Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site reed.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!tektronix!reed!ellen
From: ellen@reed.UUCP (Ellen Eades)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: When he makes more money
Message-ID: <1683@reed.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 13-Jul-85 11:04:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: reed.1683
Posted: Sat Jul 13 11:04:15 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 15-Jul-85 01:16:34 EDT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Reed College, Portland, Oregon
Lines: 43

All the debate on marrying someone below your station makes
me cringe, but I am going to put in my two cents worth.

I've never made more than $7.00/hr and never had a relationship
with anyone poorer than myself;  that may change after I get out
of Reed (please, Goddess, let me get out of Reed), I don't know.

In my stop-out year from college in 1982-3 I had a relationship
with a man who made about twice as much as I (I was working half
time and writing the other half) working at Glendale School
District as a programmer.  The relationship became rocky in
part because I felt extremely uncomfortable about the disparity
in our incomes.

Now, this may be just a personal quirk of mine;  I hate
borrowing money, usually insist on paying my half, and generally
get uncomfortable if I feel I "owe" someone.  But anyway, I
rapidly lost my self-worth in that relationship because I
felt that all I was contributing was sex and some minor
housecleaning;  in short I felt like a whore;  I traded sex
for food, shelter and companionship.

I will *never* *ever* do that again.  In order to feel like
I was contributing more, I effaced myself;  went to his friends'
homes, participated in his activities, learned his interests.  I
became single again and it was like rediscovering myself.  

Now I have been uninvolved for almost three years.  It's
wonderful.  I don't have to justify myself to myself or
to anyone else.  I'm not saying I won't ever get in a
relationship again, but I'm going to be very careful never to 
get into one where I am not valued for me.  I don't know
if I can feel this way, right now, around men as opposed to
women, but I might try again someday.

Ellen Eades
-- 
-    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -
	"Who's been repeating all that hard stuff to you?"
	"I read it in a book," said Alice.
-    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -
	tektronix!reed!ellen OR tektronix!reed!motel6!ellen