Ever noticed how most fairy tale romances in Disney always end abruptly after the romantic wedded bliss moment, or that fairy tale kiss? That's because if you are actually married, you'll know that it's probably best not to let the kids know the rest of it.
Being married is the most wonderful and most challenging kind of relationship that any of us will ever manage. Commitment to our children is unconditional love at its best, the kind of love that we get sold in Disney movies that is supposed to naturally happen with our spouses instantly after we say those magic words, "I do!".
We all think that we can do the "till death do us part" but few of us realize is that there are moments in a marriage when we do it with clenched teeth and a bitten tongue. We just celebrated our 14th anniversary and a good wise friend sent us a message that said," Love can bring souls together but I am a believer that choosing to be loving is what keeps them together." A good marriage requires a daily affirmation of that commitment especially when there are so many things that can easily get in the way.
"Couples who reported disagreeing about finances once a week were over 30% more likely to divorce over time than couples who reported disagreeing a few times per month". Financial difficulties are one of the top reasons why couples seek marital counselling and are also one of the top reasons for divorce. Consumer debt, spending habits, choosing how to spend mutual money, decisions about savings and retirement, and losing an income due to job loss or a decision for one parent to stay home to raise a family all have a tremendous impact on a marriage.
In our financial hell of 2011, we lost our nest egg, got hung by by roofing debt, had our home flooded, our family/business vehicle died and I essentially lost my job as a caterer/ business owner all in three days time. Days after this stunning realization, we also had more bad news from our insurance company...it would barely cover the cost of our home recovery. Check your policy for backwater, I guarantee you won't have enough to cover flood damage. Anyone in Calgary knows this painful reality. We simply don't have coverage in Canada for flood insurance but we ALL think we are covered.
My ugliest moment as a wife came shortly afterward. I have no excuses for my behavior. One thing I do know is that after working in kitchens with people under severe stress, every single one of us has some of the deeply ugly within us. I've seen the best and the worst of every co-worker I have ever worked with in a kitchen....I've seen it all. I've seen it in other places too. Someone once said, "That if you ever start to feel enlightened, go home and spend a week with your extended family."
It all came to head for me and my husband a few weeks after the triumvirate of hell had occurred. We were nowhere closer to getting some help with the flood damage, on hold with our insurance company and adjusters, living surrounded by piles of furniture on one level, two of our kids left bedroomless sleeping in a tiny guestroom together with nowhere for any of them to play indoors, trucking through our basement pit of despair in rubber boots to get to the one working shower in our home downstairs, and my new day job had become tearing out our basement with a crowbar and hammer.
I lost it on the one person in the world who knew exactly how bad it truly felt to be us in that moment. Why? Simply because he had the nerve and dignity to happily wish me a good day as he went off to work just like it was any other day, like nothing had ever happened with the confidence in knowing that it would all be well in time. (Just a note to other husbands.....if your wife is in the middle of a mid life crisis and holding a crowbar and hammer, even if it seems well meaning at the time....its okay to be gently nice, but its probably not a great idea to be overly chipper. Read "The Secret" on your own time till your wife calms down and gets into a better state of mind, ok? Just my advice from someone who's been there....")
Knowing that my deep ugly was rearing its horribleness in a torrent of rage at the loss I was feeling and since I went and directed it all at the one person who was willing to love me despite it, I knew that it was time for Mommy to be put in a time-out. Luckily, I had the sense to send myself to a Buddist cabin in the woods for a week with no electricity and an outhouse to chill out by myself. (Some of my girlfriends afterwards let me know that this was for sure the sign that I had gone completely off the deep end.)
It was affordable for someone in the toilet financially, and with little material comforts around to help remind that it's all REALLY not that important. There's nothing like relying on a wood stove for heat, candles to read at night, flash-lighting the entire toilet area for spiders, and missing hugs and kisses from your kids to put things in perspective.
