Burthen

Last night, I arrived at my door just as my dog-walker was bringing Bubbie home for dinner. I asked her how she was and she cried as she told me that her relationship was over. I gave her the biggest hug, but had no better words to say than, I'm so sorry.

I don't know her that well and had no idea about her boyfriend or their relationship. They met soon after she divorced her husband and moved here from D.C. He was fun and sweet and they fell in love. For a year they have lived together in her apartment with his daughter and their dogs, like a happy little family. The trouble was after a long day of working two jobs, she wanted peace and quiet. He had been working alone at home all day and wanted to see his friends, who were over constantly and at all hours. So, after it became too much, she suggested he move out. He refused to move without lashing out and broke-up with her. To which she said, "We take care of them and they take advantage of us."

I have noticed that being a princess or a bitch does have advantages over being accommodating and understanding. I know men who carry more of the household chores, child-rearing and financial management in their relationships. I know how important it is that we are fair and the burden is equal in a relationship. But how does one define fair and equal in a relationship? They are certainly not the same.

In relationships, it is practical to divide the day-to-day responsibilities by facility, just as you would at work. Some people happen to be better with deadlines, follow-through, and time-management. Others are better with throwing parties, creating menus, and video games. In my last serious relationship, I was the former and my boyfriend was the latter. He was a graduate student studying to be the next German-Norwegian Juan Diego Florez with a beer-gut. With my career path, we were never going to be rich but we would be able to buy a place and build a life.

Princess always brought up his lack of fortune and great debt as a reason why he was no good for me. In our last conversation he nearly shouted into the phone, "You'd have to pay my rent!" As if he was saying, "I have gonorrhea!" and I was supposed to react accordingly and run the other way. For the longest time I accepted these outbursts as a defense mechanism. We all carry the failures of past relationships with us and the hurt surfaces at odd times. Now, his song and dance of: I'm-a-poor-boy-with-empty-in-his-pockets-and-nothing-to-loose is just that - a song and dance that pays his freedom and keeps his burthen light.