I Can't Afford My Life Anymore. What Do I Do? | Asked & Answered

0:00 [Music] Hello and welcome to Asked and Answered. A very stoic uh on topic, a word, rantless, digressionless podcast, a word that's been ascribed to me many times. Stoic individual, including when I got my epidural. The doctor called me stoic. One thing about Aaron is is she's going to send you a text message about an incredibly exciting, joyful thing with a capital at the beginning and a period at the end of that sentence. No emojis in sight. I give you some emojis. Now you do. Now you're like, you're like, "Hey,

0:46 are you free? Firework, cartwheel, sun, flower." Uh, no. Eric is a more stoic individual than I am. I'm Aaron. We've been to We've known each other many, many, many years. Famously been friends for more than a decade at this point. Um, Eric, listen, we've been recording for a really long time and chatting up a storm in between. Uh, this is act this is asked and answered our podcast where you ask and we answer. Continue. No, that I got nothing for you. I'm Chelsea Fagan. You know who I am. Who are you? I'm Erin Lowry, owner of Dog and Baby. Yeah. Well, I don't I don't know that that's how I'd phrase it. Mother to to human child and fur baby alike. Uh, author of

1:36 four personal finance books under the moniker broke millennial and a deeply practical person. That is very true. That is very true. Erin Lowry, owner of baby mother of dog. Not totally incorrect. You don't know how this girl feels about dogs, let me tell you. Yeah. My dog got rushed to the vet the other day when my human child I was like, I think this is fine. We'll go to the doctor in a couple days if it hasn't cleared up. My mother always used to say because Okay, this is like a complicated thing. Well, skirt. My mother always used to say because I'm a dog owner and a child-free woman. Uh you don't even realize how much you can love. You think you love a dog, but then you have a child and you're like, "This is a completely different experience." Which I assume must be true, but then you got

2:21 Aaron over here. She's like, "It's on par." I love them both very much. Yeah, I would not say your love for Tasker has been in any way diminished by your love for for your baby. No. Um, you might be wondering why we're going on this tangent about who and what we love and how much capacity for love we have. Well, that's actually the theme of today's episode is love uh and the co-mingling of your finances that love often entails. It doesn't have to. Yes. And I want to give a shout out to all you single Pringles watching this. We will next week be following this with an episode all about single person finances and we will be a little bit crowdsourcing uh from the singles on our TFD team because Aaron and I are both uh married Mollies. So we certainly can't speak to all of our lives or or

3:07 certainly our adult finances as a single individual. Um but so do not worry if you are someone who is navigating your finances as a single person and you're like not more of this relationship propaganda. What about me? We got you. We got many single questions. We will be answering them next week. But today we are here to talk about love and relationships and money. And as always, our show is brought to you by advisor.com. If you don't know, they are a financial advisory service. They offer a flat fee model, which is great because it means they are working for you and not commissions. It's more transparent. It is much more financially accessible. I've personally been working with a financial adviser for years and I obviously do so with my husband because our finances are largely co-mingled. Although watchers of this show will know that I do as a woman have uh 37 secret bank accounts to protect myself in all events. Uh but most of our finances are

3:54 co-mingled. So generally speaking uh when we work with our adviser, we're talking about our plans, our future, our shared finances. It's also been very helpful in these turbulent economic times. Often our adviser uh will call us and check in on us and help us navigate a particularly scary moment in the news or in the markets. I highly recommend working with a financial adviser and we love the team at Adviser. We've known them for years. It's a really small company. Actually based out of Charleston, South Carolina where I frequently have to go because my family's in South Carolina. So all around good people. Been to their office, petted their dogs, all those advisors are great. Uh can't recommend them more. And if you want to get a free phone call scheduled to learn more about financial advisory or advisor.com, just click the link in our description. It's totally free. Back to the show. How co-mingled are your finances, Aaron? We do a yours, mine, and ours. How many

4:42 secret bank accounts do you have? So, well, none of them are secret because he knows I have them, but we each have our own account with just our name. Can I ask how much money you keep in your own account separate from all your couple finances? Um, few thousand dollars. It's not like a significant sum. I generally try to keep five figures to myself, but that es and flows. But I do find that five figures makes me feel safe because I'm like I could I could get out, you know. The other thing though is that I also have multiple credit cards in just my name. Oh, in just your name. All of my credit cards are joint. None of my credit cards are joint. None of your credit cards are joint? No. Yeah, we have no joint credit cards because they're all I would say like legacy credit cards. We brought them into the marriage. Ah, and there in lies the

5:28 difference because when I I entered my relationship now marriage is an extreme financial burden. So I did not have a credit score at that time and only had a prepaid credit card uh which I later closed many years later uh because I kept it open forever because it was the longest. But I could not get a credit card on my own. So I have been an authorized user on my husband's pretty much since inception. Now do I get advertised credit cards all the time now? Yes, I do. But I feel fine. We have perfectly high limits and I like the rewards. So, well, interestingly, that's another reason I don't have him as an authorized user is because if we wanted to travel hack for anything to turn points, I would rather he not have access to that card already so he could get his own version and get the same amount of points. As a travel hacker to such an extent that I am now a certified

