boston.com Love Letters - Pretty in Pink Style
Posted by
Diva (aka Diva)
Oct 15 '10, 11:12
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Hi Meredith,
You know how, if life was a John Hughes movie, everybody wants to be Samantha Baker leaning over her birthday cake to kiss Jake Ryan? Well, somehow I'm a female version of Blane in Pretty in Pink.
Let me back up. For a little more than a year, I have been dating "Andie." Although he doesn�t work at a record store or hang out with Duckie, he grew up several socioeconomic classes below the way I grew up. The opportunities that I took for granted -- regular family vacations; a stay-at-home mom available for every soccer game, carpool or band concert; full tuition at a private college -- were things he could only dream of. He comes from a very kind, loving family, but they just didn't have the resources my family had.
We have hit a point in our relationship in which he doesn�t want to proceed unless he knows its "going somewhere," by which he means that while he doesn't need to get married tomorrow, but he wants to know that I'll marry him someday. (That we're at this point already seems very early to me, but regardless, he brought it up.)
I don't care at all about his family's wealth, or lack thereof. But, what is an issue for me is the way our different backgrounds manifest themselves in our dreams for our hypothetical children. Both of us want to provide our children with, at the bare minimum, the opportunities we had. But Andie could be comfortably middle-class and still provide better for his children than his parents did, whereas that would be a step down for me. He works at a non-profit and has no interest in attaining the kind of corporate, high-profile, high-pressure job that funded the lifestyle I grew up in.
Let me assure you, I am not a gold digger or a trophy wife-in-training. I have every expectation that my own salary will contribute hugely to my family's resources, and I'm in the middle of applications to graduate school to ensure this happens. But I do want the option to stay at home for a few years while my babies are babies, and this isn't a possibility if I'm the primary breadwinner.
The flip side is that he loves me, very much. He is kind and smart and curious and, occasionally, very funny. I know how this story would end in the movies ("�happily ever after."), but in real life, how do I choose between a great guy who loves me and the life I've spent 25 years envisioning for myself?
� Blane McDonnagh, New York, New York
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