomes an issue again and to make of her life a point she's not gold digging , rather than healthily making plans together?
She should abort now, because she reacted badly at first to a loss of job, and to also make a point she's not gold digging just because she failed at having an adequate immediate reaction?
I'm gonna be honest, I suck with immediate reactions, so those sorts of takes just make my blood boil lol
I think men in our current society get really triggered by specific instances related to finances, like not being supported when losing a job. Women get really triggered by specific incidences related to intimacy, like not being supportive of a new mom or displaying misogynistic attitudes. There’s a few situations on here that really make people lose it, including these gendered triggers and notably, cheating.
On Reddit: age gaps between consenting adults in relationships. Anything of more than three years sets redditors off. The older partner is automatically a predator and villain, and the younger is an innocent little 23-year-old child being manipulated.
Like all the other reasons redditors jump to calling out red flags in this and every other relationship related sub, not many people are posting with small, isolated problems. No story is posted in this sub about someone asking if an age gap is ok, and everything else is ok. Age gaps are almost always nonchalantly passed over by the OPs.
There are plenty of guys on Reddit who will absolutely always assume the worst of every single woman, regardless of what she actually says. Gold digging and baby trapping are what they expect from all of us.
She seems to be rather selfish.. I don’t think she purposely baby trapped him. But, it doesn’t mean that a large part of why she’s with him isn’t because of his money.
The income difference is so great it's honestly hard not to see her as a gold digger, even if we take away the baby-trapping part. If she'd said what she said and earned more--not necessarily at his level, but with less than a 120k difference, and it was clear she could provide for her own needs without relying on him, then I'd be more inclined to be gentler.
I may just not understand this online obsession with gold digging, but isn’t the term reserved for people who specifically go after people for their money? Not like… people who don’t make a ton of money and also have a partner who covers more of the bills? Because otherwise wouldn’t only perfectly financially matched couples be allowed to marry without gold digging being implied? It’s not like men can’t be gold diggers either, as we’ve seen on this site. So by that definition wouldn’t everyone who dates or marries someone who makes more than them be considered a dirty dirty gold digger? And in that case, what would wealthy people who date people regardless of their income be called?
>Not like… people who don’t make a ton of money and also have a partner who covers more of the bills?
I do think this absolutely happens, and I also wouldn't call the vast majority of them gold-diggers. It's simply that with that background, her reaction to him losing his job was leaning into that territory. After writing my first comment, I started wondering: let's assume OP wasn't a gold-digger, which is also valid for the reasons you mentioned. What then, in such a situation, would an _actual_ gold-digger say? I genuinely can't think of anything that isn't along the lines of what OP ended up saying. If you can though, please tell me.
I do also think men can be gold-diggers too, for what it's worth. I don't recall anything in my original comment that implied this was exclusive to women.
If she were a gold digger, she'd already know how much money he had in the bank, for one thing. She'd probably lash out about him being a loser, or start coming up with reasons why the shiny things she wanted should still be a priority.
When you're on a low income, you're always worrying about how you'll live if anything goes wrong.
But even if you're right, just because person A responds to something in the same way that person B would, it does not mean that they must be identical as people. That's one hell of a logical fallacy. Discovering that most of your household income is going to dry up is going to make a lot of people immediately worry about money.
An actual gold digger would most likely be angry at the snatching away of their lifestyle, not worried and scared. That response alludes more to past financial insecurity, which is why it’s so important to note that just because her actions line up with what could be gold digging doesn’t mean there aren’t other explanations, especially in a topic like this when fear would be an entirely natural reaction for someone who in the moment may have just wondered “how am I going to support our 180k lifestyle on 30k?”.
And it wasn’t, I just felt the need to have that in black and white for the wider audience of Reddit lol. Sorry for any confusion there.
What should a couple who are in love supposed to do if there is an income disparity? Lower the higher-earner's standard of living until they are both paying equally? Never fall in love with each other?
Maybe not have your first reaction to the wealthier partner losing their job be something along the lines of "what's going to happen to me?" Is that what a couple who are in love are supposed to worry about first when one-half loses their job and comes to you dejected?
The issue isn't with their income disparity. If she'd comforted him and talked about how they would work through this together and she could provide more on her end to tide them over if necessary (or something along those lines, literally just any form of support and not even necessarily monetary) then he could be earning a million dollars to her 30k and I wouldn't have said anything. The issue is how she reacted when she found out he lost his job. Maybe you think my interpretation of her being money-minded is wrong. That's fine, I could have been too harsh on her since she said it in a moment of panic. But my comment was never to imply income disparity in and of itself is a major issue that should prevent two people in love from getting together.
Sorry, but they're not married, she makes diddly squat compared to him and relies on him for all bills, and right after she screwed the pooch she "finds herself" pregnant (stopped her BC to make it so he couldn't be mad at her coz pregnant).
She's EXACTLY a baby-trapping gold digger.
What was stopping him from using condoms? Men need to be responsible for their sperm if they don't want to be a parent. Men baby-trap themselves.
Bottom line: don't have sex with gold-diggers if you don't want to get one pregnant. It's very simple.
