How Divorce Lawyers and Marriage Counsellors Manage Money With Their Partners
They spend all day thinking about money and relationships—so what do they do with theirs?
They spend all day thinking about money and relationships—so what do they do with theirs?
Divorce lawyers and couples counsellors see how often money leads to the end of a relationship. When these professionals return home, they put into action several steps to make sure they have a healthy relationship with their finances and their partners.
Lisa Zeiderman, 61 years old, a divorce lawyer in New York, and her husband, Lloyd Zeiderman, an 86-year-old wealth and business manager, spent the better part of their respective careers thinking about money and relationships. They have front-row seats to how financial issues can tear couples apart.
At home and at work, Mrs. Zeiderman preaches “the mailbox rule.”
Every weekend, when she and her husband drive out for breakfast, she stops the car at the end of the driveway and checks the mail. While they share money, he takes the lead on managing their investments and communicating any new developments to his wife. But she said checking the literal receipts—both in the mail and digitally—can offer peace of mind.
“If the credit-card statements are no longer available or passwords are changed or you used to have discussions about money and now you don’t, that may be the sign of something brewing around you,” she said.
Sharing money with a romantic partner leads to greater overall relationship satisfaction, and combining financial power in turn leads to greater wealth for the household, studies have found. Despite these demonstrated benefits, many couples see talking about money as a gateway to more fights and less peace.
But many seasoned legal, financial and counselling professionals say they have seen firsthand the repercussions of letting money problems fester. We asked some of them to share even more lessons they have learned and put to the test in their own relationships.
“Just talk about it” is some of the most common—and occasionally infuriating—advice quarrelling couples receive. But in practice, maintaining a low-stakes, ongoing daily discussion about expenses, savings and your respective financial habits can lessen the tension many people feel around these money conversations, said Matt Lundquist, the 46-year-old founder and clinical director of Tribeca Therapy in New York who also counsels couples.
For the Zeidermans, who have been married for almost 25 years, the conversation never stops—and that is intentional, they both say.
“There’s no scheduled sit-down, and it isn’t an organised event,” Mr. Zeiderman said. “But the bill comes in, we talk about it. If we’re buying something for her daughter or my son, we make a joint decision.”
They both admit they aren’t always in perfect agreement. Over the years, Mr. Zeiderman has lent money to an old friend. When she first saw the wire transfer, Mrs. Zeiderman had some questions. But in talking about the issue, she said, they agreed to call a truce: when a particular expense is especially personal to the other partner, they can allow some leeway.
When Mr. Lundquist and his wife of 13 years talk about coming expenses, savings plans or the impact of inflation on their budget, they don’t only talk about the numbers, he said.
“Don’t just sit down and go through the budget, but parallel to that, say ‘how do you feel about that?’” he said. “It’s astonishing how many couples don’t talk about that and the consequences of that.”
Valentina Shaknes, a 43-year-old New York City lawyer and one of the founding partners at Krauss, Shaknes, Tallentire & Messeri, has become familiar with a certain story: A successful, confident woman in the throes of divorce proceedings realizes how little she knew of the overall household finances.
“They would really rely and defer to their husbands to manage their family finances, which is so different from their professional lives, where they’re running the show,” Ms. Shaknes said.
In divorce proceedings, Ms. Shaknes describes a document she says she has since come to love: the statement of net worth. Each party fills out expenses, income, assets, liabilities and more in granular detail, so that each has the complete picture of the other’s financial situation. Ms. Shaknes recommends couples try doing this exercise while they are still together, rather than waiting until a breakup.
At home, Ms. Shaknes recreates the process with her husband of 23 years. Each time, they discuss mortgage payments, real-estate taxes and credit-card spending, and adjust for new factors like education costs for their children. The exercise may be tedious, but she’s adamant they both have eyes on the numbers.
“Our lives are so full with all of the responsibilities and obligations, and you have to divide and conquer,” she said. “But you also need to know.”
