Have you ever heard of the 3 rings of marriage?
First, there’s the engagement ring.
Then, there’s the wedding ring.
Next comes the suffering!
I’m here all week folks, thank you!
I love that joke. It emphasizes the truism that we are usually the sole architects of our own tragedies.
Suffering is caused by ignorance and desire.
I struggled to start writing this piece because I don’t want it to be misinterpreted. For one thing, I am not advising you to not get married.
If a piece by a writer on a finance site gives you imminent pause or hesitation about such prospects, well, those actions speak for themselves.
What I stress is that most people don’t understand the personal finance, and legal, complications that comes with marriage.
Especially if they are in their mid-20s.
This piece is about my failure in marriage, and not necessarily the union itself (Wow, that is another laugh-less comedy of a story), but my financial unpreparedness for the union.
I wasn’t prepared for the financial responsibilities of marriage, I wasn’t prepared to financially take care of myself or her, and I was financially illiterate.
Financial illiteracy should be a legal preclusion against marriage because such a mindset only causes suffering for all involved.
Back then, barely I knew 1+1=2. I didn’t know, and didn’t care, about the importance of balancing one’s personal finances.
I had no business being married until I was financially literate and financially responsible enough to deal with the financial crises that usually beset working-class married couples.
It’s a skill one should master whether single or married.
But especially while married.
“What’s Love Got to do With It?”
Marriage is a sort of paradox.
You can get married, divorced, and remarried as many times as you like. However, marriage is supposed to be forever (which is technically however long you stay married during any particular marriage).
Cohabitation by a couple for as little for three years or a decade in some common law states, like New Hampshire, automatically makes the couple common law married (even if they never got legally married).
In a common property state, of which there are nine, any money, properties, and assets gained after marriage are evenly split after divorce, even if only one spouse provided such.
Depending on the state, if a spouse defaults on a loan or dies with debts, the other spouse becomes financially liable – even if the surviving spouse had nothing to do with the debt.
I could rattle off stats like this forever. What I want to stress is that most people don’t consider the gravity of their financial situation, currently or in the future, when they get married.
Especially when they get married young.
I was 26 when I first got married.
In truth, I don’t know if I loved her or if I was in love with being in love with her.
But I tried my best.
However, as Tina Turner once said, “What’s love got to do with it?”
I borrowed money from everyone I knew. Before the global financial crisis of 2008, banks would give credit cards to anyone with a pulse.
I was paying bills with credit cards and purposefully forgetting to remind myself to pay them later.
I worked as an educator, which no one does for the big bucks. She worked two part-time jobs when she could find extra work.
All we did was struggle financially.
Youth and Marriage
Over 50% of all marriages end in divorce (about 41% of first marriages, 60% of second marriages, and 73% of third marriages end in divorce, so take from that what you will).
Couples with no money or assets during the first 3 years of marriage have a 70% probability of getting divorced.
The average couple is in their mid or late-20s when they get married according to one study.
I separated from my wife 5 years after marriage and we were divorced 2 years later (the average divorce costs at least $15,000 to finalize, depending on the state).
In the aftermath, I was jobless, homeless, penniless (literally, not figuratively) and had to move back home with my ailing mother, bless her heart.
It took a long time for me to get back on my feet financially. I didn’t deserve the charity and grace extended to me by my family, who gave me so much money to get into a situation I couldn’t handle.
Whether I should have married her or not is a discussion far more suited to frustrating a psychologist.
I was too young, too broke, and too obliviously unaware of the financial responsibility of life, and marriage, to be married.
Focus
It’s obscenely easy for me to rail against my ex and surgically pinpoint everything that she did wrong.
Far more emotionally satisfying as well.
In the aftermath of a divorce its best to focus on what you did wrong.
And, how you can improve yourself.
I was too young, financially illiterate, irresponsible, and oblivious to the financial struggles working-class married couples must endure.
It would have been easier to wait a few years, plan things out, save a LOT more money, and plan strategically for the future. But that is a lot easier to appreciate with a decade and a half of hindsight.
I am not telling you to not get married. Or, to never get married.
What I am saying is that the younger you are, the less probable you are to appreciably understand exactly what you are getting into.
Especially when it comes to finances.
How many people do you know who are getting divorced, have multiple children, are dividing money, property, vehicles, friends, and families along emotional battle lines, and making high-end divorce lawyers richer by the moment?
That doesn’t mean such will happen to you.
My point is that a lot of divorcees got married young and know nothing about personal finances.
And they live too much in the moment instead of thinking about their futures.
Especially their financial futures.
Financially Happy Ever After?
Love and marriage are mutually exclusive concepts for half of all people who get married, cynically and statistically speaking.
Marriage may seem like a fairy tale concept when we are are young. Making a marriage work takes sacrifice, compromise, communication and responsibility.
It takes a willingness to understand and appreciate the frustrations of the other person in the relationship.
And, not to put too fine a point on the subject, making a marriage work takes a willingness to be financially prudent.
All of the aforementioned is a tall order of expectations for people in their mid-20s.
Scientifically speaking, the human brain, especially parts of the brain dealing with rationality and understanding the significance of long-term consequences, doesn’t fully develop until age 25.
As Tina said, “What’s love got to do with it?”
Maybe I’m wrong, After all, half of the people who get married stay married.
They must know something I don’t.
Read More
WHY COUPLES SHOULD MAINTAIN SEPARATE BANK ACCOUNTS
HOW MY HUSBAND AND I PAID OFF $4,000 IN CREDIT CARD DEBT IN 90 DAYS
Allen Francis was an academic advisor, librarian, and college adjunct for many years with no money, no financial literacy, and no responsibility when he had money. To him, the phrase “personal finance,” contains the power that anyone has to grow their own wealth. Allen is an advocate of best personal financial practices including focusing on your needs instead of your wants, asking for help when you need it, saving and investing in your own small business.