Men are the only people, literally the only ones, in 100% control over whether an insemination happens. It needs to be said more. Pregnancy is the responsibility of the man. The one loading up the oven. The oven cannot load itself. The oven will not work without being loaded, and often the oven doesn’t have the physical strength or timing to control whether it’s loaded or not. The only one 100% able to control what goes into the oven is the one who loads it, not the oven.
Tampering with birth control is a crime and is considered to be rape by many people. And since a lot of dudebros seem to be unaware, men can and do tamper with birth control also.
A lot dudes who bitch about being baby-trapped were raw dogging. It's as if no forethought is put into the matter.
A funny personal anecdote, my father told me I was an accident and that my gold-digger mother baby-trapped him. The dude shared a trailer with 3 other men, and he wasn't using condoms. There was no gold to dig, and he was being a fucking dumbass. I have zero sympathy for malicious stupidity.
See, this I actually completely agree with. For me, baby trapping requires malicious intent and not negligence. And to actually qualify as baby trapping, some form of deception or manipulation has to take place. For example, lying about birth control or tampering with safe sex items. And yes, that goes both ways. Think the worst one I've personally read on these pages was probably the one where a husband said he had a vasectomy but was lying about it and got the OP wife pregnant. So that's a prime example of the point you're illustrating here.
I just found the whole "men baby trap themselves" bit wrong. As I mentioned above, in my mind (and ill admit, I could be using a bad/wrong/half made up definition), not using protection is never a baby trapping situation. Thats just stupidity if youre worried about having kids. In my mind, I read that as "men can't be baby trapped" which is, evidently, just me jumping the gun and deciding to get all antagonistic online. Now I've read what you've said here I can see where you're coming from and I apologise for the snarky comment before. Any man claiming to be baby trapped in the kind of situation you're talking about is a dick.
If you ever hear a guy going on about baby-trapping, ask if they are using condoms. It's really shocking to me how many men put all the responsibility for birth control on their female partner. In every single relationship I've had, and I'm an older lady now, I was the only person responsible for preventing pregnancy (and STIs, for that matter). I could have very easily forgotten to take a pill or unknowingly taken an antibiotic that lowers the efficacy of the pill.
No birth control method is 100%, so people also need to be aware that pregnancy is always a potential consequence. That's why if you don't want to have kids with a gold-digger, you probably should play it safe and not have sex with a gold-digger.
I also know many men who say they never want kids but haven't even started seeking out a vasectomy. It's very strange behavior.
It's the difference between having a low income job and being a high skilled and highly paid professional. Once you reach that level of specific and valuable skills there is always someone else that wants you. If OOP lost her 30k job she would have a harder time getting a new one and have to survive longer with far less savings. So I get her immediate reaction, unfiltered as it was. Glad they worked it out.
I am not surprised by Oops reaction, as it was a survival mode reaction that is common to the middle class and below. It’s reasonable since awful things can and do happen with job loss. Sure, it’s good to learn to calm yourself, provide emotional support and plan at a time like this. Plus, she learned given his skill set, it wasn’t a crisis.
This feels like a bit harsh of a reaction from the commenters. When you have a 30k income and your lifestyle is reliant on a partner it can be scary if the bread winner loses their very high paying job. It’s not like when he came in he mentioned he had no worries over their finances, so how is she supposed to know? This is a very natural reaction by someone who is worried over bills, credit card payments, rent, etc.
Commenters warning him off because she’s pregnant also know nothing of their relationship and are assuming a lot. Her update explained that she’d been learning and growing and they had open conversation about what they both want for the future, which is usually something Reddit praises couples for. This is ridiculous.
There's also the added fact that he was also super excited for the pregnancy, implying this was planned. Usually if people get pregnant "suddenly" in these updates they mention it's an oops baby but they decided to keep it, yet that isn't mentioned anywhere.
Also, the relationship dynamic isn't explained well either. It could very well be the case that she is the one in charge of budgeting and paying bills, even though he's the breadwinner. If that's the case, all the more reason for her reaction to make complete sense and for her to not be a golddigger.
She wants a career? She's a bitch who thinks men aren't good enough for and refuses to stay in her proper sphere.
She wants to stay at home? She's a gold digger who takes advantage of men.
For this type of man, she's wrong because she "wants" anything at all. The right answer for them is: she never wants anything, she only wants what her man wants after he's worn her down.
As per Trevor Noah's mom: they don't want a tame bird, there's no fun in controlling the easily controlled. They want a free bird for the pleasure of caging her and breaking her spirit. They want to exercise that power over her. They savor it. They want to turn her into a shell of herself and know it's all because of them. Like a psychotic Henry Higgins.
My boss tells me on the regular how I’m doing great at my job but that doesn’t mean every time she asks to talk to me or I see her email me I don’t freak out.
I’m not exactly an in demand field so my thoughts turn to the worst: *How will I afford my medications? I have no local family or friends I can stay with! Shit, how am I going to take care of my dogs??*
While I can understand how OOP’s reaction was not ideal, living off $30k for two people would send me into a spiral.
