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Love Trumped Money
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A year ago, when the financial system melted down, many predicted that Wall Street’s cash-fueled relationships would, too. But Abby Ellin, who writes for The New York Times "Vows" column, reports a funny thing happened on the way to divorce court: Love won over.
Stephanie and Roy live in Maplewood, New Jersey, a 30-minute train ride from Manhattan. For 10 years, he made that commute to a banking job at a Wall Street firm, earning a salary that provided Stephanie the luxury of quitting her high-paying job in product management to take care of their sons, now 6 and 4. They were happy. And then, a year ago, Roy’s $1 million-a-year job disappeared, along with hundreds of thousands of others in the financial industry.
“We’re in really big trouble,” the Wall Street wife told her unemployed husband, “because I don’t think I like you.”
The stress was immediate. He got a piddling three weeks' worth of severance. Unemployment checks barely covered the cable bill. And people in their neighborhood –their so-called friends—were just a little too joyful about their misfortune. “People would say things to our face like you wouldn’t believe,” says Stephanie, 40, who asked that their last names not be used. “It got ugly. You couldn’t say your husband got laid off and he worked on Wall Street, because automatically people were filled with glee—like, ‘Ha ha, you got it, too!’”
But it was their marriage that took the biggest hit. For the first time in the 17 years they have known one another, the couple started fighting. Badly. Roy was depressed and anxious, feeling that his masculinity had been stripped down to the bone. He refused to go to therapy. Stephanie, for her part, just wished he would get out of the house. “We’re in really big trouble,” she told him during their first argument, “because I don’t think I like you… I almost felt like God was testing us.”
Somehow—and she still doesn’t know how, other than having to “bite my tongue a lot”—they survived. In fact, after the first three months of unemployment, they began having fun together. “He bonded with the kids again, he got time back that he would never get,” she says. “We could go out and have a cup of coffee after we dropped the kids off at school.”
Three weeks ago he took a job in Stamford, Connecticut. While it’s not ideal—he has to commute three hours round-trip—it’s still money in the bank. And in a way, Stephanie is glad they had such a trying time. “I’m not glad we had to be unemployed and are now in debt, but we managed,” she says. “I hope and pray that nothing will be harder on our marriage than that.”
Sociologists, divorce lawyers and anyone who saw their 401(K) decimated had a field day predicting that financial meltdown would finally reveal the superficial money-for-beauty nature of Wall Street marriages. With the cash part of the equation erased, a divorce boom wasn’t merely predicted, it was assumed. The occasional gossip-column item, such as when Jane Iwanowski, wife of a former hedge-fund manager for Goldman Sachs, bashed her BMW into an East Hampton, New York, tree in July fueling speculation it was cause by the “stress” of having her “retired” husband home so much, fed that assumption.
But a funny thing has happened on the way to divorce court. Trying to quantify this phenomenon, I found that the divorce rate among Wall Streeters actually seems to have come down. Robert Stephan Cohen, a Manhattan divorce lawyer who has represented high-profile divorcees like Christie Brinkley, Uma Thurman, and Lorraine Bracco, says he has seen fewer Wall Street divorces this year than last. Jerome Wisselman, a family and divorce lawyer in Great Neck, Long Island, concurs.
Cynics will say that any divorce reduction, like the marriages themselves, center around money. Divorce is expensive. And those cynics, of course, are partially correct. “Maybe three or four years ago they would go forward [with divorce] immediately, but now they’re taking a second look at it,” says Wisselman. “I’ve seen more conservatism. People who have high incomes, like Wall Streeters—their expenses are enormous. Also, often they may live in very expensive homes where a lot of equity is tied up in their house, or in the house and other properties, and there’s no certainty that the properties are going to be sold. So they wait. I also know people who have started a case and stopped it, because when they really sit down and look at the financial consequences they say, ‘Maybe we ought to see if we can work this out.’”