6:15 diamond medallion holder on Delta, again, the highest uh achievement that you can aspire to in America. I would say our only form of socialism. Um uh the the real T is is my business credit card. Yeah. Of course. Although Delta has been steadily diminishing the value of their system year over year. You don't even get freaking like even the lounge is not what it used to be. Yep. I'm cashing out all my miles pretty soon because why bother? Why hold them? Hell yeah. They're making a fool of us with that. This is now a travel show. Just so everyone knows, listen, if you travel even a little bit, like now as a diamond, I get four tickets a year anywhere in the world that I can put myself in business. You have to be traveling way more than just a little bit a to be diamond or you have to spend

7:02 so much money. And I get that it's through business, but that's still a lot of spend. So yeah, and then Delta's made it incredibly hard without it being all credit card spend to even achieve freaking silver. It's like five grand just for silver. Delta, if you're watching this, come on. First question. I'm one of those people you'd find frequenting our slash regretful parents. O, I love my daughter, don't get me wrong, but my husband has turned out to be a less than present partner, to say the least. I mostly just feel like I have two kids. I lost my federal government job with the new administration. I'm in a mortgage in DC that I can't really afford anymore. And I feel like I have no time to even process next steps professionally or financially because I have a baby at home who demands basically everything I have. It's like I gave birth in spring

7:47 2024 and then the entire world and my life with it went to complete And I don't regret my daughter, but I regret making what now feels like the extremely naive choice to bring a new life into this world when I'm lost as I am. I know that this is a lot bigger than just a straightforward financial question. But I'm so lost on what my next step should be. How do I get my husband to step up at home, especially now that he's the sole bread winner? Should I consider moving in with my parents for a while to help with childare while I look for a new job, basically full-time? Should we try and sell our home to downsize? Any advice is appreciated. That's a lot to unpack. I think we start with the financial and then go into the parenting. Take it away, Erin. Eric, I would definitely consider all of your options to reduce your housing costs

8:34 right now because that probably is the biggest thing on your financial ledger, especially if you do not have to currently pay for child care, but also if you are providing all of the child care, it also very much reduces your ability to go out and interview or even have the mental bandwidth to hunt for a job. So, we'll come back to that, too. But if you have any opportunity to reduce the overhead that is your mortgage and everything else that comes with being a homeowner, I would investigate. So whether that is selling the house, does it make sense right now? I don't know. Is DC still the hot market that it was a year, two years ago? If so, what kind of return are you going to get? Could you have renters move in? Do you trust doing that while you maybe move in with your parents? Do you have a

9:19 copathetic enough relationship with your parents to be living with them and with your husband being there and your child? Are you comfortable with your parents providing child care? I know I'm just giving you way more questions than you asked, but definitely look into the option of reducing your housing costs. What would you say on that first? I would have to look into it, but I think common sense would dictate that between current mortgage interest rates, which are still way too high, the chaos happening in DC and the amount of people who are in shaky employment or out of employment in the DC area and just kind of the general chaos happening in, you know, the administration right now that it's probably not the optimal time to sell in DC. I would I would guess. Um, so if there are any alternatives that would reduce your mortgage burden, whether that's subleting or well renting or even renting out a portion of your

10:06 home, you know, anything you could possibly do, I would definitely look into that. But I would caution against selling at any cost because that could end up putting you in a worse position financially. And definitely looking at your mortgage rate because if you've locked in several years ago with a really low rate, if you go to move in with your parents, let's say things stabilize for you financially in six to eight months, going back out and maybe getting a significantly higher mortgage could still put you in a situation where like, well, it really was a negligible difference because now my mortgage is the percentage of my income that it was before. But just because housing is kind of a tangible thing you could maybe look at trying to reduce the cost of now and because you brought up that your parents could provide child care if they're comfortable with that and if you're

10:53 comfortable with that I would seriously consider going to that opportunity right now just because it will help free you up to mentally and emotionally and also physically be able to get out interview for jobs research jobs. Finding a job is a full-time job. Like it takes a lot of work to find another professional job and if you are trying to provide full-time child care and seemingly care for your husband, which we'll come back to that too, you're not going to have the mental bandwidth to be able to in earnest go find yourself a job. So any amount of help that you can get on the child care front is going to be huge. And if you can avoid paying for child care in this time, that's great. But also, I wouldn't be against having some level of help, even if it's 10, 15 hours

11:40 a week if you can find somebody that you trust and that is in a realm that you can afford. Because having that time to yourself to be able to even if it's just like having alone time, it doesn't have to be like, oh, that's, you know, the only time that I have to do my research for finding a new job. Just being able to recharge, go to a fitness class, go for a walk, meet up with a friend for a coffee, just like fill your own cup. That I feel like gets lost a lot in the motherhood conversation, too. It's this society puts this pressure of constantly giving of yourself. It's also okay to be taking time for yourself and to focus on yourself. Also incredibly important because then you can come back to be rejuvenated for being able to invest into your loved ones as well. Yeah. I

12:26 mean, I would also say like with regards to your husband now being the sole bread winner, it sucks because it sounds like he's not stepping up to the plate. To which I guess the only cold comfort is that makes him the norm, not the exception. When you look at the stats, most husbands do not come anywhere close to 50/50 even when both parents work full-time. That's just the way it shakes out. So, it's certainly not an isolated problem. And there are definitely a lot of people who speak much more thoughtfully than either of us could on the matter because you know the I mean there's an entire cottage industry now of you know literature on how to deal with a male partner who's not stepping up to the plate. Most famously probably Eve Rodsky and Fair Play. But that's certainly there's no shortage of resources out there about how to navigate that. I will say though, it is