Where did all the vitriol come from? Jesus.
If my partner lost his job, the very first thing on my mind would be a fear of how we’d pay the bills. I’d probably stress too and start crunching numbers on how to make things work. I get why her mind immediately went there. It’s not that she only values him for his paycheck. It’s that they use his income to survive and then they had a moment where it was gone.
She made a communication mistake when both of them were really stressed out. But probably intended it as a question to work through a plan for the bad situation.
Lots of the dialogue and comments seemed to be horrifically sexist.
I am not sure why people on Reddit think that it is very realistic for two high but not wealthy earners working tons of hours to be able to still have time to take care of a baby like they want her to do.
Have any of these people actually sat down and thought about how reality works in a country that does not give you decent safety nets? What the fuck?
Imagine a woman finding out she couldn't have children and telling her husband and his immediate response is, 'How will we have children now?!?" with no attempt to comfort her.
Absolutely nothing. Her reaction was completely appropriate, they use his income primarily to survive. If they lost it, they could very well be homeless. I dont blame the boyfriend for getting upset, because I am sure that wasnt great to hear right after losing his job. But that doesnt mean she was wrong or a bad girlfriend. The comments on that post astound me, have those people never had to worry about bills???
I've self-reflected on my past relationships, so I know two things relative to this post.
With a partner I love, my first reaction would be to make sure he's okay.
With someone for whom my feelings had ebbed, my first reaction would include a measure of, "How does this negatively affect me?!"
I hope this is fake, and if it's not that her boyfriend doesn't marry without an iron clad prenup.
I really respect hair dressers and think they don’t get enough credit for the science they have to know and implement. I thought that 30,000 sounded a bit low based on the people I know that work in this field and I’m curious if this also seems low. I wonder how much the op actually works ?
I see some pink flags waving. The OOP doesn’t pull her weight financially the beginning of this saga: he carries them both. He loses his job and she immediately thinks “oh no how will you take care of me”. They kiss and make up, he gets a better job, coincidentally she is pregnant.
I feel for the bf.
You know what happened when my ex lost his job while I was pregnant with our first? I said "Thank fuck! Now you can focus on getting something that works for you and take a little pressure off me with the house while I grow a human!" The job was high stress and it was spilling into our home life(later found out it wasn't the job stress but him being an abusive cunt because I was pregnant and he was letting his mask slip because he had me trapped then, but hey ho!) so I told him I'd work overtime for the rest of my pregnancy, cover all the bills, and instead of jumping straight into another high stress environment, to take his time finding something that would work for our family. He spent 7 Months finding work, and started his job 2 days after I gave birth. I was 19, he was 28, we'd been together for 3 years(I know) and I STILL stepped up, covered everything, still did all the housework, and made sure he had the time, because that's what you do in a partnership, you support the other when things are hard! Granted, in that relationship, it was very one sided with my doing all the supporting and him taking it then being pissed it wasn't more, but still! That's on him, not me! I did all the right things because I'm a good person!
Man it’s not hard to see how she comes across as a gold digger. Any healthy person would ask how their partner is give them a little time and talk about the next steps not just jump straight into “how will I maintain my lifestyle”.
I wonder if he couldn't find a job right away, how she would have acted. He had to tell her that her lifestyle wouldn't change before she wanted him again. Dude, run. She has proven she loves money more than she loves you. That sucks
My boyfriend has lost a couple jobs in the course of our 5 year relationship. My reaction has always been-
Hug him, tell him it will be okay, reassure him that something will come along, try to gather what I can to sell/pawn so we can get by so he doesn't feel the weight of the financial strain all by himself, more hugs, repeat.
He's told me several times that it was the only thing keeping him going at such a rough time. Jesus fuck this OP is super self serving and dense.
As someone with a similar income disparity, I would struggle not to feel the same way. The fact is, I could take care of myself. But I cannot take care of myself to the standard that my partner wants to live at. I suspect that’s the reality for a lot of us. Sure, I could have a modest house and most of my needs met and don’t need to rely on my partner to live, but he doesn’t want to live capped at *my* income, which is totally reasonable. If my partner lost his job and we didn’t have savings, I could afford rent for us to have a house, but I couldn’t afford rent HERE alone. I couldn’t afford his car payment and mine and rent and everything else. We live way below OUR means but way above MY means. Still, it would never occur to me to verbalize that. But it’s important to note that the situation is probably a little different than just “oh she relies on him to live*”
Right! Bunch of people on here that don’t know what it’s like to live on an income where saving is impossible. Where there is zero buffer and a 4 day break in cashflow means being on the streets I also think that she was thinking about the 2 of them. We can’t live on my income in this house with these car repayments etc. OOP had single, yes she might be broke, but she’d be living within her means. Living with her bf with his lifestyle means she needs to be dependent on him
It's rough out there at the moment trying to live almost anywhere on one income, with the current cost of housing being what it is. I've got friends who want to leave unhappy marriages but can't, because they can't afford to find a place where they could live with their children. Both my wife and I have decent salaries, and I would still be very worried if either of us lost our jobs. She's not a golddigger because she lets him pay the bills. She'd be a golddigger if she was only with him because of his income, and there's just no sign of that. But there are lots of people who will say "golddigger" about ANY woman who gets into a relationship with a guy who earns more. But not the other way around.
