Control Freak or Financial Abuse?

I've written about this before, but women I know keep running into it. It bears repeating.

One of the earliest signs of future abusive behavior in marriage is financial control. A husband controls the purse strings, refusing to share financial information with his wife but expecting that she account for every choice and every penny spent.

Many wives suffer in silence, telling themselves that their husband?s controlling behavior is a personality quirk.They may still have access to joint finances, reasonable mobility and buying choices. They are frustrated by their husband?s attitude and behavior, but they don?t live with a gnawing sense of fear.

Financial abuse is different.

It is behavior designed to isolate a woman into a state of complete financial dependence. The most important thing to remember about financial abuse is that the abuser is not out of control. He can, at the drop of a hat, change his behavior to suit the social circumstances. He can be charming and persuasive, but his objective is to isolate his partner and make her dependence on him total.He is deliberately choosing to control his partner's behavior by cutting off her access to money, mobility and choice.

Financial abuse can often lead to physical abuse as well. It happens within all age ranges, educational levels, ethnic backgrounds, and financial levels. The rich socialite who lives in the largest house in the best neighborhood is as likely to be a victim of financial abuse as the poorest wife in the toughest section of town.

The thing to remember about financial abuse is that it often precedes emotional, verbal and ultimately physical abuse. Here are some signs to watch out for:

Controlling the finances.

Withholding money or credit cards.

Giving you an allowance.

Making you account for every penny you spend.

Stealing from you or taking your money.

Using your assets for his personal benefit.

Withholding basic necessities (food, clothes, medications, shelter).

Preventing you from working or choosing your own career.

Sabotaging your job (making you miss work or calling constantly, etc.)

If something about your relationship with your husband or partner scares you and you need to talk, you can get help by contacting the following:

National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or go to http://www.nrcdv.org .
This website lists the numbers and locations of domestic violence hotlines for the 50 states.

If I Had A Year to Live...

When I was younger, I made New Year resolutions only to have them evaporate after a few weeks. Using a matrix of goals, timetable, action plan and reward system, I would track my progress. I don’t do that anymore.

Realizing that life is too short for everything, I struggled with how to maintain a balance between what I like to do and what I felt I ought to do. I came up with a formula that works better for me.
If I had a year to live, would I spend 15 minutes doing this?

It works for me in situations where I have a choice. For example, how do I want to spend my time? Do I really want to be on that committee, attend that lecture or class, learn to play bridge? If I’m not actively enthusiastic about something or someone, I don’t do it.

I don’t have to beat myself up about the choice because for me, it’s obvious. One year, 15 minutes? Yes or no.

In situations where I don’t have a choice, there’s no conflict. I might procrastinate a little, but I do it because I know I’ll feel good afterward.

Try the formula. You can do it all year round without keeping track of anything. If it doesn’t work for you, you can always go back to resolutions.

If you knew you had only one year left to live , would you spend 15 minutes making New Year resolutions?

Happy 2012. May whatever you wish for be yours.

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.

Marriage Doesn't Fix Problems

There’s nothing inherently natural about marriage. It doesn’t obey any laws of physics or cosmic order. Nor is it divinely ordained, or biologically inevitable.

It’s a cultural construct, useful for parenting, ancestral pedigrees and financial legacy. The scenario for how this coupling plays out depends on where we live.

In Western societies, we have choices about whom to marry and how to marry them. But there is only one truth that applies to them all. Immediately upon saying ‘I Do’, two people become one legal and financial unit – an official event that is recorded at the court house.

The government doesn’t care if our marriage is happy or not. The government tracks us, not to send us an anniversary card, but to collect its share of taxes. We’re a financial entity until one of three events happens – annulment, divorce or death.

So before you marry, keep in mind:


Marriage doesn't fix problems; it just makes them permanent. If you can't talk about money before marriage, it doesn't get any easier afterward.


It’s easier to get in than to get out. 


Whatever your spouse is doing, you’re doing it too, whether you know about it or not. 


Going into marriage, it’s all about love. Coming out of marriage, it’s all about money. 


Romance offers no protection. Financial intimacy does.

Fixing Congress

If you didn't get this in an email chain, here's your chance to help fix Congress.

"If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got" Winston Churchill

The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year olds) took only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971...before computers, e-mail, cell phones, etc.

Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or less to become the law of the land...all because of public pressure.
In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one idea that really should be passed around.

Proposal for a Congressional Reform Act of 2011
1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.
2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security.
All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.
3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.
4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.
5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.
6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.
7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.
If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S.) to receive the message. Maybe it is time.

THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!!!!!
If you agree with the above, pass it on.

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.

Estate Planners and Parent Abuse

Parent abuse is a silent problem, widely prevalent but not widely discussed. Most information available about the topic deals with parents who abuse children rather than the opposite.

Parents who are bullied by their adult children have trouble admitting it; they may even deny that there is a problem. They feel depressed, anxious, and ashamed that they “didn't do the right thing” and that’s why they’re being abused.

Many parents put up with the bullying because they don’t want to end a relationship with a child whom they love. Some need their child’s help with care giving. Others fear their child’s unpredictable aggression if they speak up about their feelings.

Estate planners come across these painful situations when parents draw up a will. They often recommend that parents talk openly with children about inheritance plans, explaining their reasons about inheritance distribution. The rationale is that the bully will learn how deeply their continuing abuse hurts their parents or alert them to change their behavior in anticipation of future loss.

This advice feels dangerous to parents who live in fear of the next round of indignity. Odds are that the bullying child will become even more so. It’s sad, but staying silent about inheritance plans is a safety shield for abused parents, a way to regain a sense of dignity and self-esteem.

How much better to find the courage to say to a bully, any bully, “Back off, you’re crossing a line here” while you’re alive. For those whose courage fails them, their message will wait until they die.