In the world of dating, things typically goes as follows: Boy meets girl. Boy and girl date and start a monogamous relationship, but the love often fizzles out and they eventually go their separate ways. But that’s not the case for one woman who didn’t take her failed relationship on the chin. Now, not only is the 34-year-old blaming her ex for wasting her prime childbearing years, she wants cash compensation. And the internet just can’t decide whether she’s justified.
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The heated online debate all started after an anonymous 34-year-old woman wrote to the Telegraph’s “Moral Money” advice column, looking for guidance from the outlet’s columnist who offers financial advice “that specializes in helping women.”
The devastated woman admitted how she’s struggling to cope after her boyfriend of eight years, who she “hoped to marry,” gave her the boot “a few months ago” just when she was ready to have a baby with him. She confessed she’s “heartbroken and incapable of functioning” as she tries to “put my life back together.”
According to her, the 38-year-old ex said he still “has a decade of enjoying his lifestyle” and isn’t “ready for marriage and children, but he knows it has become a priority for me,” so he broke things off. The pair had even agreed to “maintain a high-profile career trajectory” during their near-decade long relationship, which she says prevented her from focusing on being a mom.
After she put her career on hold and gave him the best damn years of her life because after all, time is money, she says those “compromises have left me vulnerable.” Not only that, she says her “eggs [are] twitching” and she’s ready for parenthood, but since he didn’t follow through on his promises “he owes me big time” and needs to now pay up.
“I am seeking compensation,” she wrote, adding how she’s “not emotionally strong enough right now” to start dating again and “who knows how long it will take to find a partner – or even whether I will at all.” So, given how admittedly “desperate” she is to have a child, she’s “looking into IVF” while she’s “still fertile. It is expensive. I think he should pay.”
It took the internet all of 0.3 seconds to respond to her controversial request for him to “mitigate the damage to our plans caused by his change of heart.”
“Reality check: No one “owes” her for time spent in a relationship that didn’t end in marriage,” a woman on X said, adding how, “He didn’t steal her childbearing years, she gave them to the wrong person.”
A man gave his two cents, writing, “The man said, “I’m not ready.” She heard, “You owe me $30K and a frozen uterus.””
Another woman felt for the woman’s “regret and anger, it happened to me. But I’ll never be convinced that anyone is more responsible for my bad choices,” even “a liar.”
“Love always involves risk,” a man commented. “Her pain is real. But relationships aren’t contracts of certainty.”
But not everyone agreed. One woman wrote, “I think he has been irresponsible,” and also blamed “society for normalizing bf/gf culture.”
Even Sam Secomb, the columinst, gave the woman the hard truth.
“Unless there is a formal legal arrangement […] there are no rights to financial redress for the years of emotional or practical support,” she wrote in part after validating her “emotionally devastating” feelings of injustice.
Secomb clarfified that, “The law will only recognise what you each legally own,” so she wouldn’t legally receive a dime from him for IVF as, “the courts will not consider broken promises of marriage or parenthood a legal liability. His decision to prioritise career and lifestyle over family is not compensable in the way you hope, even though it leaves you shouldering the consequences.”
She did acknowledge how the man “may have acted selfishly,” but she still has the power. “Ask yourself: what do I want my life to look like from here?,” Secomb concluded. “The answer to that question, painful as it is, will serve you far more than waiting for him to do the right thing.”
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