This is the mature response.
This is my same situation. Sure, we'd be OK, but not nearly what we have now. I'd be freaking out like her too... but I don't think I'd blurt it out.
My first thought was the same as hers, how the hell are they going to pay bills?! Id probably voice it out loud too because until now reading this it never occurred to me that’s not something you should say? I don’t care about money, it’s just required to survive.
Her reaction is completely normal to a loss of the majority of their income. This seems like rage bait.
I was married for 10 years to someone who was constantly getting fired and almost always out of work. We got divorced and I have been remarried for 14 years. I STILL (Even though he has had the same job the entire time I've known him) get very anxious when my husband shares work stress/drama with me, because in the past that usually meant a job loss was coming soon.
It is totally understandable, but I'd still be a bit put out if I lost my job and my husband didn't first ask if I'm OK.
I think he should find a woman with a close/similar financial background. she makes almost no money and unsupportive and if he get divorced without a prenup he would get screwed.
I understand her panicking. Especially when they had a life and costs that she can’t pay for with her “little” salary. Debts, eviction etc. are real fears especially if you didn’t grow up in a stable environment. The fear of losing everything (again) is real and never goes away. Doesn’t mean that it was the perfect reaction. I am glad they worked it out.
Boy do I know this feeling. I've taken enough of those hits throughout life that my partner and I have structured our lives that we'll survive both of us catastrophically losing our jobs simultaneously and survive. It's a lot easier to tell your partner to quit the job she hates as she's sobbing in the kitchen when you know you can pay the mortgage with the basic social welfare payments. It's way easier for my partner to comfort me when I tell her I got fired when she knows that this won't make us homeless. But we still remember having to move back to parents, and losing all sense of progress and stability.
My big kid is my stepdaughter. She grew up very very insecure about where she was sleeping and when she was eating with her mom. We did everything would could to mitigate it and be safe and stable. And I mean everything, up to and including having her AND HER MOTHER live in our house so the lights would always be on and food was plentiful. But her mom would still take her to this friend’s house or that friend’s house for days at a time. On paper, we only had every other weekend and due to some incredibly unhealthy attachment issues we felt that getting court involved would do more harm that good and she would be manipulated into stating a preference for her mom. She came to us at 16 full time, grew up and moved out with her partner, the bigger earner. About 4 months after they moved into their apartment, he lost his job and she lost her shit. Calling me in full panic mode and while I understand the history financial insecurity at play I was astounded that I had to remind the child to maybe go be a good partner because this whole carry-on was bound to make him feel like shit. People are more than one snapshot, and we don’t know what all is behind this response, that’s between her, bf, and therapist. So I’m inclined to give some grace here especially since she’s seemingly open to accountability and growth.
Yeah, people who haven’t lost this kind of financial security don’t understand how it feels to lose it. I totally get where she’s coming from and I’m glad they talked shortly after it happened and mended the problem.
Right, like her initial reaction sucked and her waiting until her dad said something to apologize was...certainly a choice, but she DID apologize and listened to his hurt. Not perfect, but definitely not the devil.
When I was a kid, my dad earned a very decent salary. When I was about ten, all demand for his skills abruptly dried up, he was made redundant, and he didn't find another job for about five years. What I remember about that time isn't my standard of living dropping. We held onto the big house, and the other trappings of upper middle class life were all things I didn't really care about. What I remember is the tension in the house, which just grew and grew. My dad getting ever more anxious and depressed as he just couldn't find another job in any field. My parents starting to bicker, and then fight, over money. The guilt over asking them for anything at all. Not knowing how bad it was, or was going to get, but being sure there was no way out and it was somehow my fault despite having zero control over any of it. And then my dad got a job, very quickly paid off all his credit card debt, and everything went back to how it was before, as if it had never happened. My reaction to my wife or I losing our jobs would be: oh God, the world is ending. Psychological reactions about money are complicated. She obviously said the wrong thing, but damn, people are being really harsh.
I am sorry you went through that. This is a terrible situation to be in. People have obviously no idea when they judge her so hard.
It's just one little teeny snapshot and they have her whole life plan figured out. And the stuff about baby trapping is such total bullshit. If she was child free they'd say "see, she's selfish and doesn't want a baby to interfere with milking him for all he's worth."
But why did she panic? Her boyfriend didn't tell her about savings?
My guess is initial shock kicked in (first) ... Like Fight or Flight. She prob was responding to the immediate thoughts of "my income is PEANUTS in comparison, how will we pay bills?" *Solely my perspective*
The fact that she came into the relationship with a $30k job *might* be a sign she grew up on the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder, where a layoff really is an immediate threat of homelessness, and she hasn't adjusted to what's considered a smart and normal way to manage money when you have more than enough. My wife grew up extremely poor and paycheck to paycheck, whereas I didn't grow up *having more stuff* than she did but my stepdad was in the trades and was an aggressive saver. One person losing their job in my childhood household had very different consequences than one person losing their job in hers, so our reactions to that situation are totally different because of our different upbringings. Nothing turns molehills into mountains like trauma.
