44 DIVorCe wItH DeCenCY
Money... Dual-Income Families
Romance... without finance... ain’t got no chance.
—Charlie Parker
Couples frequently fight about money. One spouse is a saver,
the other is a spender. One is a risk taker, a gambler, or an entre-
preneur; the other is a conservative risk avoider. One party
wants to join both their moneys together (often the man), while
the other spouse (often the woman) wants to retain some money
as separate. One worries about money and is always concerned
with financial security. The other truly believes that money isn’t
everything. There is also a tendency by one or the other to use
control of the money as a device to control the other person.
All of these differences are intensified when each spouse has
his or her own money to protect or is afforded the extra per-
sonal freedom and flexibility that comes with having one’s own
income.
Furthermore, the logistics involved in the pursuit of money
itself add pressures to the relationship. Two-thirds of Americans
with school-age children are now in the labor force and need to
work out some sort of day care arrangements. About 60 percent
of married men with kids have working wives.
Commuter marriages. Time magazine did a fascinating article
entitled, “Till Work Do Us Part” on the relatively recent phenom-
enon of dual-career/dual-address married couples. This insight-
ful and amazing article pointed out the fact that as of 2005, there
were more than 3.5 million married American couples who had
to live geographically apart due to their disparate job postings.
These are not folks who have separated due to marital discord.
Rather, they have intact marriages, but each spouse is simply fol-
lowing his/her own job. This kind of marriage now constitutes
2.9 percent of all American marriages. Furthermore, their num-
bers have increased 30 percent just since the year 2000. Perhaps
this phenomenon isn’t as surprising as it seems given today’s pre-
ponderance of dual-career couples (now constituting 80 percent
of the current American labor force) and the ever-accelerating
nature of our highly mobile society.