What are Your Thoughts About Financially Independent Women?

A big shout of nothing but RESPECT to your mother!

The sobering fact is that a vast number of households and children today are being raised by single parents, and often single mothers at that, for which depending on a man means either jumping from one relationship to the other, or jumping into the wrong relationship too soon.

Not to mention all the men who don't want to be used for a paycheck, and also deserve true and genuine love themselves -- not to be treated as the nearest ATM machine.

And of course, to complicate matters, many singles are looking to start families "of their own" and don't want to raise "someone else's children," which means single parents often have no choice but to learn to take on everything themselves.

I have no problems with women being raised to be homemakers -- I just hope to see a balance, so that if and when life's tragedies come, they are adequately prepared to handle them, even if it means doing so on their own.

Preach it, sister.

One of the many things that always leaves me wanting to bang my head against a wall within the church communities I've been part of is a prevailing thought that women should be completely dependent upon men for financial support.

But yet at the same time, women are condemned because they are seen as using men for money or cleaning out their finances. And I'm certainly not denying that some women don't do this.

But it's impossible to have it both ways. You can't have both a culture of raising women to be completely dependent upon men, and then somehow expect them to be able to instantly survive on their own AND support kids when they've only been taught to stay at home, depend on a man to pay for everything, and then never hold a job outside the home.

There seems to be an expectation that every woman will always have a husband to support her and that he will never get sick, never lose his job, never go on disability, never leave, and never die.

I could be wrong about this, but the realities of most people I know just don't work this way.

You can't teach people an entire life of learned helplessness and dependence and then suddenly expect them to be self-sufficient when life actually happens.

Hey Everyone,

Now I know that the very notion "Financially Independent Women" is going to automatically result in a knee-jerk reaction from some people.

There might even be talk about how such women are Femi-Nazi's, rebellious Jezebels, and enemies of the Christian faith and family. I am very aware that many Christians are against the idea of a woman having a career and making money on her own.

But what about all the single women who become financially independent by default?

Most people who have been here in the Singles Forum a while know my story. I married young, and he left me for someone younger while we were both still very young. He remarried and had a family, so there is no possibility of any kind of reconciliation. I do believe, with much study, prayer, and guidance from spiritual authorities at the churches I've been a part of, that I am Biblically able to remarry, but for whatever reason, God has kept me single.

In the many years that followed, I filled most of the long, lonely hours with work. I come from a family in which almost all the women worked before marriage, married very young, continued to work until they had kids, then stayed at home with the kids and most went back to work after the kids were grown. I didn't think I'd be any different. I figured I would work until kids came along, work as a homemaker, and then go to back to an outside job when the kids were grown in order to help with the bills.

Now raise your hand if your life didn't quite go the way you expected. (Never mind me as I raise both hands and both feet.)

I also come from a family who, if they are addicted to anything, it would be work, and saving money is treated like an Olympic sport. I don't know what other people talk about at their family gatherings, but I have a sector of my family that happily recalls the week's events of how they bought such-and-such on sale, through a discount club, with a coupon, on a rewards card that also earned them 10 gajillion more points on their purchase.

I was also raised with the mindset of living as frugally as one can do comfortably. For example, it's been over 2 years since I bothered plugging in my television, because I don't use any kind of cable or subscriptions services. Throughout my life, I spent most nights on the weekends writing paper letters and/or electronic messages rather than going out. And I was raised under the strong influence of parents who drilled it in my head from a young age to save money wherever I could. (As kids, if we received any birthday or Christmas money, we were required to tithe 10% of it to church, then save half of what was left.) I hated this rule as a kid, but am grateful as an adult because of the strict financial discipline it instilled.

I've never had a "big career" or position that would be of any significance to anyone. But I did fill my time with work, church, volunteer and ministry tasks, while mostly just being a homebody. Because of this, as the years (and years, and years) have rolled by, all I knew to do to try to give my life purpose was to start making goals for myself.

I also spent about 12 years in a few long-term relationships in which I wound up paying for the guys' bills, kids, addictions, and court cases, and when I finally untangled myself from all of that, I was kicking myself because I could have put all that money into my future retirement goals instead. (I'm trying to follow other family member's examples of retiring and then going into full-time volunteer ministry work.)

Though I don't go on many dates, I have gotten to the point where, on the first day, I just tell the waitress to put it on one bill and hand it to me, unless the guy absolutely insists on paying (and even then, I've usually already had the waitress process it before he should protest.) This is because of the many, many posts I've read on CC over the years about guys complaining that women are only out for money. As I've become more financially stable, I just decided in my heart that I will never give a man any reason to say that I used him for something, and most especially not a free dinner.

Now, I am certainly not criticizing anyone who might be in a different situation. But I wanted to talk about this because I see a lot of discussions about what women "should" or "should not" do:

* Women should stay at home.
* Women should not have careers.
* Women should not be independent (and I understand that some even believe that women can't be independent.)

But the thing is, what about all the women I am meeting at this stage of my life who never purposely set out to "go against the grain," but this is where life (and perhaps God) has taken them? And some of the plans I thought I could never fulfill without a husband (such as traveling,) I am now able to fulfill because I find other single women who have the same interests, as well as the means to pay for them.

