Money, Freedom and Relationships

by Clam 16 Replies latest social relationships

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  Clam

  Let's say you won a very large sum of money, say 10 million US dollars. It would no doubt change your life but how would it affect your relationship? Are you in a relationship which has its financial advantages, or maybe do you cringe at the thought of semi ruination in the wake of a divorce?

  I read with interest the recent thread regarding couple staying together for the sake of their children. I noted quite a few people who felt trapped. Given the freedom aspect of money, could you see your relationship folding by mutual consent if money considerations were removed from the equation?

  Wealth is no guarantee of happiness and of course money can be the reason for a break up. What I'm talking about though is if next week you had $10 million in your account, would it be tempting to split it in half and go your separate ways?

  Please understand I'm not in this dilemma LOL, but am interested in how money shapes us, corrupts us and enables us.

  Clam
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  DJK

  Raising five kids, we were just above poverty level. Both of us were working and we shared the same goal. When we were well above poverty level, we argued more often as our goals tend to be different from one another. Recieving 10 million dollars now probably would end the marriage as we both have different ideas on many things like, where do we vacation or live out the rest of our lives.
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  prophecor

  I could only hope that my relationship would be able to flourish even more, once the aspect of not having to wrestle for control regarding finances. Money is one of the biggest sticking points when it comes to maritial happiness., or maybe more acurately posed, the lack of money. I would like to believe that my life connect partnership would be bigger than a financial purse, regardless for how difficult the relationship. Often the relations are only as wide and expansive as your dollars can carry you. The more dollars at your disposal, the better your opportunity to advance in your relationship.
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  prophecor

  first you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the woman

  Tony Montana
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  Clam

  Recieving 10 million dollars now probably would end the marriage as we both have different ideas on many things like, where do we vacation or live out the rest of our lives.

  That's interesting DJK and just what I expected quite a lot of people to say. Some may be frightened of the prospect of loneliness in later life, but is it better to be alone, or living with someone who you've simply become tired of for the sake of company?

  The more dollars at your disposal, the better your opportunity to advance in your relationship.

  An interesting point. So money can advance relationships?
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  Crumpet

  Happiness is more important.

  Given the freedom aspect of money, could you see your relationship folding by mutual consent if money considerations were removed from the equation?

  Wealth is no guarantee of happiness

  I've had to lose a fair bit in terms of standard of living since I moved. I now have a rented little one bed flat in a roughish part of greater london and use public transport, leaving Mr C in a four bed house in the country and 3 cars including the lovely Daimler and a nice big garden. But it was never a consideration when balanced against what would make us happiest.

  I havent got much but I have more than many and I have a smile on my face more often now.
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  asleif_dufansdottir

  My interpretation of your question is not about how money "corrupts, shapes or enables us"...it's about how poverty affects our choices. Or, more appropriately, how poverty means you often have limited or no choices about things that greatly affect your life.

  If you are staying together even though one or both of you is very unhappy, because you both make so little that you must pool your income in order to literally keep from being homeless, then I would hardly say that an influx of $10mil would corrupt anything.

  Many women stay with cheating or otherwise abusive husbands because they fear desperate poverty (including loss of health insurance, which is rarely offered to lower income workers anymore) for themselves or, more often, their children (women and children's incomes almost universally plummet after divorce).

  "Money doesn't buy happiness" is only one half of the equation. The other half is that poverty is likely to prevent choices that would be in our best interest for happiness and mental health.

  People who focus on the "money as corrupting" angle have rarely felt the fear and desperation that comes with real poverty.
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  compound complex

  Hey Clam,

  I've seen two sides of the money issue. Those who stayed together because the wife claimed she couldn't make it on her own financially, and wives whose financial wherewithal permitted them to leave the relationship. In the latter scenario, financial independence may not be admitted as the element permitting the departure. My example is anecdotal and hardly comprehensive. It focuses entirely on what the estranged wife can or cannot do.
  Was Aunt Dahlia pecuniarily pressed?

  CoCo
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  tetrapod.sapien

  you see, i think that first we should define poverty. i do not define poverty as having to work each day for the food and shelter of that day. i define poverty as lack of food for days on end in a place that is already so poor that there is no charity to go around (shelters, soup kitchens, etc.)

  but because we have hoarded for so long now (in an ever increasing capatalistic environment where we become alienated from the work that we accomplish the hoarding with), our objective view of what is materially required for happiness is distorted. after all, it's happiness that we should be after, right? the thing is that people seem to be making the money = happiness equation instead of the being = happiness equation. and i am starting to think that this is one of the truest human dualities ever.

  if i am in a relationship, it's because i am paired with the same person that would walk around the world with me if we had to.

  money and relationships seem to go together though. not that either will bring freedom (liberation from psycho/social contrants/expectations). though i give better probability to relationships for the sake of the relationship over the relationships for the sake of money. a rather recent development in our ideas of what a word like "freedom" might mean. i'd say. up to this point we didn't have much of a say.

  tetra
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  asleif_dufansdottir

  our objective view of what is materially required for happiness is distorted. after all, it's happiness that we should be after, right?

  I'm not talking about material requirements for happiness at all. In fact, I wasn't talking about happiness at all. I was talking about financial survival. Happiness doesn't enter into it.

  *Happiness* isn't even a consideration when you're talking about you and your children having a roof over your heads in an area where it's fairly safe to go out the door without being attacked, robbed, killed or raped. Or the ability to go to a doctor when you are sick or otherwise in great need of medical care. Or the ability to see a dentist instead of having to superglue the pieces of your tooth back together or try to ignore the pain of a cavity.

  All grand talk about materialism and consumerism aside, it takes money in this world and day and age to have even a modest standard of living that is not misery. Money to afford transportation to get to a job (even the bus isn't free). Money for basic shelter, food and medical care.

  People who think that there are programs easily available for people who find themselves in desperate situations have almost universally never been in a desperate situation themselves. If they had, they would know it is not nearly that easily available.