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Do you have one of those spouses that seem to NEVER believe what you say until it’s been verified by an unimpeachable third-party source? My wife is like that. I could say that the sky is blue and grass is green, but until she hears it from an environmental scientist or botanist, I’m just speculating (and since I’m a guy, I’m probably wrong).

Recently she was listening to Oprah, and Suzy Orman was on the show. Apparently one of her ‘cases’ was a woman who’s husband had killed himself and left her with a financial fiasco (huge mortgage, 100k+ revolving credit debt, she hadn’t worked in years, and little or no savings). I feel for the woman, I really do, but it sparked off a conversation that went like this.

Wife: Do we have retirement funds?

Me (looking dumbfounded): Yes, I’ve told you about them almost hourly for the last couple of years.

Wife: Ok. (checks off a box on a piece of paper). Do we have any savings?

Me: (slightly more dumbfounded, if that’s possible) Of course, That’s another thing I’ve been trying to talk to you about. I had a t-shirt and washable marker made up so I could show you a running total of what we have.

Wife: Ok. (checks off second box). So, do we have any life insurance?

Me: Remember that piece of paper I wallpapered to inside of our bedroom door?? That’s our insurance policy. We play ‘remember the policy number’ with the boys each evening.

Wife: Ok. (checks off a third box). It sounds like I’m up to speed with everything now.

Me: (Softly weeping, not knowing whether to give thanks or scream in anguish.)

Give Thanks Where Thanks is Due

I’m caught between a rock and a hard place in my relationship. On the good side, my wife trusts me with the finances completely. That kind of trust is hard to handle sometimes. The pure responsibility is overwhelming occasionally. On the bad side, even when I try to get her involved, her ‘window of opportunity’ is only about 15 minutes at a time, and frankly, that’s not enough time to get her engaged enough to talk about all our various bills, credit cards, retirement funds, savings, and other financial things that she really needs to know about.

I guess I should be thankful for the things that she does get involved with, and I’m hoping that if something REALLY bad should happen to me, that all the documents, spreadsheets, notes, and such I’ve been telling her about will be enough to keep her afloat until she gets her ‘financial legs’ back.

My wife has one of the symptoms I’ve seen in many marriages, the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ syndrome. If she doesn’t have to deal with the finances on a day to day basis, she tends to start forgetting about them. The longer she’s away, the more she forgets. I’ve gone so far as to offer to turn all the finances over to her to do (usually in the midst of a ‘well if you don’t think I’m doing it right, YOU do it’ conversation,) but she never seems to take me up on the offer. So, status quo continues.

Plan for the Worst, Hope for the Best

Since I’m an Optimistic Pessimist (I meticulously plan for the worst, and am pleasantly surprised each day the sun DOES come up), having my wife up to speed finance-wise, has always been one of my goals. You never know when you’ll walk outside to get the mail and a local Hellmouth will swallow you whole. Things happen. You gotta be prepared.

If it takes a television intervention by the great Suzy Orman to get my wife thinking about finances and the future, I guess I can live with that.

How do you get YOUR Spouse/SO involved with the bills? Let us know, we’re dying to hear new ideas.

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