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ceding control of investments

February 5th, 2018 at 08:08 am

Reading TexasHusker's post made me reflect a little. From the start my DH and I had conflicting investment strategies. He believed he could beat the market, I never thought so. So when we met and before we married we had pretty much nothing. We were struggling to stay out of debt and pay our bills. When he got his first job we finally were married (got a green card), and started saving and investing. We each had a Roth IRA and his 401k. We put the 401k into investments chosen by his company and I picked them. Then we agreed to invest our Roth IRA ourselves. We could each choose to invest risky or not. He decided to buy individual stocks. I chose to invest in boring ETFs. I did better than him.

That being said. In around 2010 with the birth of our first child I cede control of my Roth IRA to DH because I fell into deep post-partum depression/anxiety. I was on medications for about 18 months until I was again pregnant. Then I was off for a few months but mid-way again I needed the medications. Please don't say I didn't need it, I did and yes I saw someone and I can describe now as this anxiety of wanting to throw myself off the roof or constant anxiety and fear of being crazy. I wasn't myself until I finished breastfeeding my DK2 at a little over a year so end of 2013. My hormones made me crazy. I suffered a miscarriage as well between DK1 and DK2 hence their 30 months apart instead of 24 months as I planned.

So I handled basically our budget, living expenses, and oversight of taxes. But I relinquished all investment control during this time and I couldn't tell you what we were doing. I could see it from our tax statements but I had no energy to care.

But we lost a ton of money in our Roth IRAs during this time though the market was good. DH was trading oil commodities. Lesson learned. Turned out this lesson made him realize he couldn't beat the market.

So he began investing in index funds and he changed his mentality after losing the money. That also allowed him later to get on board with hands off investing into index/etfs. Tomorrow I'll finally dig into our finances during that time.

4 Responses to “ceding control of investments”

  1. rob62521 Says:
    1517846212

    Yes, a lesson learned, but you move up from here! Sorry for your losses, but hopefully things start looking far better for you.

    As for needing the meds, there are some times in our lives when we need that extra boost to keep us going. A pharmacy friend once pointed out it is better living through chemistry. Very true and you didn't abuse these drugs, just used them to get through some rough times.

  2. GoodLiving Says:
    1517862520

    Sounds like you had a really intense time. I'm glad you took care of yourself and I would never dream of telling someone how to take care of themselves. Differing investment ideas can be a challenge in a marriage. I know that I take the view that right now, I'm young enough that I can be more aggressive in my investments but I don't think I would do anything other than differing funds. I hope you're back in better spots now.

  3. snafu Says:
    1517870971

    Apparently DH decided with part time job in high school, that he couldn't /didn't want to manage money. He got paid in cash and handed his pay envelope to his mom who gave him a weekly allowance. Had a bad experience year 1, marriage, over drawn at bank. Discovered DH had thrown his pay cheques in a drawer, they never made it to the bank! We were lucky that the newest branch manager was also a member of the same Service Club. We'd been living on my pay and wedding gift money that eventually fell into overdraft.

    DH's eyes glaze over and he dislikes following my brief, monthly, financial outline. I like money, dislike paying interest, so avoid it as much as possible. I find it effective and efficient to run it mostly on percentage. I enjoy going to the investment seminars and dog and pony shows offered by the variety of financial institutions. Read a few financial publications regularly and feel confident in choosing holdings and their allocation. Sometimes the market does scary things.

  4. LivingAlmostLarge Says:
    1517943780

    I do too. We are much more cleaner and organized. It's taken awhile to settle things down but in the past 2 years I've cleaned up everything and I got more involved. We just had to settle a few things.

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