Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of emails from folks who ask me if they should stay married because they can’t afford to get a divorce. One example is the stay-at-home mom who has been out of the workforce for quite some time and knows that her income would not be enough to support herself or her children, even with child support. Another example is the husband (or sometimes the wife who is the main earner) who knows that should they divorce their spouse, that same spouse is going to be entitled to half of all their earnings and assets.

It’s common knowledge that the standard of living and wealth goes ways down for everyone in the household following a divorce. It just costs a lot more to maintain two households than it does to maintain one. However, this sometimes seems a small price to pay if you are just extremely unhappy in your marriage. I often get comments like: “The only reason that my spouse and I are together is that we can’t afford to separate or divorce,” or “I don’t love my wife (or husband) anymore, but I know that I could not afford to divorce them.” I’ll address these concerns in the following article.

Tough Martial Decisions In Today’s Economy: There is no question that we are seeing fewer divorces today because of the economy. Folks who may well have divorced a couple of years ago are now staying married because of money issues. Some folks have come up with creative solutions like separating but living under one roof while still trying to maintain each spouse’s privacy and independence. This situation can provide its own set of challenges but many feel that it’s better to stick it out this way than to lose the family home or to ruin the credit of both spouses. The upside to this is that some of these couples are finding that although it was the money that made them stick it out, eventually it was a mutual affection and love for their family which allowed them to work it out and to save the marriage. Often delaying the normal inclination to just divorce or walk away when things get tough allows people the time and the distance that they need to see that working things out so that each party ultimately gets the marriage that they want is quite possible.

Letting Money Be Your Motivation To Not Only Delay The Divorce, But To Save The Marriage: I know that when you found this article, you probably weren’t looking for an article on saving your marriage. You probably wanted ideas on how to make the divorce or separation work even with the money limitations. Unfortunately, that’s not advice that I feel qualified to give. In my own experience, my mother had no marketable skills when she divorced my father. She went from being a housewife to being a clerk at a convenience store. My sister and I went from a comfortable existence to suddenly worrying about being hungry or losing our home, and this was even with the child support that my father was ordered to pay by the courts. I can tell you that both my sister and I deeply wished that our parents had been able to work it out. We were only able to stay in our home because our grandparents helped my mother out financially.

And, my father walked away from his three-bedroom home with all of the sprawling oak trees that he’d planted by hand to a garage apartment that smelled of whatever the homeowner was cooking. There was no bedroom there for my sister and I. When we visited, my dad took the couch. I would venture to say that for several years following the divorce, every member of our family greatly suffered. Could they have made it work? I don’t know. I never walked in my parent’s shoes, but their marriage was not an abusive one and I do believe that they loved one another, but neither of them had any communication or negotiation skills to speak of. Could they have learned them? Absolutely.

My point in telling you this is to show you that no matter how bad you think your marriage is or how unhappy you may think you are, divorce can be just as painful and non-fulfilling. I can’t tell you how many people write to me and confess that they are just as unhappy divorced as they were married. The truth is, if the only change that you make in your life is your marital status, this is unlikely to solve all of your problems.

Sure, there are some marriages that are irretrievably broken and this is especially true in cases of abuse. But, as long as this is not your case and you’re in a holding pattern right now anyway, why not ask yourself if you could put more time and effort into your marriage? Because I believe that many marriages only suffer from a lack of effort and from neglect. Today’s society and workplace is so fast-paced and so competitive that we often do not have the time for other things that are Often when I tell people this, they’ll respond with things like “it’s just too late or why do I have to do all the work?” I see this point, but I can also tell you that most people would rather be happy than to be right. Being indignant will only allow you to be right but to be alone.

At the end of the day, we all want to feel loved, appreciated, and understood. We want to know that someone understands us and values us and that we matter. But often to get this, we have to give before we get. Marriage is reciprocal. So if you want more affection, attention, and efforts from your spouse, you often have to give this first. But, the rewards can be great. Imagine if your spouse was a source of support for you in these harsh economic times rather than part of the problem.

There was a time that I thought my marriage was truly at its end and money was only one of our issues. Thankfully, even though I had doubts, I decided to try one last thing and approach it from another angle and this eventually worked. You can read that story on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com/