Who Is Responsible For The Expenses If The Relationship Ends?
Planning a wedding? Take a lesson from RoseMary Shell, who dumped her high-paying job to move to another state to live with her fiance before their wedding. A Georgia jury last week awarded Shell $150,000 in a breach of contract lawsuit she filed against Wayne Gibbs, who dumped her just days before their planned wedding.
But experts say she’s partially responsible for what happened by not being financial smart, despite her emotional commitment. This woman foolishly left a good-paying job for the hope of being married. Frankly, I’m surprised the courts awarded her $150,000. “I think they did her, and all women, a disservice by suggesting that it’s okay to relinquish the power you have to the title of Mrs.,” said Dr. Gilda Carle, an internationally-known relationship expert, author, and therapist who operates a private practice in New York.
According to a 2000 study published in the Annual Review of Sociology, 55 percent of all cohabitating couples got married in five years’ time, and the other 40 percent broke up. Shell, apparently, fell into that second group.
The six-man, six-woman jury found Gibbs liable for Shell’s financial misfortunes because he asked her to leave her $81,000 a year job at a newspaper in Pensacola, Fla., and move back to Gainesville, Ga., to become his wife. According to court documents, a few months after giving her the ring, Gibbs called off their wedding just days before it was scheduled to take place, promising her they’d get married at a later time. A few months after that, he dumped her for a woman he’d been seeing on the side.
Shell, who was unemployed at the time, moved out of the home she shared with him and had to declare bankruptcy. She has since found another job making $31,000 a year, according to The Gainesville, Ga., Times. Juror Delita Smith told The Times that the jury came up with the $150,000 award by adding Shell’s salary and her potential bonus and benefits.
While Smith said the jury didn’t think Shell should have left her job, they also thought: “If he didn’t want to marry her, he shouldn’t have given her the ring. At some point, I think he misled her in a way.”
Shell and her attorney, Lydia Sartain, have been flooded by interview requests since the verdict. Sartain also represented “Runaway Bride” Jennifer Wilbanks, who disappeared in 2005 before her wedding then resurfaced days later, claiming she’d been kidnapped and assaulted. Within days, authorities discovered she’d made up the story.
Shortly after last week’s jury decision, another woman filed a similar lawsuit against her former fiance.
Ginita Wall, a nationally-known forensic accountant who co-founded WIFE.org, a web site that offers helpful financial planning tips for women, had a piece of advice for Shell’s future. We have a bumper sticker she should have heeded: “A Man Is Not a Financial Plan,” she said.
TIPS TO CONSIDER BEFORE YOU LIVE TOGETHER OR MARRY
1. Talk about the financial details.
According to Wall, before you live together or get married, you should discuss goals with your partner. “Almost anything you do will cost money,” wrote Wall, who suggested that partners should also pay attention to their significant other’s financial habits as well. “Make sure your partner’s goals are compatible with yours.”
Carle agreed, adding: “People who live in different states must compromise before they make cohabitation plans. They should find common agreement as to where they will live, on what kind of income, and what kind of lifestyle they expect.”
2. Don’t give up your earning potential.
It’s a common mistake for women, particularly if they plan to become stay-at-home moms at some future point, according to financial expert Alexis Martin Neely of Martin Neely & Associates in Redondo Beach, Calif.
Carle agreed: “To just give up what you’ve worked so hard to get, without having explored all those possibilities in advance suggests this couple was more interested in playing house for a while before discussing the vital issues. That’s no way to prepare for marriage. Case in point, it all blew up in both their faces!”
3. Consider couples therapy.
“If he left a note in December, expressing doubts, I wonder that they didn’t get some counseling before the whole thing was over. A note like that should get a bride’s attention,” said Tina B. Tessina, Ph.D., also known as “Dr. Romance,” a psychotherapist and author of “Money, Sex, and Kids.”
4. Create and sign a cohabitation agreement.
According to Wall, it’s best for partners who plan to live together before marriage to write down their financial responsibilities beforehand, so that there are no future misunderstandings. Also, Wall’s Web site suggested you should be careful about borrowing money with your partner until you’re certain who will pay for what bills during the relationship.
“In the absence of an agreement, each partner is generally responsible for debts for which she has signed, often without recourse to the other partner for repayment,” Wall wrote.
5. Don’t join accounts. Period.
Checking, savings, credit cards, 401Ks, whatever. “The danger of a joint checking account is that if one spouse decides to leave the marriage suddenly, he can drain the checking account upon his departure,” said Alex Kindler, a CPA at Horovitz, Rudoy & Roteman in Pittsburgh, Pa.
“Use of jointly held credit cards, or even worse, having your husband as an authorized user on a credit card in your name, is also a bad idea. Obviously, if large credit card balances are accumulated during the marriage, your spouse can leave you with the obligation to pay the debt. Some credit card companies will require the balance to be paid off before the other spouse’s name will be removed from the account.”
