Financial Collapse and Mental Illness

I recently spoke with a 39-year-old woman who told me she is looking for a husband and wants to have children. She wants a man of means who works remotely and can move to follow her in her nascent career as a healthy beauty products entrepreneur. She expects him to buy her a home on the beach and prioritize holidays with her family, who lives on the east coast. 

She is insane.

In other areas of thought, she displayed a high level of intelligence, reason, and perceptive observation of the culture around her. She has been struggling financially, though, since moving to Los Angeles 10 years ago. Her plan is to move within a year, if she doesn’t find a husband who matches her criteria.

I believe she has lost the ability to think clearly in the domain of relationships due to chronic and worsening financial stress, which is endemic to all middle-class Americans today. These Americans know that they are under attack and that the outlook is bleak. Yet they are largely dealing with the unfolding catastrophe by either generating fantasies or simply withdrawing from life.

One of the greatest casualties of the post-2020 period has been the elimination of the American middle class. It has been systematic. Exorbitant taxes, price-fixing in the housing market, failure to educate K-12 and beyond, misandrist family courts, and anti-child policies and rhetoric have all contributed to a hollowing out of the financial middle, forcing more Americans into a state of perpetual poverty and reliance on government.