By Dr. Margaret Curtis, WCI Columnist
Recently I was approached by a woman who asked if I would like to co-author a column. She is, like me, a middle-aged physician, and she had read my WCI column on the empowerment many women find in growing older. She offered to share her story of leaving and recovering from a financially abusive marriage.
Financial abuse is almost universal in physically abusive relationships, but it can also be part of a pattern of emotional abuse. Financial abusers limit their partner’s access to money and other assets, withhold information about finances, and keep their partner financially dependent. All this is done as a means of keeping the partner in the relationship. Financial abuse can have long-term consequences in the form of debt, ruined credit scores, and lack of work history or career advancement. It is also often perfectly legal.
My co-author hoped that the lessons she learned might help others—men and women—who might be in or preparing to leave a relationship like her first marriage. I think her story is remarkable and a good reminder that abusive relationships can exist even between intelligent and highly educated people. She asked to remain anonymous, but I hope you will join me in cheering her hard-won accomplishments.
These are her words.
Trigger warning: if you are in an abusive relationship or have been in one, you might find the material in this article distressing. You may still want to read it but find a safe space, perhaps with a counselor or a support person. Definitely don’t read it between patients.
My Financially Abusive Marriage
The first time I read one of the WCI articles, I thought, “Wow, that sounds great, investing. But that’s not for me. That’s for doctors who didn’t spend the first 15 years of their career in an abusive marriage and then seven years in court getting out of it. I wish I could invest, but that’s not me.”
I met my ex-husband when I was in medical school. I was 26, and up until then, I had always managed my own finances. I was a classic empath: a worrier, always questioning if I was right, wanting to please. He was a narcissist. Narcissists are always certain and never waver, and when challenged, they DARVO: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. They gaslight.
The idea of having a “provider” as a husband was something my family had always valued. We were both doctors, and the abusive dynamic started with our job search in residency. I was a National Health Service Corps (NHSC) scholar, and he wanted a job that wasn’t near any good repayment sites. I had to take a lower-paying job so he could have the job he wanted, making the first of so many choices to please him instead of doing what was important to my career and then hoping things would get better. This meant I got paid half of what he did. And that meant he called himself the “real” doctor and immediately assumed all financial responsibility.
As soon as we got married, I relinquished all financial control to him, along with giving up my name, as a sign of love and devotion. Right away, he started telling me I was bad with money. Early on, he told me he was the one who knew how to do it right. I didn’t know how to manage it. I spent too much.
In the thick of the marriage, he would use money to control me. He would look at the credit card statements and question me about everything. He threatened not to pay the bill when I spent $300 at Walmart buying back-to-school supplies and clothes for the kids. Another time, he yelled at me for buying the children clothes at Walmart and not being better with money so we could buy them the “good clothes” they deserved. We paid off his student loans because he said his were larger and, therefore, more important to pay off first. Mine were less of a burden, accumulating less interest, so he told me it was an important financial decision to prioritize his.
I took 18 months off after one of our children was born with a serious medical condition. When I was ready to go back to work, I couldn’t take a job with night call, because my husband would drink and couldn’t take care of the kids in the evenings. So, I created a job for myself at a medical center that wanted to add my specialty. After about a year of that, the center stopped my service line and replaced me.
My husband made me apply for unemployment then. God, that was embarrassing. Partly because I was so highly educated, I felt like everyone would look down on me for being on unemployment. I felt like maybe he was right; I really was bad at money. But what really got to me was that it was so unnecessary. Every time I got out that benefit card, I felt like I was stealing from the people who really needed it. Sure, I technically qualified for it, but he was making $350,000 per year at that point. My unemployment was hardly anything compared to his salary. He wanted me to have to use a state benefit card at the grocery store to punish me for not having a job.
Once, we were driving on the highway, and he started to yell at me about how I wasn’t making any money. He told me to get out of the car. I refused so he pulled over and got out himself. When I got to my destination, people saw my face was puffy from crying and were like, “Uh, dude, are you OK?” That’s when I learned to keep Visine eye drops, short-acting Sudafed, and powder with me at all times.
When things got even worse and I had to get out of the marriage quickly, I got a lawyer and he got angry. I was terrified at the time that he was going to hurt us, and so, my timing was terrible. I wasn’t thinking about money. I hadn’t worked in almost a year, and he just switched his paycheck to his private bank account as soon as I told him I wanted a divorce. I went to get money for groceries, and there was $2.58 in the joint bank account. I had already put the lawyer’s retainer on my credit card.
That was the beginning of my path to financial freedom. It sucked.
Recovering from Financial Abuse
I lived off my credit card. I just put everything on credit. My mom helped some with clothes and food shopping. My name was still on the $600,000 mortgage for our house, and he refused to take me off it until I moved out. I ran up $40,000 in credit card debt, and I still had my student loans. I couldn’t get approved for a mortgage on my own. Eventually, I was able to get a mortgage with help from my dad with my dad’s credit. My poor dad hated borrowing money, but he hated my ex-husband even more. When I signed away all rights to our marital home, my ex took me off the mortgage.
