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Original poster

BBC2 'Money'

64 replies

amandine07 · 06/12/2011 21:59

Just watching this program, very interesting...interviewing a whole load of couples, discussing money, their attitudes to it, disagreements etc.

It's so funny how money issues can run deep in a relationship, causing rows, upset, ongoing issues.

Sat here open-mouthed as the wife of one couple insisted that her research scientist husband should retrain as a lawyer/accountant so that their children can have a better life and go to private schools etc.

He says he loves he job (is highly qualified with a PhD) but his wife seems to see it as selfishness as he won't re-train for the benefit of the family...I'm not quite sure what the wife does job-wise.

Also very intriguing interviewing two newly-married couple...in opposite financial situations... discussing the minutinae of money-saving.

This program really underscores how true it is that so many disputes/arguments between couples are linked to money!!

OP posts:

FunnysInTheGarden · 06/12/2011 22:21

ha ha amandine me too with ref to the research scientist and his total nightmare of a wife. And unless you want to work in the City, provincial lawyers don't earn much more than her DH.

Very interesting though and showed that all the couples had inequality as far as money was concerned.

DH and I have been together for 24 years since I was 17 and he was 21 and we have always shared money. Right from me having no income and him having a student grant, to me earning £60K to his £30k for the same hours and now to us both earning exactly the same for FT work. Luckily we earn enough to support our lifestyle, but even when we had almost zero cash, we shared what we did have. I think we are very lucky TBH. There was no discussion in the early years, just an understanding that we were in it together in all aspects of our relationship, money included.

teta · 06/12/2011 23:29

The wife was a secretary in a legal firm and only had gcse qualifications to her name.Poor man to be married to her and her pugnacious attitude.I also truly disliked the caravan woman who seemed to be obsessed with putting down her husband and keeping her savings all to herself.

aubergineinautumn · 07/12/2011 00:54

What about the old guy who said he 'only' earned £120,000!

Kveta · 07/12/2011 09:46

we watched this too - as a research scientist who is the child of a research scientist, I felt so so sorry for that poor man with his grasping harpy of a wife. He did not look like he enjoyed life very much. DH and I are both VERY lucky to do jobs we enjoy, and agreed that we would hate to do a job we didn't enjoy just for more money.

also found the unemployed couple very sad to watch, how depressing their lives are. We were actually quite shocked at how unglamorous the life of a benefits claimant is, when you see all the shit in the papers about 'scroungers' with their 80 foot televisions living the life of riley. It showed us quite clearly that it's not a fun existence.

the caravan couple were just weird - he was so deeply annoying ('wehre are you from' 'the womb' OH DO FUCK OFF), and she was weird. And typically, they show an extended breastfeeder on television as a weirdo hippy.

found the 'ooh, we have a small income right now, about £120 000' hilarious though

FunnysInTheGarden · 07/12/2011 10:23

I was quite shocked actually that the old bloke only gave his wife £900 pcm to include food. How mean is that out of an income of £120k. I didn't know the caravan woman was an EBF. They were both weird though, and she looked very bitter and rather enjoyed telling her husband that she was richer than him.

Kveta · 07/12/2011 10:37

they showed her with a toddler on her lap, pretty clearly bfing, after the interviews. DH went 'that's what you look like' to me, and got an look in response

I thought £900 was a bit cheap of him too, but it's still way way more than the job seekers get, isn't it? and she seemed happy enough.

teta · 07/12/2011 11:29

I thought the young couple were absolutely bovine and totally unemployable.There aren't the physical labouring jobs any more for people with such a low IQ.Together they will survive but if they split up you could see them on the streets.Don't you think the programme took character extremes and heavily edited for entertainment value.Money is such a dangerous and heavily emotive subject that it brings out extremes of behaviour [same way as childbirth i guess ] and is a brilliant topic for fly on the wall documentaries.

VeronicaSpeedwell · 07/12/2011 11:40

I only saw the second half, but was totally shocked by the scientist's wife. I couldn't live with someone who seemed to have no desire to even try to comprehend that work has all kinds of value besides money.

FunnysInTheGarden · 07/12/2011 13:53

way more than the job seekers, yes, but in context I thought it was a pitiful amount and very controlling of him. You're right though, she did seem happy.

The programme last week was very good too.

aubergineinautumn · 07/12/2011 14:01

Veronica- if you had seen the start you would have known the backstory- she got pg 6 weeks after they met so they are/were stuck with each other.

HarrySantaatemygoldfish · 07/12/2011 14:07

Scientist wife was vile. She was too thick to earn anything like he did. He was lovely. He was looking at her with something akin to utter hatred though, I noticed.

Bovine Benefits Couple were, well, bovine. Sadly they seemed intent on breeding...

Laughed at rich couple with ride on mower and sniggered at hippy couple who clearly disliked one another!

wahwahwah · 07/12/2011 14:07

I think only the retired couple, the newly-weds and the couple from Ghana (who I thought were lovely) will be together in the forseeable.

I can't believe the researchers wife's attitude 'yes I know that you are working towards a cure for a hideous blight on humanity and such sciencey things but can't you re-train for something you have no interest in or possible no aptitude for so that I cabn have more money. And no, I won't retrain to try to get a better job'.

