A Wife Is Entitled To Financial Intimacy
Author Name: Helga Hayse

If you had a financially intimate marriage that would minimize
your friction about money and increase your opportunities for
love.

What does it mean to have a financially intimate marriage?
Culturally, we link the concept of intimacy with romance, not
realizing that we are talking about two different things.
Romance is make-believe, it's Disney, it's a stage set - and it's
great.

But not when it comes to money, which operates in the real
world. When we think about money romantically, we're basically
not thinking at all. We're just fantasizing, linking money with
love when in fact, money is money and love is love.

We need a wider definition of intimacy, a concept we currently
link with the physical, sexual or emotional revealing of
ourselves to another person in a most private way. We need to
think of intimacy as transparency, especially when it comes to
marital finances because so much is at stake.

Unfortunately, full financial disclosure is still treated as
taboo in many marriages, especially when the man makes the big
money decisions. A wife may be contributing a significant amount
of money through her work, yet may go decades knowing little
about her shared finances. In many cases, her financial
insecurity does not become evident until she is divorced, which
is the worst possible time to begin grappling with money
troubles or decisions. It's also the worst possible time to learn
about the basics of money management.

The problem goes even deeper. Failure to achieve financial
intimacy in your marriage creates a climate of resentment,
suspicion and lack of trust. If you're feeling angry, patronized,
ignored or shut out when it comes to finances, your feelings are
certain to spill over into other areas of the marriage. Sex,
honesty, closeness, trust, parenting - all will be affected on a
conscious or subconscious level.

Bad feelings don't go away; they redistribute. One acquaintance
put it very colorfully: "He expects sex twice a night, but he
won't tell me what our net worth is."

Financial intimacy creates financial equality between husband
and wife. It doesn't mean that you earn the same. It means that
you both know what the other earns, how you spend it, how you
save it, what your shared goals are and how you intend to
achieve them.

It's not about trusting, hoping or assuming that your husband is
doing everything right. It's about knowing and understanding
what he is doing because everything he does affects you.

That's what being an equal partner means. You are part of a
fifty/fifty relationship. In fact, marriage has many of the same
structural characteristics as a business partnership. You, as a
partner, have a right, and the law supports your right, to all
the financial information about your partnership. If you are the
primary breadwinner in your family, your husband has that same
right.

You are not entitled to special treatment because you are a
woman, but to equal treatment because you are a partner. You may
earn less than your husband, but you take the same amount of
financial risk for decisions made within your partnership.

If you find yourself widowed or divorced, some things will be
immediately clear. You will need financial resources and the
skills to manage them. You will need to understand basic
finances so you won't have to rely on family members, friends or
a financial advisor to tell you what to do. You will need to
understand and sign contracts on your own. You will need to know
how to do the financial things that you relied on your husband
to do for you.

Don't rely on your husband to do the finances. Participate,
understand, keep a copy of the records, ask questions, and
assume that you have a right to all the financial information
that affects you both.

The law supports your right to have it!

(c) 2008, Helga Hayse. Reprints welcomed so long as the article
and byline are kept intact and all links are made live.

Helga Hayse is author of "Don't Worry About A Thing, Dear" - Why
Women Need Financial Intimacy. She teaches women about
participating and understanding their marital finances. She
speaks to financial planners and estate planners about how to
encourage crucial conversation between generations. Visit her
site at http://www.financialintimacy.com for her frequently
updated blog, free articles and more information about her book.