...tho perhaps not in the fairy tale ward and june cleaver way your friend is planning.
if she's reasonably educated and intelligent, i'm sure she can find part-time, low-level employment someplace. and if she has connections, which being a provider, i'm certain she does, then she could get comfy, midlin' level job in an office somewhere. OR, she could be a homemaker, and depend on her future hubby for continued income.
i disagree with the idea that a provider must be single and independent, no attachments to anyone. at 25, i'm happily married to my Husband of 5 years and counting, being the good little wife, making his lunch every morning, dinner every night, and keeping the house tidy...AND still providing. my Husband finds my profession incredibly hot and erotic, and has no desire for me to quit unless it begins to make me unhappy, however within a few years i'm sure i'll be retiring, just because i do not want to still be doing this at 30. between the savings we have due to my work, and my Husband's more than adequate salary, there'd be no need for me to seek another job. notice i said the savings "we" have...that's because i in no way consider myself indepedent. all the money i earn goes toward the general household finances, which my Husband has always managed. i've never payed a single bill or written a single check. every week he gives me a modest allowance that i can spend however i like...and that allowance is the only money i consider to be "my" money. but that's just us, we tend to be on the old-fashioned side in some respects.
if your friend is expecting to remain independent, keep complete control over her finances, and not be completely honest and open about her former "life," then i suspect she has a difficult road ahead. however if she takes a different route, she could find all she's dreaming of and more.
This subject comes up from time to time, but is never exhausted. My question is prompted by a provider friend who plans to make her bundle, retire in about two years, find a good husband who will love and be good to her, and have lots of kids. That's her dream, and it seems easy, but is it really? How many providers aspire to this conventional view of happiness? How many achieve it? I'd bet one problem would be finding a husband who would respect her independence and not be jealous of her wealth -- she could easily have assets of over $1 Mil if she retires on schedule, still attractive and in her late 20s. She'd also need a guy who would keep producing income because not even $1 mil would keep a family in comfort if not replenished. My friend has no employment skills beyond her current one, and those are first rate, but she might start a small business as yet undetermined. What are her chances? Most of the happy retired providers whose comments I've seen stay single, avoid long entanglements, travel, and prefer an independent life style. Comments?
ten or more years.
Some of them have gotten out of escorting, but not one of them has married. A few had kids anyways and seem happy enough, although they are not living high off the hog.
One got into real estate at the wrong time, another works as a LPN at a nursing home. The rest continue to toil away at the business although I suspect they don't enjoy it as much now as they did once and would jump at the chance to get out of it if they could.
I suppose there are some happier stories out there, but overall, retirement from the business does not look like the way your friend is picturing it.
So many variables to consider. Trying to predict her chance of a successful and permanent move away from the hobby depends on so many things. How commited will she be to a significant lifestyle change? Will her savings plus civvie employment be enough to keep her in the style to which she is accustomed? If she wants to find a husband is she willing to disclose her past as a provider? Is it important to her and how will telling him or not telling him affect her feelings toward her marriage and her life? What about her education? Does she have a solid education or does her lack of education affect her self-esteem and/or ability to find a satisfying career? This can have an effect on her success outside the hobby. How will she feel about being devoted to one man? How will she deal with a change in freedom and working as a team with her husband?
There are so many other factors and questions. Its hard to predict without knowing much more about her.
-- Modified on 4/11/2007 3:58:42 AM
She might be well advised to get some skills, and maybe find some contacts for a possible husband at the same time, via taking some courses at a local community college.
...tho perhaps not in the fairy tale ward and june cleaver way your friend is planning.
if she's reasonably educated and intelligent, i'm sure she can find part-time, low-level employment someplace. and if she has connections, which being a provider, i'm certain she does, then she could get comfy, midlin' level job in an office somewhere. OR, she could be a homemaker, and depend on her future hubby for continued income.
i disagree with the idea that a provider must be single and independent, no attachments to anyone. at 25, i'm happily married to my Husband of 5 years and counting, being the good little wife, making his lunch every morning, dinner every night, and keeping the house tidy...AND still providing. my Husband finds my profession incredibly hot and erotic, and has no desire for me to quit unless it begins to make me unhappy, however within a few years i'm sure i'll be retiring, just because i do not want to still be doing this at 30. between the savings we have due to my work, and my Husband's more than adequate salary, there'd be no need for me to seek another job. notice i said the savings "we" have...that's because i in no way consider myself indepedent. all the money i earn goes toward the general household finances, which my Husband has always managed. i've never payed a single bill or written a single check. every week he gives me a modest allowance that i can spend however i like...and that allowance is the only money i consider to be "my" money. but that's just us, we tend to be on the old-fashioned side in some respects.
if your friend is expecting to remain independent, keep complete control over her finances, and not be completely honest and open about her former "life," then i suspect she has a difficult road ahead. however if she takes a different route, she could find all she's dreaming of and more.
but.....you should consider helping your husband manage your finances....writing checks and paying bills will give you a much better understanding of where you stand financially ...and...will be extremely valuable if something occcurs in the future which requires you to perform these tasks.
sincerely, Mr. 411...you're not the first to offer that bit of advice. i do actually have a basic understanding of the household finances, and know where all the important papers are kept, etc. but as for actually handling or managing those finances, that's just not my place. my Husband and i live by certain values, mostly extinct in western society, that dictate the way such matters are handled.
truth be told, tho i know financially and legally i'll be provided for if something ever happens to him, that'd be the furthest thing from my mind. at that point they could just send me to the looney bin to my own padded room, and throw away the key.