I think the hippy lady was probably just trying to piss off her parents ("Mummy, if you don't let me attend finishing school, I shall run away and become a hippy..."). She will be found face down in the midden. I was a bit concerned when the toddler picked up the axe as the dad wandered off.

becstarsky · 07/12/2011 14:30

Ooh, I'm watching this on i-player at the moment. Felt sorry for the research scientist. When she said: "I'd go and clean toilets, that's what you do, that's what the vast majority of people have to do". Ooh, way to guilt trip the guy!! But she wasn't planning on improving her own earning prospects, just that he should leave science and support her materialistic aspirations. Complaining that they couldn't afford private school for their boys, and saying that marching against the Iraq War was a 'nerd thing to do'... And saying that they were together 'for the sake of the boys, as it's better for them to have their dad around' which was a veiled threat of 'if we split up you won't see much of the kids so you'll have to put up with me if you want access to them' Crikey what a piece of work! Poor bloke.

Very interesting how talking about money on camera made the cracks show up in relationships. I agree that the posh doctors, the posh retired couple and the couple from Ghana will all still be together and happy, but the other couples were in quite a pickle, weren't they? But of course editing and leading questions can show people quite differently than they are IRL. So I hope they are all okay really and that we just got a skewed view of them...

Kveta · 07/12/2011 14:42

"He was looking at her with something akin to utter hatred though, I noticed"

yes, and did you see how far apart they were sitting on the sofa too? He just looked so miserable :( I suspect some intensive counselling for them wouldn't go amiss.

I thought the retired couple were a hoot tbh, but clearly came from money too, so would have no concept of not having any.

the unemployed couple were clearly not blessed with brains, but their outlook was so utterly hopeless, I felt for them. DH did say to me, when I expressed this opinion, that it should make me glad I wasted spent so many years at uni getting a 'good' degree, so I don't end up like them. But I suspect they grew up with such an outlook, and wouldn't know motivation if it smacked them in the face. But when they said a week in a caravan in Skegness was the best week of their lives, I felt so so sorry for them. What a grim life.

becstarsky · 07/12/2011 14:59

I thought that too Kveta - a grim life indeed. And when they said they hoped they'd have a baby soon so that they'd have something to do rather than just sit around and that it might keep them together, I felt really sorry for the baby they'll have too. They were so uninspired by life, so devoid of hope or aspiration. It was really sad that no-one had given them something to aspire towards, or the skills to succeed in a job.

wahwahwah · 07/12/2011 15:04

Its and odd programme. Not really saying anything. The first one was interesting - how do 'get rich' gurus get rich? hey write a book and charge people to learn how to be 'get rich' gurus.

wideawakenurse · 07/12/2011 15:04

Very interesting programme.

Agree with everyone about the Scientists wife - totally vile attitude. Why on earth can't she re-train then? If she wants her DH around for the boys then starting a law degree won't help that.

Despaired at the young couple who were surviving on JSA, whom announced they were trying for a baby. I am sure that they have had a hard start in life, but it appeared that they have both sabotaged any chances they have had since them, she said how she was sacked from Macdonalds for swearing at the boss. He then stated that he left school with no GCSE's, went back to college to re do them and still got chucked out with nothing. There comes a point in your adult life where swearing and misbehaving cannot be excused by having a hard start in life.

HarrySantaatemygoldfish · 07/12/2011 15:43

They depressed me too. The attitude that they would just have a baby, like that, with no jobs and no prospects. Sigh. No responsibility, no drive, no self respect or self determination, no dreams or desires, no nothing.

VeronicaSpeedwell · 07/12/2011 16:40

aubergineinautumn, that's really interesting, thanks for filling me in. I had speculated that it must be something like that, or else that they had met at a point where both really wanted to settle down and got swept away without knowing each other. It's the only way I could understand someone having so little insight into what makes their partner tick.

lozster · 07/12/2011 17:03

Just caught up with this and had to see if there was a thread! Wow! the research scientists wife! She lives in a lovely area of Cheshire with good schools (so quite why she wants private I do not know), has a lovely house, two kids and two cars...... she's living the dream of many! The most generous conclusion I could reach was that she is utterly naive about how easy it would be for her husband to retrain 'as an accountant or lawyer' and how much more he would actually earn in either profession. So much for equality - poor guy!

VeronicaSpeedwell · 07/12/2011 17:14

She was working in a lawyers' office, so perhaps she is surrounded by examples of men she believes would have 'offered' her a 'better' life (), if only fate had dictated things differently.

HarrySantaatemygoldfish · 07/12/2011 20:10

I think she's already punching considerably above her considerableweight as it is..

AphraBehn · 07/12/2011 21:32

at HarrySantaatemygoldfish

Scientish wife looked like she had a nice house, not exactly living in a hovel. Of course they could be up to their eyeballs in debt to pay for it.

I liked posh wife. She was happy with her £900 to get the shopping and her hair done. Wonder if he spends his share on cigars and hookers?

AphraBehn · 07/12/2011 21:34

Did scientist and wife say how they met btw?

Newly weds were terminally boring.

frillyflower · 07/12/2011 21:56

Scientist and wife met in bar at Birkbeck University in London. I thought he looked like he loathed her - and quite right too she was ghastly. if she wants more money why doesn't she get a job?

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