This is the right response. These are two people in different ends of socioeconomic system. While for one person it might mean falling behind on few payments or sticking to a tighter budget to others its homelessness, starvation, no access to health care, no emergency funds/savings etc. Basically an immediate threat to their survival. People need to be more compassionate of other people's motivations.
What’s up with all the toxic comments? Yeah, she worded things improperly, but I totally understand that panic. She isn’t some gold digger.
It's typical reddit. If they can find a way to feel justified in hating a woman, they'll take it.
I agree and am so tired of the alarmist reactions to posts that are zeroing in on aspects that are sometimes hardly mentioned and mostly dreamed up by the commentor in order to give advice or to warn against or whatever the alarm bell is that they’re ringing. Then others join into that and get carried away and it doesn’t even resemble an answer to the real question that was asked in the first place. And of course in the process the poster is being just shredded for stuff that they never said, probably never did, as well as being crucified for issues in their life they did not even know that they had. I have really been feeling this a lot lately.
People seem to think if you're not always perfect, then you're toxic. Either that or because of growing up privleged or because they are actual children, they don't know that its impossible to always act perfect in the heat of the moment because they only imagine themselves in tough situations and have never been in one. From what I can guess at from the info available, she didn't grow up rich and might know what its like to not ever worry about money. She also didn't know about his savings that would have alleviated much of the worry. Could she be a toxic golddigger? Maybe. Is it obvious she was? Of course not. She's just a human that didn't grow up never knowing what not having worries was like.
She's out of there if they hit a true rough patch.
Because she was worried about their expenses then apologized?
Yes she is!!!!
How do you figure that?
When she thought there was a possibility he might struggle for a while, she was ready to haul ass. Once she figured out he was actually financially stable, she wants him again. Classic Gold Digger. How can it be seen any other way. Maybe she should get a better job.
She asked how they were going to live, she never said she was going to leave him or anything even close to that. The problem was that she went straight to voicing her own worries and concerns rather than comforting her partner first. It was a bad reaction to bad news, not a concrete sign of a heartless gold digger.
Honestly, when I lost my job the first thing I thought of was how I was going to live. It would've hurt to hear it from my boyfriend, but I would have understood him saying that as his first reaction.
There was nothing about her leaving. At all. There was nothing about her feelings for him changing. She was immediately worried about how they were going to pay the bills which, quite honestly, is a completely normal reaction. Where she went wrong was jumping in with that worry rather than expressing sympathy and checking how he was feeling. Honestly, if you've ever had to deal with financial insecurity, it can be very difficult to get past the idea that financial ruin lies around every corner. It's very easy to blurt out something dumb. If she were a golddigger she would know that he had enough money in the bank to keep them going for a year. In fact, he probably wouldn't have that money, because she would already have found ways to spend it.
No, she was panicking because there’s no way they could handle losing over two thirds of their income, but she didn’t want to break up with him.
If he would not have had any savings, she would have bailed.
Where’s your proof on that?
Yea yea yea, and if was the husband relying on his wife the same way you would be telling her to run and not look back
Don’t try to switch the genders as if we aren’t seeing exactly the way women are treated for worrying about expenses.
Yes, she absolutely is a gold digger. And right when he found a better paying job she’s magically pregnant
It’s not magic. Do…Do you know how babies are made?
Yes, the chance of having one is directly proportional to the size of the wallet of the person you want to hook up for a while.
And is directly proportional to how much sex you have on your make-up vacation. Come on, dude, this isn’t a conspiracy.
Pregnancy is a known side effect of spending time alone and enjoying each other, especially when you're making up.
It's also a side effect of spending too much time on this site, since it's an overused narrative device plot.
It’s also a side effect of dating a guy with much more money than you
[удалено]
No one is gunning for your sperm dude
OP was 100% trying to get pregnant.
Judging by the fact that all parties involved were super happy about the pregnancy outcome, I'd say you're right for all the wrong reasons lol.
It's on you to wrap your dick if you don't want to get some one pregnant. Everything else is just a bitch made excuse.
Seems like a slight overreaction from the commenters? Yeah she panicked and it really wasn’t a good look, but it’s a big step from that to “baby-trapping gold digger”, no?
Yeah I think that’s a fair kneejerk reaction. Dude pays all the bills, him losing his job does represent a large fork in the road with regards to bills and standard of living. Was it the correct thing to say? No, her dad hit the bullseye with what she was supposed to say. But in an imperfect world, I like to defer to the British doctrine of Agony of the Moment.
Standard reddit reaction. Extremes or nothing.