13:11 important to not underestimate the stress that overnight becoming a soul bread winner who can no longer afford their life is probably causing to this person. So, you know, I would I I have a friend that that very recently happened to that he became the soul bread winner overnight and it's they're making it work, but it's very very stressful and has really caused, you know, talk about not having a full cup to pour from. You know, I think a fair ask uh definitely is, you know, one or both of you is going to have to pick up some extra work at some point until you get a full-time job again, whether that's gig work or part-time jobs or things that you can pick up more easily. And if he's not

13:57 stepping up at home, perhaps, you know, he's got he get picks up, you know, some extra work after his job or whatever the case may be. But it sounds like no matter what happens, there's going to have to be some serious conversations about how are we going to navigate through this. And I don't want to say that it's, you know, unreasonable to expect that he'll step up even more as a partner for your kid now, but I will say that it's probably even less likely now that he's the sole bread winner. You do need to also have a conversation and be very direct about how you're feeling. I wouldn't say, "I feel like I'm raising two children." That's not the language I would use. but have a conversation around I'm doing a lot and even though I'm not going into a full-time job, my whole life is also like I'm physically

14:43 recovering and I hear that you said spring 2024. I see you. It takes a long time to physically recover for your hormones to balance back out. I don't know whether or not you're breastfeeding, but like that's a whole other endeavor. There's so much that goes along with also your child is completely dependent on you and they have a different bond to the mother than the father even if you know you have the most present most hands-on partner. So it's very important to also communicate to your spouse. I do not have the bandwidth, the mental capacity to take on X, Y and Z right now and I feel like you are also not handling these things and I need your help and I

15:29 need to understand why you are not stepping up and also make sure that your spouse is not using oh I'm the soul bread winner now as kind of an excuse to get out of everything. Sure. because that is also incredibly infuriating. Just because somebody is currently staying at home, even if it's a dynamic that people chose to set up, it does not mean that the person that physically goes into an office should be able to get out of every single household chore. Do some laundry, wash some dishes, plan some meals. Some of it is just decision fatigue. Like, okay, maybe one of you plans to do the cooking and the other one does the meal planning, but for Pete's sake, make some decisions. It is exhausting to feel like you are making all the decisions and doing all of the things for a household. I will say like okay for me personally I have done a lot

16:15 of the primary caregiving because I'm self-employed and have a very flexible job in terms of the hours like I can do things at odd hours and so I've been in a pretty fortunate position to be able to stay home with my child but my husband who goes into an office works well not an office a school works uh you know traditional hours he does I haven't done laundry in well over a year and a half he does all of the laundry in our household. Washes it, folds it. I do not have to think about it. It is his completely to own and manage. He never comes home and goes, "Well, I've been teaching all day. It's been a long day. You've been at home. Why aren't you doing the laundry?" That should never be the kind of conversation you're having in like a fair and equitable partnership. And if that's what your

17:01 partner is doing to you, there need to be some very frank conversations about what your partnership should look like, what each of you expect from each other, and that just because you go to a quote unquote traditional job does not absolve you from doing other things around the house, especially if your partner needs help in different ways. I think you're right, but I think the unfortunate reality is that for many couples in America and around the world, that conversation is not going to help. And I don't I don't disagree that you should have it. I don't disagree that you should have it. I don't disagree that you have every right to demand what's fair and to put up boundaries and to do all these things. But I do think for women's own sanity, it's also important to think about contingency plans for if you're not getting that

17:47 help because many, many women don't and have to figure out alternatives. Is it fair? Absolutely not. Literally, the topic of our next video essay is why marrying the wrong man is essentially the worst thing you can do as a woman in this life, financially and otherwise. We have every bit of data to back that up, and that only compounds pretty much exponentially once you have a kid. So, I think it's important to go in with the best intentions to try and get this to shake out in a more fair way, but also have a backup plan for if that falls on deaf ears or if they say they'll change and they don't, or if you know it's never truly 50/50, as unfortunate as that is. So, I do agree with the parent thing. One thing I do want to address though is you say that you made this naive choice and then the world fell apart. I have not been through anything

18:33 like what you're been what you've been through, but I have been through a life situation, a confluence of factors that I would say is on like an eight out of 10 of like that you unexpectedly have to deal with when the pandemic hit and then 3 days later my husband had to leave the country for what ended up being two years. I didn't see him for months on end uh while we were navigating the pandemic. Uh all kinds of family issues. My business obviously like all businesses was really struggling. We were very afraid we were going to have to close the business. It was a confluence of factors that in no way I ever could have predicted would have happened, let alone happened one on top of the other. And I will tell you that getting through that time, there was a combination of approaches that I took. Some of it was therapy, some of it was um you know uh herbal medications, some of it was no, let's just say I

19:19 approached it from a variety of ways, but you know my husband even more so than me because I was at least home. I had our dog. I had people around me. My husband was in total isolation. uh he fell into a severe depression, you know, but I was constantly anxious, constantly catastrophizing. Um these are not the same situation, but there are people who have a child and then six months later are diagnosed with cancer. There are people who have a child and then lose a spouse. There are people who have a child and then all manner of horrendous things befall them. You know, there are people, we mentioned it in a previous episode, but there are people giving birth right now in active war zones. You know, there are people, we never know the circumstances that we're going to be making any life choice in. We never know what confluence of bad things are

