"All you need is love." That's what the Beatles said, and it remains a pretty tempting. It doesn't matter how rich your husband is, right? If you love someone it doesn't matter if he's a jobless pauper—you'll make it work, somehow. Well, the Beatles didn't live through the recession of the late aughts—and some of today's women are realizing that their relationships are more dependent on money than they once believed.

Esther Martinez is one of these women. In an essay on The Daily Beast she reveals that ever since her boyfriend lost his job she's frustrated, resentful and wonders if her love is more conditional than she realized.  Her boyfriend is a doctor who regularly appeared on TV. When he loses his job he gets reacquainted with his creative side while Esther works two jobs she hates.

This ugliness is not lost on me. I know I should be thankful to even have a job, let alone two, that there are people out there worse off—people with mortgages, kids to feed, and diminishing retirement accounts. For once, I should be glad to not "have" anything. When I vent my frustrations to girlfriends, I feel like I'm betraying the man I love, and myself. After all, this is not the inspirational "despite hard times" talk people want to hear during economic crises.

Comments on these pieces have ranged from supportive ("I thought it was brave to blog this--it's honest.") to all-out nasty ("Why don't you just steal someone's nice, fat wallet and have sex with it, its obvious you neither want nor deserve a man.") Many people wrote to say they were in a similar situation.