I thought I was broken. Something to be thrown out in the trash. Hopeless.
Years later, my new husband asked me to look at my credit report with him. When I got upset, he was confused. He’d seen people have plain old panic attacks but never that kind of flight-or-fight trauma response from looking at a credit report.
In retrospect, none of this was an accident. My ex-husband wanted me to pay. When he couldn’t control me emotionally and physically, he turned to legal and financial control and abuse. No one warned me about this, so it felt like I was the one doing something wrong. My lawyer, the Guardian ad Litem (GAL), and the judge all seemed clueless about it, too. (GALs are people the court will get involved to help make decisions about what is best for the children in high-conflict divorces. They are very expensive and highly variable in their skill sets. Choose wisely.) I can only now see what happened. My ex-husband had been gaslighting me all those years into thinking that I was doing everything wrong with money and that his angry outbursts, aggression, and violence were because of me.
Then, I tried something new. I wrote down all my debt one line at a time. I added it all up despite feeling like I was running away from saber-toothed tigers the whole time. I felt like I was going to die, but I kept at it. It wasn’t actually that much money. Not nearly enough to be causing me to feel this scared. I recognized the feeling. I was afraid of what was coming next. This was him. This was him still controlling me through leftover debt.
I decided I was going to bring this debt into myself and become one with it. By so doing, I could free myself from his talons. I did a little ceremony with my paper:
“I take thee to be my price of freedom, to have and to hold until we part, knowing that you were necessary to keep me and the kids alive.”
I had to stop being so scared of looking at my debt so I could start paying it. It still took me almost 10 years to stop feeling afraid of paying my bills. But finally, just recently—maybe because I’m perimenopausal and maybe because I’m finally not afraid of him anymore—I’m finding my wings financially. This is what I have learned:
- The fact that you feel like you are bad with money was part of the gaslighting. It took time to get here; it will take time to get out. Don’t beat yourself up.
- Don’t look at your credit report without a counselor. Have support. Understand it’s not about money. It’s about control and power. Once you heal, you will be fine with money.
- Honor that money as the price you paid for your life, your freedom, and your sanity.
- You got into the situation with the best of intentions. Start working on a path out of there, one baby step at a time.
- Fear may have been driving your choices for a long time. Try to notice if you are still allowing it to drive your financial decisions. Breathe. It will take time to dismantle this protective force.
- The legal system is only just starting to understand legal and financial abuse. If you are entering the divorce process with a narcissist, make sure your lawyer and any Guardian ad Litem involved are aware of how your ex may use the legal system (and the cost of attorneys, mediation, and prolonged court battles) as a way to prolong the relationship.
- Don’t be afraid of therapy. Just start talking. It’s OK not to be OK. (I know that the idea of talking more about what had happened in my life seemed more terrifying than having lived it. I was carrying so much fear. I started therapy only because the GAL said I had to. I felt like I was going to get in trouble for talking about all the things that had happened. I’ll never forget the day when my therapist asked me if I thought my ex might be a narcissist, and I immediately said, “Oh no, of course not. I know he’s trying really hard. He couldn’t be . . .”).
I wanted to help people who might find themselves somewhere along the path I was on and tell you that it’s OK. You won’t be there forever. No one talks about this. Others will make you feel like you’re a financial mess or there is something wrong with you.
There’s nothing wrong with you. This is the price of your life.
This story has a happy ending. She is now many years out from her divorce and happily remarried, and she's rebuilding her financial life. She has a busy medical practice. In her last email to me, she told me about an administrator at work who pressed her to increase her (already high) productivity and how she said no: “Five years ago I would have cried and said sorry. Not now.”
For more information: Here’s how to create a financial safety plan, and here are resources for survivors of financial abuse from the Allstate Foundation.
We know you visit The White Coat Investor to learn about investment strategies and planning, and we’ve always strived to teach financial literacy to physicians, high earners, and anybody else who finds their way here. But the COVID pandemic has also shined a light on mental wellness for physicians. That’s why we feel compelled to run articles and columns like the one you just read—to make sure white coat investors stay mentally healthy. We know mental wellness is what leads to a long, fruitful financial life, and we’ll continue to run pieces like this because these topics have become such an important part of everybody’s financial journey.
Finally! An article that highlights that there are things beyond some physicians control! Myself and many of my colleagues that are high earners have been or are in marriages with financial controllers. We often relinquish the control as we fear for our safety and our children’s safety or because we need peace at home to go to work-we are required to always be high earners. The abuse includes supporting friends and relatives that need it more than us, and maids, Nannies etc to do home things as we are always at work. All things anti wci but we have no choice
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m sorry you were (or are) in this situation.