20:05 happening at once. And chances are, at least once in our lifetime, we're all going to probably have to go through one of those life events. I'll probably have another one because, you know, at least for now, knock on wood, we're young and healthy. Knock on wood. But you never know when that other shoe is going to fall. And I think the most important thing to take from this, because in my situation, which again, not the same, but in my situation that felt like the world was ending, my partner was the one thing that made it feel bearable and made it feel navigable even when I was falling apart every day. to know that in this situation your partner is an additional burden to you and not a true teammate, not a resource. That is something to take with you and know that you know whatever is

20:50 going to happen in life because chances are you live long enough, something worse than this will happen. Something much worse probably than this will happen. And if your partner is not capable of becoming the kind of partner who who makes those tragedies easier, it's a red flag in a major major way for the rest of your life. I also think a lot about what we're mirroring to our child and what we're showing verse telling because that's what matters, right? Showing. You can say all the platitudes you want about women and men, you know, being equal or any sort of lessons that you want to pass on, but you mentioned that you have a daughter. So, if you're saying these things to her, but then what is being mirrored to her in the home is that dad never helps

21:36 with housework, dad never does anything that you know when mom needs help. That's what she's seeing. That's what she's consuming. And that's one thing I think about a lot that I love that our child is seeing a dad that does housework, that goes to the grocery store, that actively cooks, that talks meal planning with me. Like we're mirroring the type of marriage, should our child choose to ever get married, that I would hope would be the one that they find themselves in. So it's just it's really I think important to consider that element too that this is very much about you and what your experience is but now it's also about what you are showing to your child. T as a last note I famously

22:23 follow a lot of older women on social media 50 60 plus. An interesting thing about following women at that stage of life is that you see them often, you know, post a lot of evolutions in their partnerships. A lot of there are widows, there are divorcees, there are women who've been with their husbands or partners for decades. A common refrain that I hear from a lot of the older women that I follow on social media who are divorced almost without fail, they all say when they create content about it that they should have gotten divorced way sooner, that they gave 20 years to a relationship that should have gotten two, that they left at 47 when they should have left at 27. Um and you know that the things that ultimately made

23:10 them leave the marriage after a certain portion of time after a certain period of time were things that were already present at the very beginning at the outset whether that's at the marriage or at at having kids or whatever the case may be. I am not saying that that is automatically the case here. I'm just saying there are so many social, financial, and other forces bearing down on women to really embrace a sunk cost fallacy with men to to assume that we can never do better or that we're better off being in a bad marriage than no marriage or any of these other factors. There's still stigma and shame attached. And so we teach women to put up with way more than they should ever put up with for way longer than they should put up with it. I would encourage you start reading consume reading books, consuming

23:57 content, following women. Read about women who separated a divorce later in life or even younger. Read about their second act. Read about what made them decide to go on their own. Read about, you know, what it's like starting over, being a single parent. Read about the other side of it. Because I do think again we have to remember that as women we are fed a non-stop cultural narrative that to be with a bad partner is better than being alone. And we are taught we were just talking about this earlier. We teach women to tolerate so much and pretty much the only boundaries that we'll put up is say like if he hits you once then leave. Okay, that's good advice but in my opinion vastly insufficient. And there are many things along the way that a partner could be doing that could be

24:44 disqualifying or at least not being additive to your life in the way a partner needs to be in order to to stay married to them. So try and get all perspectives. Try and learn from women who've been where you've been. Try and read from women who've been in this situation. What did they do? Where were their boundaries? What was their limit? Did they change it? Like there are certain women who've been through what you've been through and ended up turning it around and the man stepped up. that can happen. But try to keep all your options on the table and get what you deserve because it what breaks my heart about this situation is not the external factors. Those happen and will continue to happen. It breaks my heart that with all these external factors, your husband is another burden instead of a partner. I want to end on a slightly optimistic idea that your

25:31 husband can step up and that a big part of it is having the hard conversation. I worry sometimes just based on what I've seen happen with certain friends that the tends to be the woman, I'm not saying exclusively, but in a heterosexual dynamic, especially in a marriage with children, tends to be the woman who will take on even if she's working full-time, same amount of hours as the husband, a disproportionate amount of the mental load around child rearing, even around household labor, all of that. but also in a way that sometimes often maybe without cause but ends up almost infantilizing the husband. There's this feeling of h I'll just do it. I don't want to explain. Making sure that you're also putting your husband in positions to be able to do parts of parenting or of household

26:18 work or both. Maybe it would be a little different than how you handled it. But as long as things are getting done, getting done, you know, at least competently, particularly around things with child rearing, so that you can leave, go on a job interview, and you're not going to get a phone call around how much should be put in the bottle, what time is nap time, what time is this, oh, I know who the pediatrician is if something happens and I have to go to the doctor. This should not be exclusively something that only one parent knows. And making sure though that you are enabling and putting your partner in a position to be able to do these things. Maybe mess up a few times as well. But also like pack the diaper bag by themselves and maybe that means that one time you're out and you're short of diaper and you deal with it,

27:04 but then that mistake's not get not going to get made again in the future. We have to also sometimes allow our partners to fail a little bit in order to learn a lesson and move on as opposed to just constantly being the backs stop and filling in the gaps and making it so essentially we're infantilizing them and not putting them in a position to be able to handle things by themselves. As with many of these questions, I'm really sorry you're in this situation. It absolutely sucks, but it will get better. It feels unbearable right now, but I it it absolutely will get better. It Yeah. Okay. Also, congratulations on the parenting, not on the job list. Congrats on having a child for sure and on buying a house. Yeah, not easy in DC. Um, okay. This is long as hell. No