Well the dream part is the same dream approx 50% of the women I know have. Even my 2 nieces in their late 20s and professionals have indicated the 2 car garage with hubby and 2 kids looks. she her dream is the same. One is even telling her bartender boyfriend it is over b/c he can't make the dream work. So to make dreams work u have to work the dream and by that i mean will she feel comfortable having a partnership (hubby/wife) decide how $$ spent or will she want control b/c she earned her money. IMO whether or not she was a provider has little relevancey to her acheiving the dream. And whether she has 1 mill or 100k makes no difference b/c i have seen trust fund kids go broke. Really will depend on hard she wants to work the dream and commit to it.
Ha-ha-ha, Barnaby34,
Allow me to become extremely cynical when answering your excellent question: I truly believe your friend is dreaming.
She has no skills? She is in her late 20s? Unless she is an extremely beautiful woman - and I mean "model material" or of exquisite splendor - with no skills in the business world, no university or graduate degree - I doubt a quality man will look at her as "marriage material."
Contrary to popular belief, studies have shown that "rich men" do NOT marry the starving, gorgeous actress types, or even the fabulous-looking models - unless the models have achieved some celebrity notoriety. Wealthy men usually seek company within their own social circles. If you look away from Hollywood and go to a place like, say Grosse Pointe, Michigan [to use an example where "quiet wealth" has been generated,] the wives are anything but glamourpusses. Most of them have college degrees, a "verifiable" pedigree and have led very similar lives to their prospective husbands.
In the West, where wealth seems to come in more liberal permutations, people's backgrounds can be more varied. My question is, what watertight story will she have to concoct when her flush husband will want to know what she did all those years amassing her own million dollars?
As to starting a small business, that's an entirely different endeavor than finding a marriage partner. She could become very successful and then marry. But I agree with most other comments to this posting; independent providers who have amassed sizeable assets continue to stay single - either by choice, or by circumstance.
Your friend is in her late 20s - she needs a few years to engage in some realistic thinking. As someone else pointed out: about 50% of all American women share her dream. She would be much better off, and have much better marriage prospects, if she took some of that money and invested in a graduate degree which in turn would lead to a well-paying job in a corporation or some other professional entity. There, she'd quite conceivably meet the man of her dreams. But straight from the trenches of providing with no verifiable skills - I don't think so.
Call me a cynic on this one,
the Love Goddess
Many thanks for all the realistic comments. I don't want to rain on her parade, because she's a really nice person, smart and well-focused and just might pull it off. But she provides to ratchet up her economic level and get a ticket out of humdrum lowpaying work, and still supports her parents to some degree. As for work, she doesn't love it, "but it's OK, for maybe two more years." I'd love to see her make it, but I agree that odds are against her. I want to hear some real Cinderella stories come true, and I'm not hearing them. My friend is raking it in and saving a lot, but she says "this job isn't easy," even though she's a great success and guys treat her well.
Being new to the hobby I have only seen one provider several times in Vegas (one of the fab four). She said similar things about being in this for only a short periord of time but reading this makes me wonder what really happens to all the young ladies, are they able to rejoin the mainstream and live the typical dreams or do they just continue to provide and become satisfied with their life. Not knocking that life just wondering what the real chances are for my new friend
I know three ladies who retired (two of them after several attempts to do so) and none of them ended up with Mr. Right... luckily for them, that was NOT one of their reasons to retire... all three of them are still retired, with steady live ins and one even has a child on the way.
I doubt your friend will have much luck and the dream is more like an acid flashback - but marriage is not necessarily the key to being happy so hopefully she will at least, find that.
Good comment. There's no formula for human happiness, but I still wonder how much being a provider constricts future choices and dreams, despite the financial advantages. When we were in our 20s, I'd bet a lot of us saw life as full of limitless possibilities. Some fulfill their early promise and make it, but most don't. But having attractive choices and choosing the best one, making the most of the journey, learning from mistakes and disappointments and compensating for the inevitable downsides and declines, are what's life's about, imo. Is this any different for successful providers, especially in the post-work choices available to them?
I recently renewed acquaintance, after a period of about 10-years, with two providers i knew who had "retired."
One bought a small business, which i assume [?] is not doing as well as it should. The other got married but the union ended after 7 years. They're both working together, which is fitting, since the latter provider worked for the former provider when i met her, but later went independent.
Both are mature providers, in their 40s, and the latter of the two is still a knockout latina MILF. I guess it's not easy for her, as she probably has no marrketable job skills and may not be getting an adequate alimony settlement [if she gets one at all]. Still, her standard of living seems to exceed mine, so go figure.
I am coming out of retirement. I miss my independence plain and simple. I finally realize that the "white picket fence" I thought I wanted was a jail. Being married is not for everyone. The need women feel to marry is all a crock that is sold to us as children.