A Money Story

Written by Norma on 06 July 2010

Gerry is a beautiful woman with strong independent views. She led a fantastic life as the wife of the high-flying regional vice-president of a large MNC. She gave up her own super job to follow her husband when he was posted to abroad. Gerry was intelligent and had a great sense of style and beauty. As an expatriate wife, she was financially dependent on her husband all those years.
When I met with her again after years, she said she was looking for a job to become financially independent. She was in her late forties. Her husband in his retirement years had gone batty and was keeping his monies away from her. I sensed something was wrong and advised her to have a heart-to-heart talk to him about money. He was fifteen years older than she was and possibly might pass on earlier before she did. What then? Would she be broke?
“Oh, no! We never talk about money, Norma. He is not that sort of a person. It is not in him to talk about money.”

Four months later, she called me. “Norma, he has really gone totally nuts. I got home last night and he is gone!”

“What do you mean ‘gone’?”

“I mean ‘GONE!’ Disappeared. I can’t find him. I have called everyone I know but no one knows where he is. He packed everyone of value somehow into a few suitcases and is gone! I can’t figure it out. What’s wrong with that man? I have just returned from the bank. He closed down ALL our bank accounts and took all the money.’

The only reason Gerry was not panicking was that they both had a son and she thought the son would know where the father would disappear to.

Two days later, Gerry was having a garage sale selling off her valuable furniture. Her husband and she had sold their home a year earlier and had moved into a rented apartment because he decided to do so. He made her take out the lease in her name which she went along as he did not turn up the morning of the lease take-over to sign the lease agreement. She now was broke, without cash, without a husband, no bank account and had to service a lease on a rented apartment.

What an experience!

‘How dumb!’ did I hear you say? Gerry was not dumb. By far, she was one of the most intelligent and commercial minded women I know. Yet, in her late forties, my friend, Gerry, was broke and has to sell her furniture which she loved and move to a rented room.

I wrote the book because I cannot bear to see anymore Gerrys. I cannot bear to see women give themselves up for love and find themselves broke, divorced, widowed or stuck in a bad marriage. Women should be free. It is no longer about bra-burning or equality. Don’t let men make it seem to be some feminist fight for you when you talk about financial freedom in their fear that you become independent of them!

Today, freedom for women is about being financially smart and taking care of ourselves so that we live lives that are meaningful, purposeful and self-directed.

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