Getting a Sense of the Financial Situation
None of this is meant to be financial advice, as all of our situations are different, but it gives you a heads up of what you might look out for and gives you ideas of what to ask an actual financial professional.
In an ideal world, you’ll already be completely on top of your finances and know the whole money picture before this whole process even occurs.
I didn’t do that.
I was married to someone who ‘took care’ of nearly all financial matters and even in a good marriage it would have been a bonehead mistake on my part. It’s all very embarrassing to admit, but important to do so because you can so easily fall into this dynamic.
Even if you’re not getting a divorce and you have a wonderful relationship where the person is genuinely looking out for your best interests, other circumstances out of our control can occur like death or disability of your spouse that could completely financially derail you.
I don’t care what anyone says, or how bad you think you are with money, it’s extremely important that you know what is happening with finances in your marriage. And I’ll say it explicitly here…. If you are with someone who dismisses your attempts to learn more or tries to keep you out of the loop of the financial situation, if they say they don’t want to bother you with it because you each take care of different parts of the household duties, that is a HUGE red flag.
So, let’s say you are in a situation like I was…
It’s okay, what’s done is done and figuring out how to piece together information is the only thing you can do now.
For myself, this was a matter of combing through every file I had access to, logging account information, names of banks, snapping pictures of anything I thought might be remotely helpful.
I reached out to any resource that I could and got more and more comfortable with admitting what I didn’t know. Everyone I spoke to was genuinely helpful.
Some of the things I did:
Made my own master list of what bills were being paid
Went to each bank to take my ex off the list of people who could access my internet banking
Changed the beneficiaries of insurance policies that I had
Began a habit of checking in with all of my accounts and cards on Mondays. I’d call them ‘Money Mondays’
Started to read more and change the relationship that I had with money so that I could be in control of my own financial life.
Things I would have done differently:
Opened my own credit card by myself before the separation, since I didn’t show an income, I couldn’t get a simple $500 credit card since I didn’t have a regular income since I was the caretaker of my young daughter at the time. It didn’t matter to my bank of over a decade that they had witnessed large amounts of cash flow through my account throughout the years and that I was going through a divorce (of which there was a significant asset in the house) that could provide a guarantee I would be good for the money down the road.
Taken out half of the money from the joint bank account when there were still funds in there. Being an ethical person, and also aware that I didn’t want to appear flighty to the court, I was wary of appearing to clean out the joint bank account when I still had access to it. Technically, you can do this and be answerable for it later…that didn’t sit right with me. If I could do that step over again, I would have taken half because I could easily justify that decision in court, and it wouldn’t have made it so difficult for me early on in the process when I had zero access to funds. Something to think about- talk to a lawyer, please. My banking professional definitely said I was within my right to take everything 😊 but just because you can do it doesn’t mean it’s right. Remember, we’re trying to keep our self-respect intact.