27:50 offense. I met my boyfriend on Bumble and we've been dating for almost a year and a half. He's a veterinarian working in the military and I'm a data analyst in tech. Early on, by our second date, we talked about finances and realized our monthly net salaries were pretty similar, which might sound surprising given our professions, but his military position levels the field, at least on paper. That said, there's still a significant difference in total comp. My job includes benefits that make up nearly 40% of my annual pay. His doesn't. Over time, we've started to fill that gap, not just financially, but in our lifestyles. He lives far outside the city and commutes 2 hours daily. I live 15 minutes from my office and often travel to visit friends and family. We've talked about moving in together, but the next step feels more distant lately. I'm moving up fast in my career, and my comp keeps growing. Meanwhile, he's thinking about leaving the military, but civilian vet salaries tend to be much lower, sometimes half of what he currently earns. To be clear, I don't believe men have to always earn more or even the same as their partners. We've

28:36 talked about that and we are on the same page. But the financial gap is making it harder to plan a shared future. He can't afford the lifestyle I have, which is city living expensive but not extravagant. And I'm not in a position to increase my own expenses. I'm paying off debt and focused on long-term goals like saving for retirement and building an emergency fund. So, I have been wondering how do couples manage significant differences in socioeconomic class, especially when they're thinking about building a life together. You of all people can answer this. I mean, you should be prrating based on income, but what I find interesting in this question is that you're saying that you're not interested in taking on more of the cost. It sounds to me, and I could be inferring, but it sounds to me like you would want a 50-50 split if you guys live together, and that you are not

29:21 interested in taking over more cost of living because you have other goals that you are wanting to achieve, which by my understanding are just simply more important than cohabitating right now, which is fine. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But there are then also consequences to every decision, right? So, if you're in a position where your biggest goals right now, paying off this debt, certain emergency fund number, and funding your retirement in a very specific way, and that means that you could only account for 50% of shared expenses, then that means you can't live together. And what does that mean then for your relationship? I obviously can't answer that for you. But should you decide that actually living together is incredibly important to me right now. So instead I'm going to prioritize fully

30:08 funded emergency fund and debt payoff, but I'm going to scale back a little bit on the way that I'm aggressively funding my retirement in order to be able to cover 65% of the household shared expenses since I make that much more than my partner. I do think it is very important in shared living situations to consider that equal is not always fair particularly if one person is either drastically out earning or if one person has a very different debt burden than the other. So looking at how you could prorrate costs to make it actually feel fair to both parties. On the flip side, if he's military, I'm going to take a shot in the dark that probably doesn't have student loans. Maybe the military

30:54 paid off those loans in order for him to get to the point of being a veterinarian, so not carrying potentially six-f figureure debt, maybe makes less than you, but perhaps you have very high student loans. So maybe it isn't fair for you to pick up 65% of the household expenses because actually your take-home pay compared to your expenses is very different. So you have to be looking at total picture, not just comp when you're having these conversations. But the really big question here is lifestyle desires, right? So we can talk all we want about how we make it fair within our ecosystem financially, particularly if it's, you know, women out earning man socially. Some people might find that hard. Uh I don't want to paint with a broad brush, but if he's

31:39 coming from a military background, he might have been in an environment for a long time that also would have people who are saying that that's quote unquote weird. It shouldn't be. But if he likes living in a certain part of the state and you like living in the city, there's not a whole lot of compromise you can have there. Unless it's like both of you are kind of bummed in a suburb somewhere. Well, I say you're very well suited to answer this because you have historically been the bread winner of your home. Your husband's a public school teacher and you have had a successful business. You famously came into your marriage without student loans and paid his off. Well, we both did. Just me, but yeah. But you also took it on as your responsibility. Yes. And you did you contribute more to the debt payoff? Um, well, we prated, right? So, but still. Yeah. So, we called it I I started changing my language. I said our student loans once

32:26 we got married. Now, I will say there was a provision in our prenup about the student loans so that there could be no like quick payoff divorce situation without some sort of compensation on my end. So, protect yourselves. But look at this queen. Look at this little Machavelian queen. But it is something you know throw a vesting schedule in there whatever you want to do with it. But uh what we did and again you have to talk about what feels right. My husband who then was honestly my boyfriend even my fiance at the time eventually I like initially really pushed back at the idea of me ever helping. And my feeling was if we get married I understand that legally I am not responsible for this debt because I am not co-signed on them. It's something you're bringing into the marriage. Also, we have a prenup, but it

33:14 still impacts my financial life. If these are on our marital ledger, it delays other things that I would like for us to be achieving as a couple. So, it's in my slash our best interest to pay them off. And we at the time were in a financial position to pay them off quickly. So basically my salary kind of covered most of our life and a huge chunk of his salary went towards paying off debt plus his retirement account plus other savings goals that we had. So it was like quote unquote his paycheck was paying off his debt but parse it however you want. We just did something that felt good for both of us. But I say that to say he was the love of your life and your is he's alive. He's the love of your life. Well, we're still together. But even I'm saying when you made these

34:00 choices, he was the love of your life. He was your partner. So for you, the the finances became intrinsically combined in a way that made your respective what you're bringing to the table financially just a question of mathematics and not a question of, you know, mine versus yours. Um, and it was a lifestyle question, right? I remember being actually at a an event of his friends and one of his friends kind of made a comment about how her dad said that she can't be with anybody with debt, which I was like, there's a lot of problems with that sentence. But one of the biggest problems to me is I was like, well, not all debt is equal in this context. What matters is somebody's behavior now. So my thing was, yes, my husband had more than $50,000 of student loan debt.