Adam Kol, a mediator, tax lawyer and former financial adviser based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., calls himself “The Couples Financial Coach.” When he and his wife got married at the start of 2023, he said they had been sharing money for almost a year, in part to more easily manage the expenses related to their wedding.
At the start of their relationship, Mr. Kol identified as “the saver” and his wife as “the spender.”
They have since learned to spend money on things that enrich their lives, and vice versa. When they were first decorating their apartment, Mr. Kol said his wife took the lead on thrifting many of their artworks. Whenever he looks at the variety of pictures and art, Mr. Kol said he sees a visual representation of the middle road they found together.
“Like all couples, we moderate each other,” he said. “She helps me loosen up a little bit and enjoy the day-to-day.”
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Says U.S. and China, which will continue to see a surge in borrowing if current policies remain in place.
The U.S. and Chinese governments should take action to lower future borrowing, as a surge in their debts threatens to have “profound” effects on the global economy and the interest rates paid by other countries, the International Monetary Fund said Wednesday.
In its twice-yearly report on government borrowing, the Fund said many rich countries have adopted measures that will lead to a reduction in their debts relative to the size of their economies, although not to the levels seen before the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, that is not true of the U.S. and China, which will continue to see a surge in borrowing if current policies remain in place. The Fund projected that U.S. government debt relative to economic output will rise by 70% by 2053, while Chinese debt will more than double by the same year.
The Fund said both countries will lead a rise in global government debt to 98.8% of economic output in 2029 from 93.2% in 2023. The U.K. and Italy are among the other big contributors to that increase.
“The increase will be led by some large economies, for example, China, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States, which critically need to take policy action to address fundamental imbalances between spending and revenues,” the IMF said.
The IMF expects U.S. government debt to be 133.9% of annual gross domestic product in 2029, up from 122.1% in 2023. And it expects China’s debt to rise to 110.1% of GDP by the same year from 83.6%.
The Fund said there had been “large fiscal slippages” in the U.S. during 2023, with government spending exceeding revenues by 8.8% of GDP, up from 4.1% in the previous year. It expects the budget deficit to exceed 6% over the medium term.
That level of borrowing is slowing progress toward reducing inflation, the Fund said, and may also increase the interest rates paid by other governments.
“Loose US fiscal policy could make the last mile of disinflation harder to achieve while exacerbating the debt burden,” the Fund said. “Further, global interest rate spillovers could contribute to tighter financial conditions, increasing risks elsewhere.”
A series of weak auctions for U.S. Treasurys are stoking investors’ concerns that markets will struggle to absorb an incoming rush of government debt. The government is poised to sell another $386 billion or so of bonds in May—an onslaught that Wall Street expects to continue no matter who wins November’s presidential election.
While analysts don’t expect those sales to fail, a sharp rise in U.S. bond yields would likely have consequences for borrowers around the world. The IMF estimated that a rise of one percentage point in U.S. yields leads to a matching rise for developing economies and an increase of 90 basis points in other rich countries.
“Long-term government bond yields in the United States remain elevated and sensitive to inflation developments and monetary policy decisions,” the Fund said. “This could lead to volatile financing conditions in other economies.”
China’s budget deficit fell to 7.1% of GDP in 2023 from 7.5% the previous year, but the IMF projects a steady pickup from this year to 7.9% in 2029. It warned that a slowdown in the world’s second largest economy “exacerbated by unintended fiscal tightening” would likely weaken growth elsewhere, and reduce aid flows that have become a significant source of funding for governments in Africa and Latin America.
An unusually large number of elections is likely to push government borrowing higher this year, the Fund said. It estimates that 88 economies or economic areas are set for significant votes, and that budget deficits tend to be 0.3% of GDP higher in election years than in other years.
“What makes this year different is not only the confluence of elections, but the fact that they will happen amid higher demand for public spending,” the Fund said. “The bias toward higher spending is shared across the political spectrum, indicating substantial challenges in gathering support for consolidation in the years ahead, and particularly in a key election year like 2024.”
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