Source: Netflix / Netflix
I’ve always loved television. But never have I been more grateful for this form of entertainment than over the past year and a half when many of us were stuck in the house looking for an escape from our four walls and all of the tragedy and turmoil that seemed to be erupting daily outside.
Television has been good to me. And thankfully, the quality of content has only increased in the first half of 2021.
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been watching old favorites and a couple of brand new sitcoms, including “The Upshaws,” starring Kim Fields, Wanda Sykes and Mike Epps on Netflix and more recently “Run The World” with Bresha Webb, Andrea Bordeaux, Corbin Reid and Amber Stevenson on Starz.
The shows are worlds apart. For those who haven’t watched yet, “The Upshaws,” is about a Black, blended family who have to consistently overcome betrayal and bad decisions in order to stick together. It’s raw. (They cuss and use the N word on the show.) It’s messy. And as an Indianapolis native, where the show is based, I can say it’s an authentic representation of some folk I know.
Meanwhile “Run The World,” is about four Black women in their thirties in varying stages of romantic relationship failure. There’s the woman trying to get over her troublesome but ever-present ex. The woman engaged in an inappropriate relationship with her professor. The woman who is questioning her decision to get married and Bresha Webb’s character, Renee, who is trying to decide whether to stand by her husband or run for the hills.
And this is where “Run The World” and “The Upshaws” overlap. While the Upshaws are working class, Renee and her husband have more than usual, though they’re still living beyond their means.
Just one of the central conflicts between these married couples has to do with money—and husbands feeling entitled to it.
If you haven’t seen either of these shows, this is where you might want to tap out as spoilers are sure to follow.
In “The Upshaws,” Kim Fields’ character Regina has been saving to pay for graduate school. She’s reached a ceiling at her job and has learned that the only way to be promoted is to get a master’s. The more responsible partner in her marriage, she saves for months to be able to afford the tuition. She must have put the money in a joint account. Because when her husband Bennie gets into a jam at his mechanic shop, he takes the money in order to pay for repairs to a rich, white man’s character to avoid the insurance companies and protect his baby mama.
Issa lot.
Bennie is the portrayed as the screw up on the show. He’s generally a day late and a dollar short, doing something wrong and not recognizing the gravity of his actions until it’s too late and feelings have been hurt.
I watched recognizing that for Bennie’s character extreme bad behavior is kind of his thing. After all, he fathered a whole child in the middle of his marriage. You would think that a man who had put his wife through that would be on his Ps and Qs. Still, it wasn’t too much of a stretch given who he is.
I said I’ve met and known people like the Upshaws but to my knowledge I’ve never heard of a man stealing money from his wife—particularly when he knew she was saving it for something important and he had no plan of how to replace it.
Terrible. And for all the work they’d done to rebuild trust after the birth of his child during their marriage, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Regina put him out of the house. And he’s been fighting to get back in her good graces ever since.
Like I said, Bennie is prone to acting up so I could understand this from him.
But then on “Run The World,” Renee dealt with her husband stealing too and I had to wonder—is this a thing really happening out in the world.
Renee’s husband was a successful businessman working in finance. But somewhere along the line, he decided to wanted to pursue his passion in managing musical artists. He quit his job to manage a band he believes in and Renee supported that decision. She became the breadwinner to allow her man to follow his dream. While she was less than thrilled about the decision and probably complained along the way, she did it.
But in an attempt to continue supporting his band, Renee’s husband took all of the money from their mutual fund.
To make a bad situation worse, when Renee confronted her husband for taking her money, he said, “Oh, so now it’s your money.”
It was their money. But it became his when he made the decision to spend all of it by himself without consulting her.
And just because he had access to the account and his name was one of two on the account, it doesn’t mean that what he did by withdrawing all of it, without his wife’s knowledge wasn’t stealing.
My question is, where they do dat at?
We’ve all heard countless stories of boyfriends taking advantage of women looking to be validated. There are hobosexuals who only engage in romantic relationships to find shelter. There are men who take their girlfriend’s car during the day. Or women who loan men money they’ll never see again. It’s a common story.
What we hear less about is husbands stealing from their wives.
And while it might be implemented in a couple of sitcoms, it’s technically a form of financial abuse.
While we know about physical, emotional and even psychological abuse in relationships, we rarely discuss financial abuse.
But that’s what it is.
I don’t know what the future holds for these characters. But in real life, is financial abuse something that can be overcome in a marriage? Or is it like physical and emotional abuse where the best solution might be to leave that person?
How do you overcome such a betrayal of trust? There’s always therapy and professional help.
But what type of work goes into restoring the trust it takes to combine finances with a partner who has been deceitful with your money?
