| Welcome to Love & Wealth,
This week's interview is different. I sat down with a woman who was married for 21 years, raised two sons, and is now, as she puts it, better friends with her ex-husband than she ever was his wife.
The reality is that all marriages end in either in death or divorce. The purpose of Love& Wealth is to provide the wisdom make the most of the time we have together.
I believe there is as much to learn about the cases where a partnership dissolves as there is the cases where a marriage persists.
Jill’s story exemplifies what money does to a marriage, and what a marriage does to your money.
-Thomas
P.S. When I have enough of these stories I’m making it into a book. If you know a couple who would enjoy sharing their story on background, nominate them. Click Here |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| How They MetJill was in her early thirties, single, living in Austin and had never been skiing when she signed up for a group trip with some of her co-workers.
Jack, five years younger and freshly transplanted from the East Coast, was on the same trip with people from his job.
While away skiing, Jill learned her car had been stolen. She stayed on the trip anyway. As she said "Why pay extra money to come back early when the car's still gonna be gone?"
By the end of the week she realized she was in trouble getting to work back in Austin without a car. Luckily, the ski group rallied and organized a carpool until she could figure something out.
Jack was one of the people who voulentered to drive her. He was, in her words, keen on her.
They started dating in February 1989, got enguaged 6 months later and were married on Leap Day 1992, in Austin.
From her telling, their honeymoon in Belize was a flop.
It was hot, the infrastructure was thin, and the trip never quite recovered.
Looking back, Jill sees what went wrong. It was in what they hadn't said. She was the adventurer. He went along with it and did not love it. "Super bad planning and communication," she said. "Why didn't you tell me?"
It was a small thing. It was also a pattern. |
|
|
|
The System That Worked, Until It Didn'tJack was the software engineer and supported the household. Jill left paid work to raise their two boys, Kevin and Kyle.
That made him the one who, as she puts it, "pretty much had the final say" on money.
She went into that arrangement with her eyes open and trusted him completely, because he was smart, had savings before they met, and lived by good rules. Never carry a credit card balance. Never pay the bank interest.
The trouble was the gap between what he knew and what he did. "He's an interesting hybrid," she told me, "knowing what the right thing to do is, but also being addicted to spending money." They were honest about their spending priorities.
Their running joke was eating out. "I stink at cooking," Jill laughed. "We'd talk about the budget, and then we'd go eat out." They failed at that one together, repeatedly, but because they were in agreement, it was never a big deal.
They valued experiences over materials. Disney trips, cruses, affordable resorts, and family time they would not trade for anything.
They agreed on saving for the future too. The problem was never the plan. It was the follow-through.
Here is where two people who earn well and know better can still feel behind, and it is one of the most common money stories I hear. They knew what to do. They just kept putting it off. |
|
| |
What They SalvagedThe marriage did not end in a blowup. There was no screaming, no infidelity, no single fight to point to.
"The good things deteriorated some, and the bad things never got better," Jill said. "A fatal combination."
They drifted on values and outlook, tried to make themselves fit, and slowly stopped growing in the same direction. They stayed together a few more years for the boys, then divorced when the younger one finished high school.
Their separation was amicable, there was never hate for one another. They skipped court and used mediation. They split the cost of raising the boys and getting them through college. And they stayed close.
"We make much better friends than we did spouses," she said. They still help each other when they can, not from guilt, but because the affection never fully left.
This is where the money reality gets stark. Jill had been out of the workforce for two decades.
When the divorce finalized she sent out 40 resumes, got one interview, and started over as a receptionist for $17,000 a year.
Jack, meanwhile, kept earning and later inherited from his parents.
Same marriage, very different landings.
Her hardest-won lesson comes from that gap: "Your own labor is your only guaranteed way to take care of yourself, and you are in charge of taking care of yourself." She is not anti-marriage.
She is pro-independence and self-sufficiency, married or not. |
|
|
|
Earned WisdomAsk Jill what she'd tell couples and she splits them in two groups.
For people considering marriage, she borrows a line from an old friend: "Talk about it sooner and have more fun."
Early on, before anyone is ready to commit, sit down and get honest about the ten things that actually matter to you.
Its not a debate, not a negotiation toward consensus. Just your real gut answers, laid next to theirs.
She called it values clarification. Those core values rarely change, so if they don't line up, "it's better to walk away sooner than later."
For people already married, her advice turns to money, and she does not soften it. She and Jack knew they should be funding their retirement accounts consistently, and they simply didn't.
"Procrastination is a killer," she said. "Do not procrastinate those things. Just bite the bullet and do it." Whether you stay together or not, that discipline pays you back.
As an example, she shared: an old employer auto-enrolled her in a retirement plan she barely understood, put in a small amount, and years later it had grown to tens of thousands of dollars she never would have saved on her own.
Her mother's Depression-era voice stayed in her ear the whole time: never spend the principal, only spend the interest.
Her cleanest summary of the whole thing is worth sitting with. Jack was a good provider and a good father, "an okay husband," but a bad match. She was a good wife and a bad match too.
Loving couples make it easier for each other, and these two, in the end, did that best by admitting they were better as teammates than as spouses, and protecting what mattered: their sons and their friendship. |
|
|
|
Your Relationship BuilderThis week, borrow Jill's idea and run your own values clarification conversation with your partner. Pour something to drink, put the phones away, and each write down the answers before you compare. The goal is not agreement. The goal is honesty.
Five prompts to work through together: If one of us lost our income tomorrow, what is our actual plan for the next six months? Are we both contributing to retirement right now, and if not, what is stopping us this month? What do we value spending on with zero guilt, and what do we keep fighting about? If we imagine ourselves at 65, what do we each want our money to have made possible?
|
|
|
Hit reply and let me know what came up. I read every response. |
|
| | Until next time, Thomas Anzivino Managing Director
@ Longitude
Financial Planning | P.S. When was the last time you had a financial checkup? Schedule a meeting and get a free one-page report of your financial vital signs. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| | Click below to schedule a no obligation call: |
|
| | | |
|
|
|
| |
|
