Love without workplace dependence

Romantic culture loves stories in which love overcomes asymmetries of rank, age and money. In reality dependence mixes consent with fear of the consequences.

Relationships are especially risky where dependence is strong:

• manager and subordinate;
• teacher and student;
• doctor and patient;
• a financially dependent person and the one who controls the money;
• someone who decides about another’s housing, papers or career.

Even with sincere mutual interest, consent ends up mixed with fear of the consequences. If the relationship ends, the dependence remains.

In choosing a partner it is useful to look not only at the strength of the feeling but at the compatibility of ordinary life:

• whether you can negotiate;
• how the person behaves in a conflict;
• whether he keeps commitments;
• whether he is capable of caring for someone;
• how he treats those with less power;
• whether your views on money, children, fidelity and domestic life coincide.

The question “would I want to see this person as a parent to my children?” is useful even with no plans for children. It switches off the festive lighting for a moment and switches on an ordinary day.

But a person can be an excellent partner and unsuited to parenthood. So the question remains an instrument, not an exam with one correct answer.

Such relationships are worth testing not at the peak but against an imagined ending. When a manager-and-subordinate couple splits up, one of the two is still working under the other: leave, tasks, bonus and the reference on departure remain in somebody else’s hands. And the one who leaves is usually not the one with the power. The same goes for a flat in one person’s name, a work permit tied to an employer, and money that only one of them brings in.

Hence the awkward consequence: while the exit is expensive, consent cannot be told apart from calculation — including from the inside. A person does not always know himself whether he stays because he wants to or because there is nowhere to go.