My wife is a lovely woman: infinitely kind, a fierce protector of our children, treats me like gold. That's why I don't allow her to be rich.
Because you see, she watches all those crappy family-destroying TV shows...Sex in the City, The Good Wife; and she reads the endless swell of crappy novels which encourage modern women's apparently boundless appetite for self-absorption at the expense of their families. She can't help any of this. She's a woman. That stuff is irresistible to her. It's just her nature.
Now, I could provide her with a lot of money...let's say...I go back to building technology companies. Maybe I build and sell a little startup and get 3-5 million in our pockets. I could do this, I know exactly how.
But I won't. Because with 3-5 million in our pockets, her eyes will gleam, her honorable and virtuous heart will be corrupted, and she will decide that, with all the money, she could "be all she wants to be". She's simply not able to resist the siren call of narcissism, and she is helpless in the face of relentless advertising. "Abandon your kids. Abandon your family. Be rich and famous".
She'll do that calculation in the back of her head, that calculation that every woman on the planet is genetically wired to make. She'll figure out that she doesn't need me any more. She could divorce me and have enough money to live splendidly.
By the way, she doesn't WANT to divorce me. We are as happy a couple as ever existed. We married out of sheer love and have built a wonderful family with kids that make our hearts soar every time we see them. She loves it all. Divorce would crush our children's hearts; they would never recover.
She knows all this by the way, but with that money nagging at the back of her brain, she will not be able to resist the temptation. Her women friends would start picking and nagging at her. Every little irritation she feels against me, which she would normally squelch immediately, she will no longer feel forced to squelch.
When you don't have a lot of money, you carry this thought in your mind at all times: "I can't afford to let myself feel resentment against my spouse for little things. I must keep a roof over my head and food in our stomaches and the slightest fuckup would be fatal. For the sake of my children, I will stay strong". But when you get rich, you no longer have to be strong. You can succumb.
So anyway, that's why I don't pursue wealth. She isn't able to pursue wealth on her own (that's one of the reasons I married her: she's brilliant and artistic but has no money sense whatsoever).
We have a nice life, a lovely life, but not rich. Middle class is still best. I will keep us there at least until the kids are grown, then maybe it will be safe to make a lot of money.
Because you see, she watches all those crappy family-destroying TV shows...Sex in the City, The Good Wife; and she reads the endless swell of crappy novels which encourage modern women's apparently boundless appetite for self-absorption at the expense of their families. She can't help any of this. She's a woman. That stuff is irresistible to her. It's just her nature.
Now, I could provide her with a lot of money...let's say...I go back to building technology companies. Maybe I build and sell a little startup and get 3-5 million in our pockets. I could do this, I know exactly how.
But I won't. Because with 3-5 million in our pockets, her eyes will gleam, her honorable and virtuous heart will be corrupted, and she will decide that, with all the money, she could "be all she wants to be". She's simply not able to resist the siren call of narcissism, and she is helpless in the face of relentless advertising. "Abandon your kids. Abandon your family. Be rich and famous".
She'll do that calculation in the back of her head, that calculation that every woman on the planet is genetically wired to make. She'll figure out that she doesn't need me any more. She could divorce me and have enough money to live splendidly.
By the way, she doesn't WANT to divorce me. We are as happy a couple as ever existed. We married out of sheer love and have built a wonderful family with kids that make our hearts soar every time we see them. She loves it all. Divorce would crush our children's hearts; they would never recover.
She knows all this by the way, but with that money nagging at the back of her brain, she will not be able to resist the temptation. Her women friends would start picking and nagging at her. Every little irritation she feels against me, which she would normally squelch immediately, she will no longer feel forced to squelch.
When you don't have a lot of money, you carry this thought in your mind at all times: "I can't afford to let myself feel resentment against my spouse for little things. I must keep a roof over my head and food in our stomaches and the slightest fuckup would be fatal. For the sake of my children, I will stay strong". But when you get rich, you no longer have to be strong. You can succumb.
So anyway, that's why I don't pursue wealth. She isn't able to pursue wealth on her own (that's one of the reasons I married her: she's brilliant and artistic but has no money sense whatsoever).
We have a nice life, a lovely life, but not rich. Middle class is still best. I will keep us there at least until the kids are grown, then maybe it will be safe to make a lot of money.