If you look around the internet, or in magazines, or at news programs on TV, you will probably be hard-pressed to find anyplace that doesn’t list money as a top reason for divorce in the United States.

If you think about this a little bit, it’s not particularly shocking.

Let’s say a young couple (or even a not-so-young couple) gets married.  Everything is fabulous, and they decide they want to have a family, complete with a white picket fence and a neighborhood ice cream truck.  So they buy a house.  Then they have a kid.  Or two, or three.  The kids need STUFF.  The house needs STUFF.  Maybe now they need a new car.  And the couple themselves occasionally need stuff, too.  All these early marriage “stuff” acquisitions means the couple needs money… and may also mean the couple has to go into debt.  If the two people that make up this couple view and handle money differently, there’s a good chance there’s going to be friction, and over time, that it will be a major problem.

Like I said, it’s not shocking that money issues often = divorce.

As a soon-to-be-married person, this type of statistic freaks me out.  I certainly don’t want my marriage to be felled by money.  Money is, to a certain extent (you know, barring prolonged illness, alien invasion, and job loss), something that can be controlled.  So for Alex and I, I figured we could avoid problems if we talked early and often about how we are going to handle our finances as a married couple.

Turns out, I’m kinda dumb for thinking it’s that easy.  Because, when it comes to relationships and money, it’s not easy at all.

For Alex and I, we decided to split joint expenses – things like rent and electricity – according to the disparity in our incomes, but we keep our money separate so we can easily pay our pre-relationship obligations.  This was my idea, and I had read about this method of handling money in relationships in The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke by Suze Orman.  For example (and I’m making these numbers up):

He makes $40,000/year

I make $30,000/year

This means he makes 0.57 more than I do (40,000/70,000).  So if our rent is $1200 a month, he pays 0.57 x $1200, or $684, while I pay $516.

This is supposed to ensure that one person isn’t paying so much that all their income is gone every month, while the other person has tons to spare.  It has worked pretty well for us thus far.  The problem we are running into now is that this formula really isn’t going to work very well if we intend to buy a house, or have kids (which we do).  The person with more income is going to have to use a lot of that ‘more’ if we want a house that isn’t a shack.

Now, it isn’t that being able to afford these things is a problem.  They are do-able, achievable goals.  It’s the concept that all of a sudden it’s going to be pretty uneven financially, when viewed individually.  One of us is going to be paying a lot more, but we’re receiving equal benefits.  And for both of us, it’s the first time in either of our lives where our financial stability will be tied to someone else’s financial stability.  It’s the first time I can’t afford something basic, like housing, without the help of someone else in my adult life.  Our fates will be officially linked.  It’s like there’s less individuality there, somehow.  For two people who have been very independent and individual their entire lives, it’s a terrifying concept.

This makes me suspect that disagreements on this topic, not just with Alex and I, but with most couples, are not just about money.  This is stressful, emotional stuff because something important isn’t under your solitary control anymore.  Or maybe it’s an under-discussed fear about marriage in general, a fear about losing independence, and this is where it manifests.  Whatever the reason, the idea that it is not just MY money anymore is the hardest pill I’ve ever had to swallow.  I’ve worked hard to have a clean financial name, and it bothers the heck out of me that it won’t just be mine anymore.  I’ve never been particularly good at sharing.

I think that maybe this is why so many couples have trouble when it comes to money.  Money is power and control, and you can’t have much of a life without it.  Lucky for me, Alex and I do talk about money and the future a lot.  I suspect we will figure it all out intelligently and be fine.  Many people have trouble talking about this topic, though, so if anyone else is willing to share their thoughts and experiences, please do!

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When I got engaged back in July, I was determined to understand, as much as you can ever really hope to understand, what I was getting myself into.  I don’t mean what I was getting myself into as far as my fiance goes and who he is.  No, I’m referring to my own emotional state, what getting married truly entails and means.  I wanted to be prepared and realistic for what was coming, and how I could expect it all to feel.  So I did what I always do.  I bought books on the topic and read them.  There were 2 that were particularly good: What No One Tells the Bride: Surviving the Wedding, Sex After the Honeymoon, Second Thoughts, Wedding Cake Freezer Burn, Becoming Your Mother, Screaming about Money, Screaming about In-Laws, etc. and Emotionally Engaged: A Bride’s Guide to Surviving the “Happiest” Time of Her Life . They were both helpful in different ways, and I truly believe all brides-to-be should read at least one!

