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.