We typically think of financial abuse as withholding money, but insisting that a partner with high earning potential carry the entire burden is also a form of control or abuse. Partnership means sharing the work (paid and unpaid) and adjusting spending so that both of you can meet your goals – not pushing your partner to earn-earn-earn to maintain a certain lifestyle or meet expectations.
In some cultures, the expectation that high-earners like physicians support the entire extended family is very real. I won’t pretend to understand it because that’s not the culture I come from, but I hear many physicians talk about this added burden. I met a medical student from Pakistan who had to send money to support his family back home – as a STUDENT. He tried to explain to them that this was money he was borrowing but to no avail: he had “made it” as a medical student in the US and he had an obligation. This is a real challenge to financial stability, let alone financial independence.
While not working together as spouses nor treating each other well and as equals is definitely “anti-WCI”, maids and nannies certainly are not.
Thank you for this. If you see a fellow physician going through a messy, high-conflict divorce, chances are there is a cluster B diagnosis lurking around the corner.
At WCICON23, the wellness talks were spot-on! Thanks to those talks and articles like this, we can better understand the narcissists all around us in the hospital and, for those who unfortunately married one, normalize the process of extricating oneself from the financial and emotional mess.
Overt narcissists are easier to spot than covert ones. Here is a blog I wrote on the topic: Can you Spot the Covert Narcissist in the Hospital? ( https://www.fiphysician.com/covert-narcissistic-physicians/ )
I have said this for 20 years. In my career, it was stunning how the narcissist in the group always became the department head and everyone else was left to figure out how to deal with him. Ditto, admin.
I will add, speaking with another physician who works in rural hospital, I believe that these rural hospitals are being robbed blind by criminal narcissists. MANY disparate examples. It costs society money to put up with this behavior.
Kelly, I could not agree more! I have worked in rural hospitals and have had the same experience. These smaller hospitals in “backwater” areas become a refuge for unprincipled (and probably personality-disordered) physician-administrators who then run the place into the ground. I’d like to think that larger institutions with a healthier culture have less tolerance for this kind of poor leadership (and if I’m wrong, please, no one tell me. I’m trying to hang on to a little shred of optimism). The literal cost to hospitals and society is HUGE, especially when physicians leave because the workplace is so hostile.
Thanks for this, FiPhysician. I’m heading over to read your article right now!
Thank you, Margaret! It has to start with education and understanding, and physicians NEED to talk about this issue. Toxicity in health care must end with our generation of physicians.
Absolutely! Talking about this, supporting each other, holding each other (and our employers) accountable.
Thank you for doing this article. There should be a lot more articles about this as it is extremely common. I have seen many women who not only have a narcissist, a financial torturer, but also a physical and/or sexual abuser of their children.
One such doctor just tried to kill his family in a very public act of narcissism.
Women who make high incomes are sitting ducks for narcissists. In our society because of the racism and misogyny, these bad players have been allowed to run rampant and they are.
Our society needs to address this issue more stringently. Through the courts and through public awareness.
Thank you for reading and for your comments. This is much more common than many of us realize. Financial abuse and control, even when coupled with other forms of abuse, are often easier for physicians to hide: we have enough disposable income to cover financial misdeeds (so most of us won’t end up homeless even when a spouse spends all the cash on booze or boats), and we tend to have good coping skills. We are trained to tough out difficult situations. And believe me when I say my co-author is a smart, competent person.
I was really struck by how scary this process was for her. She was very worried that her ex would identify her through this article. It was easy for me to say “he won’t, and if he does, who cares? he can’t touch you” but the roots of this kind of abuse run very deep. She was very, very brave.
We all know the stereotype of a woman looking to marry a doctor as her life plan without the love and sharing that marriage ought to be about. (And I relax about our doc friends’ marriages when we get to know the spouse better or learn they’ve been together since well before med school.) Sadly it is as likely for a woman doctor, feminist enough not to seek a mate who out earns her, perhaps less experienced in the dating game due to schooling, and finding a single mate at that age when many of the ‘good ones’ are already taken to get stuck with the male version, even less likely to at least properly fill the role of homemaker and stay at home parent. I hear of doc’s husbands whose spending locks the wife into working way past their desired retirement and who never get off the couch (or computer game) and look for that job they promised to find.
I think the vast majority of physician couples are more equitable but we all know couples where this is true: one is a physician, the other contributes less and expects more. I don’t think this is particularly gendered – there are certainly male physicians who have had to work more than they wanted – but now that the majority of physicians coming out of training are women different gender roles and expectations come into play. More to say about that than I could get to here – but there are a lot of docs out there carrying family burdens that the rest of us know nothing about.
Unfortunately being a doctor doesn’t make one immune from marriage problems or abusive partners. Same thing with drug and alcohol abuse — being a doctor doesn’t protect you either. Financial planning is important but unfortunately even perfect index investing / living like a resident after residency can’t protect you from these situations.
