Q:
Today, I was talking to a dear friend about the current state of my relationship. They told me that it sounds like I am trapped, and that I am being controlled. Worst of all, they said that my long-term partner “basically owns” me.
Background info: I (40F) have been with my partner (48F) for eight years. We have never lived together. Also, we have kept our finances separate — until recently. Last year, I had to have a major surgery. I got laid off a couple of months after returning from medical leave, which was probably my former employer’s way of punishing me for taking medical leave.
My partner stepped in and took care of some of my living expenses when my savings ran out six months ago. She also got me a part-time, entry-level job at the company she works for. There are a few major issues with the job: 1) the pay is so insultingly low that I cannot afford all of my living expenses, which means that she is still providing me with some financial help for the months that I can’t pick up enough freelance gigs to supplement my income; 2) my partner has a low-level managerial role in the same department I was hired into; 3) I felt extremely uncomfortable accepting the job due to the possible ethics issue of us being in a relationship, but I did it because she wouldn’t stop bothering me about it until I said yes; 4) there is a culture of profound ignorance and disrespect from the company’s upper managers (who are all white and older than we are) that rubs me the wrong way, but she pretends like it’s no big deal.
Two weeks ago, I started working with a career coach and putting even more effort into my job search, because I am not interested in being insulted and being paid poverty wages at my big age. I assumed that my partner would be happy to hear that I was trying harder to find a better job so I can get my life and finances back on track again, but I was wrong. She actually got angry and combative! She accused me of being ungrateful for everything she has done for me (all of which she offered without my asking for it). Then, she said that me quitting less than a year after she got me hired was “unprofessional” and would damage her reputation. It was shocking as hell, because she had never acted like that before.
After her outburst, she gave me the silent treatment for a week or so, which she also had never done before. But now she’s suddenly back to behaving like she used to. I haven’t said anything to her about her outburst yet, and she has not apologized.
What my friend said today has me feeling very weird about the entire relationship, and I have so many questions now. Is my partner really a controlling person who likes having the upper hand? If so, have I missed all the red flags and been a damn fool all these years? If I dump her right now, will she badmouth me to other companies that want to hire me when they call for a professional reference? Will she badmouth me to everyone in our social circles by repeating all that stuff about me being ungrateful and damaging her reputation? Will I be able to start dating again at my age?
What should I do? Should I just end this relationship immediately?
Sincerely,
Wanting to flee
A:
Dear Wanting to flee,
Well, it’s always a bit concerning when someone describes themselves as wanting to ‘flee’ a relationship. That word tends to be reserved for overtly abusive relationships that have reached a breaking point. At the same time, what you’ve described in your letter is much more complex than cut-and-dry abuse. Let’s get into it.
What your friend has given you is a precipitating moment about your relationship, a moment of reflection or realization that makes you really reevaluate your situation. These moments usually come from unexpected angles, which makes them shocking and effective. It’s clear you’ve been thinking about this pretty firmly already.
My read of your situation is that your partner is responding very unreasonably to a highly stressful time for you. You’ve been hit with major stresses one after another. Surgery, a layoff, income instability, double-employment, and a questionable work environment? Most of us have one of those in our lives. Two is destabilizing, and any more than that is frankly an excessive amount of stress. We all support partners through stress in different ways, and I think procuring you a job is one of hers. It’s material support, which counts for a lot when your current problems include the material. Her reaction to your otherwise reasonable attempt at improving those material circumstances though? Baffling and a bit worrying.
An angry response to you trying to get a better job isn’t fair to you. Especially since I assume you’ve voiced complaints about your current unfavorable job to her and she’s aware of the financial (and personal) stresses involved. That’s the exact opposite of supportive behaviour for something that could really benefit you. Part of me thinks that the fact that you’ve historically lived apart and held separate finances is one of the reasons for her upset. With generally separate finances and living situations, she may have a more detached view of your life. If her main stake in this situation is her work reputation and not a shared livelihood, then yeah, she might lose via your gain. But I’m a bit baffled by the fact that she’s assisting you financially and discouraging you from moving to a better job, since that would surely make her finances easier. That seems highly beneficial to her. I mean, we’ve all seen this economy.
An angry outburst and a week of silent treatment seems disproportionate to the challenge presented, especially since you say she’s never done this before. ‘Silent treatment’ behavior is at best, immature and problematic. And it’s definitely a tool in the abuser’s repertoire when wielded a certain way. So is anger, but the lack of past events like this suggests that this is an unusual event. No matter her reasons, this is seriously inappropriate behaviour and warrants a serious conversation. Her willingness to discuss the matter with you and make compromises in that impending conversation will help you gauge where things actually stand between the two of you. I say ‘impending conversation,’ because an incident like this needs resolution. If it isn’t resolved, it could be the start of a spiral of resentment or other harmful behaviour.
