when financial support doesn't feel like financial freedom

Before I buy something for myself, I usually check my bank balance. It might be clothes, underwear, hair or body products. Ordinary things that most people probably don’t think twice about. For me, they can become a small calculation. Do I need it enough? Can I afford it this month? Is there something else coming out of my account that matters more?

I have a roof over my head. There’s food on the table. Dennis pays the rent, utilities and groceries, and I’m truly grateful for that. At the same time, living like this is far from easy. He’s never given me an allowance or regular personal money, which means that although the basic costs of our life are covered, I have very little money of my own.

My business currently brings in very little while I still have my own regular outgoings. My Deutschlandticket, business platform payments, monthly 1-1 sessions with my mentor, charity contributions and other regular outgoings I make all come out of my own personal account. And, at the moment, those costs are slightly higher than the money coming into my business. So, the bank balance matters.

Over the years, Dad has occasionally given me money as a gift. It’s something he’s done equally to both my sister and me. I’ve never asked him for it, though somehow it has often arrived right around the times when I’ve started worrying about money, and I have always been grateful.

His gifts haven’t been money I simply spend on something nice. Often, they’ve gone towards meeting those regular monthly outgoings, keeping things ticking over when my own income hasn’t been enough.

Even now, though, whenever Dad gives me money, I hear an old family phrase almost like an echo. “Spend it wisely”. It’s something I remember from when I was younger, when my family saw me as somebody who could spend money frivolously. I never really agreed with that description, however the phrase stuck. It doesn’t even have to be said anymore. The money can arrive without any comment attached and I still hear it.

That’s only one part of what comes with accepting it. The other part is shame. I’m in my fifties and still receiving financial help from my parents. There’s so much history sitting behind that. My parents paid for me to go to university. I went on to qualify professionally as a management accountant and built a corporate career. I had the kind of work where earning my own money was normal, expected and part of who I was. And then I walked away from it. I left the corporate world because of my health and started working for myself, believing I could build something of my own. The business, however, has never developed into the income I hoped it would.

Sometimes Dad talks to me in passing about other people's adult children and how successful they are. I know he means absolutely no harm when he does this. He doesn’t turn the conversation towards me or criticise what I’ve done with my life, the choices I’ve made. Still, I sometimes wonder what he says when somebody asks what I’m doing now. I know he would never say anything bad about me. I also suspect, though, that he would struggle to explain what I do, perhaps because I sometimes struggle to explain why, after all these years of working for myself, I still earn so little.

There are moments when I even wonder whether he looks back at the money spent putting me through university and thinks it was wasted because I qualified professionally and then eventually left that life behind. It’s a thought that also becomes louder when I compare myself with other women running businesses. I belong to a Facebook group run by Denise Duffield-Thomas where women regularly talk about income, business growth and the challenges they are facing. Even the women who describe themselves as struggling or earning very little can seem financially streaks ahead of me.

I read some of those posts and find myself asking, “What's wrong with me?” That question can sit awkwardly beside the reality of my life because, from one angle, I am financially safe. The household bills are paid. I’m not worrying about whether the rent will be covered or whether there’ll be food. From another angle, however, I’m constantly aware that the safety isn’t linked to my own earning power.

For years, I could live with my own income being so low because there were two people I could rely upon. Dennis supported the household. Dad occasionally helped me when my own money was not enough. I have sometimes thought of them, half-jokingly and half-seriously, as my two white knights. More recently, though, that image has started feeling far less secure. Dennis has now lost his last two jobs and has been unemployed since the end of April. I don’t know what is happening with his job search or where his next job might take us. It could be Frankfurt, another German city or another country altogether. And Dad's financial situation has also become uncertain following everything that has happened with the bank and the scam situation earlier this year. He’s 86, and I’ve started noticing that something he can manage one day may become difficult another day. Recently, he successfully scanned a bank letter to me for review, then when another arrived shortly afterwards, he simply could not manage to scan it. So, for the first time, the possibility that one day Dad may no longer be able to manage electronic banking feels much more real.

I can no longer rely on my two “white knights” who have supported me these last years in quite the same unquestioning way. That recognition has changed something in how I think about money. Now, more than ever before, I really need to start earning myself. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve wanted my business to earn more for years. Of course, I have. I’ve wanted the validation of knowing that something I created could support me. I’ve wanted the freedom of not having to check my bank balance before buying ordinary things. What feels different now is the reason I need that money. I want to know that if circumstances around me change, I can look after myself.

That doesn’t erase the gratitude I feel towards Dennis or Dad. It doesn’t turn years of support into something I resent. Their help has allowed my life to continue in ways my own income could never have supported. It’s also meant, though, that my financial life has remained tied to other people's circumstances.

When Financial Dependence Is Part of Living Abroad

For women living abroad, that can become particularly complicated when one partner's career has shaped where you live and when you move, while your own work and earning power have had to fit around those decisions. Financial dependence may exist alongside competence in every other part of life, which can make it surprisingly difficult to name.

This is some of the territory that can surface in Personal Support sessions, especially when a woman is trying to understand what financial dependence, contribution and independence actually mean within the life she’s built abroad. There may be gratitude, shame, fear and resentment sitting alongside one another without any of them cancelling the others out.

I’m still living inside that contradiction. The roof over my head is secure today. There’s food in the kitchen. My own bank balance is still something I check before I spend. Dad may give me money again. Dennis may find another job soon. My business may begin bringing in more. I just don’t know. What I do know is that financial support and financial independence no longer feel remotely like the same thing to me, and the difference between them has become much harder to ignore.