Okay- like, uh… I was expecting he took a HELOC to pay off gambling debt and high-priced escorts.
Your husband was “abusive” because you lost your job and your husband wanted you to collect the unemployment benefits you were entitled to receive?
Your husband was “abusive” because once you told him you were going to divorce him, he stopped sending his paycheck to a joint account?
Your husband was “abusive” because you spent too much at Target one time and he got upset? “For richer or poorer” doesn’t mean anything anymore, I guess.
***
Give me a break. Everyone wants to be a victim these days. This woman finally gets to climb the intersectional/progressive stack and attain the title of “victim”. HOORAY!
I mean- he was probably a jerk if he was too drunk to watch the kids at night, but who knows. Alcoholism is a medical condition, right? So what happened to “in sickness and in health”? I don’t judge anyone when their marriages don’t work out- Lord knows I’m not perfect; but I’m tired of people airing their dirty laundry to elicit sympathy. Truth is that you were probably both to blame in some ways for the marriage failing- which has disastrous effects on the kids. Maybe he was more at fault, but I don’t see you (Margaret) taking any responsibility for anything. I hope you, your children, and your ex-husband find peace.
***
Also, comments here are comparing a husband getting upset that his wife spent too much money at Target to driving your family off a cliff in a Tesla. Am I the only one who sees the insanity here?
Yikes, there’s a lot to tackle here, but as an opening bid…
You are saying that making $350k/year (several years ago BTW) and forcing your wife to go on government assistance just to embarrass her is not financially abusive? On a scale of cruelly evil to husband-of-the-year, it is admittedly not as bad as driving a Tesla off a cliff, but this is not something I could imagine doing to my wife. I can’t imagine anyone I know imagining doing that to their wife.
Did you really read the full article? The behavior of the husband was abusive and controlling in every way.
Who could tolerate that? What role model does that give to the children? The unnamed writer is brave and strong. It took courage to share her story.
My ex had undergrad and medical school paid for by his rich family. I brought 200K of med school debt into the marriage. He brought 30K of credit card debt. He continued to rack up credit card debt for 16 years, at one point “borrowing” 100K from his father to pay it off, just to start racking it up again. Meanwhile, it was assumed that I was wholly responsible for my medical school debt since it was “mine.” Never mind that that crushing amount of debt prevented our family from having things like a fixed up home, modest vacations, opportunities for our children, the loan payment came out of my own paycheck month after month, year after year. And I was the free “live-in help,” made every meal for 16 years, did all the house cleaning (I used to stop cleaning the bathroom occasionally to see how many weeks would go by without him noticing and he never would, until I would break down and clean it again), organized every holiday, every birthday, chauffeured the kids around, did all the home renovations I could teach myself to do (couldn’t afford contractors to work on our home), AND worked full time in a busy Family Medicine practice. Let’s invest, I said, let’s start retirement accounts, I said. No way, that was “too risky” and he didn’t trust the financial markets, investing in the stock market was “throwing money away.” After the real estate crash of 2008, I started looking at buying small investment properties, even convinced him to go look at some with realtors, but nope, wasn’t going to do that, refused to discuss. At one point, I paid off Sallie Mae with a heloc since the rate was lower and we had a lot of equity in our home. At age 38, I finally started investing in my employer’s 401K. At age 42, I extricated myself from 16 years of being an indentured servant to a narcissist. My net worth immediately increased since I had stopped the bleed. I let him keep the house and agreed to keep paying the heloc since it represented my student loans. For 11 years I have paid on that heloc every single month. He has paid off the original mortgage, our children don’t live there and he lives for free in a house that I pay for. Fortunately, we never arranged to take my name off the deed and I still co-own the property. I currently have an attorney and we are working on making him refi the heloc into his own name and give me half the equity in the home that is rightly mine (that I did not demand I be paid for at the time of the divorce). I am now 52, my net worth is > 1 million and I own two investment properties. Financial abuse is real. I am years behind where I should be because of my matrimonial mistake. But I would like to thank Jim and Katie and the whole WCI team for helping me right the ship. I sail on.
NJFP: GOOD FOR YOU. I hope I can meet you sometime and buy you dinner and hear your story in person.
No, I’ll buy YOU dinner! 🙂
We’ll go halfsies. I can’t wait.
He was too drunk to take care of his own children in the evening. This alone is disqualifying behavior for a marriage.
I’m not convinced you read the rest of the article. For starters: this is not my story, he told her she spent too much money and then not enough money, and he TOOK money out of their joint account. Go back and read for content, and then if you still think this is acceptable – well, you are entitled to your opinion. Nowhere does my co-author ask for your sympathy.
Margaret- first it’s mobile vasectomy vans, now it’s divorce because of a small normal argument over money… What pillar of traditional family life will you advocate to destroy next?
Thanks for reading my columns so consistently, I guess.
I’ll have to ask my husband of twenty years if he thinks doing vasectomies undermines traditional marriage.
