SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

So many threads recently about sex-workers, secret lives, financial infidelity and grand escapes…

Some months ago we had a thread about marriage and it’s future. I got some heat for stating that at its base marriage is simply a financial and lifestyle contract and that this was overlooked by the Hollywood-impacted view that marriage is all romance and flowers and expensive destination marriages with twenty bridesmaids and grooms and practice-practice dinners for the practice-dinner and yadayadayada…

Not exactly the most romantic view on marriage, but one that anyone that has dealt with a divorce lawyer can confirm is true. They never ask what color the bridesmaids dresses; only for income and debt statements.

So why do we have so many threads where the affair is hidden in the numbers? In the books?
The paying of sex-workers, the hotel-charges, the pruning and preening before meeting the "soulmate", the expensive gifts, the nice dinners, the second family, the sports-betting, the bitcoin account… There is always a financial trail. The financial smoking gun that can direct you to the bullet fired.

Why do we have so many threads where the betrayed partner doesn’t seem to have a clue about the spouse’s finances or even the marital finances?
Or the threads where a BS feels trapped because they don’t have money? Why are finances so opaque in so many marriages?

I think it’s ingrown in our society to be secretive about money. We hold the info tight and don’t share with others. That’s fine. I know I want my finances to be my issue and nobody sticking their nose into them. But my wife – the partner I signed that business contract with – isn’t "nobody".

When I married my wife we made some serious commitments together. Some we were aware of; some we realized as our marriage progressed. We decided to share bodies, have children and raise them, buy a house together, prioritize our time so we could raise the kids and still earn enough money to live a good life…
We made all sorts of decisions that impacted on the other in both positive and negative ways. Like wife getting pregnant dropped her earnings, and in turn lowered her pension contributions that in turn might make her pension lower than mine. Our decision for her to stay home the first year enabled me to work, and financially I contributed more than half our income. Not MY income – OUR income.

Now imagine if we had kept our finances totally separate. Just split the utility bill in half, the mortgage in half, the groceries in half… If your partner doesn’t pay their half of the utilities, they don’t turn off the power on his side of bed – they turn it all off. If they come to collect, they don’t take half the dining-room table, and only 3 of the 6 chairs – they take it all.

So why might it be that I’m fine with my wife having the power of attorney to decide my medical treatment if I end up in a coma, but won’t let her see my credit-card statement? Why would she share with me that she has cancer, but not share her bank-statement? Why do I trust her to raise my kids, but not see my bank-account?

IMHO a marriage is most likely to succeed if the couple work together at some goal they can both agree to. That includes finances. It’s too integral to our lives to ignore. It’s true money can’t buy happiness, but lack of money can sure provide misery.

Plenty of ways to manage finances. Wife and I decided to work together so we have full access to all financial information to each other. We budget, we sit down and pay bills, we let each other know of impeding big outlays and all that. It’s extremely rare that we disagree simply because the transparency means we understand the need. What savings we set aside we generally split evenly so we both have savings in our separate names. This is more a practical issue – if one of us dies the other will inherit but after a process. For that time the money is tied in the estate. This is what works for us.
This does not mean she has to phone me for permission to get a pedicure. We do take our individual decisions, but we don’t hide them. The key is openness, not control.

I can share that the work it took us to reach this financial integration was possibly the best MC we could have done because it forced us to be open to each other and to communicate.

For some this integration might be too much. But at the VERY LEAST I think it reasonable that a spouse explains their income and where the money is going. At the VERY LEAST you should both be able to see each other’s bank-statements, wages, charges on credit cards and status of savings. If you want to have separate finances then that’s OK by me, but seeing as how they inevitably impact the marriage at least be open about them.
Have the courage to state "Here is my monthly bank-statement. This is my savings account where I have 10k, and these are the latest transactions from the account my wages hit. And you can’t touch a dime of it!"

----
One reason I was contemplating this is a recent experience:
We were on vacation with two other couples and at a restaurant I noticed that the husband paid their share of the bill and then whispered something to his wife. She got out her phone and transferred her half of their bill to his account…
Next day we all went on an excursion except his wife. When I asked him about it he shared that they had separate finances, and she didn’t have the budget for the excursion. She basically had to choose between the excursion or dinner…
I was wondering… What’s it like being on vacation and your partner cant really afford to be there, while you have money to burn? Imagine when they retire, and she has to spend the winter back home while he goes to Florida or whatever… alone because she’s broke… Despite them – as a married couple – probably being very well off.

Really eye opening post.

To pay my way through college I worked for a Divorce attorney. Of course this was before cell phones and texts but I thought I had seen everything. Cheating at its highest level so to speak.

I managed our finances and had access to everything. There were no hidden or secret expenses or cash withdrawals. No hidden credit cards. No big expensive gifts or vacations. Basically nothing that would trigger any suspicion.

Until I found his secret email account. Yes there were many many emails and phone calls. When he realized I had access to his email and phone records, he moved to Skype.

My point is for some betrayed people, it is just not obvious. Nothing to find in bank records or $ transfers etc.

And honestly if my H ever told me "I owe him $$ for a vacation or food" etc I would wonder why I was married in the first place.

That is purely a transactional relationship w/ some sex thrown in. It’s not a marriage IMO.

[This message edited by The1stWife at 3:32 PM, Tuesday, April 28th]

I come from a nautical family and by my door there is an old fully functioning copper barometer from my granddads boat. I occasionally look at it, and if it says rain I don’t immediately put on my raincoat and boots – but I do look outside to see if it’s raining or not.
Finances can be an indicator to infidelity – but definitely not the only tool.

My wife pays her hairdresser with cash. I don’t really have a clue if the amount withdrawn is all for the hairdresser or if she’s squirrelling away fifties for a hit-man… This isn’t micro-management.

And yes – I guess I could have a romp with the receptionist at work with no financial footprint. I

But all these instances in JFO where there is financial infidelity, husband moved out with OW, partner claimed financial control… IMHO it’s not healthy.

My ex and I never married and never fully integrated our finances. We had individual and shared accounts. We balanced things based on income into the joint accounts, discussed large purchases, etc. BUT. There was not full transparency AND I was not protected when we split. He had more in his retirement b/c his company matched more and he made more, so I paid more of the mortgage so he could optimize the savings.

When we split, I had no legal right or access to all that retirement. Thankfully, my WS has been a good ex, and he split "his" money as if we were married and made me whole. But he didn’t have to, and I would have been so screwed.

So it really is a LEGAL and financial arrangement. I wish I had protected myself better.

Many of us I am sure benefit from your wisdom and insights on this forum. I know I do. Thanks for sharing Bigger.

I agree now that marriage is a fundamentally financial and business arrangement. I did not see that going into my ex marriage. I did not see it in time exiting my ex marriage.