I came to see every debt I owed as a noose around my neck, and, after watching other family members cut off most of their nooses, aspired to do the same. My ultimate goal is to break away as many nooses as I possibly can in order to free up my time and resources for more opportunities to help people.

And the thing is, I keep meeting more and more single women who, for whatever reason, haven't married (but would like to,) and in the meantime, they are working towards the same kinds of goals. Not out of rebellion or even by choice (most I know would like to be married with children, but it just hasn't happened,) but because this is what they are doing with the time God has given them.

And I know that in my own life, in order to keep up the practice of being submissive to a Christian man, there are times in my life when God has specifically led me to go to my father and/or Christian male friends about some of the decisions I make, so that I don't become "too" independent by default.

I know I have shared a lot about myself in this thread, but this discussion is NOT meant to be about me or my life at all. Rather, I'm using my own example as a springboard to open a conversation that asks:

* What happens when women become financially independent by default? (Due to life circumstances, not rebellion.)

* How does this change the dynamics between men and women when dating? (What if she makes more money than he does? Should she be expected to pay because of it?)

* How does a man lead a woman who is more financially independent than he is?

* If you believe a woman should or can never become independent, what should a long-term single woman be doing with her time, and how should she support herself?

* For the ladies -- if you would like to get married, how do you see yourself going from making all the decisions to yourself to then submitting the final say to a husband?


I understand the traditional viewpoints that women should stay at home and be homemakers without ever holding an outside job. But my parent's full-time volunteer ministry is financial counseling (they pay for all the expenses involved themselves,) and one of the biggest issues they are now seeing are women who have been raised in this mindset, kept dependent at home all their lives, then are left alone due to divorce or the death of their husband, and have absolutely no idea how to take care of themselves or their children.

I would love to hear your thoughts about women who have no choice but to learn how to take care of themselves. Thank you for sharing!

Yeap i am fed up with that culture too. Thing is, in a relationship its a give and take. What happens if i have a man and he looses his job. Should he dig out worms for dinner? Of course you support each other and organize things but theres a big difference between support and dependency.
Especially nowadays where things are never secure you need to be able to stand on your own feet.

I hate money. It is a false representation of power. Where as before the value of a person was based on their capabilities, it has transferred to their spending allowance. I think a person’s value can be quantified by this equation: problems solved, subtract problems created. When either man or woman injects money into this equation it falsifies the answer. Our dependence isn’t based on what we can pay others to do. That only means we are dependent on money. At any point the economy can fall.

My point is this. Our dependence is directly related to how another individual can solve our problems. If this individual creates more problems for you to solve then they are the dependent. Don’t gain wealth, gain competency. Money is one problem, loneliness is one problem, health is one problem, sanity is one problem, organization is one problem. Concentrate on more than money for independence. Just remember the more valuable you are, the more enticing to needy people you are.

If you take those worms and he can catch a fish with them, then that’s a functional relationship.

A big shout of nothing but RESPECT to your mother!

The sobering fact is that a vast number of households and children today are being raised by single parents, and often single mothers at that, for which depending on a man means either jumping from one relationship to the other, or jumping into the wrong relationship too soon.

Not to mention all the men who don't want to be used for a paycheck, and also deserve true and genuine love themselves -- not to be treated as the nearest ATM machine.

And of course, to complicate matters, many singles are looking to start families "of their own" and don't want to raise "someone else's children," which means single parents often have no choice but to learn to take on everything themselves.

I have no problems with women being raised to be homemakers -- I just hope to see a balance, so that if and when life's tragedies come, they are adequately prepared to handle them, even if it means doing so on their own.

those helpless women your ministry is seeing seoul...were they raised in churches or how old are they?
If they are widows do they have access to some kind of widows benefit OR are they able to handle whatever their husbands have left them?
Do they actually know how to budget, pay bills, maintain a house and fix things when they break. Do they know to buy things that will last, register their cars, negotiate a mortgage if they own house, or collect rents if they rent out a place.

Can they run their own business? And handle paying taxes? Plus declaring income.
if they have debt are they committed to reducing it or paying it all off? Do they know how to save money and earn interest, or how what to invest it in if they have a surplus?

Wonder where all these clueless women came from...? If you are unemployed for any length of time to avoid leaning on your friends and family you can at least apply for the dole(benefit) here in nz the welfare is available to you so you dont have to beg. Its not much but its something.

I come across people who look down on people living on the dole but then nobody looks down on elderly for receiving the pension from the government even when they continue to work! such a double standard.

are you supposed to just rely on a male to provide for you whatever scraps this man will give you based on your beauty and charm huh. And if he beats you up you wont leave right because you have no means to leave. Thats where I see women dig themselves into a hole and dont get smart about the way they live.

What did your church say about women's finances when growing up? It's always been encouraged that women stay home when I grew up

If you take those worms and he can catch a fish with them, then that’s a functional relationship.

Many of the women my parents have been counseling who are in this position are older and widowed, so they were raised to be completely reliant on men.



I grew up in an church in which it was implied that the most spiritually noble thing a woman could be was the homemaker wife of a Lutheran pastor or Lutheran school teacher with a large family.

Yes. Raising the offspring and pleasing the husbands was taught at our church. I saw the lack of mental stimulation cause focus on jealousy of others or emotional emptiness in marriages where couples were no longer talking with genuine interest

What did your church say about women's finances when growing up?