relationships
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Love in the Time of Layoff: The Changing Hearts & Minds of Men
This morning my husband Marco got up early to buy me eggs before my morning sickness kicked in. Before he got laid off, such an errand would have caused him strife. When he had to show up somewhere on time, anything that deviated from the norm of morning routine could throw him off. But this morning was different. This morning, Marco had a reverie buying me eggs.
“I got to the store on the corner before it opened,” he came back and explained, his voice all quiet and calm. “So I walked around for a while in the hazy rain. And when I came back and picked up the eggs, I thought of where they came from. I thought of the farm.”
“The farm?” I asked, plucking two eggs from their carton in a rush to cook them and get them in me quickly before I threw up. We live in busy Manhattan. Even the closest farmer’s market is a few subway stops away.
“Yeah, the farm. I felt part of that cycle of farm life where you get up before dawn because you have to get some things done before everyone else wakes up. I felt part of some kind of more natural work life cycle. I felt part of that somehow just looking at these eggs.”…
Love in the Time of Layoff: Bankers Are to 2007 as ________ Are to 2009
Last week we found ourselves on a two woman bar tour, consisting of just ourselves. We were flitting between two groups of guys, one group was at Spitzer’s and another across the street at ‘inoteca. After a glass of wine and some assorted cheeses at ‘inoteca, we would dash to Spitzer’s to chow on truffle mac and cheese with some Aussies. Had we not been so amused by our own antics, we would have gone home pleading a ‘breakfast meeting,’ well that and the cutie in a suit stationed in the doorway of Spitzer’s, who had been frantically blackberrying for the better part of an hour. So stoic was his demeanor that we just had to dub him the Downtown Centurion. One of us and we won’t say who (we do write for Dating a Banker Anonymous) was about to make her fourth entrance of the night when the Downtown Centurion deigned to speak to her. She had taken to switching up her hair and taking off her leather jacket that was “totally giving her street cred” every time she switched locations.
Downtown Centurion: You forgot to take your hair down.
DABA Girl (smooth): Huh?
Downtown Centurion (eyes still on BlackBerry): You’ve been taking your hair down and putting your jacket on every time, you come in. Don’t mess up your flow now. Although personally, I’d be interested in seeing the jacket off and hair down combo, but maybe you’re saving that for later?…
From Dual Income to No Income
When couples get hitched they agree, often in front of large audiences, to support each other through the thick and thin. It’s well understood that there will be times when one of the partners in the union will need a bit of propping up. But what happens when both partners need a boost? As the nation continues to wade through waves of unemployment, many households are going from two regular paychecks to no paychecks at all, reports Joann Lublin in The Wall Street Journal.
Talk about putting a strain on a marriage. In April, the national unemployment rate continued its climb to 8.9 percent as the number of jobless Americans went from 563,000 to 13.7 million according to the National Bureau of Labor Statistics. …
Love in the Time of Layoff: 5 Dating Tips for the Recession
First dates at Le Cirque and second dates in St. Barth’s are out (for me, and maybe you, they were never in, but you get the point). Everyone’s feeling pressure on their wallets, and so for a lot of folks, that means pressure on the dating budget. What are the dating experts advocating in the downturn?
Mainly: Be cheap and be wary. Be very wary.
We don’t really agree with the sentiment of “being cheap” – no one should blow their wad on a few casual dates, of course, but a relationship is an investment and “being cheap” might not be a great way to start. But who are we to say?
Here’s how the pros see it:
* Curb your dating. According to dating expert David Wygant, there are some compulsive daters out there…
Domestic Violence and Money
This isn’t the happiest of news, nor all that new, but we thought it important to participate in the coverage of a report by cosmetics maker Mary Kay that shows an uptick in domestic violence related to financial woes.
From the study, in which 600 shelters were polled:
- Seventy-three percent of shelter representatives attribute the rise in abuse to “financial issues.”
- “Stress” and “job loss” (61 percent and 49 percent, respectively) also proved to be leading contributing factors in the reported increase in domestic violence cases involving women…
Pawn That Engagement Ring!
You both thought two months salary would last forever…but it never got that far. But just because your heart is broken doesn’t mean you have to break the bank staying financially afloat during this recession.
These days ‘the pawn shop’ is online. The site IDoNowIDon’t.com has seen record site visits and “a banner month for product sales,” says the owner. One ex-fiancee hawked her $30,000 five-carat, Bulgari-inspired engagement ring online and fetched $18,000 to help her pay off debts and start a new company…
Love in the Time of Layoff: Can You Afford the Stork?
“The economy’s so bad we had to lay off one of our kids,” comedian Jonathan Katz recently joked.
Pretty funny. And absurd. But what about laying off the stork? Now there’s an idea…
During the Depression, the birth rate plummeted and there are several indicators —a recent uptick in vasectomies, a spike in condom sales, and buzz about pregnancy postponement on mommy blogs, health, and news sites – that this recession’s also affecting family planning.
The reality is kids cost a lot. We’re talking six figures. The Department of Agriculture estimates that families making $46,000 to $77,000 annually will spend more than $200,000 on children through high school. And that’s bare-bones—it doesn’t include college tuition. The Wall Street Journal estimates families earning $118,000 a year will spend $800,000 (on the low end!) through age 17. Of course, some prospective parents also need to factor in the up-front costs of adoption or in vitro fertilization. Madonna may be snatching up babies in Malawi, but she’s the Material Girl. What about the rest of us?
So how do you actually assess whether you can afford a baby or not? Can you really reduce a child to a financial calculation? They’re questions my new husband, Jay, and I have thought a lot about…
4 Reasons to Date the Unemployed
Historically when a woman found out a man she wanted to date was unemployed, she would go running for the hills. But these days, with the recession affecting people in all professions, many recently laid-off men actually make very promising boyfriends. Chances are high that these men worked in law, banking, or another field that requires a decent amount of education, intelligence, and motivation.
While these men may fall into the dreaded unemployed category, they are still desirable, and maybe even more desirable than men who still have jobs. Here are four reasons why starting to date someone who’s been laid off can actually be better than someone who has to go to work every day…
Love in the Time of Layoff: The Fortune Within
“Snake eyes!” said the doctor, rubbing the ultrasound wand back and forth and rotating the monitor so that both my husband Marco and I could see. I had no idea what he meant, but apparently Marco got it right away.
“Holy shit!” said my mild-mannered husband, whose freedom to accompany me to all the appointments was the upside of his having been canned earlier this year.
“What!” I asked, feeling left out and propping my head up to get a better view.
“Twins,” the doctor translated. “There are two of them in there.”
If Marco’s response was the grounded one, mine was whimsical. I burst into peels of hysterical, uncontrollable, womb-rocking laughter.
Snake eyes, I learned later, is what you say when you’re playing craps and you roll two ones. The pair of pips resembles a pair of eyes, and snakes signal treachery and betrayal. When you roll snake eyes, the lowest possible roll, the implication is that you might lose. But in this case, we had won.
Taking a Hike, and Other Cheap Dates
Every week or so, this space throws out a fun relationship suggestion that’s easy on the wallet. This time around, it’s exercise.
First of all, exercise is a virtual panacea. Per research that I have no way of substantiating, sedentary lifestyles cause more deaths than smoking. A little exercise (say, sweating 3 times per week for 20-30 minutes per session) can have immediate results. Old wisdom says you feel the results (in terms of increased energy, decreased lethargy) in weeks and see results (if you’re looking at my gut, I’m working on it) in a month.
“How does this make dating more awesome?” Good question, Aguado. Many therapists…
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