CJ Kaplan doesn’t feel less of a man when his wife handles the family finances—she’s the only one qualified to.
Lisa stared daggers of death at the oblivious car salesman as he serenaded me with the incomparable features of the minivan he was trying to peddle.
“Dude,” I cut across him as he was extolling the virtues of four-zone climate control, “it’s gonna be her car. Talk to her.”
The poor guy finally looked at my wife and blanched as he saw the lost sale in her lethal eyes.
“Oh, but I thought…you would be…” he stammered helplessly.
“Yeah, she handles the finances too,” I said as we stood up to leave. “I just came for the free coffee and doughnuts.”
When Lisa and I met in college, she was an Econ major who took courses like Statistics just for fun. I was an English major who nearly flunked Calculus 101 freshman year and hadn’t been back to the Math Building since. (Ironically, I once had high school Pre-Calculus teacher who always told the class not to be afraid of any college math. Turns out I wasn’t afraid at all. I was fucking petrified.)
Although we never had any classes in common, Lisa and I were perfect for each other. I helped her with those pesky essays in her mandatory Humanities classes and she balanced my hitherto unbalanced checkbook. It was a match made in liberal arts heaven.
For Lisa, math and accounting always came easy. Perhaps it’s because she is the daughter of an actuary who used to routinely fire word problems at his daughters over dinner each night. While some families pass the time during long car rides with trivia contests or license plate games, Lisa’s family enjoys solving for x as the miles roll by. It’s enough to make me hide underneath my copy of Tennyson’s Complete Works and never emerge.
After graduation, Lisa became an economist for The Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. (That’s right, an Econ major became an economist! How often does that happen?) As a G-woman, Lisa would go around collecting employment data from randomly selected businesses in the New York metropolitan area and then crunch the numbers for her boss. And by her boss, I mean then U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. Every time the government released salary and benefit data, it was likely that Lisa’s work factored into those numbers.
In my post-college life, I took a job as a copywriter in a Providence ad agency. While Lisa dressed smartly and did very official things at work, I spent my days clad in jeans and t-shirts thinking up campaigns for local restaurants and women’s shoes. When faced with my first major financial decision—where to open a checking account—I chose Fleet Bank because Citizens Bank was a client of ours and they had been refusing to buy any of my ideas.
“That’ll show ‘em!” I thought as I took my meager portfolio to Citizens’ archrival.
And that was pretty much how I dealt with all matters pertaining to money. Which is to say, stupidly.
A few months after we were engaged, Lisa and I opened a joint checking account. My relief was palpable as we signed the forms. I was putting our finances into the hands of the most competent person I knew. As we placed our order for new checks, the bank representative asked how we wanted our names to appear in the upper left-hand corner.
“Oh, you don’t have to put mine on there,” I said. “I don’t plan on writing any checks ever again.”
Of course, Lisa convinced me that both our names should be on there just in case. But, I was still resolved not to have anything to do with our finances other than to earn my paycheck. And that’s pretty much the way it’s been for the past seventeen years.
When my friends found out that Lisa was managing our money, they predictably busted my chops for not taking a more dominant role in my marriage. As if the person in charge of the credits and debits was somehow in charge of the relationship based on the Commutative Property of Marriage. (Or maybe it’s the Reflexive Property. I’m not really sure which applies here because, as you will surely recall, I’m bad at math.) Of course, my friends are the same guys who can’t go five minutes without calling their wives to tell them where they are, whom they are with, and what time to within thirty seconds they will be home. But, hey, at least they control the checkbook.
I’ve never actually thought of the roles we play in our relationship as masculine or feminine. We simply play to our strengths. When the kids wanted to learn how to play basketball, it was me who taught them. Not because I’m the man, but because I’m 6’3″ and played varsity hoops while Lisa is 5’2″ and shoots like a bricklayer. If I were to run the finances for our family for the sole reason that I’m the husband in the husband/wife equation, we’d surely be living, to quote the late thespian Chris Farley, “in a van down by the river.”
As the years pass, I’m ever more grateful that Lisa is our CFO. Not only is our bank account in order, it appears that she has also passed her unassailable math skills on to our children who excel in their numerical studies. And, as far as our relationship goes, all is equal.
Now if I can just get my father-in-law to stop quizzing us.
Photo—Financial Crisis from Shutterstock
“I’ve never actually thought of the roles we play in our relationship as masculine or feminine. We simply play to our strengths” This one line says it all for me. My wife and I take the same approach, it just happens that she is more detail oriented, organized and disciplined so she takes care of the finances. I am a whiz in the kitchen so I cook and plan our family meals 5-6 nights a week. I don’t know every detail about our bills, the balancing of the checking account or the many monthly expenditures we have, but that does… Read more »
…Forgot to add – I hope my comments help you think about this from another perspective CJ. Good luck!
