You are ready. Ready to get professional advice about your finances and investments. Something has shifted for you and you’re ready to take action. I know that phenomenon well. For a long time, you aren’t ready to do something … and then, suddenly … you are.
There can be lots of reasons for this shift. Maybe it’s a job change and now you’re going to have multiple old 401Ks sitting out there. Or maybe you roughly tally up the balances in your 401K, IRAs and savings and realize it’s grown into a hefty chunk that needs a cohesive investment plan. Or maybe, for a long time, you’ve had a nagging discomfort with your lack of a financial plan and you’re ready to replace that pain with confidence and enthusiasm.
Fantastic! You’re ready to take action!
But.
Your spouse is not with you. Your partner is not in the same place on the journey from not ready to ready. They are happy with status quo.
What should you do?
Ideally, your partner will engage
It’s not ideal when one partner is out. Ideally, both partners engage in the financial and life planning process. In a perfect world, you both attend the meetings. You both answer the Three Questions and work with me to develop your vision of a meaningful life. You both provide financial documents so I can analyze the numbers, create an investment plan, and use all of that to align your money with your life.
In other words, I do think the first thing you should do is try to get them on board. Maybe they will commit to attending just the first Exploration Meeting so they can hear from someone other than you about how financial planning is going to make their life better right away by eliminating that low-level, nagging discomfort and offloading some responsibility onto a pro.
Two types of hesitant spouses
But if that doesn’t work, there is still hope. Spouses who are not interested in participating tend to fall into two groups:
Group 1: This is the spouse who looks at you with tired-head and says, “Can’t you just do it for both of us?” He or she is happy for you to take charge, handle all their financial documents, and talk openly about everything with the financial planner. They just don’t want to have to participate.
Group 2: This is the partner who says, “If you’re going to talk with a financial planner, do not share anything about me.” They are firmly against and expect you to do it on your own as a separate financial entity.
If your spouse is in Group 2, unfortunately, I don’t think it can work. I would not be able to take you on as clients. As a fiduciary, it’s not possible for me to give you solid financial advice if I am only allowed to see a portion of the picture, the other half obscured in secrecy. This is a difficult situation and my hope for you is that your spouse will come around eventually.
Embrace an imperfect solution
However, if your partner is in Group 1, generally I find we can make it work. Again, this is not my preferred scenario. But we can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good! You will benefit from financial life planning whether or not your spouse is attending every meeting.
I am doing this with several clients now: women whose husbands are happy for them to be completely responsible for the financial planning for the household. Technically, both spouses are my clients. And when I make investment recommendations for the husband’s IRA, for example, I do require his specific approval. But overall, the husband is willing to go along with what his wife (and me as their planner) decide in our meetings during the year. These are the cases that work successfully.
Don’t wait to start your financial life planning journey
I believe, in many cases, you can do financial life planning even when your spouse is not interested. You shouldn’t have to wait for them to catch up with you on the readiness journey. You can start now. Our hope is that, over time, as your partner sees all the benefits that you (and they) are getting from the financial life planning process, they will jump on board.
If you’d like help building a financial plan for your household, learn more about Pearl Financial Planning. We help professional women build wealth and dream big.
About the Author
Gretchen Behnke, CFP®, RLP®
Gretchen Behnke is a fiduciary financial planner in Plano, TX. Pearl Financial Planning is a fee-only firm providing full financial planning and investment management services to independent professional women and couples. Serving local clients in-person or virtually, and virtual meetings for clients across the country.