During my bowl of oatmeal this morning, I caught a tidbit that the big story that is to excite and incite me at 4:30 on the channel 5 news is "Money is causing tension in marriages". Wow, what a news flash....
Thought #1 "Money is causing increased tension in marriages."
I can hardly wait for 4:30 to find out that people are disagreeing over money and that it is news.
Frankly, I thought that caveman spouses spent their day fighting over the number of rocks each of them had.
According to the promo, the economy is the blame. HMMMMM ....call me suspicious.
While I am thoroughly on-board blaming the economy on all the evils of the world, I think there might have been some marital discord regarding money even when the economy was booming. (I can't be certain of this as my memory only goes back so far)
The fact that I have been in real estate for a lot of years and prior to that I worked as a bank manager at one point, I will tell you that I have had the pleasure of seeing a lot of people's personal financial information. Always a really good time! Really, if ever given the chance to look at peoples finances...do. It's pretty fun.
(Oh, by the way...I am known for being a snoop...check out the levels of my snoopydom at Simply Junebug. I am over there right now, going through her stuff.)
My guess is the 90 percent of spouses look at money differently. I would say 100% but there must to be some that are either super naive to what the other is actually doing, just plain stupid or one of the partners is just fine at letting the other take control of the money. Take your pick.
A few year ago, I happened upon an interesting couple. The couple looked to be the perfect, successful, middle-class wage earners. Decent house, nice cars, two kids and a dog...you know the type...All looked pretty rosy.
Turns out husband (jerk) was in charge of all the bill paying, tax paying, and wage earning. While from a wife's perspective this sounds AWESOME. BUT...not so fast. Husband (a**hole) had a gambling problem and wasn't paying the bills with his "more than adequate" wages. He was particularly clever in covering his trail, however. Some of his clever tactics to keep wifey from realizing his "problem" was that he filled out fake tax returns, had her sign them and never actually paid taxes. He also, took a 2nd mortgage out on the house and for this he forged her name. Turns out neither of those things are legal. (who would have guessed?)
Of course, she did eventually find out when she got the foreclosure notice on the house and then got a letter from the IRS. The down side of this particular money disagreement was that she lived in a community property state and was left hold 1/2 of the bag. I might add that bag was pretty hefty. The back taxes and penalties were in the millions.
This couple had some tension in their marriage regarding money before and after the divorce.
Another example: When I was still managing the bank, a surgeon's wife was one of my regular PITAs.
She came in pretty regularly to scream at me about her overdraft charges. How dare, I charge her for 18, 22, 35...whatever... overdraft charges as her husband made millions. She couldn't appreciate that there was no money in the account. The surgeon, also, got angry with me when I called him to tell him the bank was going to repossess his car. Seemingly, he was under the assumption he had money in the bank. (what a fool)
To prove his extreme displeasure with me and the bank, he torched his car and called me to come and get it. He actually thought this was great fun and came in to pay the car off so technically at that point the car was his to do whatever he wanted to with it. I don't think he ever understood that, while he proved his point that he had money, (albeit, not in our bank) he was out the car. Had the doctor (sh**head) paid the car off in the first place, I wouldn't have threatened repossession and he would still have his Beamer.
Thought #2 Advertisers are using this idea of Marital Discord to sell there products
My Kiddo #2 mentioned last week that his new "commercial to hate" is an AT&T commercial. He said that it is appearing all the time and it is just ridiculous. Tell me more I say. As I personally never watch commercials (thank-you, my pal Tivo) I had no idea what he was talking about.
Seems that AT&T in there infinite wisdom has, again, come up with a commercial that makes no sense and has nothing to do with their product. As you might remember, I sent a letter to them about one of their other stupid commercials and got a "less than friendly" letter from them. In my article To Offend or Not Offend I was merely pointing out that I didn't see how two guys in a bar talking about want to become "players" had a good connotation to sell their phones. They wrote back saying something to the effect "sorry we offended you". I maintain I wasn't offended, I just think their marketing firm consists of a bunch of idiots.
Seems they still are using those same idiots for their advertising.
Yeah, idiots!!! What are they promoting here???? That this wife is a total BE-ATCH or that this husband is the best example on the planet as a cowering hen-pecked, spineless husband. (dare I say pu***whipped)
And might I add, I don't think this couple looks like an actual couple. I initially thought the bitchy wife was the mother until she referred to herself as the wife.
I can't see where this would inspire me to run out and change my cell phone plan. I would write them another letter but I might get another letter back with "Sorry, you were offended."
So, my bloggee friends....just be on the look out that there might be some NEW tensions brewing in your present environment of marital bliss. According to KC NBC news, send your thank-you to the economy and be sure to go out and sign up with AT&T
The Good for the Day....The couples that agree on their finances
The Bad for the Day...Idiot marketing
The Weird for the Day....The waste of a perfectly good BMW
The guy in the AT&T commercial must of gotten his direction from the Man Song
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