Love and 'Real' Diamonds

Can he really love you if he buys you a ‘fake’ diamond?

What is a ‘real’ diamond? Chemically, it’s a collection of tiny crystals of carbon which take millions of years to form. Physically, the diamond is a stone. Financially, it’s expensive. Emotionally, it’s become the symbol of love.

When diamond prices collapsed during the Great Depression, an advertising agency came up with the idea of linking diamonds to love. The larger the diamond, the greater the love.

Romancing the stone was a huge success, forever instilling in the consciousness of men and women that a diamond engagement ring means ‘real’ love and is a prerequisite to marriage.

Scientists now make diamonds in the laboratory by crushing carbon, graphite and a ‘diamond’ seed in a pressure cooker. Four days later, the crushed core is removed to reveal a man-made diamond inside. Identical to a mined diamond on all counts – structurally, optically and chemically.

Emotionally? Here lie the dragons.

Tiffany runs full page ads showing a diamond ring with the caption  “This is What Love Looks Like” and  “A Diamond is Forever’. Love is linked to this cluster of carbon – with no intrinsic value other than that it cost a lot to buy it.

I wonder how long it will take the ‘fake’ diamond industry to create an alternative narrative so couples can learn to start saving money before they marry.

Any ideas for an advertising campaign?

Trust, Husbands and Financial Advisors

A woman called into a talk show where the topic was marital fidelity.Saying she was done with men, the caller ended her commentary by asking "If you can't trust the person who takes a marriage vow with you, whom can you trust?"

I thought about her question as it applies to two professions dealing with money- financial advice and accounting. No financial advisor takes a vow before taking us on as a client. We can't check a track record because the names of clients are confidential. We have no way of knowing how well the advisor does in an economic downturn.

Bottom line, we're working on trust - giving our money to a firm or individual whose caveat is that past performance is no indication of future results and counsels us on the risks of investment. The certificates on the office wall testify to completion of a course of study, not a grade for performance.

The same holds true for the accounting profession. Most accountants are good at what they do. But they depend on accurate input from us to help us with our tax return. The accountant signs the return based on trust that we've provided all the information we're required to provide. If we're filing a joint tax return and most of the financial information is handled by our husband because we don't "do taxes", we have to trust he has provided accurate information.

Trust is involved in a transaction with someone when we do not have full knowledge about them, their intent, and the things they are offering us. However, when it comes to marriage, which requires no study, no training and nothing but a vow, trust is used interchangeably with love. Unfortunately, love is not a course of study and no one gets a diploma in the subject.

Bag Lady Fears: Rational and Persistent

Men, whether successful or not, don’t seem to worry about becoming destitute in their old age, invisible, unloved, roaming the streets, scrounging in garbage cans for food. But irrational as it may seem, successful women also suffer from bag lady fears.

Katie Couric, Gloria Steinem and Lily Tomlin admit to sharing this fear of becoming a bag lady. So did 48 percent of the 1,938 high earning women polled by Allianz Life Insurance in a 2006 poll. A stunning 90 percent of these high earners admitted to feeling financially insecure.

Many married women don’t have a history of understanding or managing money. They're not used to seeing the bigger picture. They think their husband is better at making the ‘really big’ money decisions. While they balance the household budget and decide what to buy, he handles the investments. If the marriage ends, they don't understand what he was doing financially. Often they find themselves responsible for financial decisions he made without their knowledge or participation.

The bottom line? Wives' financial decisions revolve around money spent and gone, not invested for growth.

Bag lady fears may be emotionally irrational for financially secure Katie, Gloria and Lily. Their fears relate to being out of control, of feeling weak and fearful that they can't make it on their own. For them, these are childhood tapes and no longer based on reality.

But for millions of women, divorce or widowhood is the wake-up call that they have to start thinking differently about money. Four in 10 marriages end before the 30th wedding anniversary. Only 16% of married women have a financial “Plan B” in case of divorce. The average age a woman is widowed is 56. Her average longevity is 84.

Every woman who isn't in charge of her financial life is at risk of being a bag lady if someone is planning her future. That makes the bag lady syndrome a rational fear which requires paying attention to now.

Financial Intimacy: The Business of Marriage

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.

It's Not about the Money

I once attended a workshop about money and the meaning of life. One of the exercises we did was chew a new $100 bill. Most of us gagged.

The purpose of the exercise was to demonstrate that money – the thing itself – is neutral. Pieces of paper, diamonds, chunks of gold and other things to which we assign worth have no inherent value in nourishing us, keeping us warm, or sheltering us.  In this exercise, money even turned out to be disgusting.