I was blessed with a few magazines from the Shambala Sun and found a mentor in Pema Chodron within those magazines who offered me guidance then and now. I came to the realization that a financial crisis will wig most of us out in a real hurry, but it didn't mean that I had to lose the love in my life that truly meant the most to me because of it. Not sweating the small stuff is good advice and learning how to meditate is helpful even if you do it poorly like me. http://www.shambhalasun.com/ http://pemachodronfoundation.org/
Experts on financial well-being say that the key to money and relationships is communication. Apparently we don't have to agree on everything....we just need to talk about it. Things like Andrew spending money on eating fast food (a real annoyance for a Chef ) and me spending money on jackets, costume jewelry or extra pillows for our bed seems silly to Andrew. (The word on the street is that all men hate those extras pillows ladies.....so here's my Save a few bucks on household expenses tip of the day: Ditch the pillows, and save!) All couples have their thing that bugs them about the other when it comes to how best to make purchases for the family. The key is watching resentment levels when it comes to the decisions that do get made....that's where it can cause a divide in a marriage or relationship.
Andrew & I may not have had the same financial goals along the way, but I think our commitment to the marriage has gotten us through the roughest times we have had to face as a couple. We are both stubborn and often joke that the only thing keeping this marriage together is our mutual unwillingness to quit the relationship. Neither of us wants to be the quitter.....that means the other one wins. It kinda like the War of the Roses only we're working on a much happier ending.
Since we know that we are not alone, at least we hope we aren't the only couple that struggles from time to time. I thought it would be great to assemble some helpful tips for couples in honour of our anniversary. We celebrate every year with a toast to my Grandma who stood up at our wedding and declared, "It won't last a year!". Happy times.....so many good memories of our special day.
1) Learn to talk money with your honey. Who knew?! But opposites attract...even when it comes to finances. Put a saver and a spender together, and after the courtship is over and the oxytoxin levels die down you have a challenging road ahead if you can't find some middle ground.
"A really basic way to start to get on the same page financially is to commit to sitting down at least once a year to review your income, your expense and the difference (savings), your assets, your liabilities and the difference (net worth), and your credit scores and credit reports so that all your debt is transparent. Consider it your annual financial physical. I'm not suggesting that these conversations will be easy. Couples who pay attention to their financial well-being the same way they would their physical, spiritual or intellectual well-being put themselves on a path for much lower levels of financial stress, says Maniska Thakor, financial expert."
2) Build a joint financial dream list. "Particularly since few have much money, financial disputes drive many divorces. Too many couples today begin their lives together holding seemingly overwhelming student loans, car loans, credit-card debt and more. So when the honeymoon's over, the money quarrels start: "Why did you spend so much on clothes? We're supposed to be saving for a house down payment, so why are you buying such an expensive computer? Just because I'm the homemaker, why don't I deserve some spending money of my own?"
So my advice is to spend a weekend building your "financial dream" list together. That will give you much to look forward to, after the passions cool and before the money squabbles have time to set in. Prior to walking down the aisle, my partner and I took a couple of days to draft our financial dream plan together. How many kids did we want? How often and where would we vacation? How would we handle the fact that one of us had enough for a small down payment on our first house, and the other had no savings at all?
That was probably the most important discussion of our lives together, since we hashed out priorities and pre-settled arguments that we wouldn't have to have later. We also decided to go the joint and separate account route: The joint account pays for most everything, including the house, cars, kids, the college fund and taxes. The joint account also contributes to our retirement accounts. Then we each get a small monthly allowance transferred into our separate accounts, which we use as we wish. Separate and joint credit cards are attached to each account.
All this seems like a lot of work, but it has helped us avoid arguing about money (for the most part!). And we're still living out the financial dream we drafted together, 31 years ago" says, Olivia S. Mitchell, a professor of business economics and public policy at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where she focuses on pensions, household finance and risk management.
Its never to late to have this conversation. Andrew and I were married 13 years before we actually sat down and prioritized our financial goals. Some couples never do it....but I can tell you from experience that it has made a huge difference in our conversations about money since we came to an agreement that we could both live with. You can see it on our previous blog....Casa Cayendo is the new Beau Chateau.