When your friend remarked that your partner “basically owns” you, it clearly struck a chord. What your friend may have considered a turn of phrase has clearly affected you deeply. At a glance, I don’t think your situation reaches that level of abuse. Yes, financial abuse is very real, but your relationship lasted nearly a decade without shared finances. A typical pattern of financial abuse would have started much sooner. Cohabitation before everyone is ready is something that abusers also use to bring victims into their orbit, but you’ve never lived together. And then, you pointed out that she’s never done something like this before. That doesn’t sound like a long-running pattern of abuse either.
I’m reading and writing this far away from your relationship. That’s my main disclaimer. I don’t think you’re in a long-running abusive relationship, but this incident is seriously problematic and has abusive overtones that need to be addressed. I think there’s still a chance to approach her for that resolution. If she gives you heavy resistance or more red flag behaviours, then you’ve got something more serious on your hands.
As for your closing questions…
Does your partner seem like the kind of person who needs to be in control of your life? A past history without this kind of behavior, or major attempts to link your finances and livelihoods makes me suspect this is an abnormal incident. Abuse can start late into a relationship, and it can start after a major falling out like this, but what I can say is that if this is a budding abusive relationship, it’s not following a typical trajectory.
Could she badmouth you to other companies if you broke up with her? That’s a possibility. This risk is much higher in specialized or tight-knit fields, the kind where everyone knows each other from the same conventions and they’ve all used a seminal work by the same person. In vast industries or lower-level work? You probably have a higher mountain to climb in the form of all the other people trying to get in the door in a troubled economy. You’ll have to evaluate the risk for yourself, but I think it’s concerning you even have to ask the question. If she did this, it’d be abusive and unprofessional. Does she seem like someone who would do that?
Will she start badmouthing you to your social circle if you break up with her? Again, it’s a possibility. I can’t take a guess as to how likely it is. Again, it’s concerning that you have to think about this. That could be a sign of past negative behavior from her making you believe that she’ll take malicious action. It could also be anxiety. You’ve experienced a lot of stress and had a significant falling out and loss of communication with your partner. That’s enough to make anyone spiral. I wouldn’t discount the possibility, but I’d also try to look toward your mental well-being and support structures in this trying time.
Will you be able to start dating again? Yes. Definitely. Next question.
Has your partner always been this controlling and you just missed the signs? This is also possible. When long-term abuse occurs, it has a way of shifting the victim’s perception of normal until they’re accustomed to a terrible state of things. Like a personalized, horrible Overton window. You can answer this for yourself with introspection. You have a combo of distress and a precipitating moment from your friend that is ideal for a major realization. This is how lots of people realize that something in their life is deeply wrong. Have these recent weeks given you a deluge of memories with your partner that are colored differently now? Have many of her past behaviors crystallized in your mind as problematic or abusive? Have others always expressed some concern about your partner and you brushed it off? This is the time to think about these questions. Don’t be afraid of answers that cast your relationship in a bad light, but don’t discard answers to the positive either. This needs to be an evaluation, not a dive off the cliff of stress.
I purposefully didn’t answer your question about whether you should terminate the relationship immediately. For one, I don’t make those kinds of recommendations unless I’m certain. More importantly, I hope that when you reach this paragraph, you’ll have a more reliable direction for that question from the person who matters most: you.
You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.
I don’t want to downplay any of the writer’s concerns, and I think Summer’s advice is solid. But I would also temper it with – looking at it from the other side, the writer’s partner has also been through multiple destabilizing stressors and upheavals. Supporting a partner through surgery and job loss, then taking on finances for two when you are used to one? And as a mid level manager at a workplace with mainly white men in authority who can be dismissive at best and insulting or more at worse, there might be a lot of company politics at play that the partner hasn’t shared – so she might genuinely have good reason to fear for both their careers if the letter writer leaves before a year. Or it might just be anxiety! I do think the impending conversation will shed a lot of light on things. Yes, silent treatment is very immature but as someone who didn’t learn good communication skills from my parents I do know that sometimes silent treatment can stem from not knowing how to productively approach the problem. Again, not downplaying the writer’s concerns, and the friend is likely going to have a lot of insights we are lacking and probably the one to ask about patterns the writer might have missed. Just thinking that, as someone in my early 40s supporting only myself if my partner went through major surgery and job loss and I was supporting both of us – I might make a foolish decision like getting them a job in my department perhaps using up a lot of social capital, perhaps not being honest about our relationship and worrying my company would find out, and I could see that all come to a breaking point when my partner expected me to be excited about something that initially only sounded like it was a death knell to my career – and then responding in a very immature way that I maybe wouldn’t know how to correct as it dragged on from days to weeks. I’m of course not the letter writer or her partner, or even a close friend that might be seeing other concerning things. And maybe this is the beginning of the end or should be. But maybe it’s just a major stress point in a stressful time to be alive generally – I truly hope that for both of you, letter writer, and that you can have a clear and loving conversation about all of this. It’s a rough time to deal with any one of these things let alone all of them.
