Divorce and Retirement
June 25, 2009
Retirement Issues Separate Husbands and Wives.
It is not unusual to find that divorcing couples disagree on financial issues. Often, one of the spouses has been the saver, the other the spender. Not surprisingly, when the assets are divided in a divorce, the saver feels the distribution is unfair. Why should he or she have to give his or her spouse half o fhis or her savings when the other spouse has not saved at all?
In a survey done by Fidelity of 500 couples who were at least 45 years old, LESS THAN HALF of the couples made financial decisions together. Only 40% of them agreed on what age they should retire. Only 60% agreed what their retirement lifestyle should be like. Yet, when it came to advising newlyweds how to handle their money, MORE THAN HALF advised them to make their financial decisions together.
Money – historically, it’s been one of the core issues that can cause a rift between a husband and wife — or between cohabitants, for that matter. What to spend…..what to save….when and how much to borrow…if these issues are not discussed along the way, there are bound to be problems down the road. In a NJ divorce, savings are considered “marital” even if only one party did the saving. Debts are considered joint as well as long as they were incurred for reasonably necessary purposes.
The moral: open the conversation about finances in retirement long before it’s time to retire.
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