Blogs and Stories
The Economy Stole My Man!
The financial crisis turned my husband into a modern-day migrant laborer—and me into a needy, horny, stay-at-home basketcase.
“There’s some hard times a’coming, ‘bout to hit these parts,” my husband said, tucking a strand of sun-warmed hay between his teeth, gazing forlornly over the scorched horizon. (Where he found the hay on the Upper East Side of Manhattan is anybody’s guess.) “Ain’t nothin’ ‘round here fer a fella like me. Way I see it, the most prudent thing is I start headin’ west, ‘fore this here Depression gets any worse.”
“No!” I cried. “Today you’re going out to California, tomorrow we’re homeless, living in a paddock on the side of the road, and I’m breastfeeding a starving man like Rose of Sharon!”
When a pipe burst, when the cat peed blood, when our cheap bed collapsed and I was forced to assemble the new one myself, my feelings about my husband ventured dangerously near hatred.
This was a year ago, before our economy had fully come to resemble The Grapes of Wrath, but the writing was on the wall. New York ad agencies were not yet hemorrhaging employees, but everyone knew what was coming. There were dark mutterings of a changing industry. My husband, who was freelancing, had been offered a position at a cutting-edge digital agency on the West Coast, and it seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up.
“This is for us,” he argued, passionately. “I don’t want to be unemployable and flat broke in three years. It’s an investment in both of our futures.”
Several heated discussions and screaming fights later, my husband and I reached an uneasy compromise: For the time being, he would live in California, and I would stay in New York. I had several of my own professional commitments to honor, a flurry of practical concerns—we had just signed a new lease, and what about the cat?—and I would visit when I could. In six months, we would reassess.
And so, my long-distance marriage began.
We had been married for less than a year, and most of what I knew about making a relationship work was cobbled together from women’s magazines, long-ago therapy sessions, and bits of dark, cryptic wisdom from my mother—all of which tended to take the position that what we were doing was a Very Bad Idea. I understood that physical distance translates into emotional distance, and that the temptation of infidelity (if not the act itself) is inevitable. I’d been taught that a relationship is like an infant, and if you leave it alone too long it becomes like one of those dead-eyed babies in Romanian orphanages who wind up murdering their adoptive parents because they were kept chained to a filthy crib from birth.
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Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
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Tina Brown is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast. She is the author of the 2007 New York Times best seller The Diana Chronicles. Brown is the former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Talk magazines and host of CNBC's Topic A with Tina Brown.
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Rachel Shukert is the author of Have You No Shame? And Other Regrettable Stories, and is currently at work on her second book, The Grand Tour. She lives in New York City.
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Rachel Shukert is the author of Have You No Shame? And Other Regrettable Stories, and is currently at work on her second book, The Grand Tour. She lives in New York City.
Sorry Rachel but I must let you in on a 'man secret'....if he really loved you and liked being around you...he would have taken you. He would have not let any....property....credit ratings....bloody cats....get between he and you....you married someone....OK. But let me tell you....Oh nevermind.
Portmanteau is a vile person.
Well said, Banjo1.
Of course, going west may not be a good idea. The unemployment maps says officially California, Oregon and Washington are now in the 9.3% range and New York, at the moment, is 6.2%, which we know comfortably means double-digit in both places.
I know it's hard to be separated from your spouse. However, lots of military spouses face this everyday for longer than you can imagine. Be grateful that you are not having to worry about your husband facing enemy fire.
Insipid.
Rachel very well written - keep it up.
it might be well written, yet insipid.
As a young couple you potentially make serious mistakes but leaving home the first year is quite possible the 3rd worst one, after cheating and abuse.
don't blame the economy, its just lack of vision. don't worry.
I thought this was bravura writing. Honest, universal, and including some changed perspective, to boot.
To all those who comment about Daily Beast items they don't like -- you might try writing down your own experiences, and see if you can make them as insightful and provocative as this.
Oh, and I have noticed how many women's voices Tina includes on a regular basis. Good for you.
Dear Rachael,
Get a grip. Have you been asleep for the last 5 or 6 years? Military families have been experiencing these relationship pains for quite some time now. Except they aren't often granted the luxury of phone calls and the ability to know that their loved ones are safe.
Many families make sacrifices but comparing your life to the Grapes of Wrath is so encredibly ludicrous, it leaves me in awe of your naivete. I often think that people like you are the reason we are having such trouble right now. You think you are entitled to everything and when you have to make sacrifices, you whine about it.
jainthorne - you are right - military folks do this all the time but they are in a more controlled setting than just getting a job in CA. It's an interesting topic if it becomes a widespread reality for couples.
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This is a fantastic little piece. It's nice to read about a quirky yet not unimportant--or even uncommon--situation in these times. The long distance marriage...America in the late aughts.
"What Rachel Can Learn From Mickey Rourke" -- get a dog.
Nice piece point I disagree with one point, Actually we are not "all the victims of circumstance." We are victims of Robert Rubin repealing Glass-Steagall, a law adopted during the depression, that stopped commercial banks from becoming investment banks, insurance sales people etc etc. We are all victims of the political class in DC and the graduates of Harvard B-School who together pretend they are all sop smart and sophisticated but in reality they are low class criminals who steal from hard working people who actually contribute productive services to other people, thus earning real money - while Wall St. creates fake money and takes as much real money as they can and put it in their own pocket annually. NYC is proven not full of sophisticated businesmen - just con artists.
Not vile....just right.
Love is about staying together and toughing things out....jobs are a dime a dozen....good spouses...another story. How you cope with poverty is as important as how you cope with wealth -- having been on both ends of the scale with the same woman...I give you and yours 6 months....he'll meet someone else or you will....DUNZO...as they say.
thank you Rachel. As someone in a similar circumstances (in my case military) I married my husband during what was supposed to be his last year of active duty. He has been stop-lossed and sent overseas. I am a professional, making decent money and was doing fine before I met him, but when the light above the stairs burnt out last week, I cried so hard the neighbors knocked on the door to see if I was alright. He needs to come home and fix my light.
Go read Alexandra Penney. She whines a lot better than you do.
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well written, happy ending, but not too sappy. love it. thank you for your candor.
and bravo on taking on a truly modern relationship. CNBC keeps calling this the "new economy" and i think it is high time that we all consider the world of "new relationships." this includes those who are away from their husbands in wartime, and those struggling with the distance for financial reasons.
Why are women so incessantly needy? Yet another article that makes me glad that I'm still single. To reward myself for reading this, I'm off to lunch at the gentleman's club early today. Good morning!
Is it me or are all the "personal" columns really just about whiny upper/middle class NY society people who can't pull themselves together?
I mean it is kind of entertaining, like a car wreck, but this is drifting towards being a little too tabloid for me. I mean if we are mocking them by letting them write these things, it is cool with me, but other wise I am going to have to filter out more of this site as childish noise.
CNBC? Almost as much credibility as the outgoing Presidunce.
Haha that's quite possibly the most hilarious thing i've read about the economy.
Thank you.
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