OP, consider reading Why Does He Do That? By Lundy Bancroft. PDFs are easy to come by. It’s mostly about men, but it’s honestly applicable to women too.
Heightening controlling behavior after a new commitment is a big red flag. Also, your partner is 48, not 18, silent treatment is absurd in this situation.
“so she might genuinely have good reason to fear for both their careers if the letter writer leaves before a year…”
OP’s partner *pushed her into this job*. She *insisted* OP take a job under her, with insultingly low pay.
Unless their local job market is so atrocious this is OP’s ONLY option, Starbucks was probably a better choice. (And OP could have made far better connections and networking at any other job.)
Imo this comment brings up a few good points. The LW should listen to their intuition and leave if things feel unsafe. Or even if they feel safe but unpleasant, life is too short to be in unhappy relationships. But I agree with Summer that the behaviors LW describes still leave room for resolution if both LW and the partner agree to process the outburst together + rebuild trust after the partner’s inconsiderate/scary reaction.
LW – wishing you the best of luck <3
Your girlfriend is uninterested in learning how to manage her stress while taking your feelings into account. She thinks, consciously or not, that her financial support makes you obligated to her, and that this obligation means you’re wronging her when you prioritize yourself over her in any way. She’s treating you like a part of herself that isn’t doing what it’s supposed to, and I’m sorry.
Maybe things were okay before you needed financial support, maybe not. However, someone who’s only fine when you’re self-sufficient is not the same as someone who’s generally fine, that’s a huge issue and an incredibly difficult one to fix while your girlfriend still has all the power. She has to want to see you as an equal to change how she relates to you, and someone who gives you the silent treatment for a week because you want to talk about switching jobs is almost never someone who’s open to the idea that she’s doing anything wrong.
If you stay with her, she will probably get better when you can support yourself, but she’ll probably get worse again in any situation where you can’t, and that’s my least cynical prediction of your future with this woman. To put it bluntly, I would not want to head into middle age, with a pre-existing health issue, with someone who gets controlling and resentful when her loved ones need her the most. Life contains setbacks, and your girlfriend is showing you how she handles them (by resenting you and making everything worse.) You know in your heart if this is someone who you’d want by your side if you were sick or dying, or if this is someone who’d yell at you and ignore you for being inconvenient. Duuuuuuuuuuuuump that motherfucker!!!
To answer your questions:
Is my partner really a controlling person who likes having the upper hand?
I don’t know if it’s about liking, but she at least feels the need to be in control. A lot of abusers are scared when they’re not in control that other people are going to control them. This sucks for them and often has tragic causes, and they can become former abusers if they work on themselves, but most of the time they don’t unless they lose a relationship they care about (if even then). If she pulls out of this, it’ll be for her future without you.
If so, have I missed all the red flags and been a damn fool all these years?
I don’t know. I’m guessing there were signs, but because you live separately and seem to not have leaned on her for much in the past, maybe there really weren’t. Maybe there were a lot of small things you gave her the benefit of the doubt about, and that genuinely could’ve turned out to not be big problems. It’s not always as simple as there having been signs or not having been signs.
If I dump her right now, will she badmouth me to other companies that want to hire me when they call for a professional reference? Will she badmouth me to everyone in our social circles by repeating all that stuff about me being ungrateful and damaging her reputation?
You are worried that she’ll get revenge on you for breaking up. Like actual serious revenge that will affect your career and life. If this seems at all like a reasonable fear, fucking RUN.
Will I be able to start dating again at my age?
Yeah, a lot of people around your age are having divorces or serious breakups and going back on the market. A lot of people are also coming out of the closet. There’s really no age where people aren’t getting divorced or coming out of the closet, honestly. And many people prefer dating while a bit older because your peers on the dating circuit have more experience with being in relationships, generally know who they are and what they want a bit more, and it’s less taboo to admit you’re looking for something serious. Your personal mileage may vary, but it’s not necessarily worse.
What should I do? Should I just end this relationship immediately?
Maybe talk to HR before the breakup so you can get there first, but yeah.
I always think everyone should break up if they aren’t happy or something doesn’t feel right. To many people stay in unfit relationships past their experation date. LW’s gf sounds like she got the taste of being the top dog in their relationship and isn’t ready to relinquish that status.
There’s no reason anyone should stay in a work environment that isn’t a good fit for them. I assume the gf knew this would be a temporary situation being it’s P/T with low wages, which sounds like that wasn’t the case at LW’s previous job. The gf probably should have looked into the company’s policy on workplace relationships before putting in a good word for the LW at her job (assuming people know) if *now* they are worried about push back if LW leaves the job under a year. Planting seeds of doubt and concerns of break-up revenge in LW’s choice to improve their career feels like a time to move on scenerio.
Good luck LW. I hope you find a job you love and get some of that financial freedom back.