Article

Marriage, Money and Divorce: Avoiding the War^©
By Shel J. Miller, Ph.D.

In her 1989 NY Times review of The War of the Roses, Janet Maslin noted, that Barbara and Oliver Rose (Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas) started out as young lovebirds, ready to scrimp and save and struggle their way toward a rosy future. But by the time that future arrived, bringing with it two kids, two pets, two cars and a big house with a lighted, glassed-in shoe closet, they hated each another like poison. We in the divorce support business want exactly the opposite for anyone facing the crisis of divorce. Mr. and Mrs. Rose's individual emotional insecurities led inevitably to financial insecurity.

The same insecure feelings of fear and greed, which lead to misplays with securities in the stock market, could play havoc with one's personal life. The same extremes of selfishness or generosity in the boardroom often occur in the bedroom. Overreacting and taking extreme positions in stressful situations bodes poorly for negotiating one's financial situation before and while entering a separation and divorce. In such crisis one really needs to stay objective and thinking with one's head, as much as heart. For a sense of financial well being it behooves one to examine their idiosyncratic reactions to earning and sharing money. A partner's relationship to money will be different. So one must understand that difference, rather than become a resistant victim of that discrepancy. In that vein, one needs also to understand how they have created an habitual, hard to undo, lockstep dance with one another

Divorce heightens everyone's dreaded uncertainty in life. Marriage is thought of as that developmental step that says, " We're grown up." Yet it is divorce, for many couples, that provides the trigger that requires responsible adult behavior. Separation challenges one to grow: to understand tax law, to plan for asset accumulation and preservation, and to implement a rational budget without which there will be no viable life strategy for the future. Some people avoid creating a budget. So stress heightens when attorneys asks for the financials.

Many couples plan responsibly and talk easily and openly about how to plan their savings, their division of labor, childcare and so forth. Other couples, unwittingly, choreograph an emotionally over-responsible/under-responsible relationship, where neither partner really thinks through how much she should be giving or taking. One gives too little. The other keeps score. So neither partner contributes his/her fair share. Partnership means fashioning a fair, balanced, mutually reciprocal teamwork - a team wherein you respectfully support one another. The ideal is to live as both an "I" and a "We" and with his or her own checking accounts apart from the joint account. Having failed to create such boundaries, one couple maintained ongoing resentment through the divorce process. Mrs R. decided it was not gratifying enough for her or the children to receive a fair financial settlement. She indicated that she would not convey respect for the father of her children until he got a paying job, rather than simply manage his family inheritance or do volunteer work. She discussed his -- now private -- work and time management endeavors as if she were his condescending parent, sweat laboring much too much compared to him. Of course, Mr. R. reacted defensively as the very emotional child, who by the way, was used to getting such criticism from his father.

Getting to Know Self

If only they saw more clearly the pitfalls of combining their over responsible under responsible propensities prior to the marriage. Many "get-to-know-you better" books provide questions to ask one another during the courtship period or before. Certainly it is worth reviewing differing attitudes about earning, spending and budgeting money. Ask each other about conscious expectations, and about role models. Couples learn a lot about their developing relationship by the way they handle questions about how to budget for the wedding ceremony. Hopefully, they will even access some of the heretofore hidden images from the past, stored in their brains. Variations in how one approaches the size of their diamond engagement ring or the wedding reception often reflect the differing messages about money that each received from parents and extended family. Some lessons were intentionally transmitted. Other teachings were by example, including the unintended lessons. For example, was money meant to be spent or saved, used freely for luxuries or just necessities, to be hidden or spent conspicuously? There may have been confusion between the resources of love and money. For money is often the only "nurturing" that some (e.g. workaholic) parents were able to give their spouse or children. Feeling inferior and competitive with friends of higher socioeconomic status may cause conflict with a spouse taught to be prudent with his resources. How would he feel about her push to buy the car that represents an announcement of status? These dynamics could be teased out with a mentor/coach or with close friends.

Such unresolved differences could eventually lead to divorce, which taxes one's heart and pocket book simultaneously. Life is a series of necessary and potential losses and gains. Some occur as a result of nature (illness, death, accident or childbirth) and other due to circumstance (job loss, stock plummets, and bankruptcy, promotions or lottery success). Wouldn't it be easier to explore these possibilities while first falling in love? A sensitive young couple might best avoid actually signing a pre-nup when assets and debts are fairly even and romance is high. They might still benefit, however, from a review of assets with a collaborative practitioner, an attorney, coach, or financial planner. Marriage is a financial contract as well as a life long relationship commitment and love does not conquer all, especially broken promises or medical surprises. Where the marital home was once shared, divorce dictates, often painfully, that it has to be now possessed by just one or sold to distribute assets. Perhaps the sign of maturity is the ability to say goodbye and let go with grace as one adult developmental phase morphs into another.

