1. Marriage is not for dependent people! Marriage requires a level of maturity way beyond dependence. No matter how much your husband thinks you should be jobless, you are better off as a part of the team when you can contribute some value to the team.
2. Don’t leave all the financial decisions to the man. He has logic, you have intuition. He will genuinely lose all your family’s reserves in a business gamble without you, and you will live with the consequences together.
3. Don’t say you don’t understand finance, nobody was born with understanding. Invest in learning. It’s not as difficult as you think. Once you make up your mind that it’s important you’ll find you have the capacity to know a lot more than he does.
4. There is no my salary your salary, it is our income. The moment you are acting independently you have created a crack in the wall through which many issues will enter your home.
5. Sometimes your husband is a goal keeper and you are a striker, and sometimes it’s the other way round. There is no stereotype, as a family unit you need to understand and appreciate each others’ roles and work together for the good of the family unit. It doesn’t matter who has the capacity to earn more when you are truly one. If you are better at keeping account and records more than him, take the role. If he’s better, let him do it.
6. By default men are fast, by default women last. Don’t kill yourself if you have a husband that seems way ahead of you, in the second half of life you may have your turn, work as a unit all the way, avoiding comparison but leveraging each others strengths.
7. Hold your husband accountable to ensuring that as a family you have an escrow and keep reserves. A wise woman builds her home!
8. You were not designed to be your family’s expense account, resist the urge to stay fashion current at the expense of your financial future. Spoil yourself if you can, but only after the future account has been funded.
9. If your husband sleeps around, he’s not messing up his life. He is messing up your life and his. It does not make sense for you to turn a blind eye. If you two are one, then you 3 have become one! If you are sleeping around, the same applies.
10. No secrets. If he’s not matured enough to handle it, invest in his maturity! If you can’t tell him, don’t do it!