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Abby Ellin regularly writes the "Vows" column for the New York Times, and previously wrote the "Preludes" column for that newspaper about young people and money. Her work has appeared in a range of publications, including Time, Marie Claire, More, Self and Glamour. She is the author of Teenage Waistland, but her greatest claim to fame is naming “Karamel Sutra” ice cream for Ben and Jerry's.
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Abby Ellin regularly writes the "Vows" column for the New York Times, and previously wrote the "Preludes" column for that newspaper about young people and money. Her work has appeared in a range of publications, including Time, Marie Claire, More, Self and Glamour. She is the author of Teenage Waistland, but her greatest claim to fame is naming “Karamel Sutra” ice cream for Ben and Jerry's.
Dear Stephanie and Roy:
Welcome to the real world! Congrats that your marriage is intact, but I don't feel sorry for the WS'ers who found personal wealth and a hefty life-style whilst delivering a One-Two Punch to the rest of the world. It is nice to hear the suffering is not just for everyone else.
Regards...
I think a strong argument could be made that the reverse is true. Many couples not in love anymore and in unhealthy relationships can't afford to separate. This type of marriage was prevalent in the early settler days when survival was the foremost consideration of a partnership/marriage and love a secondary thought.
The fact that his unemployment check barely covered their CABLE bill is ludicrous. They're living the high life making millions and scaling down wasn't even mentioned.
" a funny thing happened on the way to divorce court: Love won over. "
Really ?????
" Love Won Over " ?????
Is That Translation For : Taxpayer BAIL OUT Money Suddenly Appeared ?
Well, all of these cases look at long-term marriages with children. A divorce in this situation is a big undertaking. The former breadwinner probably needs the support the family provides more than he or she did while working, while the other spouse is tied to the children and certainly not guaranteed to find a better economic situation on the outside. The question is, were more young bankers dumped by gold-digging girlfriend/boyfriends or childless spouses? That would take more digging than calling a few married bankers and divorce lawyers to find out.
The bloggers on TDB with be very cruel to this couple.Why...I do not understand,but they will.
What happened last year to us in the job market was life changing.It was hard . Everyday I still, bankers get pink slips.If you are the only spouse working, life is in shambles for a time.
Be careful how harshly you judge DB bloggers, you could be next.
My cable bill is very large,it is my phone bill,wireless and tv cable. All three are very expensive. I could not afford it on unemployment either.
I hope the couple in the article all the best. Marriage can be hard. What I have found is it goes in waves and streaks of happiness and passion,For a short time distress and difficulty can creep in, the secret is to stay together and enjoy when the intense love and joy come back. Just my advice after thirty years. The rewards of marriage are fantastic now.
I'm happy for you kscr14 and I'm sorry if my comment offended you. But a cable bill is totally unnecessary. If you are in debt, or suffering financially, entertainment of any and all kinds (that cost $$) go by the wayside IMMEDIATELY. Sorry, but no one HAS to watch TV. Libraries offer free internet access (as well as other locations), so if you have to use the internet to look for a job, there is never a library far away. As for phones, use either one home phone or one cell phone. A hundred saved monthly!
Shows how fantastically out of touch you are. Unemployment would cover anyone's cable bill, including a bundled package, even with all the premium channels and HD-nothings and text messages you could muster. Benefits are $1200 - $1500 a month in most states.
And I am not for one second fooled by these types sticking together. Everyone is hit right now. There is no where else to go. If a husband lost his job in the 90's, you better believe the wife would have hitched her star to another wagon, maybe the CEO of pets.com or something. I'm pretty sure these people just expect to ride it out and bring back the days of excess. Slime always has a way of returning to the sewers. But I am very cynical, when it comes to slime.
$1200-$1500 a month for unemployment comp? I'm moving to that state!
