About half a year ago, I found myself marrying Andrew. My mother helped us resolve our living arrangements by letting us stay in her small one-bedroom flat in a quiet corner of Norwich. She warned us we could stay for eight years, since my younger sister would need her share when she turned eighteenthen the flat would be sold, and the money divided equally.
Everyone seemed content with this deal. The wedding was a delightful, oddly dreamlike affair, with roses blooming out of teacups and everyone dancing in slow motion at the old restaurant. We paid for the day half-and-half, the cost hauntingly vague. I dipped into my savings; Andrews job brought in a fair bit as well.
The morning after, with the tea still steaming in fragile cups, Andrew began pondering the family budget, almost as if he was reading from a script drifting by on a passing cloud.
He suggested we keep our finances separate, each of us contributing exactly half for bills, groceries, evenings at the local cinema, and Saturday outings to coffee shops furnished in florals and old wood. He meticulously noted that we must also save at least twenty percent of our wages for a future home, storing away the pounds like squirrels with acorns. The rest, he said, we keep for ourselveseach to their own.
His calculations landed like feathers, but they weighed heavy on me. My salary fluttered far below Andrews, and the idea of matching his contribution monthly seemed impossible. I told him, gently, that it would be difficult for me to keep pace, and surely married couples should share a joint purse. Andrew remained unfazed, his voice calm as mist: we must contribute equally, he said, for our little familys sake.
If you find it hard, perhaps you ought to look for work that pays more, he stated, as though employment grew like bluebells in the East Anglian fields. But jobs here were rare treasures, and Andrew worked comfortably in his uncles company.
I decided to seek a part-time job, trudging through dreamy high streets lined with shops I could hardly afford to enter. Each month we saved faithfully, but I pinched each penny until it squeakedI bought nothing unnecessary, saved for birthdays and the odd Christmas token. Andrew, meanwhile, floated through his days in fine suits and expensive cologne, as if every day was Ascot.
One afternoon, our talk turned to holidays. Andrew suggested we travel abroad, each paying our way. I barely had time to scrape together the fare before the dream shiftedAndrew set off alone, leaving me among the stacks of suitcases and ticking clocks.
Hurt and muted, I said nothingthe marriage meant more than my wounded pride. Some months later, news drifted in through the fog: the factory where my mother had worked was shuttered. Finding a job at fifty in these parts is not easy, and my mother still had my teenage sister to provide for. Shed always managed, but now her funds were dwindling.
She rang late one evening, her voice thin and echoing. She asked for help, and how could I refuse my own mother? This month, I simply couldnt put extra away for a future house.
When Andrew found out, his words dropped heavy as rain, You cant save, and you cant even join me by the sea. How will you ever help your family with such a small wage? His disappointment, cold and even, seeped through our rooms.
After that, I told Andrew his selfishness had let me down. He replied, in that unfathomable, misty way, that I hadnt married him for his moneyand that each person must rely only on themselves.
Andrew is convinced every bill, every day out, every dream, must be split and measured. But I think family is for leaning on, for sharing warmth against the chill. Theres no middle ground between us, and now, as the clock ticks backward on my dreams, I wonder if I wish to remain here at all.