One of the pieces of advice that resonated with me the most was a mention of the kooky paranoia that can often plague engaged/newlywed women.  WHAT?!? I thought when I read that part.  You mean the psychotic bouts of momentarily paralyzing paranoia I’ve been experiencing are NORMAL??!! Then I thought, why has not one of my married friends warned me about this?  After some consideration, I realized it’s probably because it’s not something anyone wants to admit, because when it happens it does not FEEL normal.  So no one talks about it.

I decided I was going to talk about the paranoia I was feeling.  I spoke with Tiffany, and discovered she has been experiencing the same thing ever since she got married.  She bought a house and got pregnant and now she is uber-paranoid for no good reason, too!  We decided a good way to get this out of our systems would be to blog about it: hence this post.  Tiffany has written a post about her problems with being paranoid lately as well, which you can check out by clicking here. {EDIT: Tiffany’s blog has suffered a tragic blow, from which we are not sure it will recover.}

So, what do I mean when I say I am crazy-paranoid these last few months?  I mean that sometimes, out of nowhere, I find myself gripped with an all-consuming fear that an awful, terrible, no-good, very-bad SOMETHING is going to happen, and then the fear passes as quickly as it came.  The result is me sitting around, scratching my head, wondering what the heck is wrong with me lately.

A few examples of this would be:

• I am utterly terrified that something bad is going to happen to Alex.  It’s a pretty non-descript fear, it can manifest itself many ways.  One time it reared its ugly head when I was waiting for him to get home from work, and resulted in me calling him every 5 minutes for about 45 minutes until he finally got near his phone and picked up, to find me nearly in tears because I truly thought he must be in a gutter somewhere.  Each time I get paranoid like that, the irrational fear involves something tragic and dramatic occurring that prevents our wedding from happening.
• I am worried much more often than I ever have been in my life that something is going to happen to one or both of my parents.  This particular irrational thought always involves something that makes one of them miss my wedding, and it is always for a tragic and dramatic reason.  For example, my dad recently had to go on a business trip to Texas.  I was SO SCARED something was going to happen to that plane.  And I’m never worried about things happening to planes, I’m one of those people who insists loudly that the chances of something going horrifically wrong in the air are much lower than something going horrifically wrong with a car on the ground.
• I’m also pretty paranoid something is going to happen to the WORLD, and that it will prevent me from being able to marry Alex.  I mean big things, like gravity will cease to exist and we will all go flying off into space, or a black hole will lumber into the solar system and disrupt planetary orbits, sending Earth hurling into the vacuum of interstellar space.

Obviously these are all doom-and-gloom, ridiculously improbable scenarios.  I’ve had this newfound paranoia manifest itself on smaller scales, though.  The biggest place I’ve noticed it is when it comes to driving.  It used to be that driving didn’t phase me at all.  I did it all the time, over long distances.  Now I dread being behind the wheel, because I have gotten cautious to the point of OVER cautious when it comes to driving.  I have gotten overwhelmingly nervous more times than I can count that someone was about to hit me.

Now, this may all sound like I need professional help.  But I think what’s important to realize is that NONE of these little instances of paranoia lasted for more than fifteen or twenty seconds – well, none except that time I got really freaked out and couldn’t stop calling Alex.  I always get a grip on myself and realize everything is fine, and that there is no point getting worked up over things that MIGHT happen, and that would happen regardless of anything I could do to stop them.  If a black hole is heading our way, I don’t think me sweating bullets over it is going to make a difference!

According to my books, this paranoia thing is actually normal.  I think the psychology behind it says something like this: newly engaged/wed women are so happy and everything feels like such a fairy tale to them, that sometimes it can get scary when you realize how perfect everything feels.  The result?  Being terrified that something bad will happen to take your happiness away, because after all, you’ve never gotten to experience a happy ending before now, have you?

It really made me feel better to realize that a) my mini-episodes of paranoia don’t necessarily mean something is wrong with me, and b) other people have experienced this issue.  So I’m curious, if Tiffany and I have both noticed this, has anyone else?  If you’re willing to share, please do!

