Tag Archives: husbands

When Being Widowed is a Relief

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In the seminars I used to give about financial intimacy in marriage, some women confessed to social taboos they had never even shared with their friends. For example, one woman said” the nicest thing my husband did for me was die and save me the trouble of divorcing him.” Or the caregiver wife who admitted ‘he’s taking too long to die”. I remember also the financially abused wives who paid for the seminar in cash because they were afraid to write a check or put the seminar cost on their credit cards.

The stories we tell ourselves about why we do the things we do keep us from having to face some uncomfortable truths about ourselves. I did it too.

Like so many women I’ve met, my marriage had a public face and a private face. It endured because of protective fictions on my part that ate away at me slowly but steadily. Those fictions enabled the relationship to function.

It wasn’t until after I was widowed that I could admit to myself how relieved I was to be free of the financial risks and pressures I felt during our marriage. These years of being on my own have allowed me to live without the distorting filter of my husband’s preferences and dreams.

I was lucky; I had prepared financially to be a widow. If I had not taken the steps I write about in my book, I would never have recovered financially or emotionally from the burden of his death. I would never have forgiven him for risking my future safety to achieve his dreams. Protective fictions would have kept me from admitting that widowhood has given me a chance to live my own life.

 

The “I Really Love You” Valentine

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Here’s an idea for Valentine’s Day that you husbands may not have considered. Unlike many of the gifts you’ve been conditioned to equate with love, this gift won’t cost you any money . In fact, you will reap rewards far beyond your expectations. It’s the gift of financial intimacy with your wife.

How do you give this gift of financial intimacy? Technically, it’s not so much a gift as a restoration of basic marital rights. When you’re a married couple, each of you has the right to know what’s going on financially in the marriage. You’re a legal partnership and partners share financial information.

A financial intimacy valentine will show your wife that she is an equal partner in your marriage. This gift is exceptionally welcomed by wives whose husbands control the marital finances and don’t want their wife messing around in them.

So here’s my idea. Buy your beloved wife the chocolates, flowers and an inexpensive bauble that won’t stretch your joint budget .
When you say “I love you’, prove it. Open the financial records and bare all.

Tell your wife that you want her to know everything that’s going on financially in your marriage in case something happens to you. Tell her you don’t want her to be in a financial mess if she finds herself having to cope on her own. Share your password on the computer if your financial records are stored on it.

That’s love. It’s says you’re a team. That’s financial intimacy. In my book, it beats jewelry you bought on credit cards that she’ll be paying off with you long after Valentine’s Day is over.

Abusers Hide Behind Valentines

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Valentine’s Day will soon be here accompanied by the buying frenzy of flowers, jewelry, sexy lingerie, chocolates and other gifts we’ve been told equate with love.

Culturally, women are so conditioned to respond to Valentine’s Day that even in financially abusive relationships, receiving a Valentine gift or card from their  lover or spouse renews a woman’s hope for a loving future together.

Women tell themselves “he must love me, look at that lovely card and present, he wouldn’t do that for me if he didn’t love me”, and so on. They might think “he’s sorry about the things he’s done, and now he’s showing me he loves me by making Valentine’s Day special for us.”

I wish that was true. Unfortunately, that’s romantic thinking, not reality. A financial abuser before Valentine’s Day is the same financial abuser afterwards. He’s just buying time until the next round.

In public, this abuser can be charming, an upstanding member of the community, the life of the party. Privately, he may be a control freak with the intent to isolate his wife into a state of total financial dependence.

That’s why it’s important for women to understand that financial control can be a precursor to future physical abuse. Women find out too late that the husband or boyfriend who won’t talk about money is saying “I’m in charge here and I refuse to discuss it”.

Signs of Financial Abuse

Controlling the finances.
Withholding money or credit cards.
Giving you an allowance.
Making you account for every penny you spend.
Stealing from you or using your money without asking.
Exploiting your assets for personal gain
Withholding basic necessities (food, clothes, medications, shelter).
Preventing you from working or choosing your own career.
Sabotaging your job (making you miss work or calling constantly, etc.)