No one's trying to fool anybody. First of all, there's no guarantee these couples will stay together. However, the point is spending more time at home with the spouse and kids helps a neglected marriage work whereas in the past a divorce was so easy that no one wanted to try - it's the "grass is greener" theory. It's funny, today the wedding day is such a big deal, but no one thinks about the actual WORK of a successful marriage. Look at all the wedding t.v. shows, magazines and the typical wedding now costs $20,000 - that's a down payment on a house!
Being a family law paralegal, I've asked clients what ended their marriage. The majority said: "I have to guess what he/she is thinking - we don't talk anymore" (lack of communication) and "no matter what I do he/she doesn't appreciate it" (neglect, being unappreciated). No relationship - romantic or otherwise - can survive without communication or showing gratitude and interest. Money is way down on the list.
So Mr. Cynical, how long have YOU been divorced?
While it's really not worth it to go there I will say this; It's the equivalent to "let them eat cake". I mean, I'd like to hear how "kind" this couple was to the poor and the needy when they were high rollers. That is where the vitrol comes from. Poor babies, they had to cancel HBO and spend QT with their kids cause they couldn't afford a nanny, boo hoo! That's sooooo horrible! I'm glad they made it through the bad times but I think the wall street reality check is just what this family needed. And I don't think it's cruel to say so.
BTW, I don't feel sorry for the drivers that caused this economic wreck that managed to escape with their golden parachutes while the rest of us burn in the wreckage. And you should be ashamed of yourself to come on here bragging about your wealth while attempting to solicit sympathy. When you have to choose between food and cable the choice should be easy unless you're a complete moron.
Cable? Phone? Cable is not even on their radar of people attempting to eat and trying to find a place to sleep because the bank has repossessed their home. Your own comments expose you as shallow and pompous.
This article is total bullshit. Maybe these two lovebirds have beat the odds. But we've only just begun to see the first wave of divorces due to the financial sector downshift. They'll cascade for years to come. LOL, folks. George Patton
Glass houses, high horses and holier than thou. Many of you .
Please explain to me how I am in a glass house? I had to shut off my cable and internet so I can afford to pay my light bill and eat. I catch the bus to work even though I have a perfectly running vehicle because I can't afford gas and parking. I recycle cans religiously. I'm speaking from experience. So if you sit there and complain that unemployment doesn't cover your cable bill I'll tell you that your priorites are screwed. It's out of touch people like that has gotten us all in this mess.
Katiewon.....Ahhhh....I am not out of touch. I pay close attention.
Sorry, but I'm not buying the whole love trumps money arguement. More like, common sense trumped divorce. These wives(if they have some semblance of a functioning brain) know that you don't get to ride the gravy train when there's no more train. It comes down to riding out the storm. You can't cash in on your rich husband when he loses his job. So you wait until things get better again. Most of these women who have the luxury of staying home while their husbands work have created secret lives. They spend little time with their husbands because of their jobs and as a result, walk around town like drunken sailors looking to spend money to alleviate the boredom of their lives. They have boyfriends or "friends with benefits" on the side and basically have "loveless' marriages. This is certainly the case in NJ where I live. I see far too often how these women disrespect their husbands while trolling for "hot, younger men" to give them what their husbands can't. Many times the husband will do the same when the opportunity presents itself. When the husband loses his income and is forced to stay home, the wife has two options; rekindle the love they once felt or get divorced with less money than what they are accustomed to. Women are very good at adapting while they wait for the next ship to come sailing in and can usually "hang in there" until the situation improves. I don't think for a minute that the majority of these women have found love in their marriage again, rather they have found that it is best to be patient and jump ship when the money starts rolling in again.
Djanimaegueen, I am sorry. My point wasn't directed at you.My point is we cannot judge anyone this harshly. We all have different issues, I do not judge, I feel most of the bloggers are cruel and cold.I am self employed and work very hard. I have never been unemployed and I do not begin to think I or others have a clue what this couple, you or many have endured.The glass house is dangerous and I think many here live in it. I did not single you out.
Thank you.
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