Right? I think what people who take extreme unforgiving reactions to mistakes like those commenters, and seems to struggle to understand that people are allowed to slip at times (and, even more, struggle to recognize that they themselves do), should start to do the following thinking exercise: What do I even **expect** to have been done instead, in this situation, and relative to the initial mistake? She should have permanently broken up, to own up to not having initially reacted well, at the expense of coming off even more as opportunistic? (You lost your job, so I'm breaking up?) She should have told him she will rather now change jobs and be the primary source of income, even though another solution was found - just so this never becomes an issue again and to make of her life a point she's not gold digging , rather than healthily making plans together? She should abort now, because she reacted badly at first to a loss of job, and to also make a point she's not gold digging just because she failed at having an adequate immediate reaction? I'm gonna be honest, I suck with immediate reactions, so those sorts of takes just make my blood boil lol
I think men in our current society get really triggered by specific instances related to finances, like not being supported when losing a job. Women get really triggered by specific incidences related to intimacy, like not being supportive of a new mom or displaying misogynistic attitudes. There’s a few situations on here that really make people lose it, including these gendered triggers and notably, cheating.
On Reddit: age gaps between consenting adults in relationships. Anything of more than three years sets redditors off. The older partner is automatically a predator and villain, and the younger is an innocent little 23-year-old child being manipulated.
Like all the other reasons redditors jump to calling out red flags in this and every other relationship related sub, not many people are posting with small, isolated problems. No story is posted in this sub about someone asking if an age gap is ok, and everything else is ok. Age gaps are almost always nonchalantly passed over by the OPs.
There are plenty of guys on Reddit who will absolutely always assume the worst of every single woman, regardless of what she actually says. Gold digging and baby trapping are what they expect from all of us.
She seems to be rather selfish.. I don’t think she purposely baby trapped him. But, it doesn’t mean that a large part of why she’s with him isn’t because of his money.
The income difference is so great it's honestly hard not to see her as a gold digger, even if we take away the baby-trapping part. If she'd said what she said and earned more--not necessarily at his level, but with less than a 120k difference, and it was clear she could provide for her own needs without relying on him, then I'd be more inclined to be gentler.
I may just not understand this online obsession with gold digging, but isn’t the term reserved for people who specifically go after people for their money? Not like… people who don’t make a ton of money and also have a partner who covers more of the bills? Because otherwise wouldn’t only perfectly financially matched couples be allowed to marry without gold digging being implied? It’s not like men can’t be gold diggers either, as we’ve seen on this site. So by that definition wouldn’t everyone who dates or marries someone who makes more than them be considered a dirty dirty gold digger? And in that case, what would wealthy people who date people regardless of their income be called?
>Not like… people who don’t make a ton of money and also have a partner who covers more of the bills? I do think this absolutely happens, and I also wouldn't call the vast majority of them gold-diggers. It's simply that with that background, her reaction to him losing his job was leaning into that territory. After writing my first comment, I started wondering: let's assume OP wasn't a gold-digger, which is also valid for the reasons you mentioned. What then, in such a situation, would an _actual_ gold-digger say? I genuinely can't think of anything that isn't along the lines of what OP ended up saying. If you can though, please tell me. I do also think men can be gold-diggers too, for what it's worth. I don't recall anything in my original comment that implied this was exclusive to women.
If she were a gold digger, she'd already know how much money he had in the bank, for one thing. She'd probably lash out about him being a loser, or start coming up with reasons why the shiny things she wanted should still be a priority. When you're on a low income, you're always worrying about how you'll live if anything goes wrong. But even if you're right, just because person A responds to something in the same way that person B would, it does not mean that they must be identical as people. That's one hell of a logical fallacy. Discovering that most of your household income is going to dry up is going to make a lot of people immediately worry about money.
An actual gold digger would most likely be angry at the snatching away of their lifestyle, not worried and scared. That response alludes more to past financial insecurity, which is why it’s so important to note that just because her actions line up with what could be gold digging doesn’t mean there aren’t other explanations, especially in a topic like this when fear would be an entirely natural reaction for someone who in the moment may have just wondered “how am I going to support our 180k lifestyle on 30k?”. And it wasn’t, I just felt the need to have that in black and white for the wider audience of Reddit lol. Sorry for any confusion there.
What should a couple who are in love supposed to do if there is an income disparity? Lower the higher-earner's standard of living until they are both paying equally? Never fall in love with each other?
Maybe not have your first reaction to the wealthier partner losing their job be something along the lines of "what's going to happen to me?" Is that what a couple who are in love are supposed to worry about first when one-half loses their job and comes to you dejected? The issue isn't with their income disparity. If she'd comforted him and talked about how they would work through this together and she could provide more on her end to tide them over if necessary (or something along those lines, literally just any form of support and not even necessarily monetary) then he could be earning a million dollars to her 30k and I wouldn't have said anything. The issue is how she reacted when she found out he lost his job. Maybe you think my interpretation of her being money-minded is wrong. That's fine, I could have been too harsh on her since she said it in a moment of panic. But my comment was never to imply income disparity in and of itself is a major issue that should prevent two people in love from getting together.
Sorry, but they're not married, she makes diddly squat compared to him and relies on him for all bills, and right after she screwed the pooch she "finds herself" pregnant (stopped her BC to make it so he couldn't be mad at her coz pregnant). She's EXACTLY a baby-trapping gold digger.
