[kj] OT: Times are tough: Rich people cutting back on mistresses

[B. Oliver Sheppard]

[via Gawker]

http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2008/11/18/rich-cut-back-on-payments-to-mistresses/



Rich Cut Back on Payments to Mistresses

You know times are tough when the rich start cutting costs on their 
mistresses.

According to a new survey by Prince & Assoc., more than 80% of 
multimillionaires who had extra-marital lovers planned to cut back on 
their gifts and allowances. Still, only 12% of the multimillionaire 
cheaters said they plan to give up on their lovers altogether for 
financial reasons.

“Rich people are getting hit, and they’re all expressing the need to 
curtail unnecessary spending,” said Russ Alan Prince, president of 
Prince & Assoc., a wealth-research firm based in Connecticut. “Lovers 
are part of the same calculation.”

Of course, any study of millionaires and their mistresses should be 
taken with a large grain of salt. The survey–a subset of a larger wealth 
study–polled 191 individuals with a minimum net worth of $20 million who 
said they had lovers of at least a year or more (this to screen out the 
one-night stands, etc.). About two thirds of the respondents were men 
and one third women. All were married and all had personal control over 
their finances, meaning the women and men surveyed were the primary 
wealth holders in their homes.

The most surprising stats in the study relate to gender and what might 
be termed “length of service.” Fully 82% of men in the study said they 
planned to lower the allowances to their mistresses, while more than 
three quarters planned to provide fewer gifts, less expensive gifts and 
fewer perks, like jet rides, resort vacations and top restaurant meals.

Women were far more generous to their paramours in the face of financial 
crises. Less than 20% planned to lower allowances, gifts and perks, 
while more than half planned to raise them.

Susan Shapiro Barash, who teaches gender studies at Marymount Manhattan 
College and wrote “Little White Lies, Deep Dark Secrets,” about why 
women lie, said women value their lovers more than men in a time of 
economic trouble. “For the women, lovers matter more than ever now 
because the rest of life is so dreary,” she said. “For the men, they’re 
just cutting across the board.”

Ms. Barash added that women may value their lovers more today because 
their husbands are so miserable. “If your husband lost his job on Wall 
Street and he’s miserable, you need the escape,” she says.

The duration of the relationship also seems to play a role in the 
economics of high-end cavorting. The study found that more than two 
thirds of the millionaires who had been with their lovers for three or 
more years planned to cut back. That compares with less than half for 
those with a tenure of one to three years.

“What we found in talking to the respondents is that the magic of the 
relationship with their lover fades after a while, so they’re more 
willing to let them go,” Mr. Prince says.

The survey doesn’t mean to suggest that all, most or even a large 
minority of rich men and women have affairs. It simply is a snapshot of 
a certain sample at a certain time. Yet it suggests that in a time of 
financial crisis, it is better to be a kept man than a compensated woman.