Remember: A financial abuser before Valentines Day is the same financial abuser the day after.
If something about your relationship with your husband or partner scares you and you need to talk, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or go to Http://www.nrcdv.org

Control Freak or Financial Abuser?

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I’ve written about this before, but I keep meeting women who can’t tell the difference between a controlling husband and a financially abusive one. Many wives admit to fears they had while they were still engaged. They married anyway, thinking that their husband’s financially controlling behavior would change after the wedding.

Financial control can be a precursor to financially abusive behavior. A husband controls the purse strings, refusing to share financial information with his wife but expecting that she account for every choice and every penny spent.

Many wives suffer in silence, telling themselves that their husband’s controlling behavior is a personality quirk.They may still have access to joint finances, reasonable mobility and buying choices. They may be frustrated by their husband’s attitude and behavior, but they don’t live with a gnawing sense of fear.

Financial abuse is different. It is behavior designed to isolate a woman into a state of  financial dependence and fear. The most important thing to remember about financial abuse is that the abuser is not out of control. He can, at the drop of a hat, change his behavior to suit the social circumstances. He can be charming and persuasive, but his objective is to isolate his partner and make her dependence on him total.He is deliberately choosing to control his partner’s behavior by cutting off her access to money, mobility and choice.

Financial abuse can often lead to physical abuse as well. It happens within all age ranges, educational levels, ethnic backgrounds, and financial levels. The rich socialite who lives in the largest house in the best neighborhood is as likely to be a victim of financial abuse as the poorest wife in the toughest section of town.

The thing to remember about financial abuse is that it often precedes emotional, verbal and ultimately physical abuse. Here are some signs to watch out for:

Controlling the finances.

Withholding money or credit cards.

Giving you an allowance.

Making you account for every penny you spend.

Stealing from you or taking your money.

Using your assets for his personal benefit.

Withholding basic necessities (food, clothes, medications, shelter).

Preventing you from working or choosing your own career.

Sabotaging your job (making you miss work or calling constantly, etc.)

If something about your relationship with your husband or partner scares you and you need to talk, you can get help by contacting the following:

National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or go to http://www.nrcdv.org.

This website lists the numbers and locations of domestic violence hotlines for the 50 states.

Marriage Ties Your Hands

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Amazing the number of things you can’t do if you’re married.

No matter how much you may want to, if you’re married, you can’t undertake estate planning on her own. You can’t write your husband’s will.

You can’t take his medical exam for life insurance or long-term care insurance. You can’t be his health care proxy if he doesn’t assign you durable powers of attorney to make medical decisions for him. The same holds true for financial decisions.

You need your husband’s cooperation to protect yourself against what you would face if he were disabled or died.

If your husband is in denial about his mortality, and shrugs off the likelihood of unexpected events that can happen to anyone, anytime, your hands are tied.

You can’t make your husband want to protect your financial interests in case your marriage ends. If it ends in divorce, he’s not the person most concerned about you. If it ends in death, it’s too late to do anything constructive about your financial situation.

You expect him to want to protect you because he says he loves you – and isn’t that what marriage is all about. But let’s get real. A marriage is as much a legal and financial partnership with obligations on both sides. Because love assumes many forms, we can rarely be sure we’re ascribing the same characteristics to your love and his love.

If he won’t cooperate with you to get you the financial protection you need, it’s safe to assume that his definition of love doesn’t match yours. He might bring you flowers, buy you jewels, romance you on Valentine’s Day, but financial protection for you and the kids really shows love is at the top of his agenda.

Husbands, Financial Advisors and Trust

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A woman called into a talk show where the topic was marital fidelity.Saying she was done with men, the caller ended her commentary by asking “If you can’t trust the person who takes a marriage vow with you, who can you trust?”

