Image by 401K via Flickr
This story addresses a core issue that is often thought about by men and women as they interact with each other in meaningful relationships and marriage. It is about love and money. At this point, I ask a simple question – Do YOU believe that there is such a thing as love without money? BE honest, pause, think and answer the question in your mind and then read on. I will tell you a story (not a true story). Pay particular attention to the dialogue between two ladies regarding what they consider true love to be.
Janet: You know that there is such a thing as love without money?
Mary-Anne: Money does not bring limitations, it brings opportunities and adventure and desire and fulfillment.
Janet: Yes, and it waters down the purity of love, making it less real and more shallow. Money conforms love to the dictates of material and ephemeral things, ensuring that such a love does not last. Love comes from the heart before it gets to the mind. True LOVE is unconditional, and any LOVE that is predicated on money can NOT be true love!
Mary-Anne: NO. LOVE is NOT an impulsive endeavor. LOVE IS a decision. LOVE originates in the mind before it gets into the heart.
Janet: Can’t you love a man that has all the qualities that you want in a man but has no money?
Mary-Anne: NO. A man without money does not possess all the qualities I want. One of the qualities I want in a man IS money. The love for a man without a quality such as money is a false type of love – it withers and dies under pressure! Money is not just an important part of love, it is an essential part. Money is like the soil in which true love grows and blossoms. Without money, Love is just a word.
Janet: Really? But the wedding vows read ‘for richer, or poorer’, surely there must be love WITHOUT money!
Mary-Anne: Yes, but for ‘richer or poorer’ assumes that the person of interest is already rich. It doesn’t assume that the person is poor. So let me ask you – what do you expect of a man who loves you?
Janet: I expect his love to be pure and simple, uncontaminated by the pressures of money and the snares of a lack of it. Life is more than money, and so is love. I expect a man to express his love for me by caring for me and appreciating me.
Mary-Anne: Yes, but how must a man care for you or appreciate you if he can NOT express this by getting you what you want and need. You cannot separate love from money: the only way you can do this is to sign a prenuptial agreement separating your financial affairs from your love/ marriage. Would you sign a prenuptial agreement before you marry?
Janet: NO, NEVER, a prenup is not true love!
Mary-Anne: If a separation of love and money via a prenup is not true love, then, by extension, there is no such thing as true love separate from or without money. Money is needed for love to function. LOVE is only as important as money but not more so. As ideal as it sounds, separating love from money is desecrating love on the altar of unreality and fantasy. Love that denies a need for money and financial security can NOT be true love. LOVE is more important than money ONLY when such money is not tied to love……
Janet: BUT if someone loves you because of your money and not because of LOVE, such love is not true LOVE…..
(the conversation continues)
At this point, I ask a simple question – Do YOU believe that there is such a thing as love without money? BE honest, pause, think and answer the question in your mind, and then tell me.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Top draw, as usual! How many times have I said that Oga Jobee is the master of presentation and “the one that gets us talking” in an amazing milieu of experienced and super-talented orators-in-chief! Splendid stuff!
This is a topic that passes for me as pertinent, hitting at the fantasies and realities of ideal and realistic associations. It isn’t entirely as simple as it looks on the outside, particularly with the real possibility of the one after money getting the rich man, but with the amount of cash spent on her by the man dwindling with time with the discovery that the lady insists on the “demonstration” of love by the cash splashed!!!
There is a good point in the assertion that love is a lot more enjoyable with money. However, the complication may lie in the fact that the rich man today may lose the riches in future. What does the woman do? Divorce the man in a time of inconvenience because of the problems?
The poor/middle-class man may also be an invisible track to wealth that the money-minded lover may just not be capable of seeing. What happens when she goes hunting and then finds that the abandoned one has risen to the heights of wealth? Does she return? Will a man take such a lady back?
Shakespeare talks of love as a phenomenon that does not “alter when it alteration finds!” I have to state that this kind of love has lost its appeal because of the endless quest for the sweetness of love, lwith money serving as the lubricant that oils the wheels of love, setting it on a glorious dance into the heights of ecstasy!
I just wonder if all the ladies would eventually end up putting up their “loves” for sale…to the highest bidder! Some of us may never qualify!!!
The rich man could also stay rich, while the poor man stays poor. Just do what you must do, and deal with the consequences…
Please I agree with Mary-Anne abeg. I may not totally subscribe to her comments 100% but she definitely makes more sense than Janet. That’s not to say I’ll leave a man when things are rough, but he needs to have been in a position that proves that “this soon shall pass”.
Let’s see if Janet can cope when times are hard and her man can’t pay fees or put food on a table. Who’s fooling who?
I like Mary-Anne. She’s saying yes I’m materialistic! Deal with it! And I applaud her for that.
Ok…..I’ve heard this saying before “Money answereth all things”,now if I could only remember where I heard that. Oh right! It was in the Bible, so now we’ve established that; the same Bible also says ‘Money is the root of all evil’ and says all things in moderation.
Love is honorable, but any man who truly loves a woman would want to take care of her needs and would not want to introduce her to a life of suffering; so he doesn’t have to be wealthy but he has to be willing to better himself so he can take care of his family. Having said that some women are looking for a ‘made’ man and it’s not always a sure thing, potential for me in a man is more valuable cos’ whilst he may not have it now he’s definitely able to make it happen so even if we lose money now we’ll make it again with time.
So women who are looking for money in a man, what exactly are you bringing to the table? Ask yourself and remember that easy come means easy go!