Does anyone read for content around here?
You wrote an article basically advocating divorce because a husband and wife didn’t see eye-to-eye on money. I think divorce is wrong. I think it’s bad for the kids. I know that’s an actually unpopular opinion today, sadly.
“ I wanted to help people who might find themselves somewhere along the path I was on and tell you that it’s OK.”
I just want you to understand what you are doing: you are promoting divorce. I think this wrong and I think you should un-publish this article. If you don’t- then just admit you don’t believe in marriage; you believe in divorce!
This friend of yours took no responsibility for any of her role in a bad thing- divorce.
While I’m generally against divorce, there are worse things like abuse. I would never advocate someone stay in an abusive marriage.
No, we’re not going to unpublish the article. A diversity of opinions makes for a healthy discussion.
Yeah- but what is “abuse”? I feel like the author of the article is redefining it to include normal parts of marriage. I don’t think getting upset at your wife because she spent too much at Walmart is abuse. I don’t think asking your wife to collect Unemployment when she lost her job is abuse. I think making your kids grow up without both parents in the home is abuse.
Secretly taking out a HELOC to blow $100k on hookers and casinos is probably what I would call “financial abuse.” More realistically- it’s the wife running up credit card debt shopping online. And even if abuse occurs in a marriage- if both parties can work through it and change and forgive each other- shouldn’t that be celebrated?
None of us are perfect. We are all sinners. Everyone has abused their spouse in some way- and if you don’t think you have, you haven’t examined your conscience hard enough.
But make no mistake about it- you, Jim Dahle, are MAKING MONEY off an article that basically promotes divorce. No one can serve two masters.
You think this article promotes divorce huh? Don’t look at this one, you might blow an aneurysm:
https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/i-got-divorced-to-save-money/
How does the author “not believe in marriage”? I believed in marriage, in fact, I understood better than my ex-husband what marriage is, a contract between two people who agree to create a life and a family together and honor certain obligations and responsibilities to each other. That is why I gave and gave and gave for 16 years. Sometimes things become one-sided and untenable. No one has a legal or moral obligation to put up with abuse, physical, sexual, verbal, financial or otherwise. That is inhumane and one reason why the opportunity to divorce exists. No, that is not what I wanted for my children, of course. But I was in a situation that could not continue and I had to save myself and also my and their financial future. What kind of lesson would it teach my children to stay in an abusive situation? Teach my son that it is OK to take advantage of a wife? Teach my daughter that her destiny is to lose herself to a narcissistic man? Or teach them that one can come out of a horrible situation and move beyond it to find healing and personal success? The misogynistic response to this article is stunning. Women are not chattel and we do not owe men a marriage.
Don’t forget that 30,000 people read this and only one or two are making those responses. Welcome to the internet.
The notion that divorce is a “bad thing” is a common refrain I have observed to be more culturally and religiously informed than one that is evidence based in the ways we in the medical field have been trained to value.
Certainly there is short term disruption in the lives of those involved, including children, but there is ample evidence to demonstrate all parties recover quickly and any long term effects are largely overstated.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-divorce-bad-for-children/
Anecdotally, there is no single act that has more positively impacted my life than the divorce of my parents. Growing up under a roof filled with anger, stress, discontent, frustration, and vitriol was far more deleterious to my development than living primarily with one single happy parent and occasionally traveling to visit another single happy parent.
Of my closest friends and family that are divorced, 100% of them are better off emotionally, spiritually, and relationally. Their kids now enjoy the unquantifiable benefit of living in safe and joyful homes that are free of tension, dissonance, and ire. Of course that is not true in every case but the sweeping statement that “divorce is bad” is neither accurate nor relevant.
In past generations it was untenable to consider divorce due to cultural, religious, and/or financial restraint. The ability for individuals to more readily exit a marriage contract that is harming them or their children is a sign of progress in our society and something to be celebrated rather than demeaned.
Of my closest friends and family that are divorced, 100% of them are worse off emotionally, spiritually, and relationally- AND FINANCIALLY.
The kids are all a mess- daughters are promiscuous and the sons are addicted to opiates.
Also every single person I know that is divorced is on SSRIs.
You can paste a fake science feel-good article or you can look around with your eyes. Divorce is wrong. Divorce ruins lives.
Really? How many divorcees do you know?
Remember we’re not comparing people in excellent marriages to divorcees. We’re comparing people in lousy or even terrible marriages to divorcees.
Are you seriously arguing that a terrible marriage is better than being divorced for anyone? Or do you simply believe that any and every marriage can be fixed? Either one is a decidedly minority opinion. You’re entitled to it, but you’re probably not going to convince many to agree with you no matter how many posts you put here.
I view divorce a lot like abortion. I hope to never be involved in either. I am generally against both. I would love to see more resources going toward the problems that lead to them and providing help to those facing them. But making either completely illegal is just bad policy that leads to worse problems because people are people.