34:46 That's a hefty amount of student loans. I think there was a lot of ways that maybe it didn't have to be that high, but he cash flowed his master's degree. So, that to me is a bigger indicator of who he is now or was then, but it was the big indicator of like where are we going moving forward that he didn't have a ton of credit card debt that I had to worry about. There was not a behavior that was a red flag to me. It was hey, I couldn't afford to go to this college without taking on debt, so I took on this debt. I've always made my payments on time. like the the behaviors are what mattered, not the existence of the debt. So this notion of like, oh, I can't end up with somebody with debt. Okay. Well, really really limit your dating pool for one, but for two, it really should be about somebody's

35:32 behaviors around money and what they are now as opposed to decisions that were made or even mistakes that were made earlier on in their life. My point though being that when you accept someone I think because the genders are flipped I think we are maybe looking at it differently because no one would bat an eye at a man who earns more than a woman taking her on financially and and integrating those costs into his life as part of becoming her partner. The phrasing of the question makes it sound as though you want to keep the partnership without the taking on of the responsibility and the financial burden of dating someone or marrying someone who earns quite a bit less than you do. And I do think the the thing there that needs to be unpacked

36:18 is if you're not willing to in any way downgrade or change your lifestyle or in any way to take on their finances as your own because they don't earn as much, are you really ready to commit to that person is the question because it's not fair. Don't do it before you're married. Oh, well that I mean that's for sure. Yeah. I am not at all implying you should be taking on somebody's debt or helping them with payments before uh but we don't know that he has debt. We're kind of just we're extrapolating. You mentioned that you have debt. I find that it's incredibly admirable that you have these financial goals that you feel very strongly about that you want to achieve. And my feeling from your question is kind of I don't want a man getting in the way of what I want to achieve. I have no problem with that.

37:05 you two just need to have a conversation around if if my big priority is to achieve these financial goals, how can I still be doing that and us progress in our relationship? And if the answer is you can't, then you're at a little bit of an impass and have to make a decision. But yeah, suffice to say, if you're marrying someone who earns less than you or considering comingling your finances, I think on some level, you have to accept that you'll be increasing your cost somewhat because it's not fair to go 50/50. Haven't you seen the Joy Luck Club? That man who made her go 50/50 on everything despite earning vastly less than him. The most despicable character in a movie full of despicable characters. Anyway, I would love it if you could do a money and relationships focused episode of Asen

37:50 Answered. I'm thinking of this because I just watched the episode where you and Aaron talked about buying a house before getting married. Me and my boyfriend have been looking into buying a house for the last year or two, but probably still won't for another year or two. You mentioned some of the negative sides of marriage and none of the benefits. I feel like when I ask people what the actual benefits of marriage are, I can never get a straight answer. Me and my boyfriend are both inclined to not get married for philosophical reasons. But when it comes to practical reasons that we might want to just go to the courthouse, I feel completely at a loss. These philosophical reasons mostly boil down to neither of us being obligated to stay in a relationship we would rather leave just because legal and financial hurdles have been put in the way. Buying a house together legally obligates you to another person in a relationship that you might want to leave. So having a kid Yeah. co-mingling your finances in really any way. Also, just to be clear,

38:35 people can definitely sue the out of each other even if they were never married. That happened to an extended relative of mine. People can also drain joint bank accounts and walk away with the money in a way when you're not married. And if you're not married and leave living in someone's house and are on no paperwork, they can lock the door, throw you on the street, and you have very little recourse. Or they could die and their family member could inherit the house because the family member is the next of kin designated by the state and the family member can kick you out of the house that you've lived in and spent money investing in. or they could be incapacitated and you will have no rights over the choices that they're making. So what this boils down to is the benefit of marriage is that it does give you some level of legal standing with your partner recognized by your state. So that is a really important

39:23 part. Now you do not have to legally be married in order to get this benefit. That's true. You can do all sorts of other paperwork. That could be power of attorney, advanced health care directives, setting up different sorts of estates and trusts in order to make sure that your partner is protected and that you are protected if something should happen to either one of you. And also make sure that you intimately understand the laws of your state and what would happen if your partner were to be unable to make choices for themselves because they're incapacitated or in the case of death, who gets their money, who gets their debt, who gets the house, and any other assets they might have. And if you don't like what the answer is as designated by your state, you create paperwork to make sure that you are the one that gets it, aka a will. Also, you might live in a common law state where you end up being all

40:10 kinds of legally and financially entwined just by living together for a certain amount of time. Yeah. So, the other thing too, other than kind of like legal implications of being married, you also have to think through the finances though in a couple different practical ways. One of those could be that it is financially beneficial for tax code reasons depending on what your salaries are. It might not be financially beneficial depending on what your salaries are. If either of you are on an income driven repayment plan or if both of you are on an income driven repayment plan for federal student loans as of midappril 2025 because this is an everchanging topic. Who the hell knows? But as it stands right now, what could actually happen is if you get married and you're both or one of you is on an

