Dear Prudence,
I (she/her) ended my relationship with my partner (she/her) earlier this year. We lived together for many years. When I met her, she was unemployed, as she’d had a business venture fail. She eventually got a job, and then started working for me in my business—first part time, and then at her urging, she became my full-time employee. Things were great for a long time. My business was growing and she was reliable. It felt like we were building an empire. She had goals to become my partner in the business one day. I was able to pay her well. (I’m aware of how this is often a bad decision for people in romantic relationships—it was the right decision for a long time). She was also in six-figure student debt, so I paid the rent on our place. As my business grew, I was able to afford my dream apartment in my dream location, so I moved there a year and a half ago. She agreed to pay the electric bill.
Then things changed overnight. I discovered a few things: a severe hoarding tendency in her home office (she kept the door closed so I didn’t see how bad it was getting until we got ants); that she wasn’t doing much of her work to a professional standard or in a timely manner; and that she wanted intellectual property credit for an artistic project I was doing on my own. I was working 16 hours a day to make up for the work she wasn’t doing at work. I was now spending thousands a month ordering out meals for the both of us, too, because I had no time to do anything else, and I told her I needed help. I needed her to pick up slack at home, do better at work, something. She cited the electric bill as her pulling her weight—it was hundreds of dollars a month, she said, even in winter when we weren’t running air conditioners. It was almost untenable, she said. She moved out in May. I took over the electric bill. I just received the bill for the first (non-AC) month since she left … it was $19.
Prudie, I feel duped and cheated. I feel so incredibly stupid—I let her into my life, my business. I took care of us the best I could. As the breadwinner in the relationship, I was always conscious about potential financial abuse and wanted to make things fair. I made more so I paid the rent—and she pulled zero percent of the weight, in all areas of our life together. I was talking to a friend about it and told them I feel like I was a victim of financial abuse. Was I?
—Electric Bill Blues