So I actually had some of the same opinion as For Richer or Poorer above (not all of it). This person may have had a horribly abusive husband. I don’t know what her situation was. And given the description, she was probably in a very bad marriage.
But what I didn’t see in the post (maybe I missed it) was taking some personal responsibility for the choices she made. Since it sounds like this was not a personal story of the poster, we may be getting a skewed view. I otherwise enjoyed the post in the fact that it describes a situation and some of how she dug out of the hole she was in. Kudos for that! But, the post comes off as blaming her abusive husband for every bad decision she might have made to get in to that situation in the first place.
It takes two to tango, and it sounds like these two tangoed plenty and it didn’t end well. I’m glad she has made it into a better situation but the post really comes off as purely “the victim mentality”…and no matter your situation, that won’t get you anywhere financially or personally.
If this article was “The Anatomy of a Marriage and a Divorce” or “Why My Ex-husband is a Jerk” then I agree hearing both perspectives would be important. But this article was about one person’s experience hitting financial (and psychological) rock-bottom and finding her way out. I don’t see how her contrition is required to validate the message.
This!
I think you missed my point. Probably my bad writing.
But the reason contrition is important, is for self learning and also help others not make the same mistakes. And I’m not talking about her marriage(the obvious big “mistake”). I’m talking about financial contrition.
It would have been nice to know what financial mistakes she felt she made along the way that she would do differently in hindsight that would have prevented some of the financial struggles.
Obviously the husband/marriage was the biggie. But there were clearly others along the way that could have prevented some of her financial woes. The way the post comes off is that her abuser husband was the cause of all of her financial problems. I doubt she feels that way, and if she does then I would suggest there is still learning to be done. Just my 2 cents. ✌️
Wow, I’m curious to know if the people who posted questioning the author are men or women. Clearly, (case in point), some narcissists lacking empathy lurking here. If someone can’t understand the imposed traditional gender roles, power dynamics, etc inherent in a marriage, and how gaslighting works, how one can be made to feel trapped/helpless…. then I feel sorry for you. The authors were brave to write this. Even if someone intellectually knows what to do, it’s another matter when emotions and other lives are involved.
Welcome to the anonymous nature of the internet. It has its pluses and minuses. You get to say what you really think, but it also makes for a much less civil conversation.
I am a Latinx non-binary SA survivor living on stolen land of the Miwok tribe. My pronouns are Xir/them.
Implying that there is only a binary between men or women is transphobic. You are intolerant and bigoted and ignorant and you should apologize to the trans folx.
***
Where is you empathy for the children? Where is your empathy for the man? I’m sure he has a different story. Where is your empathy for people struggling with addiction?
The woman in this story probably feels shame for subjecting her children to divorce and is try to assuage her guilt by sharing this biased-tale.
But yah- the only thing you care about is literally an ad hominem argument. Only women are allowed to have an opinion? Can you even define what a woman is? Lol.
Wow, take a chill pill, dude. Why are you so hostile? Sounds like someone is still bitter at his wife for divorcing him!
Curious –
I agree with you that the authors were brave to write this. As I mentioned a couple times above. Sounds like she was in a bad situation…which likely really sucked for her. And I am pretty sure I remained pretty civil and non-judgemental with my comments toward her situation.
But my point holds. I don’t think the article was well written for a financial blog. Had the author and person involved discussed some of the things she felt were mistakes in hindsight, or had she discussed things she would have done differently that may have prevented some of her financial struggles, the article could have been really good. They just missed this opportunity in my opinion. Instead, the post came off as “My financial struggles are all my abusive husbands fault”. I doubt this was their intention, but that is how it reads.
And obviously I am not the target demographic here since I have been happily married with kids for almost 20 years. But I still would have liked to hear what financial things could have been done differently. I don’t think that makes me a narcissist for giving a critique of the article.
wow! incredibly poignant story! I am so sorry that you had to go through that, especially as a doc, and it is sad that your ex is a doctor himself treating patients with such poor morals. Question: did you find that your ex’s A–holeness translated into poor patient care? I also wonder how good a facade a doctor can put up in patient care when deep down they are evil.
sounds like you bounced back from this financial abuse. Was Jim Dahle and the whole WCI team helpful in that sense? Jim mentioned that a podcast reviewer felt like all this financial advice would not be applicable to somebody in your situation. Luckily I have never gone through something like you have, but I would have disagreed with that podcast reviewer. I find WCI information transcends all types of docs from all walks of life, including ones like you who went through financial World War III.
If you (or any other doc for that matter) want to get some advice on less than perfect financial circumstances, chapter 19 in the Bogleheads’ Guide to Retirement Planning is excellent.
While your there, check out the author of chapter 4 in that same book 🙂
Thank you Rikki! I agree that sound financial advice applies to everyone the same – in fact, the more dire your situation, the more you need sound basics. I’m a little surprised to hear that people think the advice on WCI isn’t widely useful (for physicians, anyway).
