Hassan stormed angrily out of the house. Valentine’s day was in two weeks and at the time when other couples were gearing up for incredible expressions of love, his wife was about to start her annual war and the chances of his finding relief were very slim. As he drove out of the estate, his anger turned into weariness.
Hassan and Joy had been married for seven years and they had met when he was an upwardly mobile executive with a mouth-watering salary and lots of perks on the job. She was an entry-level executive at a firm that his company did business with, and it wasn’t long before Cupid struck and they were married.
Money had never been an issue and Hassan had told Joy that there was no need for her salary input, since he had more than enough to take care of her and he had done a wonderful job doing just that. He had made sure that she had a generous allowance that enabled her keep up with the fashion and hair trends of the time. Yes, Joy was a fashionista and he totally loved indulging her.
His company had been hard hit by the pandemic and the management had decided to keep all their staff and cut their salaries and allowances rather than lay off anyone. It would take a couple of years to recover but the prospects were good especially since the company had pivoted into another area based on their learnings from the pandemic.
Over the years, Hassan had not bothered asking Joy how much she earned, but he knew that her wages had increased significantly over time as her career had grown rapidly. He was relieved that his wife was financially stable so she could start supporting the family too, since he had taken a major pay cut, albeit temporarily.
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The shock began when he informed Joy about the financial condition of his company and how he was grateful that she would be able to support the family.
Joy’s response had been “You are the man of the house, and you have to find a way. Your money is our money, but my money is my money.” She had said it smiling and he’d thought it was a joke, but she had assured him that she was dead serious. She said she had become used to a certain level of comfort and was not ready to sacrifice her comfort for anything or anyone. He wondered when he and their twins had become ‘anyone’ to her.
That was the beginning of the crisis that intensified every year around Valentine’s Day. Hassan had started doing side jobs in addition to his 9-5 to enable him provide basic comfort for his family. He was fortunate that he had made significant investments over the years and the returns had been very helpful. Joy however, expected him to liquidate some of their assets so that he could maintain the allowance she had been receiving from him, which he had refused to.
Every February since his pay cut, she reminded him about how he had promised to take care of her and how his mates were flying their spouses abroad and he was unable to. This same Joy that he had literally given the world to was the same Joy that had forgotten everything he’d done.
She was still adamant about her money being her money and would tell him how it was ‘unheard of’ for a woman to spend her own money on herself when she had a man in her life. That belief was the root cause of their marital conflict. She had started again that morning and he’d stormed out of the house to just cool off.
He returned home and met a different Joy. While he was away, she had gone to visit her bestie and met her bestie’s husband cutting the ribbon of the car his wife had bought for his birthday. The man had been so pleasantly surprised that he cried. It was then it dawned on Joy how selfish she had been and asked Hassan for forgiveness. It was tough but he did and for the first time in his life, his wife completely sponsored their annual Valentine vacation.
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