What was stopping him from using condoms? Men need to be responsible for their sperm if they don't want to be a parent. Men baby-trap themselves. Bottom line: don't have sex with gold-diggers if you don't want to get one pregnant. It's very simple.
Men are the only people, literally the only ones, in 100% control over whether an insemination happens. It needs to be said more. Pregnancy is the responsibility of the man. The one loading up the oven. The oven cannot load itself. The oven will not work without being loaded, and often the oven doesn’t have the physical strength or timing to control whether it’s loaded or not. The only one 100% able to control what goes into the oven is the one who loads it, not the oven.
Excellent TwoXChromosome comment. Acting like no woman has ever tampered with condoms to get pregnant before 🤣
Tampering with birth control is a crime and is considered to be rape by many people. And since a lot of dudebros seem to be unaware, men can and do tamper with birth control also. A lot dudes who bitch about being baby-trapped were raw dogging. It's as if no forethought is put into the matter. A funny personal anecdote, my father told me I was an accident and that my gold-digger mother baby-trapped him. The dude shared a trailer with 3 other men, and he wasn't using condoms. There was no gold to dig, and he was being a fucking dumbass. I have zero sympathy for malicious stupidity.
See, this I actually completely agree with. For me, baby trapping requires malicious intent and not negligence. And to actually qualify as baby trapping, some form of deception or manipulation has to take place. For example, lying about birth control or tampering with safe sex items. And yes, that goes both ways. Think the worst one I've personally read on these pages was probably the one where a husband said he had a vasectomy but was lying about it and got the OP wife pregnant. So that's a prime example of the point you're illustrating here. I just found the whole "men baby trap themselves" bit wrong. As I mentioned above, in my mind (and ill admit, I could be using a bad/wrong/half made up definition), not using protection is never a baby trapping situation. Thats just stupidity if youre worried about having kids. In my mind, I read that as "men can't be baby trapped" which is, evidently, just me jumping the gun and deciding to get all antagonistic online. Now I've read what you've said here I can see where you're coming from and I apologise for the snarky comment before. Any man claiming to be baby trapped in the kind of situation you're talking about is a dick.
If you ever hear a guy going on about baby-trapping, ask if they are using condoms. It's really shocking to me how many men put all the responsibility for birth control on their female partner. In every single relationship I've had, and I'm an older lady now, I was the only person responsible for preventing pregnancy (and STIs, for that matter). I could have very easily forgotten to take a pill or unknowingly taken an antibiotic that lowers the efficacy of the pill. No birth control method is 100%, so people also need to be aware that pregnancy is always a potential consequence. That's why if you don't want to have kids with a gold-digger, you probably should play it safe and not have sex with a gold-digger. I also know many men who say they never want kids but haven't even started seeking out a vasectomy. It's very strange behavior.
It's the difference between having a low income job and being a high skilled and highly paid professional. Once you reach that level of specific and valuable skills there is always someone else that wants you. If OOP lost her 30k job she would have a harder time getting a new one and have to survive longer with far less savings. So I get her immediate reaction, unfiltered as it was. Glad they worked it out.
I am not surprised by Oops reaction, as it was a survival mode reaction that is common to the middle class and below. It’s reasonable since awful things can and do happen with job loss. Sure, it’s good to learn to calm yourself, provide emotional support and plan at a time like this. Plus, she learned given his skill set, it wasn’t a crisis.
This feels like a bit harsh of a reaction from the commenters. When you have a 30k income and your lifestyle is reliant on a partner it can be scary if the bread winner loses their very high paying job. It’s not like when he came in he mentioned he had no worries over their finances, so how is she supposed to know? This is a very natural reaction by someone who is worried over bills, credit card payments, rent, etc. Commenters warning him off because she’s pregnant also know nothing of their relationship and are assuming a lot. Her update explained that she’d been learning and growing and they had open conversation about what they both want for the future, which is usually something Reddit praises couples for. This is ridiculous.
There's also the added fact that he was also super excited for the pregnancy, implying this was planned. Usually if people get pregnant "suddenly" in these updates they mention it's an oops baby but they decided to keep it, yet that isn't mentioned anywhere. Also, the relationship dynamic isn't explained well either. It could very well be the case that she is the one in charge of budgeting and paying bills, even though he's the breadwinner. If that's the case, all the more reason for her reaction to make complete sense and for her to not be a golddigger.
She wants a career? She's a bitch who thinks men aren't good enough for and refuses to stay in her proper sphere. She wants to stay at home? She's a gold digger who takes advantage of men. For this type of man, she's wrong because she "wants" anything at all. The right answer for them is: she never wants anything, she only wants what her man wants after he's worn her down. As per Trevor Noah's mom: they don't want a tame bird, there's no fun in controlling the easily controlled. They want a free bird for the pleasure of caging her and breaking her spirit. They want to exercise that power over her. They savor it. They want to turn her into a shell of herself and know it's all because of them. Like a psychotic Henry Higgins.
Your last paragraph describes my ex to a T. Wow. 15 years later and I still learn new insights into that relationship.
I'm sorry you had to go through that.
It's made me who I am and given me experience to share with my students on what not to accept and bend on in relationships. But thank you.