Thanks for the book recommendation – sounds like a good one to have!
Wow Margaret, thank you for giving voice to this brave woman’s story and thanks to you, my brave and anonymous peer, for being willing to tell your story through Margaret’s platform.
You have my support, my respect, and my heartfelt empathy.
Sending you all the best for a joyfully empowered next chapter in your financial and relational life.
Thank you Tyler! *high five*
Margaret, I always enjoy reading your articles. Thanks for sharing this story.
Thank you for reading, and I’m glad you enjoyed it.
As the physician lucky enough to be married to Margaret Curtis for the last 20 years, I think I am qualified to say that she believes in marriage. Does she believe in Traditional Marriage? I guess that depends on what traditions are important to you. If Traditional Marriage means being loving and devoted and committed to each other, then yes, she supports Traditional Marriage If Traditional Marriage means that the man runs the show and the woman serves the man’s ego and every need, well, to be honest , she has no experience at that so she probably is not qualified to comment.
Dr. Curtis & Dr. Dahle,
This has been one of the most important stories ever published on WCI. THANK YOU! This woman is INCREDIBLY brave for coming forward and telling her story – and fearing her narcissist will find out. I feel her fear in my bones. I KNOW her fear – there are hundreds, if not thousands, of us out here, exhausted from our escape and unwilling to step forward publicly simply because how much more of our lives are we willing to give to our abuser by spending more time telling our story – but trying to save others might be worth it?? NOBODY wants to believe – OR recognize OR admit – that the person who vowed to love and cherish them for life does anything but that. For all those negatively commenting on this story, blaming her, disbelieving, etc. – you’ve never dealt with a narcissist. Why do you think it took her SEVEN YEARS to get away from him – and I’m sure hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills to LAWYERS, instead of, say, a trust for their children?? Let me tell you what she couldn’t – he fooled her first, then he fooled the judges (multiple), the GALs (multiple), the lawyers (multiple), colleagues, friends, patients, etc., because he’s a DOCTOR, so how could he be an abuser?? Narcissists are very good at hiding their true selves – and those with money can abuse their victims endlessly in our legal system, simply by refusing to cooperate or agree to ANYTHING to settle the divorce, dragging everything out – because it forces their victim to face them and interact with them over and over and over again, in court, through fake counseling, fake mediation, etc. – and pay for it all out of their share of the marriage. She fears him finding out because – if he still has money – he can file a lawsuit against her for just about ANY reason, JUST to force her into court to see him again AND to hire an attorney ($$$ again) simply to get him to leave her alone! More money, more time, more attention…narcissist’s playbook. To this victim, I want her to know – I BELIEVE you, I have known your fear, your helplessness, your anger, your despair – and I too am now on the other side. You did NOTHING wrong – you got fooled. All of the time, the money, the possessions – I’m sure you had to give up EVERYTHING just to get away from him – and it was all WORTH IT! Standing ovation for your brave heart!!!!
Thank you Norma, so much. I am grateful to you.
She very much wanted to help other people with her story. You have also helped people. Well done to you for getting to the other side!
I think the comments (even the “negative” ones) make it pretty clear that a post like this was needed.
I just have to remind the columnists (and myself) from time to time about the importance of a thick skin on the internet. Far better to hear from a few people who hate what you’ve written than to be ignored. Dr. Curtis is pretty tough though. I wouldn’t get between her with a T-shirt cannon and the back wall of a conference room.
In response to White Coat Investor:
First- why ask me how many divorcees I know instead of the poster above that claimed 100% of divorces that he’s seen worked out awesome? Do you really believe that?
Second- I personally know 7 couples that have divorced. Obviously each situation was different for each person involved. But yah- all 7 were human tragedies.
Stop attacking misrepresentations of my argument. I’m saying that you’re glorifying divorce with these posts, and that you’re making money off it. I think this is immoral. Lots of people hate their kids. Do you just throw them away too?
The story in this post was basically “I spent too much at Walmart, my husband didn’t like it, ergo I am an abuse victim and divorce is great.” Do you really, deep down, believe there isn’t a second side to this story?
Also- I studied abroad in Chile during college, and when I was there divorce was illegal. Santiago was a pretty chill place. People were much happier than they were in the US, in spite of a noticeably lower standard of living.
So to answer your question, “Are you seriously arguing that a terrible marriage is better than being divorced for anyone?”
Yes.
Weird… but you’re entitled to that opinion.
What about the vasectomies?
1. I disagree that 100% of divorces work out awesome for all parties. Even if you just look at finances, studies show that on average divorced people are poorer than both singles and married.
As far as the rest of your arguments, correlation is not causation. Happiness in Chile, such as it is, is unlikely to be primarily due to their divorce laws. I think your argument that somebody being physically, sexually, financially, and emotionally abused should remain married to their abuser is far more immoral than allowing divorce to be discussed in a guest post on my website.
