Letter from a Young Widow

I received this email a few days ago. My heart goes out to this young widow whose world has just collapsed around her.

I am a young widow coping with grief, trying to understand finances, and raise 3 young children alone. I do not really understand and frankly have a lot of fear around the whole area of my finances.

In addition, I have little time to spend learning as I am on "overload" caring for my children while living with the stress and trauma of my loss. As I am sure you have heard hundreds of times, my husband"took care of everything" financial. I feel helpless,inadequate, and afraid when it comes to these very important matters. I do not know and understand my finances and options as I look ahead. This causes me a lot of anxiety and the longer I do not understand the worse I feel about it. “

Most of the financial information to help widows comes when it’s too late to plan with their husband. Grief severely impairs the ability to learn anything new. When you're widowed, you also assume management of your finances, which, like the young woman above, is often a mystery, thus making you vulnerable to bad advice from family and friends.

So why isn't talking, understanding and participating in your marital finances one of your top priorities? The average age a woman is widowed is 56. That means a lot of young widows are struggling with the same pain, fear and helplessness as the woman who emailed me.

Of course I'll send her a book and help her with advice. But how much easier it would have been for her if she had read my book before her husband died.