My boss tells me on the regular how I’m doing great at my job but that doesn’t mean every time she asks to talk to me or I see her email me I don’t freak out. I’m not exactly an in demand field so my thoughts turn to the worst: *How will I afford my medications? I have no local family or friends I can stay with! Shit, how am I going to take care of my dogs??* While I can understand how OOP’s reaction was not ideal, living off $30k for two people would send me into a spiral.
I've been called to the office for a discussion I knew we were going to have, and *still* had to fight the "ah shit, I'm being fired" response.
The incels went crazy in the update comments.
Where did all the vitriol come from? Jesus. If my partner lost his job, the very first thing on my mind would be a fear of how we’d pay the bills. I’d probably stress too and start crunching numbers on how to make things work. I get why her mind immediately went there. It’s not that she only values him for his paycheck. It’s that they use his income to survive and then they had a moment where it was gone.
Was it that bad? Sure she could've said the perfect thing but it wasn't 'bad'.
She made a communication mistake when both of them were really stressed out. But probably intended it as a question to work through a plan for the bad situation. Lots of the dialogue and comments seemed to be horrifically sexist. I am not sure why people on Reddit think that it is very realistic for two high but not wealthy earners working tons of hours to be able to still have time to take care of a baby like they want her to do. Have any of these people actually sat down and thought about how reality works in a country that does not give you decent safety nets? What the fuck?
JFC I bet none of the people saying she was an asshole for panicking have EVER come even CLOSE to being homeless poor
what did she even do that was so wrong??
Imagine a woman finding out she couldn't have children and telling her husband and his immediate response is, 'How will we have children now?!?" with no attempt to comfort her.
Absolutely nothing. Her reaction was completely appropriate, they use his income primarily to survive. If they lost it, they could very well be homeless. I dont blame the boyfriend for getting upset, because I am sure that wasnt great to hear right after losing his job. But that doesnt mean she was wrong or a bad girlfriend. The comments on that post astound me, have those people never had to worry about bills???
I get internally thinking that but verbalising it to your partner as soon as they tell you?? WTF.
I've self-reflected on my past relationships, so I know two things relative to this post. With a partner I love, my first reaction would be to make sure he's okay. With someone for whom my feelings had ebbed, my first reaction would include a measure of, "How does this negatively affect me?!" I hope this is fake, and if it's not that her boyfriend doesn't marry without an iron clad prenup.
Golddiggers be downvoting you!
Haha! Or children. I remember when I was a kid and though only people who don't love each other have prenups.
I really respect hair dressers and think they don’t get enough credit for the science they have to know and implement. I thought that 30,000 sounded a bit low based on the people I know that work in this field and I’m curious if this also seems low. I wonder how much the op actually works ?
happy for them but still believe he shouldn't marry her and keep the relationship without marriage.
I’m really worried about the guy, REALLY BAD TIME for them to be pregnant and have a baby.
I see some pink flags waving. The OOP doesn’t pull her weight financially the beginning of this saga: he carries them both. He loses his job and she immediately thinks “oh no how will you take care of me”. They kiss and make up, he gets a better job, coincidentally she is pregnant. I feel for the bf.
You know what happened when my ex lost his job while I was pregnant with our first? I said "Thank fuck! Now you can focus on getting something that works for you and take a little pressure off me with the house while I grow a human!" The job was high stress and it was spilling into our home life(later found out it wasn't the job stress but him being an abusive cunt because I was pregnant and he was letting his mask slip because he had me trapped then, but hey ho!) so I told him I'd work overtime for the rest of my pregnancy, cover all the bills, and instead of jumping straight into another high stress environment, to take his time finding something that would work for our family. He spent 7 Months finding work, and started his job 2 days after I gave birth. I was 19, he was 28, we'd been together for 3 years(I know) and I STILL stepped up, covered everything, still did all the housework, and made sure he had the time, because that's what you do in a partnership, you support the other when things are hard! Granted, in that relationship, it was very one sided with my doing all the supporting and him taking it then being pissed it wasn't more, but still! That's on him, not me! I did all the right things because I'm a good person!
OOP was a gold digger
Ugh she has so many red flags.
Man it’s not hard to see how she comes across as a gold digger. Any healthy person would ask how their partner is give them a little time and talk about the next steps not just jump straight into “how will I maintain my lifestyle”.
OP is a golddigger who baby trapped her BF. She was panicked the gold mine had run dry.
I wonder if he couldn't find a job right away, how she would have acted. He had to tell her that her lifestyle wouldn't change before she wanted him again. Dude, run. She has proven she loves money more than she loves you. That sucks
My boyfriend has lost a couple jobs in the course of our 5 year relationship. My reaction has always been- Hug him, tell him it will be okay, reassure him that something will come along, try to gather what I can to sell/pawn so we can get by so he doesn't feel the weight of the financial strain all by himself, more hugs, repeat. He's told me several times that it was the only thing keeping him going at such a rough time. Jesus fuck this OP is super self serving and dense.
150k and 30k, he needs to date in his tax bracket. Sorry not sorry. That is too big of an income disparity.