Your summary of the post also demonstrates a serious lack of reading comprehension. Let me summarize for you in hopes that you’ll find it easier to see why you’re literally the only person out of the 30,000 people who read this who feels about it the way you do:
1) Her husband got his way when it came to choosing post residency jobs
2) He called himself the “real doctor”, belittling her.
3) He took over the finances and did not share that responsibility and power
4) He insulted her about her money habits
5) He nitpicked her behavior using the credit card statements
6) She was ridiculed for both spending too much and too little; she couldn’t win
7) He raised his voice with her on multiple occasions
8) He insisted his student loans be paid off first using their money, leaving her with hers at the divorce
9) He had a drinking problem
10) He wouldn’t/couldn’t take care of the kids in the evening
11) He forced her to apply for unemployment she did not want to apply for (because it felt morally wrong and embarrassing to her) and the family did not need
12) He wanted her to use a food stamp card to punish her for not having a job
13) She felt she had to keep Visine, Sudafed, and powder with her at all times because she was breaking down into tears so often because this relationship was so bad
14) She had legitimate worry of being physically harmed
15) He illegally withheld his paycheck from the family bank account to force her to use credit cards to live
That is a far cry from “I spend too much at Wal-mart and my husband doesn’t like it.” A family making $350,000 a year CANNOT spend too much at Wal-mart. It’s pretty much impossible.
Sure, there may be “another side” to this story, but even if it is only half as bad as described, it’s not a marriage I would have stayed in. Your minimizing of it and accusing people of being pro-divorce is harmful to those in similar situations and puts you on the side of defending abusers. Not a great look. And your ridiculous view on divorce is so extreme it sounds like something out of rural, Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
Yeah, all I now is I’m upstairs, and i’m listenin to my Will Smith C.D.. And I see all these flames going everywhere. U no what I’m sayin? Hey, hold on a minute…
“And your ridiculous view on divorce is so extreme it sounds like something out of rural, Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.”
LOL- I know we’re all upset at the end of endless war and imperialism, poppy growing, and Bacha-bhazi, but my views of divorce are basically similar to the LDS church, the Catholic church, early 2000s Chile and 1950s America. Again- you make a straw man argument. I didn’t realize that WCI’s comment section was so hostile to dissenting opinions haha.
This story is basically a woman blaming her husband for all responsibility in the divorce. I sincerely hope she and her ex-husband and their kids find peace. I’m just not going to give my approval, and I’m forcing you to at least think about the fact that you are profiting from this whole thing.
Not even close. Divorce has been legal in the US since 1741 (Maryland).
It has been legal in Chile since 2004.
As far as LDS Doctrine goes, here’s Dallin H. Oaks on divorce:
Catholics allow it too. They just call it annulment. Pope Francis calls domestic abuse “nearly Satanic.” Surely he doesn’t advocate somebody stay in a “nearly Satanic” relationship.
Nobody is asking for your approval of their life choices. I’ll bet your mother taught you “If you can’t say anything, don’t say anything at all.” That sort of advice applies to this sort of situation in spades.
You already put forth your extremist view that people should stay in terrible, abusive marriages instead of escaping via divorce. You will fail to find any reasonable person, religion, or country to agree with your position.
Thank you WCI and others for defending this column from the one who seems to feel we should return to those ‘good old days’ when women were necessarily stuck in bad marriages since they had no acceptable options. Even those of us not married to narcissists have experienced errors made through simply expecting reasonable ethical and moral behavior from those we interact with (ever deal with a drug seeking patient you can’t recognize as such the first 2 minutes?)- and consider how much more we expect and count on it (and disbelieve and overlook the abusiveness of their actions) from our family members especially spouse.
At the risk of sounding callous, the best way to “recover” from “financial abuse” – which is just a trendy way of saying “emotional abuse” is probably to exercise more caution in recognizing and avoiding red flags in relationships generally. I understand that is easier said than done. However, addressing these early on is crucial, because we often tell ourselves narratives that excuse horrible behavior; after all, we have so much invested in a relationship at the point where children are involved. There is a lot of internal and social pressure to pair up in those formative years, but I’ve often spoken about the difference between pushing forces and pulling forces in relationships and how important it is for younger people to ensure that they are not entering into relationships mainly to reduce anxieties of being alone. As a young single doc myself, I find that young (women in particular) have a very hard time distinguishing between male confidence and darker traits such as bravado or narcissism. Us guys, we have a lot of dating issues too, so I’m certainly not dismissing those – they just happen to be outside the scope of this comment as it relates to the poster’s situation.
Overall I’m happy that you now find yourself on a path to self-advocacy and actualization. Dating and marriage can open up incredible opportunities for happiness and personal success, and it’s unfortunate that our society doesn’t provide a better framework for navigating these things, since the types of qualities that make a man attractive initially are not necessarily the same qualities that make someone a good long-term partner, and the same is true for women.