Chapter 5 - Daniel Started Resenting the Very Money He Expected Me to Share
The strangest part of our marriage was that Daniel both relied on my income and hated what it represented.
He had grown up:
middle-class.
His father was a high-school principal.
His mother a dental hygienist.
Vanessa and Daniel went to state universities.
Nobody gave them:
trust funds.
I grew up differently.
Not fabulously wealthy.
Comfortable.
My father was an anesthesiologist.
My mother owned a small chain of physical-therapy clinics.
College paid.
Graduate school partly paid.
Financial literacy at dinner.
When Daniel and I married, he admired:
my ambition.
Then eventually described it as:
control.
One argument happened after I refused to cover Vanessa’s $9,600 credit-card consolidation loan.
“She needs breathing room.”
“She needs a budget.”
“She went through a divorce.”
“Three years ago.”
“You don’t understand what it’s like.”
“No.”
“I understand she makes forty-five thousand dollars and has housing costs that assume someone else contributes.”
Daniel stared at me.
“There.”
“What?”
“That tone.”
“What tone?”
“The one where you become CFO of everyone’s life.”
I was angry.
“So what should I do?”
“Write checks silently?”
“I want you to stop making people feel poor because you aren’t.”
That sentence hit.
Because there was truth in it.
I did sometimes use:
competence
as superiority.
Not intentionally.
Still.
If Vanessa spent badly, I saw:
irresponsibility.
If I bought an $1,800 handbag, I called it:
reward.
Different income made both technically compatible.
It did not automatically make:
me wiser.
Daniel had become increasingly sensitive to the power attached to my money.
Then he began pushing against me in other ways.
House decisions.
Travel.
Holiday plans.
And especially:
Vanessa.
Supporting his sister became one place where Daniel could prove:
Rachel does not get to decide everything.
I responded by tightening:
more.
Money became marital language for:
power.
May you like
Neither of us could admit it.
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