I’ve been thinking a lot about romantic relationships and money after finishing Belle Burden’s book “Strangers.” I don’t want to spill too much about the book since I think it’s a must-read, but the high-level overview is that she was a Harvard-educated corporate lawyer with significant family money, yet she signed a prenup saying that she and her husband, also an attorney, would keep all of the income they earned during the marriage as separate property unless it was jointly titled. She used her trust funds to buy their multi-million-dollar homes in New York City and Martha’s Vineyard but put his name on both deeds.
During the early days of the pandemic, she learns that he had an affair and abruptly says he wants a divorce and doesn’t want custody of their three children. Burden had left her legal career to focus on their family while he switched from law to finance and made millions of dollars throughout their 20-year marriage. Based on the prenup, she wouldn’t get any of it despite all of the contributions she had made to the family that helped him focus on his career and eventual promotion to partner at a hedge fund.
“We had made an unspoken bargain: He would work all the time and I would take care of the kids all the time,” she wrote. When she was approached about a new job when the kids got older, he encouraged her not to take it. While he would be able to keep all the income he earned during their two-decade marriage, she could be forced to sell the properties and split the funds or pay him half because, despite paying for them independently, both names were on the deeds. She said that was what she thought people were “supposed to do” when they are married and that he would also put assets in joint names.
Burden writes beautifully about the emotional betrayal and sudden unraveling of her relationship to the extent that her then-husband felt like a stranger. Hopefully, most readers won’t have to endure what she endured — or have their husband ask them to make a sandwich in the middle of telling their kids about the divorce. Still, I think there are takeaways that can apply to any couple.
As I was reading the book and listening to countless interviews with Burden, I noted that she described herself as “financially naive.”
“I think what happened to me in the marriage is that I handed over most of my financial life to my husband, believing that he was better able to handle it. And as the years went by, I lost touch with the big picture of where assets sat, whose name was on what and what would happen to me if we divorced,” Burden told NPR.
This was a former Big Law corporate attorney who didn’t feel confident about her financial skills and eventually let her husband make most of the financial decisions.
“I started to convince myself that I couldn’t really understand it. And I’m a former corporate lawyer, I don’t think it’s hard to understand. But you start to believe in someone else’s competence much more than your own,” she said on the podcast “Lipstick on the Rim.”
One of the biggest lessons for me was the importance of frequently discussing your financial life and having a clear understanding of your family finances. Like Burden, I think it is fairly common for people to feel like their partner is “better” at finances, so they defer to them. But I think it’s important for both people to feel confident and know how to manage their finances, even if you split tasks like paying bills, bookkeeping, and filing taxes. Trusting your partner with money shouldn’t mean completely disconnecting from your joint financial life.
Burden wrote that throughout their marriage she let him handle their finances and, although she signed their joint tax returns, she didn’t realize what he was making or have a clear understanding of all their assets and whether they were jointly or separately titled. He would have her annotate her credit card bills each month, and she says she felt like he was controlling about their spending, so much so that she would often pay for “extra” things like shopping and gifts for their kids with her own money.
She has said that she never wants to get married again because she doesn’t want to have someone else have financial control.
However, you can and should have financial control even if you’re married. Now she recommends married couples have regular check-ins to talk about their finances.
“I think women should have those conversations with their partners at least quarterly, have a deep understanding of what their financial picture is, what assets are where, whose name is on what and really know, even if they’re incredibly happily married, what would happen if the relationship ends,” she told NPR.
I couldn’t agree more, and I think having open and honest conversations about money can start long before you get married.
When you first start dating, that might simply mean talking about how you like to split dinners, trips, or other expenses. Before moving in together, you’ll probably have bigger conversations about income, budgeting, and housing costs.
As the relationship gets more serious, you may also want to discuss:
- spending habits
- debt
- savings goals
- investing styles
- career ambitions
- financial priorities
- whether you prefer to combine finances or keep some things separate
- how you each grew up thinking about money
If you’re engaged, you may also start discussing bigger-picture questions like:
- whether you’ll combine finances
- how you’ll divide expenses
- whether a prenup makes sense
- how you’ll approach financial decisions as a team
- what would happen financially if one person stopped working
Burden also underscored the importance of talking about what would happen if you got divorced.
“No matter how happily married you are, talk about what would happen if it ends.”
That’s where a prenup could come in, although she ultimately regretted that her prenup said they would only share assets held in joint names and that they didn’t extinguish the prenup like they had later discussed.
People have strong opinions about prenups and postnups, and it can be a controversial topic. It’s definitely not the most romantic part of wedding planning or newlywed life, but I also don’t think that asking for one means you think you’re going to get divorced or that things will necessarily become acrimonious.
It can simply be an insurance policy that makes divorce or estate planning a little easier if the worst-case scenario were to happen. As people often say, “You know the person you’re marrying, not the person you’re divorcing.”
You don’t need to obsess over worst-case scenarios that will hopefully never happen. But you should understand your financial life — whether you’re single, dating, engaged, or married.