I returned from that workshop with a deeper understanding of how money is a vehicle of exchange for a wide variety of other things. It’s a mirror against which we see ourselves compared to others. It’s a metaphor we use to assign value to a person or thing. It shapes our identity, expanding or restricting access to  dreams and ambitions. Some people marry for it; others kill to get it.

Perhaps most important, money is leverage – the ability to shape our life based on “want to” choices rather than “have to” ones. It’s this leverage aspect of money that is often a trap in marriage.

The reality is, whoever controls the money in marriage calls the shots. That’s why it’s so important for you to participate and understand your marital finances. If you’re not involved, if you don’t want to be bothered with such an unromantic thing as money, if you’re too busy, or too trusting, you're being naive.

Can money make your marriage happier? It might, but not if you're at the wrong end of the lever.

Financially Safe Marriage

If you have a business partner, you expect to share information about that business. However, most of us don’t think of marriage as a business even though it has an eerily similar financial structure.

A business has income, expenses, assets, liabilities, taxes and net worth.So does a marriage. That’s why marriages, like businesses, 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.

We trusting creatures make certain romantic assumptions about marriage. 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. I say 'he' because, most of the time, the uninvolved partner is a 'she'.

Here’s the bottom line: If you live in one of the nine community property states*,you and your marital partner share responsibility for financial decisions. The following five questions will give you a head start on practicing financially safe marriage...and business.

Do I understand what my partner is doing financially?

Do we regularly discuss our finances together?
Do I sign documents without understanding them?

Do I know the location of all our financial records?
How would I manage if I were widowed or divorced?

.
*Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin

Financial Intimacy: Five Points about Marriage

You romantics out there may not be happy with this blog. You may consider it in your face, the ranting of a realist , a cynic or worse, a misandrist . I apologize for shattering your illusions.

Marrying for Money 2011 Style

Marrying for money is back in style. Well, at least it's not the dirty little secret it used to be. There's a spate of new books to advise women who want to marry rich how to get their man.The recent issue of Town & Country Magazine devotes a whole issue to love, marriage and money.

None of the writers about love are sure what it is. They know what marriage is, and while no one openly admits that they married for money, most people aren't fooled when they meet the mate. For example, does anyone think that the 24-year-old engaged to Hugh Hefner, 60 years her senior, is marrying him to build a life together?

Daphne Merkin, rethinking her own refusal to marry for money, writes "If the man is rich enough, one overlooks - everything. He can be bald, hairy, have a stomach that hangs like an apron and be really under-endowed." She summarizes,"...there's a lot you'll have to stomach along the way but it will be easier if you keep your eye on the bottom line."

I've met women who won't admit that they married for money, but freely confess that they stay married because of the money. I remember a woman in one of my seminars who said “Am I happily married? That's beside the point. I know what I’ve got – and at least he has money." Many of the other women agreed with her. Another woman said  "Don't you feel like you sold your soul just for the money?"

Is there a difference between going in for the money and staying in for money? Is it wrong to feel that money makes someone more interesting? If marriage buys you a lifestyle you want, are you selling your soul if you’re opting for security and stability over romantic love and passion?

What would you tell your daughter?

Marrying for money is back in style. Well, at least it's not the dirty little secret it used to be. There's a spate of new books to advise women who want to marry rich how to get their man.The recent issue of Town & Country Magazine devotes a whole issue to love, marriage and money.

None of the writers about love are sure what it is. They know what marriage is, and while no one openly admits that they married for money, most people aren't fooled when they meet the mate. For example, does anyone think that the 24-year-old engaged to Hugh Hefner, 60 years her senior, is marrying him to build a life together?

Daphne Merkin, rethinking her own refusal to marry for money, writes "If the man is rich enough, one overlooks - everything. He can be bald, hairy, have a stomach that hangs like an apron and be really under-endowed." She summarizes,"...there's a lot you'll have to stomach along the way but it will be easier if you keep your eye on the bottom line."

I've met women who won't admit that they married for money, but freely confess that they stay married because of the money. I remember a woman in one of my seminars who said “Am I happily married? That's beside the point. I know what I’ve got – and at least he has money." Many of the other women agreed with her. Another woman said  "Don't you feel like you sold your soul just for the money?"

Is there a difference between going in for the money and staying in for money? Is it wrong to feel that money makes someone more interesting? If marriage buys you a lifestyle you want, are you selling your soul if you’re opting for security and stability over romantic love and passion?

What would you tell your daughter?