Hello CJ, My marriage looks (or looked) a lot like what you described in your article: I took over the family’s finances and I did it alone for a long LONG time. My husband acknowledged that I was better at it & he had a track record of *not* being good at it with his own personal finances before our marriage. Like you – His friends ribbed him… but they also admitted to being a little jealous of how well our finances were doing under my watch. Here are a few tips for you and these tips are directly related… Read more »
Sorry but I am going to have to agree with Luckey here. The ‘tone’ of your article CJ is that your approach to your marriage is enlightened, beginning with the car buying story. Perhaps you didn’t mean it that was but for ME that is the way it comes out. That somehow having your wife do all the finances is the way to go. Remember , you might not have meant it that way, but that is sure how it sounds. AND Luckey is also right, even if you didn’t mean to make it sound as though you were doing… Read more »
1) the car buying story clearly illustrated how his marriage doesn’t fit societal norms. It also furthers his points below the illustration about how it works **for them**. He never says anything in the article that it should work for everyone: he merely celebrates that it works for him and his wife. 2) He clearly stated in an above comment that he does know where the family’s finances go; he just doesn’t take the dominant position in deciding it, because he doesn’t want to. There’s a difference between letting someone else being in charge of issues and letting someone else… Read more »
John,
I understand what you are saying completely. I always cringe at the women who boast about their ignorance of their family’s money situation.
I don’t agree with the comment which insinuated that CJ’s marriage will fail though…
THANK YOU! Oh my god…I was really starting to think I was the only person who dies a little inside each time I hear my female friends exalting in their financial ignorance.
Luckey, lighten the F**k up!! damn!! CJ…your marriage sounds alot like mine…lol. and just like you, im the BETTER for it!! i rarely carry cash, and rarely pay the bills or know exactly what the budget is…but im completely secure with my wife being our CFO. Apparently people like Luckey dont understand the concept of two people who compliment each other instead of taking on stereotypical roles because they have to. I used to laugh when my mom would always ask me howcome Gloria doesnt let you have any of your own money (She’s a stay at home mom as… Read more »
My husband did the same thing LOL! But I have to say that after awhile I got tired… I prefer the quarterly switch off. We also do bi-weekly meetings so the person who is not handling the $ at the time is informed about what’s going on. This makes things smoother for us. Another thing we do: The person who is on deck for handling the $ for the quarter can give the non handler “taskers” to get minor things done by a certain date….such as comparison shopping for a household repair or contacting a bank with a question about… Read more »
“Apparently people like Luckey dont understand the concept of two people who compliment each other instead of taking on stereotypical roles because they have to.” – Apparently, you don’t know how to read (perhaps your spouse “compliments” by doing it for you? 🙂 ). Maybe it will help if I repeat this part from my first comment: “Its not unusual that there is an agreement between a couple that one spouse will manage the day-to-day finances or have the greater input and/or final say on the major financial decisions”. That is a gender neutral statement because sometimes that person is… Read more »
“I was still resolved not to have anything to do with our finances other than to earn my paycheck. And that’s pretty much the way it’s been for the past seventeen years.” – Uh, your complete and total ignorance of your family’s finances and leaving all the decisions and all the RESPONSIBILITY of those decisions to your spouse doesn’t make you an enlightened man, CJ. I can’t believe that you’re openly bragging about this! Its not unusual that there is an agreement between a couple that one spouse will manage the day-to-day finances or have the greater input and/or final… Read more »
Well Luckey, I seem to have touched a nerve with you. I’m not sure how you were able to draw so many conclusions about my life and, at the same time, be so completely wrong about all of them. (I guess “Luckey” is an ironic moniker.) To begin, at no time did I ever claim that my poor math skills made me an enlightened man. I also never said that I don’t share in the financial decisions or that I am unaware of our monthly budget. I’ve just never balanced the checkbook. You’ll also be relieved to know that I… Read more »
“I also never said that I don’t share in the financial decisions or that I am unaware of our monthly budget…You’ll also be relieved to know that I am aware of our investments and that I have a pretty good idea where the money is going. My wife is also quick to tell me when funds are running low…” – Well, that’s quite a turnabout from: “I was still resolved not to have anything to do with our finances other than to earn my paycheck. And that’s pretty much the way it’s been for the past seventeen years.” So are… Read more »