Excerpt from Chapter 1

I loved my husband and suffered agonizing trauma and loss after he died suddenly in an accident. But without the financial preparation I completed — some on my own, some with my husband — my life would have been dramatically different. I would never have recovered financially from the burden of his death. I would never have forgiven him for risking my future safety to achieve his dreams. And I might have felt guilty forever for all the things I hadn’t shared with him.

Today, I would never allow someone to make financial decisions for me without discussing the consequences of those actions first. I would insist on understanding anything I sign - a contract, an income tax return, and a letter of intent — that would obligate me financially. But I wasn’t like that during my two marriages. The first ended in divorce; the second ended in death.

Like so many other women I know, 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. I realize now how those fictions enabled the relationship to function.