Who are you, I, and we?

While a lover may provide serenity now, who will minimize fears about financial security during more stressful times? In successful marriages one simply worries about the government taking too much in taxes or about planning for retirement or the children's educational expenses. The problem with the additional expenses of divorce is that it is a metaphorical emotional death. It is "worse than when my father died", whined Julia. The ghost of the departing father of her kids was not only still in the office with us, but actually struggling with her demands that he come back to sleep over 5 nights a week. Her terror dictated a belief that she must protect the kids from facing the anxiety of waking up to discover dad gone though he was already increasingly absent as father. He had just moved into his own apartment! They were still pretending to be on a marital track "for the sake of the kid's anxiety, not mine," proclaimed the "not ready for this, but I'm trying" mother.

Children often get triangulated into the relationship fears brought on in this scene where the husband had already found another best friend or "true love." Suddenly abandoned and adrift, the wife felt the unmarriageable, easily resistible, "insecure middle age women with two young kids in tow." But what if money, as well as the kids, is a third point of focus in a triangle formed by dad and mom? Money struggles could get enacted with power plays about who stays where. It too can undermine one's true security and re-organize one's life going forward, especially where a housewife like Julia is forced to contemplate a quicker return to career. She had hoped to be able to wait until the children were older. Of course, child support can be freely given or withheld, as can access to the children, who must never become pawns during the negotiations or implementation of the parenting plan.

But the insecurity brought to the relationship by one spouse often triggers insecurity in one's partner. To add to the felt betrayal of one spouse and the children, financial infidelity is also rampant, especially if there is sexual infidelity, claims Liz Pulliam Weston of MSN Money. One devious partner may have secret expenditures. Another may have hidden assets in an array of barely referenced bank and brokerage accounts. No matter how many times Tracey complained, for example, about Dan hiding chunks of money in many different accounts, Dan responded vaguely. He would write down a list of all the accounts and hand it to her in my presence. In Dan's absence, Tracey would then say, "Well he made a list, but notice he never attached an amount to any of the accounts!" And the accounts seemed to inexplicably mix his business assets and liabilities with their personal finances. He protested that having enough money was not the issue she so feared. In fact he claimed they could afford to rent a suitable apartment to be alternately shared during their 6-month creative separation. Then he decided instead to fix up a small, unfurnished apartment they already owned a couple of miles away. It was clearly more appropriate for a bachelor than a parent, but "it was all they could afford," he said sheepishly. How do we understand the force that transforms these once communicative spouses, into secrecy and silence?

Getting to Peace with Honor

That force that hampers open communication and mutual understanding may be tradition or loyalty to the way one's family behaved in previous generations. To combat such invisible negative loyalty and enhance positive loyalty to oneself instead, we need improved marital education. We need practical courses on budgets. We need more classes on how to negotiate psychological and legal conflict. We need instruction about raising secure children. It takes a village -- of educators and mentors all talking openly about money, normal fears, and the promises of enduring intimacy and integrated lives. Our life partners teach us often more about ourselves than we ever knew. But lovers can't expect their partners to have all the answers.

Lacking other informants, as we exit high school, we need courses on how to help parents and their children cope with divorce. The first lesson might come from viewing The War of the Roses. The Roses became victims of one other, stuck on self-righteous over-standing rather than understanding. At least Director Danny Devito's black humor provides laughter. From what I keep hearing, however, divorce is never a laughing matter. It can feel worse than combining death and bankruptcy. Nevertheless divorce need not proceed in the high decibel, high conflict manner of a Hollywood drama. With the right help you can acquire valuable knowledge and insure that neither love nor marriage dissolve into hate or horror.

Dr Shel J. Miller is an Executive, Family and Divorce coach. As the Keep-It-Together Expert, his mission is to lift spirits by restoring hope and peace in families that are struggling. One way he does so is through Family Event Coaching. He also works as a Child Specialist with Collaborative Attorneys and as a Parent Coordinator post litigation. He may be reached at 617 731-9174 or ShelMiller@rcn.com.

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