I thought about her question as it applies to financial advice. Financial advisors don’t disclose any conflict of interest before taking us on as a client. We can’t check a track record because the names of clients are confidential. We have no way of knowing how well the advisor does in an economic downturn. In an industry rife with conflict of interest abuses, some of which we know, others that we don’t, we would do well to get as much information as we can before we entrust our money to any financial advisor.

When the economy is good, and the market is up, financial advisors can play the hero. When there’s a downturn, they can hold our hand as we rue our losses. The truth is we’re working on trust when we place our money with a firm or individual whose mantra is “past performance is no indication of future results”. The framed certificates on the advisor’s office wall testify to completion of a course of study, not a grade for performance.

Trust is the operating system when we don’t have full knowledge about another person. That certainly is the case when we’re dealing with a  financial advisor. However, when it comes to marriage, which requires no study, no training and nothing but a vow, trust is used interchangeably with love. Unfortunately, love is not a course of study and no one gets a diploma.

From Wife to Widow in a Second

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Could you become one of the women in the statistics listed below? Absolutely. I was.

Demographers estimate that 1.25 million women will be widowed annually by 2040.

The average age a woman is widowed is 56.

There are currently 11.3 million widows and 2.6 million widowers.

700,000 women are widowed every year.

80% of women live longer than their husband

The average widow outlives her husband by 14 years.

Nearly 50% of women over 65 and 32% over 55 are widows.

Source: http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/acs-13.pdf

I became a widow in a second when my husband died in an accident. That’s why I’m so passionate about wanting you to understand everything about your money before a crisis hits you.

Is your husband handling your marital finances? You need to get involved, participate, understand the whole financial picture. If you’re caught in the statistical profile, not knowing about your money will make life even harder for you. Here’s what you should do right now:

Explain to your husband that you’re worried about how you would cope on your own if something happened to him. (Show him the statistics I listed above.)

Tell your husband how much you appreciate everything he does for you and your life together. This is vitally important. You want his cooperation, not a confrontation. You don’t want him to feel you don’t trust him. It’s not about trust – you’re looking for information and participation.

Review your entire financial picture- everything you own, everything you owe. Know where your husband keeps the financial records, how to access them and what they mean! Be sure the information is up-to-date.

Make sure your husband has sufficient life insurance with you as the beneficiary. CONFIRM THAT THE PREMIUM PAYMENTS ARE PAID ON TIME! If even one payment is late, that will cancel the policy.

Draw up a will, a revocable trust with you as executor and trustee and the powers of attorney for health care and financial decisions. Get the help of a legal professional to make sure you’re doing it right. If you miss even one thing, that might invalidate all of them.

Don’t count on anyone else to take care of these things for you. No one has a higher stake in understanding your money than you do!

 

Trust, Husbands and Financial Advisors

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A woman called into a talk show where the topic was marital fidelity.Saying she was done with men, the caller ended her commentary by asking “If you can’t trust the person who takes a marriage vow with you, whom can you trust?”

I thought about her question as it applies to two professions dealing with money- financial advice and accounting. No financial advisor takes a vow before taking us on as a client. We can’t check a track record because the names of clients are confidential. We have no way of knowing how well the advisor does in an economic downturn.

Bottom line, we’re working on trust – giving our money to a firm or individual whose caveat is that past performance is no indication of future results and counsels us on the risks of investment. The certificates on the office wall testify to completion of a course of study, not a grade for performance.

The same holds true for the accounting profession. Most accountants are good at what they do. But they depend on accurate input from us to help us with our tax return. The accountant signs the return based on trust that we’ve provided all the information we’re required to provide. If we’re filing a joint tax return and most of the financial information is handled by our husband because we don’t “do taxes”, we have to trust he has provided accurate information.

Trust is involved in a transaction with someone when we do not have full knowledge about them, their intent, and the things they are offering us. However, when it comes to marriage, which requires no study, no training and nothing but a vow, trust is used interchangeably with love. Unfortunately, love is not a course of study and no one gets a diploma in the subject.