“Why are we even more in debt?” I yelled at my husband. “What interest rate did you agree to?”
Even though I was a failed poet-turned-freelancer and bad at math, I knew something wasn’t kosher: He had been paying off our loan every month for five years, but our debt was now $5,000 more. Borrowing the down payment for our apartment from a relative had led us into an endless hole. Not only were we house poor, but 60 months later we were even more overwhelmed. Worse, we had to visit this family member every holiday and birthday out of obligation and guilt. Claustrophobic, it seemed like we would be in debt forever.
I remembered this dilemma when I read Belle Burden’s book Strangersa soon-to-be-filmed divorce memoir starring Gwyneth Paltrow. As she writes in the book, Burden married an older man in 1999 and regretted giving him control of her finances. Critics expressed shock that a smart, well-educated lawyer would make her husband the head of her bank accounts. I could understand it.
I also married an older man in my field in New York in the 90s. Okay, so I wasn’t a Harvard-educated heiress with a distinguished grandmother who married two high-society men and dated Truman Capote. (My Grandma Yetta was an old Jewish lady in Florida, wife of Harry, a blind maker who spoke mostly Yiddish except for “Thank God.”) Still, I believed in the same message: A marriage works best when the man has the most money.
It wasn’t as reckless as it sounds. It was hard to find a good partner, especially if you weren’t a slim, young, easy-going beauty in the big city. (As an amateur matchmaker who has matched 30 now-married couples, I know that the cyber scene hasn’t made dating and mating any easier.) I feared I’d never meet someone I’d want to sleep with every night, let alone a smart, nice guy with a job that my parents liked and who wasn’t threatened by my independence. At 35, I worried that my big mouth, big family, and big ambitions would alienate, eclipse, or emasculate my partner, as I had scared away previous boyfriends. After humiliating breakups and therapy to heal my grief, I was matched with a tall, handsome person. When he proposed, I didn’t want to screw it up.
As a new wife, I planned to continue working and pay my own way. The housing market has changed that. A real estate agent showed us a great two-bedroom apartment near our workplace – with space for two makeshift offices – that we couldn’t afford. We reconsidered the rent, but my husband’s charming, wealthy relative insisted that the current price was too high to waste on rent. He offered to loan us $100,000 for the down payment, attorney, mortgage broker and closing costs. We accepted. Even though I had found the apartment, had a small bank account separate from my husband, and wanted to split the bills, his salary was much higher than mine. So when it came to the scariest purchase of my life, I was relieved when my husband said, “I got that.”
When he asked him about the details of the loan, he assured me that he would take care of everything. After 15 years of living alone and taking care of everything myself (even calling my people in Michigan to freak out about cockroaches, mice, rats, rent increases, and other urban torments), I was lucky enough to be with someone who could take the lead. My married male therapist, who had helped me get married, quit addiction, and publish books, advised me to seek mentorship from my husband to make me feel grateful, cared for, and cared for. He was right.
Or so I thought. Until, five years after we signed the deed to our East Coast condo, I was shocked to discover monthly payments in my husband’s checkbook showing that despite regular payouts to his wealthy relatives, the interest was so high that we now owed him $105,000.
Although my husband was honest and brilliant, he didn’t have an MBA. He had a disorganized creative brain and was extremely trusting. I ran to a mentor who knew the unscrupulous real estate scene and was eager to get us out of debt.
“Take out a double mortgage to pay off the loan,” he advised. “I’ll show you how.”
My husband was outraged by my intervention. Still, he had had five years to oversee this, I argued; I deserve my turn. With the help of a real estate attorney friend, I learned the new loan language to pay off our debt by giving our relative, the lender, a check for the full amount, a gift, and a thank you card.
But our patron didn’t seem happy about being financially disconnected. He immediately asked us if we would invest in a new fund that he promised would generate a 12 percent annual return. Suspicious, I called my father that evening.
“What do you call an investment like that?” I asked.
“Bernie Madoff,” Dad replied.
I assumed that this relative had grown up poor and his identity was to have a hand in his relatives’ money flow, which made him feel needed and powerful.
After that bad experience, we slowly paid off our mortgage and remained debt-free. We went back to the status quo where my husband oversaw most of our spending. The value of the apartment increased with the cost of maintenance, prompting my husband to joke, “We’ll be very rich when we’re dead.”
Our luck was tested again during the pandemic when falls due to my husband’s balance issues led to neurosurgery, which was thankfully covered by his health insurance. My protective father suggested that we sign the papers to ensure that I was my partner’s attorney-in-fact, beneficiary, power of attorney, and co-signer in all matters. When we switched to online banking, we put most of the bills in my name. Luckily he survived and is still focused on recovery, but when asked how much our transportation costs are, he shrugged his shoulders as I recited the monthly numbers. Burden’s wake-up call was betrayal; In my case it was my husband’s brain disease.
While I should have become more financially savvy and taken the reins earlier to protect my own interests, that only happened because of my buddy’s mistake, naivety, and illness. Had he remained healthy or had we had greater wealth and not needed the loan, I may have had no idea about our financial future.
Burden’s book offers an important cautionary tale, warning women not to walk down the aisle with their eyes open and fiscal protections in place. This is wise not only when love goes wrong, but also in the event of death, a medical crisis, mental illness, a natural disaster, and all kinds of sudden unemployment. But marriage is a complicated matter. My rule when it comes to writing and love is: “You can do anything as long as it works.” And if not, take notes.
Susan Shapiro, a Manhattan writing teacher, is the author of memoirs Her Family Hates, including The Forgiveness Tour And Five men who broke my heartrecently selected for a film. Follow her on Instagram @profsue123.
All views expressed in this article are the author’s own.
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https://www.newsweek.com/husband-control-money-discovered-debt-almost-ruined-marriage-12185293
