Last night was the first time Alex took the kids for the entire night. Did they stay home and play a game or rent a video? Did they go to the pool on Free Family Friday or ride their bikes? (Ok, to be fair, it was raining.) No, they went and saw a play downtown, ate dinner out, bought some small trinkets, and then got up this morning and went and had pancakes. There is close to zero in our joint account (this week is the week I close this account – I promise, I swear), and he’s made no income since July. But this doesn’t seem to faze him. And it serves to remind me of one of the most crucial ways in which we just don’t match up.

One of the most emailed articles on the New York Times right now – topped only by the Sarah Show (if you haven’t read enough, read this)- is about money and marriage. Not surprising. Though none of my several friends who are currently having marital problems would put money as the top reason for their dispeasure, it’s definitely an element in each case. Credit card debt. Expensive taste in gadgets. Lack of caring. Stinginess. I wonder if we put up with these things, placing more emotional issues on our list of complaints, because leaving someone over money feels crass?

I knew this would be a problem, I just pretended that it would get better, or that I’d make enough money on my own that it wouldn’t matter too much. When Alex very unexpectedly asked me to marry him sixteen years ago, the first words out of my mouth were, ”If you promise not to bounce any more checks.” A few months later, we bought our own rings because I was worried that his payment for my very humble ring wouldn’t go through. And the first time we nearly separated it was over our shared business, for which Alex was much more comfortable than I in racking up loans. 

Now, I’m left with the realization that no matter how divorced we are, because we share kids, our finances will always be somewhat intertwined. I would love to make enough money that I don’t have to even consider when his next payment might come along, but that’s not in the near future – I’m hardly a doctor. I’ve been amazed by the number of divorced women who have told me that they don’t take child support because they don’t want the emotional strain (i.e., guilt) that their exes heap on them. As one friend said, “When he’d write me a check, he’d just see my name. Everything that had to do with our son just sort of disappeared.”

Even Alex’s mother once told me – at another almost-separated juncture – that I shouldn’t count on him for child support. She hadn’t been able to count on Alex’s dad, and he IS a doctor. At the moment I guess the best I can do is to separate our accounts and credit cards and make him responsible for any payments that won’t leave us freezing or hungry should they not get paid. Then, get as savvy as I can about the green stuff while also becoming Zen about it. It sounds cheesy or perhaps even foolhardy, but believing that the universe will take care of the kids and me is probably the biggest gift I can give myself right now: the gentle balance of responsibility and faith. Om ca-ching. Om ca-ching….