The One Thing Every Marriage Needs

I have an incredible wife. Nancy is smart, beautiful and loyal.  We have lots of common interests like taking long hikes though the mountains of Montana, or spending time with our children and grandchildren. Our life is good together. In fact, over our forty-one years of marriage, I have had only one recurring frustration with her–she doesn’t share my love of managing and talking about our finances. 

I don’t mean to imply that she doesn’t like to hear from me at dinner that we are having a great year, or that in spite of the horrible market we are only down 5% due to our asset allocation plan. I just mean that she’d rather walk the dog or pull weeds than spend time studying the spreadsheet I developed laying out our finances. In short, it’s because she trusts me and has no fear that we will run out of money.  That, of course, is a good thing for the most part. 

So, I’ve come to accept that it’s probably optimal for our marriage to only have one CFO.  There are no arguments over which index fund we use for instance. But rather than counting my blessing and give up on my quest to improve her financial literacy, I’ve found the key to unlock her inner financial planner once a year.  It’s called our annual review of the Kesler financial empire. 

We have a short agenda that we review: how did our net worth change, how safe is the source of our income in retirement, what were our expenses in the past year and did our spending reflect our values and purpose in this season of life.  We also talk about our goals for the next year and do we have the money to achieve them.  Personally, I love this time with her because it usually leads to some great conversation about our life together. It removes the abstract numbers on a spreadsheet, and puts our goals and dreams in the discussion and whether we have the resources to achieve them. 

But I know there is another, less fun, topic that needs to be discussed before our annual meeting ends. It terrifies her, but gives her a laser focus on our finances when I bring it up. 

The show stopper question, “How are you going to manage our finances if I die tomorrow?” It’s morbid, uncomfortable and awkward. But I come prepared to give her the confidence she needs to face that possibility.

While I manage over 90% of our finances, we have some small investments with two financial advisors. Nancy and I know both of these gentlemen well. They are our friends and we’re confident in their integrity and competence.  The firms they work for are large and have excellent reputations. For the last two years I’ve arranged for one of these gentlemen to meet with us and I ask him to walk through the process of how he would consolidate our finances in the event of my untimely death. 

It is fascinating to watch the fear and anxiety slowly leave Nancy’s face as the process is explained. I throw out “what if” questions such as, “What if Nancy wants to know if she can afford a new car? How will you help answer that question?”  Or, “will you meet with Nancy once a year to explain her financial position?”  

We are both comfortable with the plan even as I joke about what a travesty it will be if I can’t manage our finances! We have 5 adult children, some of whom are trained in finance and could also manage our finances. However, we don’t want to put that on any one of our children because of the risk of something being done wrong and the temptation of second guessing an action. 

It should be obvious that death awaits us all, but as a banker for over 40 years I saw the result of those who passed without apparently ever seriously considering that they would die. I have seen the poor result of leaving wealth in the hands of those who don’t have a clue. Nancy and I have put the necessary legal documents in place for our assets, and I sleep well knowing Nancy has a plan with good advisors if the proverbial bus hits me tomorrow.  I hope if you’re married that you will plan too!