Rachael stares into her coffee like it might give her the answer. She knows her life looks good on paper. The mortgage, the partner, the carefully chosen tiles. From the outside she has it all, and for a while she believed it too.
But on this quiet morning, with Ben* upstairs on work calls, a coffee in her hand, and dread pooling in her stomach, Rachael realised she was building a future she didn’t want to live in.
“He wasn’t a bad guy,” she says now, looking back. “There was no cheating involved, but I knew he wasn’t right for me. I went back and forth so many times. Do I stay knowing that I’ve got financial stability and a lovely home, or do I give it all up?”
There was no final straw that led Rachael to this point; no big bust-up or underlying issue. Just the slow build of dissatisfaction she could no longer ignore. A romance that had faded into something platonic. But it left Rachael feeling desperately empty. “I was very alone, disconnected from the world. It got to a point where there was basically no physical relationship,” she says.
Even though her spark with Ben had long since gone out, walking away wasn’t as simple as falling out of love. Rachael had significantly less in savings, Ben had put down most of the house deposit, and his income surpassed hers by miles. Emotionally, she was done. But financially, she was stuck. So she stayed — for a whole year — because she’d figured out the maths, and what she saw scared her more than the idea of staying in a relationship that made her unhappy. “I felt so trapped,” she remembers.
Surviving the cost of living crisis is hard. Doing it alone is even harder. While couples can share the burden, single people are often left covering everything themselves, and it shows in the numbers. On average, individuals spend nearly 40% of their net income on essentials (housing, bills, and groceries), compared to around 30% per person for those living in a couple, research by Hargreaves Lansdown found.
For women, the pennies are stretched even further. In unsurprising (but no less depressing) news, the latest statistics show that women in the UK now earn nearly 7% less than men on average. And then there’s the ‘pink tax’, referring to the mark-up on products marketed at women, costing us an extra £126 each per year.
When you consider all that, you can see why women are having to think carefully before deciding if they can afford to end unhappy or unhealthy relationships. “I 100% see this,” says relationship coach Natasha Mahtani. In fact, it’s a predicament she’s noticed on the rise among her clients. “Mainly, it’s women who earn less than their partners. [In my opinion], money is the number one reason women can’t leave a relationship.”
Laura White, a family lawyer at Moore Barlow LLP, agrees. “Money is usually at the forefront of a client’s concerns. How will they cope? Whether they’re married or not, will there be enough to go around? Especially because often people are living right up to their budgets.”
Just over a year after buying a house with her boyfriend, Tom*, 26-year-old Tash found out he’d cheated. The worst part? He admitted it had happened before they signed the papers on what is likely one of the biggest purchases of their lives. So while they were choosing sofas and planning their future, he already knew he’d ruined it.
The break-up was loud and messy. But when the anger cooled, Tash was left facing the reality of trying to untangle their lives. With little in the way of savings, she hadn’t been in a position to contribute much financially to the house, so Tom had covered most of the upfront costs. Now, neither of them could afford to buy the other one out. There was no obvious way to move forward.
So they did what many in their situation do: they stayed. Not quite together, not quite apart. It’s a situation that still feels “mentally draining” for Tash. Her only solace comes from staying busy. “When you’re living together, there’s no escape. [You have] to distract yourself to some degree because it gets exhausting living in it.”
Her lack of savings, she says, is still “the biggest obstacle” to moving on. “I feel trapped because I can’t go anywhere. I didn’t realise how much of a commitment it was before. But then again, I didn’t expect this to happen.”
Relationship expert Mahtani says it’s important to recognise that situations like this take time to work your way out of. “I coach people to start building financial independence in small ways,” she explains. “Perhaps putting a little money into an investment account or looking for a side hustle.”
Laura Pomfret and Holly Holland, co-founders of female-focussed finance app, Financielle, call it a ‘F*ck Off Fund’. A pot of savings specifically set aside to help you leave any situation that isn’t serving you, like a relationship that’s turned sour.
How do you build one? “Make a budget. You need to make sure there’s more coming in than going out, and that’s called your excess cash,” explains Pomfret. “Your excess cash is savings. Set yourself a total and that’s all you focus on.” She adds: “These funds are for everyone. It gives you options, whether it’s in a relationship or a work environment, or with friends and family.”
Looking back, Tash wishes she’d thought more carefully about a decision as big as buying a house with a partner. “I’d say don’t do anything too hasty,” she advises.
Lawyer Laura White echoes this. “Make sure that you understand the legalities of what you’re entering into, whether that’s moving in with someone, or getting married,” she says. “Understand what your position would be if things were to end.”
Sometimes, though, this kind of clarity comes too late. When Katalina and her boyfriend, Cristian*, moved from their hometown in Romania to London to study at university, she was excited about their new chapter. The pair moved into a flat his parents had rented, and, at first, exploring a new city together was everything she had dreamed about.
But a few months in, Cristian’s behaviour started raising red flags. He’d go on mysterious trips away and spend a lot of time on his phone. Then, Katalina made a discovery that confirmed her worries. “Every weekend he was out of town, he’d say, ‘I’m just visiting some friends. You don’t know them’. I went on his laptop and found some sexual conversations with girls back home and in the UK.”
As a student working part-time in hospitality and retail jobs, Katalina knew she couldn’t afford to rent a flat on her own in London, so she kept her realisation about Cristian’s cheating quiet. “I didn’t have the conversation with him, because I didn’t know what was going to happen. Would he kick me out?”
Staying silent was “a living hell” that went on for the full three years of Katalina’s university course. “I had to play pretend with him. I felt like I was using my body in exchange for staying there,” she says.
Eventually, Katalina landed a graduate job with a generous salary. It finally spelled freedom for her. “The first thing I did was rent a studio. If I’d had money before, everything would have been different. As soon as I [found out], I’d have been getting my stuff out the door.”
After a year of trying to convince herself to stick it out, Rachael also found the courage to leave. Prompted by a tearful phone call to her mum, the truth finally spilled out. Despite what it would mean for her financially, she couldn’t do it anymore, and she knew she had to tell Ben.
“I’d bottled it up for so long because the practicalities of having to uproot my entire life were terrifying,” says Rachael. “I thought, ‘Everyone has doubts, that feeling will go away’, but it didn’t. It grew and grew until it erupted.”
Ben was initially reluctant to accept the break-up. “He made this checklist of things that he wanted to try and fix, as if our relationship was like a car,” Rachael recalls. “I think he knew deep down that there were problems, but he was in denial about it.”
Despite the painful navigation out of her tattered relationship, Rachael’s overwhelming feeling was relief. After a temporary stint living with her parents, she now lives in a houseshare with friends in London. “The rent alone costs more than I was paying on my [previous] mortgage. I went from a two-bed house to a tiny flat, sharing a bathroom with two other girls. It was a huge change.”
But was it the right one? “Although it’s more expensive, I would make that decision a hundred times over because I’m so much happier now,” Rachael says. “You can’t put a cost on being happy and true to yourself.”
If you’re feeling trapped because of your finances, Financielle’s Laura Pomfret says you’re not alone, but advises approaching things one small step at a time. “Overwhelm is the biggest word we hear from our community. So try breaking [your escape route] up into something small, making a plan, and sharing that with someone is the best thing you can do.”
“If you find the confidence to do that, it’ll speed up your ability to take the next step,” she adds. “You have what it takes to leave and start your new life.”
*Names have been changed