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Welcome to another installment of what Whitney and I are calling ‘collective blogging.’ To refresh everyone’s memory, we will both be writing blog entries on the same topic as an exercise to see how different our thought processes and memories are. Hopefully it will be good practice for an idea we have for NaNoWriMo 2009 – to write the same novel, but separately.

Today’s Topic:  Does Lying a Good Marriage Make?

Today’s topic was inspired by this article, which Whitney found and sent to me last week.

“Marriage cannot exist without dishonesty.” ????!!!!  Really?!  As a soon-to-be-married person, I was rather taken aback by this statement.  Obviously I don’t have all the answers, since I’m not married yet, but this did not seem like the type of advice one normally listens to.   And so I had to think about what a lie really is, and what it means, before I could decide how I felt about this article.

Here is what I found:

The Dictionary.com definition of “lie”

1. A false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth; a falsehood
2. Something intended or serving to convey a false impression; imposture
3. An inaccurate or false statement
4. The charge or accusation of lying

Then there is the lie of omission, whereby you omit an important fact and deliberately leave another person with a misconception.

This is interesting because my fiancee and I disagree on whether or not lies of omission are truly lies.  He says if you haven’t actually said something that’s untrue, it’s not a lie.  I say if you leave something out that will give a different view or understanding, it is a lie.  You can be the judge, since the definition of lie is directly above this paragraph.  But it’s interesting that a committed couple would argue about lying, and if it’s good or bad in this manner.  Which happens to fall right into what this article is talking about!

I always thought the key to a good marriage – and really any relationship – is open and honest communication.  It seems to me that lying to decidedly not open and honest.  So my initial reaction to this article was to think it was a load of crap.  Don’t tell me the way to make my marriage work will be to tell lies to my husband!  I most certainly do not want him telling lies to me – like saying he likes my meatballs if he really doesn’t.  **Note, I am not accusing Alex of disliking my meatballs, this is merely an example.**  That would mean he is doomed to a life of eating meals he doesn’t want!

(As a side note, this makes me think of a funny story.  In college, one of my roommates (Jessica) and I had another roommate who was not the greatest at cooking.  She had a boyfriend who came over a lot, and he was too polite to tell her he didn’t like her meals.  I remember one time in particular when she had made chicken and biscuits out of a box, and served it to all of us.  It was terrible.  Jessica and I made up a story about needing to go get tampons at the store and left, but really we were going to Taco Bell.  The poor guy had to stay and pretend to like the food, then putz around the kitchen late that night looking for something else to eat because he couldn’t tell her the truth!  I do not want this for Alex.)

So, like I said, initially I thought this article was irritatingly bad advice.  But… then I thought of a piece of advice I’ve been given a lot over the last couple of years: you have to pick your battles.  This is, I believe, key to making a relationship work.  Something the author of this article wrote is quite true – when you spend the amount of time with a person that you spend with your spouse, they are going to get on your nerves.  No one is 100% thrilled about everything about their significant other 100% of the time.  But if you were to point out every little thing honestly, you’d fight all the time, and your partner would be left wondering why you’re with them at all.  Which makes me have to conclude that a part of this article is true. It is important to tell the whole truth to your spouse, but sometimes, when it’s just not that important, it is better to let it go and keep your opinion to yourself.  I don’t think there is a formula to this.  But, I don’t think in any equation you’d find room for lying about big things, like how you want to raise kids or where you spent the night.  As awful as the concept of lying to your spouse seems, the concept of getting divorced over which way the toilet paper should hang seems infinitely more terrible.

If you’d like to read Whitney’s take on this article, you can read it here!

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© 2009, The Table Has Shoes (and Other Ambiguities). All rights reserved.

Welcome to another installment of what Whitney and I are calling ‘collective blogging.’ To refresh everyone’s memory, we will both be writing blog entries on the same topic as an exercise to see how different our thought processes and memories are. Hopefully it will be good practice for an idea we have for NaNoWriMo 2009 – to write the same novel, but separately.

