Love With My Eyes Open

It has been a minute since I sat down to write, but this thought needed somewhere to live.

I am a woman in my early thirties, and I am working hard. Counting hours. Counting sessions. Picking up extra work. Doing the math, making sacrifices, and trying to build a life that gives me room to breathe. Financial freedom is something I can picture. I can see what I want to create, and some days, it feels like I am sprinting toward it.

So yes, when I am getting to know someone, I want to know where he is financially. What is he doing? What is he working toward? How does he handle responsibility? What kind of future does he imagine, and what is he doing to get there?

I do not believe those questions should count against me.

I agree that you should not love someone solely for their money or possessions. But somewhere along the way, wanting to understand a person’s financial life became something women were expected to defend. Ask about stability, and suddenly someone is ready to call you a gold digger.

Meanwhile, I am showing up for my own life every day. I am facing the music. I am putting in the hours. I am holding myself accountable for the future I say I want. It makes sense that I would want a partner who is doing the same.

I believe in love. I also believe that choosing a partner is a decision with real consequences. That person will affect my peace, my finances, my home, and the family I hope to build. I cannot pretend those things become irrelevant because I have feelings.

There is a difference between building a life with someone and standing beside him when life falls apart, and entering a relationship already knowing that our choices are pulling us in opposite directions.

If we have been working together, building together, and something happens, I believe in showing up. A job loss, an illness, a difficult season: those are moments when partnership matters. I want to be someone who stays, supports, and helps rebuild. I want that kind of love, and I want to give it.

But I also have a choice about the partnership I enter in the first place. I can care about someone and recognize that the life he is choosing does not fit the life I am working so hard to create.

I am no longer nineteen. I am not twenty-one or twenty-five. Butterflies still matter to me. Attraction matters. Romance matters. I am a love-love girl; that part of me is very much alive. But now I want to know what comes with those feelings. Is there stability? Is there security? Is there room for growth? Can we build a home, a family, and eventually generational wealth together?

I am ready for a partnership.

I do not expect someone my age to have every part of life figured out. I certainly have things I am still working through. But I do expect effort, intention, and some sense of direction. I want to see that getting things together matters to him, too. I need to hear more than what he hopes will happen someday; I need to understand what he is doing about it.

And I wish we gave girls more permission to ask those questions. We spend so much time telling them they can help someone grow, fix someone, or love someone into becoming ready. I want us to teach them to notice who is showing up now and to consider whether that person is ready to participate in the relationship they want.

For me, this comes from self-preservation. I know the work I have put into myself. I know the sacrifices behind the life I am building. Being thoughtful about who I bring into my world is one way I honor that work.

So yes, I have questions. I want to know your faith. Your education. Your employment situation. Your hopes and dreams. Your values and principles. I want to understand how you live and what you are moving toward.

And yes, height is probably somewhere around number six, after the other things I just listed. Let me have that.

But truly, I need to know that you have some stability or that you are actively working toward it. I need to know that we can talk honestly about money, responsibility, and our future. I need to know that the desire to build is shared.

I can be deeply romantic and make thoughtful decisions about my life. I can believe in standing beside a partner through hardship and take care in choosing that partner. Both belong in the kind of love I want.