40:55 income driven repayment plan and you file taxes jointly, even if you file them separately, they're looking to close this loophole. But if you file taxes as a married couple, then all of the sudden your partner's income is counted in with your income and it balloons the amount that your payment will be every single month because it's prrated based on your income. So now we're using both sets of incomes. So, I have a dear friend who has a very longtime partner. They've been together for almost a decade at this point. And part of the reason that they are not legally married is because it would financially them in terms of their monthly payment on student loans if the other person's income was to count into their income driven repayment plan. Very true. Now, as to the benefits of marriage as opposed to living in sin

41:41 indefinitely, uh, and sticking it to the patriarchy. Sticking it to the patriarchy. Well, as we said, just because you're not legally married doesn't mean it's not a to get ex extricated from someone, especially if you own property, have kids, have in any way intertwined your finances, blah blah blah blah. So, you're not necessarily sparing yourself from that. What are the benefits of marriage as opposed to uh not being married, but being partners? Um, it's all vibes based really, I think, outside of the the legal just legal, honestly. The legal. I mean, I think there's a vibe to it. I think there's a vibe to it for sure. I think there's something very powerful in being able to designate your family. You know, that's a very powerful thing to be able to do. I've established many times and I've gotten taken to task in the comments for being a misand to

42:28 which I say, "Sorry, stop being stop stop sucking so many men. I can't what can I tell you?" Um, but in all seriousness, we do have the numbers, right? We can see single women tend to be happier than married women. Child single and childless women happiest of all. Like women do tend to be brought down in considerable ways by the wrong partner and will then report elevated levels of happiness when getting out of the marriage. Survey says the men report the opposite. They actually are sort of made happier regardless of the marriage and they generally decline after that marriage and often will remarry pretty quickly after. Why? Because women are often through, you know, force or habit or whatever the case may be, they become the invisible infrastructure of life that forms a partnership. And to me, any good partnership is one in which you are

43:14 creating that invisible infrastructure for each other at all times. You are softening the blows of life. You are making uh the highs higher. You are making the lows higher. You are uh creating uh an extra source of energy to draw from. The sum of what you are able to accomplish together is greater than its parts. You are just generally sort of force multipliers in the positive sense. But again, the numbers are there for women with the wrong partner. You are worse off than if you were single in mental health, often in financial health, in the burden of uh labor and responsibility, all of these things. So, I do not fault any woman potentially marrying a man. I think that's the case here. I do not fault any woman potentially marrying a man for being very skeptical of the enterprise. And I

44:01 think the bar for who you decide to marry, let alone who you decide to have children with, should be very high and should be demonstrated through action, not words. It should be demonstrated through action. But if you find the right partner, it is undeniable. I mean, yes, there are a lot of financial benefits to being married, even just from tax perspective. But there are also a lot of I mean, life is just cheaper as a twosome. You're able to do more as a twosome. And when you integrate your finances at the level of marriage, that is increased. But when you find the right partner and you say, "I would like you to be my family and I would like to intertwine with you at the level of like a essentially a business partner and go about the business of life with you," I think it's um it's a really strong statement and I think it provides a level of mental security. But again, it's not wrong to be wary of it because to your point, the wrong partner has a a

44:47 very bad impact. I do feel like for a lot of people the security element in terms of committing legally to one another makes you feel like the other person's not just going to walk away when times get hard in a a reassuring way I think for some people. The other part is, listen, I get all of the historical reasons why it's not a great institution in terms of the history of how we got here. But we should maybe be making our decisions based on the current iteration of marriage, not based on, you know, women being property of men and just traded around. I don't like that this is the case, but the reality is society respects your relationship more when you're married. That's true. That's unfortunately a fact. one. So much so

45:36 that I was with so my husband and I were together for eight years before we got married. We had been together for six years living together at this point and I still did not get a plus one to a wedding because we weren't married. So it's that but it it is that kind of behavior that I think some people will and this is not how it should be. Just let's be really clear. But unfortunately for some people, you just have more legitimization by society if it's husband wife, husband, husband, wife, wife wife wife, what have you, as opposed to we are boyfriend, girlfriend or we are partners. I also think that there are people for whom the right to marry was not granted

46:21 and it was very hard fought and hard-earned and getting married is kind of an FU to the systems that existed and hopefully those rights remain. I regret to inform you though that the same type of who doesn't respect relationships if they're not married won't respect the marriage if you don't have kids. Ask me how I know. Uh that's a whole other conversation. Let's go there. So yeah. No, but that's true. That's true. And there is just I mean you know if you're not going to marry the person I would highly discourage you from in any other way super intermingling your finances whether that be buying a home or having a child or doing anything that's going to legally make things extremely complicated because I genuinely do think that that

47:08 is giving you a lot of the drawbacks and none of the benefits that we have previously discussed. But I will stress that if you are not ready to make that if you're not ready to make those legal and financial commitments to that person, totally fine, totally cool. But to me, the deeper question then becomes why are you one of those people who would prefer to live life single? There are a lot of those people out there who would prefer not to be encumbered by another person or in any way. Like we had a question earlier, not saying she's a single forever person, but like there are many people who don't want another person, partner or otherwise, to in any way impact their personal plans, their life plans, their finances. Valid. You can't really have both though if you're going to take any of those steps together. Well, and ultimately a

47:55 relationship, including like all forms of relationships, but especially in a lifetime partnership, compromise has to be part of the name of the game. And so if if your goal is making sure that what you want out of life is of the utmost importance, then you should be the center and have relationships, but that those are not going to be necessarily lifelong partnerships, not a marriage, etc., etc., which go Samantha Jones route. Yes. All totally valid. And again, you do not have to get married. that is not of the utmost importance. But if part of this is just like maybe for a long time we've said we weren't going to get married for XYZ societal reasons and now