Today’s Topic:  Interfaith Marriage

A bit of background:

I was raised Catholic.  Attended Catholic school from pre-school through high school.  Went to church every Sunday, plus Holy Days of Obligation.  Et cetera, et cetera.  But by the time I was leaving high school, I was a bit turned-off by organized religion… or at least, by the organized religion in which I was raised.  By the time I entered college, it seemed rather hypocritical to me, the whole religion-thing.  Why did some people show up for church on Christmas and Easter, but none of the other days of the year?  Why should I tell a priest all my “sins” when in reality he is no less human than I am?  Were all the new friends I was making somehow wrong for not being Catholic?  Add in the fact that I was being trained as a scientist and experiencing all the questions about God vs. religion that come along with science, and it’s little wonder I eventually turned away from religion in general.

I don’t say this to make you think I’ve given up on the concept of a higher power.  I haven’t.  But I suspect my feelings on today’s topic might be better understood if you know what I think, in my life.   I have even mused about my feelings about religion in previous blogs, here.

All that said, I think it’s OK to now tell you that the reason I feel compelled to write a blog on interfaith marriage is that I am engaged to a man who was raised decidedly not Catholic.  He is, like me, a scientist, and therefore has trouble with organized religion (among other reasons for his issues with it).  So when it came time to begin envisioning our wedding ceremony, the decision to go non-denominational was pretty darn easy.  No one on his side getting annoyed by the Catholic traditions, no one on my side getting annoyed by his family’s traditions.  We’ve already discussed how we’d like to raise any future children, so we figured we had closed the book on people having problems with our wedding.  Right?

WRONG!

Apparently having a non-denominational wedding ceremony does not exempt you from the judgment and narrow-mindedness of those who believe their religion and their way is the only way.  Alex and I never even thought of our marriage as an “interfaith marriage” until this week!  Which led me to ask the question… what is the big deal about interfaith marriage?

To be able to answer this, I needed to first figure out what interfaith marriage means.  Is it just a marriage between two people of completely different traditions, like Islam and Judaism?  Or are the finer differences just as important, like when one person is Methodist and the other is Baptist?  Also, is it really that uncommon for people of different faiths to want to get married?  Are Alex and I truly part of an anomolous group of people?  So I started thinking, and digging.

The first thing I found out is that interfaith marriage is a much bigger deal than I ever gave it credit for.  A quick search on Google, or on Amazon.com for “interfaith marriage” reading material will tell you that much.  Then I found out that while it’s not quite as problematic for people within a major denomination, such as Protestantism, to marry, it is still considered an interfaith marriage when that happens.  And then there are the statistics.  27% of Americans are in interfaith marriages, and the number goes up to 37% when you start counting interdenominational marriages.

OK… 37% is a pretty large number.  So, what is the big deal, exactly?  There are so many people who clearly think this works out fine that it seems like it should create fewer social issues than it actually does.  If the couple doing the marrying is OK with it, I figure that should be all that matters.  Furthermore, in the US, marriage is more a legal contract than a religious one – that’s why you need a license from the state if you want to get married.  So if the state the couple lives in is OK saying they’re married, shouldn’t that be it?  I know that many people desire the blessing of their deity on their marriage – but that’s just it, it’s a blessing.  It’s not a sanction, at least not in this country.  Which is why I’d love to know how people get away with telling other people they disagree with a marriage on religious grounds – not on legal grounds, on religious grounds.  What gives?

And then I realized what gives.  The First Amendment.  That’s what gives.  It says every American has the right to freedom of religion – which means people who want to have an interfaith marriage and practice whatever religion they want, can, without having a problem – and it also guarantees the right to freedom of speech – which means if someone wants to stand up and oppose an interfaith marriage at the top of their lungs, they can.  In my experience the kind of people who would oppose an interfaith marriage are the kind of people who have no problems telling other people why they are right and everyone else is wrong.  Perhaps this is why it is such a big deal, even though maybe it ought not to be.

I am perfectly happy going into an interfaith marriage.  I don’t believe my children will be any worse for wear when they are exposed to more than one set of religious traditions.  And I don’t believe either one of us (or anyone else who has entered into an interfaith marriage) is condemned to eternal damnation for marrying outside any one religion.  I think the people who take issue with this type of thing are making a mountain out of a mole hill, and ultimately taking away from a day that is about the couple in question, and nobody else’s feelings or beliefs.

But that’s just my two cents.  Good thing I’m constitutionally protected to give them out.

If you want to read about Whitney’s take on interfaith marriage, go here !

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