3) Save for a Rainy Day."You can't enjoy money when you are dead so why not enjoy it now!", so says Homer Simpson.While I am writing this blog, the kids turned on the Simpsons, and hilariously it is all about Marg having a flip out over the fact that they have no savings and since Homer is so accidient prone, she starts having panic attacks thinking about what will happen to them when, as Bart puts it,"the Big Tuna bites it." She starts saving for a "really rainy day".
Homer is resentful since he earns the money and all she does is hang around at home doing cooking, cleaning, laundry and caring for the kids. He blows her meager savings from buying budget food and Columbia Shame coffee on a down payment for a motor home so he can escape Marg's "loveless slab of bossiness".
They start fighting and Bart & Lisa decide to return the motor home after Bart ruminates, "How could a motor home ruin a marriage that crappy?" As usual, things go completely wrong, and the motor home gets trashed. Through a twisted turn of events the Simpson family ends up on a Turkish freighter where Marg declares," Ahhhh, heck, it's only money.....". One of the Turkish sailors leans over to Homer and whispers in her ear, "She's a little intense, so we put some hashish in her meal."
Having a rainy day fund is important and will alleviate potential stress in a marriage but few of us have one. With our austerity measures budget, we are putting aside 5% of our income for savings but most financial experts recommend 10%. If we ever get to the bottom of debt repayment, we plan on upping how much we sock away. It will be probably be a much better choice than Andrew resorting to street drugs to mellow me out if things go sideways again.
4) Make a vow of frugality. "You know the thought you're having now? About all the things you could have done with the money you spent on that wedding? About how much they charged for those centerpieces? Remember that feeling when the time comes to buy a car. Skip the baby Audi, buy a six-year-old Corolla and take a great vacation/fund your retirement/save for a house instead." so says financial expert, Matt Hougan.
We spent a ton on our fairy tale wedding. We were young, naive, skipped all the courses in high school that talked about money management (oh, wait, there never was even one), and wanted a perfect day for all our family and friends. We had an open bar, an elaborate meal, a dessert buffet and the perfect venue but it cost us and our families a great first down payment on a what could have been a home to start our life together. And it was all blown in one day. And we are far, far from alone with money management wedding guilt. At least we are still together.....
5)"When you forgive, you in no way change the past-but you sure do change the future." Charles Rotblut (horrible last name...seriously, he should change it) recommends that we should," approach finances with a large amount of forgiveness. There is a reasonable chance one or both of you will make a big financial mistake (and probably many mistakes). You are both human and it happens. No matter how mad you get, stop and ask yourself whether the mistake is really big enough to warrant ending your marriage over."
Lisa & Bart on the Simpsons leave their parents a note letting them know that they are taking the motor home back because they don't want them to split up. We have an obligation to our kids and to our marriage to make sure that we have financial health. That doesn't mean that we can afford fancy vacations, a big screen TV or expensive vehicles and hobbies. It means we have a will, a financial plan for the future, limited debt, money put aside for educations for our kids, a retirement plan for ourselves and a savings account.
I'm fortunate to have a husband who has a big heart of forgiveness for the awful things I said. Somehow he has the amazing ability to shrug it off as nothing more than the day his wife turned into the little bird who left the coo-coo clock. He supported my retreat, probably was more than happy to let me leave, and welcomed me with open arms when I came home.
We celebrated this year with friends over dinner at my Wine & Dine Mexican Cooking Class that I was teaching (multi-tasking is one of my super strengths) and Andrew surprised me at work with a bouquet of flowers. We have come a long way from 2011, and I am so grateful that we pushed past a pretty lousy time. The situation didn't define our marriage or where it was headed and we have found a way to turn this ship around. I also got another chance to show Andrew the best of me instead of the worst.
We are your average Canadian family and we are working towards our happily ever after......................