Though not my first serious relationship,
my relationship with my ex was my first one
in which we were completely transparent about money,
including our spending and savings goals.
My partner was so upfront about his stance on money
that he spent our first date telling me about it.
Yet, it still took me six years to really understand
that our financial views were too different to work out
in the long run.
We met as students completing summer contracts
for a government financial agency.
On our first date, he spoke about how
he didn't have previous work experience in an office
and was able to secure his position because his dad was
a fairly high profile executive.
He told me how much he was being paid
and proceeded to ask me what I made.
Given that salaries were posted within the organization,
it was public information.
I didn't see any point in not being upfront about it.
I was making 21 an hour and was being paid $2 an hour
more than he was.
I had previous work experience in our field,
and I was a year ahead of him in school.
He said this pay discrepancy was unfair
and that, according to the employment equity standards,
we should be paid the same.
This was an incorrect interpretation
of employment equity, a point I took no time to express
to him, much to his chagrin.
He quickly informed me he didn't support the notion that women
were underpaid and deserved to be paid the same as men.
At this point, I shouldn't have gone on a second date
because he didn't believe women came
from a place of disadvantage.
Yet, he also didn't see the meritocracy in the situation.
I had worked hard to earn not only my salary, but also
my higher up position in the company.
It's true that first jobs are often
attained through one's professional network.
And when you're just starting out,
it's often family or family friends that help you.
Even my own first office job was working for my aunt
as a summer student replacement for maternity
leave in human resources, my major in undergrad.
But it is important to acknowledge
that those who come from families that
are upper middle class are afforded
more prestigious or stereotypically more desirable
opportunities.
For example, if your middle class dad
is a VP for a tech startup, you are
more likely to have a data entry job at the tech startup.
And if your working class mom is a cashier at a retail store,
you are more likely to have a job stocking shelves.
The opportunities your network provides
continue to feed the cycle of advantage.
It was this cycle of advantage that
contributed to our starkly different views
on money, which became more apparent
as our relationship progressed.
Both sets of our parents worked hard to move up
in their social status and give their children opportunities
they did not grow up with.
While he came from an upper middle class
family who could afford to pay their children's university
and living expenses, I came from a lower middle class family
and was the first across both sides of my extended family
to even attend college.
It was always understood that my parents could not
afford to pay for my schooling.
And if I wanted to pursue continued education,
it would be on my own dime.
Coming from different backgrounds
proved to be the largest contributing factor
to our relationship issues.
Four years into our relationship,
we decided to move in together.
My boyfriend had been laid off from his job
at the government financial agency,
and I was in my second year of a master's program,
juggling three jobs.
Having never had to previously worry about money,
he was now in a position where he
had to earn a significant salary to maintain our lifestyle.
It was then that I became more aware of the effects
of his higher social standing.
Over the course of the year, he accepted a data entry position
for a startup and a role in an assembly line,
though he never seemed grateful for either job.
He felt he was too good for lower level jobs.
At the end of my master's program, I was offered a job,
and we moved to a more expensive city
to start our professional careers.
My boyfriend's sense of entitlement towards money
and work became more apparent.
And it started to affect my own finances.
He welcomed unemployment payments,
but declined service or retail jobs
because he said he would be making the same income working
as he was on unemployment.
Though I was at first impressed by how forward thinking
and comfortable he was not being the primary breadwinner,
I was soon responsible for not only bringing home the bacon,
but also cooking it.
Two years later, I was burning myself out
as a management consultant working 60 hours a week,
moonlighting as a technical writer
and running an Etsy store to bring in enough income
to support our lifestyle.
While chipping away at my six-figure student debt,
I was spending my free time maintaining our household,
cooking and cleaning, while my boyfriend spent
his days reading and his evenings playing soccer.
He hadn't been working with any consistency,
and instead, decided to give getting a degree a third try.
He felt cheated by the system because he was constantly
being passed over for jobs by candidates with credentials.
I was unwilling to continue to be the sole source of income
for another two to three years.
It took me six years to acknowledge
that my partner's place of advantage
colored his sense of entitlement to money and career paths.
His upper middle class peers simply
did not want to work in retail or the service industry.
They dined out as much as they wanted.
And they bought nice things.
He was comfortable with me being the breadwinner
if he wasn't working and had access to our shared money.
However, if he was working, he wanted
it to be in a more prestigious job than mine.
It took me six years to acknowledge
that our views on money were just too different, even
though he presented this information on our first date.
It just goes to show how important it
is to have conversations about finances early
on in your relationship and take those conversations seriously.