Commission - The Total Cost of A Break Up..

The Total Cost of A Break Up

Love and Money.
A great Scottish band from the 80’s and of course the two things that have featured in songs and apparently they make the world go around.. ( Think Liza Minelli, Abba.. )

We all need money and we all want love. What then happens when the bottom falls out of it – a relationship? When you’re married its “for richer for poorer” and when you’re not married what is the real cost of a break up?

Love, friendship and money are all great assets and things that we have to work hard at achieving. Some of us manage all three, beautifully, with no hassle and some of us don’t quite manage to balance all of them at once. Take your eye off the ball and it can all come crashing down on you.. just like the world’s stock markets.

After a break up at the end of last year I was left counting what was left and it wasn’t much. The love that once was just dissipates, it breaks – hence the term ‘break up’ .

During a relationship you share friends and unfortunately, in some cases, when you split one of you can come off worse than the other with friends. They can choose to take sides and sometimes you or I can forget to nurture friendships, they wither and in some cases you end up in the black, as friends rally round to support you.

So, that’s love and friendship taken care of. The real crux of this piece is about the money, honey. We ( us girls ) earn our own money, we pay our own way and we can love who we like, so what has money got to do with it ?

A recent survey by YouGov found that 64% of women aspire to marrying a man who earns more cash then them. I wonder if that means the other 36% dreamt of marrying someone who earned less than them. I don’t think so, maybe they just declined to answer the question, since it appears that most people feel uncomfortable talking about money. ( Simply Red “Money’s Too Tight To Mention’ )

I discovered through my own journey of relationships in the last 10 years that women have an emotional connection with money. For example, when you’re feeling a bit low – retail therapy anyone? We never discuss it really openly, do we ?
I certainly don’t with my friends, its almost like one of those taboo subjects. We talk more about sex!!

We’ve all done this, I’m sure – fibbed about those brand new shoes you bought surreptitiously last week on your lunch hour after a particularly bad morning  “Oh, I bought them ages ago, you just haven’t seen them!” Does that feel familiar ? And of course, some men wouldn’t think twice about dropping £1000 for a week snowboarding or £250 on a new ski jacket, when some women have to eek out a weekly or monthly shopping budget. Both sexes lie about money, possibly how they came by it and most definitely how we/they spend it. I’d argue that we ( that’s men and women ) aren’t completely honest about money. We all know someone who has lied about how much they earn? ( I once worked with a girl who added an extra 0 onto her previous pay packet and landed the salary she was after in a new job!!? )

When it comes to some relationships, is it any wonder that when you mix love and money that sometimes the two just do not mix, a bit like oil and water?

There’s been a number of books written by women on this very subject, so you’ll catch my drift ‘The Secret Currency of Love : The Unabashed Truth About Women, Money & Relationships’ and another In Good Times and Bad: Strengthening Your Relationship When The Going Gets Tough and The Money Gets Tight’ .

This is not about financial equality or one partner earning more than the other, it’s about honesty. Is it any wonder that some high profile couples insist on a pre nuptial agreement ?

At present, as its topical, did Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzeneger have one in place ?  Take a world famous actor who was making 20 million dollars on average per movie before he became Governor. Maria Shriver is someone who is in the Kennedy family, one of the most famous and wealthy families in the world. Billions of dollars of net worth to be fought over! They married in 1986 and it’s yet to be disclosed whether an agreement was in place.

The Beatles sang ‘All You Need Is Love’ and even after all he's been through with his ex Ms Mills, who took him for plenty,  68-year-old Sir Paul McCartney recently announced his engagement with a whopping ring ( art deco reported to be worth 650 000 dollars ) to Nancy Shevell. Both laughed off any suggestion of a pre-nup, apparently all Sir McCartney's lawyers have done is draw up a simple one-page document saying Nancy won't claim on any of the trust funds of his children. Ms Shevell is successful and wealthy in her own right. With UK divorce rates declining, maybe it’s just too expensive to get divorced ?

So many questions and not many answers.

Once bitten, twice shy for most of us and so, a lesson learned and a lesson to share, whether you’re married or not,  whatever you do, girls ( and boys ) resist all temptation of being fooled into being romantic with your finances. It won’t build your future and in my experience, love doesn’t and never did pay the bills.

If you’ve policies in place to protect other areas of your life, maybe invest and insist on an honesty policy and joint bank account to manage expenses, it could be the best investment you both ever make. And since I started with a musical reference, I’ll part with one, a brilliant track from The Beatles “Can’t Buy Me Love.”  Macca, what a legend!