48:40 maybe it makes more sense on paper to get married and like we super love each other and want to be lifelong partners. Go to the courthouse. Don't tell anybody. No one has to know except your accountant. I'm going to say something here and you know what people are going to come in the comments and be like this is so like gender traditionalist essentialist. I probably will before the comments say it. In all of the people that I have known personally through the years where the man didn't care about the institution of marriage, it's just a piece of paper. It's just a piece of paper. Who who needs to go to the courthouse? If a woman's saying that, I kind of get it because again, women, it's typically been a losing proposition for them for a lot of reasons and steeped in a lot of patriarchal I get that. I get it. But when the man who again statistically financially and

49:26 otherwise, really only stands to benefit as we've seen and has historically been favored in marriage in a hetero partnership. If the man is out there saying, "We don't need to get married, babe. We just our love is enough, whatever." Because I've known I'm going to say through my life now, maybe between a half dozen and a dozen people, both close and more extended. Uh I'm gonna I'm gonna say 100% of those couples have not worked out. 100% of them. Now, there's something nefarious about the hyperwoke man sometimes. True. As I said, you know, if you're a man who after 12 years is calling your girlfriend, your partner, I'm like, you better have a law firm because what are you doing, buddy? But no, I'm again, this is not applying to all couples, but we're talking about heterosexual couples who plan on buying a home, having kids,

50:12 doing all of these things. If the man is super in his principles about not getting married when, as we've discussed, he's doing every other thing that would make them financially and legally intertwined. Maybe it's just me. You guys sound off on the comments. Has that worked out for a lot of people in your life? Because in my experience, it's indicative of another level of uncertainness that he's unwilling to either admit to or embrace within himself. And every single one of those relationships has not worked out in the long term. I hate to say this term, but it's giving. You don't buy the cow when you can get the milk for free. What are you, my grandmother? Okay, now we've gone too far. We've gone too far. I mean, as someone who's given away a fair amount of milk, I mean, come on. I still got bought at the at the town square. It's the buying into You're

50:58 right. We don't need this for XYZ. I think when both if it's something that you the woman feel strongly about and your partner is agreeing because they love you and are supporting your opinion but if you change your mind I guess that's the question if you were to come to your partner tomorrow and say never mind I would like to be legally married what's the reaction this happens all the time and it usually ends up in a sort of ultimatum situation where often the man is backed into proposing to the woman on her timeline. Like I have I think all women have seen that happen at least a few times in their lives and it's never a good situation. No, it usually does not end in a successful, happy, long-term marriage. If but also if you get proposed to and you're totally

51:44 shocked something's wrong. You should have a sense, as the saying goes, if it's not a hell yes, it's a no. And that applies to so many things in life, but few things as much as a man's level of commitment to you as a woman. Because if you're having to cajul that man, bad sign. Bad sign. Same thing with kids. You should not be trying to cajol a man into having kids. And that happens all the time. Yep. So, all of this is to say, there are benefits. There are drawbacks. As with any life choice, but you are mistaken in thinking that not being legally married would excuse you from all of the legal impacts, especially if it comes to things like buying a home. Also, anecdotally, the most unhappy couple I know by far. Uh, I was semi-reently after years of knowing them and seeing them have the most unbelievably awkward

52:29 fights at basically every social gathering and they've been together for 40 years. I was recently informed that they're not even legally married. To which I said, "What the hell? Free my sister." Uh, but at this point, never underestimate the power of inertia to keep bad couples together after a long period of time. and a meshment financially, socially, and the sunk cost fallacy. You any level of feeling like I just don't want to start over. That's your first red flag for yourself that it's time to move on. Please go follow my divas on social media who are like, I got divorced at 47 and I feel like we're turning into divorce court. This just feels like we're like, go. I am divorce court. I am Judge Judy of divorce court.

53:16 No, no. I just want women to be so careful about who they marry and have kids with. That's why it's the topic of our next video essay because the numbers are staggering and they don't lie. Anyway, sound off in the comments. I'm sure I'm going to get a bunch of comments about how I'm a man hating so and so. Whatever. Go off. I don't hate men mostly. Sometimes I do. I just I feel like this is almost a reverse psychology situation where it's like if I just don't get married, I escape all of the downfalls of being in a long-term relationship with somebody. And that's just simply not true. Anyway, we'll see you next week on Asked and Answered. We keep ending on such bummer notes. Yeah. I mean, what what is there to say? The right partner is wonderful, but the

54:02 wrong partner will ruin your life. That's even worse. It's true though. I've seen it happen to so many women and we all have women like that in our lives. We all know these women. Yeah. Say something positive, please. Love is great. And the right partner is a wonderful, wonderful thing. The right partner is a major asset to your life for sure. In all ways. And you just love them to death, even if they're a man. Yeah, I'm just kidding. Very deen. And her husband is one of the most delightful people I've ever encountered. Gender neutral gem. He really is. And he he's one of So she and another one of my friends have men that are my favorite type of man because physically they give

54:48 SEC conference frat boy. Like you would you would think so mad about the SEC reference. He's from upstate New York. But suffice to say like he's like he looks like a bro, but he has truly the heart of the best. and he's just a public school teacher who loves what he does and like just takes such good care of everyone and is just a gentle, generous soul. Just a a good man. On that note, we'll see you next week on Asansered. [Music]