Yep, It's a Thing: Stay-at-Home Girlfriends
Will Lipovsky
6 second take: Whether you're male, female or everything in between, putting your financial future into someone else's hands is wrought with risks.
Which sounds better? Unemployed? Lazy? Or stay-at-home girlfriends?
A while back, one of my roommates invited a few people over to hang out in the hot tub. I introduced myself to one of the girls. At the time, I was an analyst for a Fortune 500 company. I asked about her work.
She proudly told me she was a "stay-at-home girlfriend." She said it in a tone as if she was challenging my job. You know, that sort of a holier-than-thou tone?
Almost like someone who tells you they couldn't see the new Star Wars because they've been too busy reading to blind children at the local hospital. Right.
Our interaction left me confused. Then, I wrote her off as being an anomaly. Until I met another stay-at-home girlfriend. Apparently it's a thing. Still a bit flummoxed, I Googled the term. The first result was from a blogger. The piece was titled, "How to survive as a SAHG (stay-at-home-girlfriend)."
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Stay-at-home girlfriends were, apparently, a phenomenon. This 20-something woman from Brooklyn shares her typical day as a SAHG. Here are some highlights: picking up after her boyfriend, supplying him with a cold beer, and primping herself for when he returns home.
Extremely. Exciting. Times.
I went on to read more articles about this lifestyle. Other tips I found include: "wake up before noon," "sleep and eat as necessary," and "fall asleep watching The X-Files." I invite you not to Google this depression-inducing term.
From what I can tell, most of these women have lived with their boyfriends for some time. Then they get dismissed from their actual job.
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Since their boyfriends make enough to cover the bills, these women relish in a state of unemployment. It's like someone who lives with their parents and has no job, but worse. Or better? I'm not sure. (I've written about how I hate the idea of being used for my wallet.)
What saddens me about this "career" choice is that it seems like SAHGs have resigned to a life of quiet desperation.
I imagine pulling yourself out of this funk would be incredibly challenging. The way I see it, there are four areas of a person's life: health, wealth, love and happiness. Choosing to live as a SAHG is a choice that would affect all of those areas. What's more, depending on someone else to take care of your bills… that turns my stomach inside out.
Most of these women aren't doing the female gender any favors, either. The personal finance niche of female financial empowerment has no subtopic titled, "Let your boyfriend take care of you financially."
For the guys… why do you want to take care of someone like this? (I mean, I have advocated for taking girls out using Groupons in the past, but this stay-at-home girlfriend thing takes dating to a whole other level.
I've met plenty of guys who think it's great to "take care of everything." Personally, I like someone I can respect on an equal level. I think power couples are awesome.
Although keep in mind, I'm not a SAHG. I'm not even a G. And I am sure that it's hard to fully understand something until you've done it yourself. I also know that instead of judging someone, I should just get curious instead.
That's how I want to end this piece. I'd like to hear your take on the matter. I'm open to different viewpoints. If you're a guy, would you ever want to take care of a woman in this way by choice? If so, why? Furthermore, if you're a woman, are you a SAHG? I'd love to know why.
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