One of our readers wrote in with a really interesting question that I’m hoping you will all have feedback about:
“I’m writing because I’m looking for support, feedback, strategies and this seems like a really good place to find it. The subject is: a cross-class intimate relationship where the two people involved come from different class backgrounds AND, most saliently, have really different levels of access to money/resources right now. And, maybe, they want to embark on a big land-based project together (with other folks involved, but as the primary movers). This project will require many resources from both of them, but money can only come from one. You see how some issues might come up where support and strategies would be very helpful!”
Please share your thoughts by commenting. Thanks!
I am in a cross class relationship and I will say it is the relationship that has most pushed me to own up to, learn about, and work on challenging my own class and financial privileged.
Most of our conversations around my access to capital related to our own hopes for projects we might pursue have not gotten very far. It gets hard and confusing for both of us pretty fast. And, these conversations have never been about joint projects, just projects that one or the other of us are part of and that we hope we can back each other in. I’m very interested in what other folks have to say about this.
In addition for us… We are both white, we are in a pretty hetronormative relationship, and while she is from a working class back ground she’s got a masters degree and her family has been on that tenuous path from working class to middle class most of her life. There are ways me transferring some financial resources to her (or her creditors)that can feel downwardly mobile (for me) in a positive and scary way. However, it also seems like given our privileged/identity cocktail as a couple, any transfer of resources from me to her, ways that we might use capital that i have access to for projects she in pursuing, just redistributes wealth among white folks just solidifies wealth gaps etc. So I am interested in this aspect of cross-class relationships too: to what extent is transferring wealth within intimate relationships sort of just a continuation of a time honored, capitol sanctioned, etc tradition of the only “acceptable” type of redistribution.
All that said it seems like the practice of trying to do a big project together across class, trying to critically think about how to share resources, and draw down on financial privileges, slogging through it, messing up, arguing about it, being loving and self critical is an important way to try to move forward. Or as my sweetheart just groggily said: I think they should probably just try and do it.