DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m a 21-year-old woman who just graduated from college. Recently, I received an incredible job opportunity to work with a well-known baseball team in the Dominican Republic for two months. I am engaged to a 25-year-old immigrant, and we’ve been together for four years. We share an apartment and have planned our future together.
In his culture, the male traditionally controls the household, and I’ve adapted to this dynamic. My friends and family disapprove, but ultimately, it’s my choice. Although he’s very controlling, he supported me financially throughout college, even though I also worked. Essentially, he was the primary breadwinner.
I got the job offer in early March and told him about it, but he always assumed I was joking or not serious about going. Now, with less than a week before I leave, he’s telling me that if I go, our relationship is over. Surprisingly, I’m not as devastated as I thought I’d be. I don’t want us to separate, but I’ve gradually come to see him more clearly.
Even though it’s a difficult situation, I still love him, but this job is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The job is initially for the summer but could potentially become a long-term position. If it doesn’t work out, I have a job lined up in the States. It seems like a no-brainer to take the job, but I’ve never been alone or had to manage bills on my own. I want our relationship to work, but it’s only two months, and I feel he should be okay with that. He also questioned why I, as an American, would need to work in another country. What should I do?
Love Or Opportunity?
DEAR LOVE OR OPPORTUNITY: My first thought is “what kind of family money is this guy coming from that he can afford to put you through college at 25?”
My second thought is that this sets off my Spidey-sense.
I’m going to be honest, LOO: I don’t think this is going to go anywhere good. Certainly not as it currently stands, and even more so if you decide to take this job.
While it’s rare that you’re ever going to find a modern relationship where everybody’s financial situation is completely equal, I tend to side-eye relationships where one person declares that one person and one person alone should be the sole breadwinner and bill payer. To be sure, if everyone’s on board and agrees… well, I may think it’s a bad decision, but it ain’t my call. But I think it’s important to go into them with eyes open, regardless of who is serving as primary breadwinner. Leaving aside the times when this is more of an aesthetic (see also: online ‘tradwives’) than reality, it’s been my experience that these rarely work out well.
Now, God knows there are times when partners may agree that one will be bringing in most of the income in order to support their partner – such as when one is going back to school, starting a new business or pursuing a new but financially uncertain career like music or writing – it’s not that common that one partner will decide that the best course of action is for them to be the sole breadwinner, period, the end. And while it can be nice to have someone else footing the bill for everything, it’s rare that these arrangements come without strings.
More often than not, it quickly goes from being about tradition or a particular lifestyle and to being about ego and control.
This is especially true when it’s a man who’s insisting that they should be the one in charge of the finances and bringing in the income. As absurd as it seems – even in the 21st century, with inflation outpacing income and social mobility a pipe dream – the idea that men are supposed to be the breadwinners or bringing in the lion’s share of the income lingers like a fart in church. In fact, it’s so deeply embedded in restrictive ideas of masculinity that many men who are outearned by their wives experience erectile dysfunction. The idea that they aren’t the primary breadwinner cuts so deep to their concept of masculinity that their dicks stop working.
And at the risk of hyperbole, men are rarely as dangerous as when they feel their manhood being threatened.
So I’m going to be blunt: I don’t know if your fiancée is the type to become abusive, but he’s definitely showing signs that it is a strong possibility. There’re some red flags in your letter right from the jump. This line in particular leapt out at me:
“Although he’s very controlling, he supported me financially throughout college, even though I also worked.”
I mean, no s--t he’s controlling; he’s literally the one who gets to decide where you live and go to school. Hell, he’s been in the position to decide if you do go to school in the first place. As the person who’s paying, if not all the bills, at least most of them, he’s got a lot of leverage over you and your choices. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had strong feelings about what you were studying and what your major was.
All of this is to say that I’m not terribly surprised that he’s got strong feelings about your taking this job. But I also wonder how much he actually understands you or your ambitions or whether he takes them seriously. It certainly sounds like he sees them as like a childish fancy you should grow out of, not something that might set you on an the path to an impressive career. Which is a red flag in and of itself.
You say that you want this relationship to work out, but I’m wondering why. Now maybe the last four years haven’t been bad and maybe his controlling nature was easier to accept when it wasn’t involving major life choices. But now? I think you should be putting some serious thought into whether this relationship is meeting your needs and whether you’re currently getting anything out of it beyond rent and your past tuition bills.
One of the keys of a strong and successful relationship is that your partner at least understands and appreciates your dreams and ambitions, even if they don’t share them. You want a partner who gets you, who understand what drives you and wants to see you succeed. And I’m not that you have one.
I’m pretty sure you don’t think you do either. As you said: you’re not as devastated by the potential risk to your relationship as you expected to be.
As much as two months away might be a hassle – and seriously, it’s two months; that’s a blink of the eye in your 20s – this is the sort of thing that someone who loves and supports you should say “I’m going to miss you while you’re gone but you absolutely need to do this”, not “if you walk out that door, don’t bother coming back”.
You’d told him about the job offer before and he clearly treated it like some lark or moment of whimsey, not an incredible opportunity. Even his questioning about why you need to look outside the US for work suggests that he doesn’t get you; it’s not that you need to, it’s that this would be a once-in-a-lifetime chance that could lead to bigger and better things. And even if it didn’t lead to a career, it certainly would be an amazing experience – something that many people would leap at if only for the stories.
Instead, he’s treating it like a threat and he’s responding accordingly. And to be frank, I think that should tell you everything you need to know here. I don’t know if this is the first time he’s held the relationship hostage as a means of controlling your decisions, but if you give in this time then it certainly won’t be the last.
Personally, I think you should take the job and let the chips fall where they may. The opportunity is just too good and your fiancée is not exactly covering himself in glory over it. If he does end things over your taking the job, then nothing of value is lost.
Look at it as an adventure, an amazing opportunity and a chance to learn and grow. Yeah, it can be scary to be entirely on your own for the first time and to be the sole person responsible for your managing and maintaining your life, but that’s part of graduating to adulthood. This is your chance to establish yourself as a grown-ass, independent adult, knowing that you can take care of yourself. If that’s unnerving or threatening to your fiancée? Well, that says a lot about him, doesn’t it?
However, before you go, I would strongly suggest that you take his threat to end the relationship seriously and have friends come and help put your stuff into storage for you. If he’s serious, then you’re running the risk of coming back to find that you not only don’t have a place to live but all your belongings are either gone or being held hostage against your coming back to him. If he realizes that he’s being an asshole and makes a sincere change, then it’s inconvenient but it can be a thing the two of you can laugh about later on. If not? Well, at least it’ll be easier to move your stuff into your new place without having to negotiate terms first.
Good luck.
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Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com