If you have a business partner, you expect to share information about your business. However, most of us don’t think of our marriage as a business although it has an eerily similar structure minus, of course, the love, romance and illusion of living happily ever after.
Consider that a business has income, expenses, assets, liabilities, taxes and net worth.So does a marriage. That’s why marriages need financial intimacy.We don’t start a business or go into marriage expecting that it might fail. But both fail at alarmingly high rates, albeit for different reasons.
It’s counterintuitive to think about widowhood or divorce when you’re getting married. Few women do. But I’ve written over the years that letting one partner manage all the money sets the other partner up for financial vulnerability. Too often, the partner with her head in the sand is the woman.
Being in love often makes rational thinking difficult and we trusting creatures make certain romantic assumptions. For example, we assume our mate is making financial choices that will benefit us both. Sometimes he is; sometimes he isn’t. Sometimes he assumes we don’t want to be involved. Other times, he doesn’t want us to be involved.
Here’s the bottom line: In the nine community property states (http://tinyurl.com/3rtr5j4),husband and wife share responsibility for financial decisions.
Do I understand what my partner is doing financially?
Do we regularly discuss our finances together?
How would I manage if I were widowed or divorced?
Do I sign documents without understanding them?
Do I know the location of all our financial records?
These five questions will give you a head start on practicing financially safe marriage.
No comments:
Post a Comment