By Sarah Baker, CFP® | Senior Financial Planner, Mason Investment Advisory Services

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In Belle Burden’s memoir Strangers, she describes the night her 20-year marriage ended. Her husband made a roast chicken. The girls watched television. She mopped the kitchen floor. And then, in a single phone call, everything she thought was safe and permanent simply wasn’t anymore.

By morning, he was gone, canvas tote bag in hand, telling her: “You’ll be fine. You’re still young.”

She was 50.

Burden’s story has resonated with millions of readers because it isn’t really a story about a bad marriage. It’s a story about the terrifying distance between feeling financially secure and actually being financially prepared. It’s a story that could belong to almost any married woman: educated, accomplished, loved, who quietly handed the financial reins to someone else and trusted that nothing would ever go wrong.

As a CFP® and Senior Financial Planner who works specifically with women navigating complex financial lives, Sarah Baker has sat across from women in exactly this moment. And the message she offers, again and again, is this: don’t learn about your financial situation during a crisis.

The Ambulance Analogy: Why Financial Preparation Can’t Wait

Consider this scenario. Imagine being in an ambulance having a heart attack. A paramedic leans over and says that you really should have been eating healthier. That information isn’t wrong. But it’s completely useless in that moment. The brain is flooded. There’s no capacity to absorb it, act on it, or change anything. It’s too late for it to help.

That is exactly what it feels like when a woman discovers, in the middle of a divorce or the sudden death of a spouse or a financial betrayal she never saw coming, that she doesn’t know the basic details of her own financial life.

The Wall Street Journal recently published a week-long series called The Cost of Divorce, documenting the financial and emotional wreckage divorce leaves behind. One of the most striking findings: household income typically drops by roughly half at divorce and recovers only partially over the following decade. Even women earning $250,000 a year described feeling like they had taken a significant pay cut, not because their salary changed, but because the financial architecture of their lives had been built for two.

The time to understand your finances is not during the crisis. It is right now, in the calm of everyday life, when there is clarity and time to act.

Five Things Every Married Woman Should Know About Her Finances Right Now

Women don’t need to become financial experts or take over managing their family’s investments. But there are five things every married woman should have clear, confident answers to. Not someday. Today.

1. What is in your bank accounts, and are any of them in your name alone?

If a spouse passes away and the primary bank account is held solely in their name, that account can be frozen by the bank, sometimes immediately, until the estate is settled. This can take weeks or months. Women who have never held an individual account in their own name can find themselves without access to basic funds at the worst possible moment.

Restructuring an entire financial life isn’t necessary. But every woman should have at least one account, checking or savings, held in her name alone, with enough liquidity to cover immediate needs.

2. What is your combined household income, and where does it go?

This is not about monitoring a spouse. It is about understanding the financial reality of one’s own life. What does the household earn? What does it spend, and on what? What is being signed when filing a joint tax return each year?

Many women have never looked closely at their joint tax return. They sign it because a spouse or accountant handles it. But a signature on a joint return means legal responsibility for what’s on it. Knowing what you’re signing isn’t paranoia. It’s basic financial literacy, and it’s every woman’s right.

3. What are your assets, and how are they titled?

Start with a list: the home, investment accounts, any real estate, any business interests, any inherited assets or trust structures. For each one: whose name is on it? Is it joint or individual? If it’s inherited, is it protected? The answers to these questions determine what a woman is legally entitled to in virtually any major life transition, whether divorce, death, disability, or serious illness.

4. What does your financial future look like if you’re on your own?

This is the question most women avoid, not because they’re planning for the worst, but because it feels like bad luck to ask it. It isn’t. It’s wisdom.

The reality is that most women will manage their finances alone at some point in their lives. According to Pew Research Center, around one third of women over age 65 are widows. Divorce affects millions more. And for women who have spent decades sharing financial decisions with a partner, the transition to sole financial responsibility can be sudden, disorienting, and deeply consequential.

What would life look like if household income were suddenly reduced or gone entirely? What could be sustained? What would have to change? Having even a rough answer to these questions is one of the most powerful things a woman can do for her own peace of mind. It doesn’t mean expecting the worst. It means being prepared for it, so that if it never comes, nothing is lost. And if it does, she’s not starting from zero.

5. Do you have a financial advisor who is truly yours?

Not a husband’s advisor. Not the advisor who has always handled things for the family. Hers. Someone who knows her goals, her risk tolerance, her concerns, and her vision for her life, independent of a spouse’s priorities.

This distinction matters more than most women realize. An advisor who has always worked primarily with a husband may have a subtle orientation toward his goals and his vision. Every woman deserves an advisor who starts with her.

Why Women Are More Financially Vulnerable in Divorce

According to the 2024 Women and Investing Study by Fidelity Investments, only 4% of women describe their knowledge of investing as “advanced.” There are many reasons women cite for being uncomfortable with investing: fear, feeling overwhelmed, a spouse or partner who takes charge, not being encouraged to participate. But here is what that same research also tells us: when women do invest, they outperform. The confidence gap and the capability gap are not the same thing.

The women who find themselves most financially unprepared after a divorce or death of a spouse are not unsophisticated. They are not careless. They are often highly educated, professionally accomplished, and deeply capable. Belle Burden was a corporate lawyer at one of New York’s most prestigious firms. She was not a woman who lacked intelligence or financial exposure. What she lacked, along with many women, was not ability. It was the sense of permission to be fully engaged in her own financial life.

A 10-year Fidelity analysis of 5.2 million self-directed retail accounts found that women investors outperformed men by 40 basis points, driven by a more goals-based approach, less reactive decision-making, and a greater tendency to stay invested through market volatility.* The instincts are there. What’s often missing is the confidence to act on them and the advisor relationship that makes those instincts feel valid and valued.

There are structural reasons for this gap. Fifty years ago, it was genuinely uncommon for women to hold individual financial accounts or meet independently with financial advisors. That generational history doesn’t disappear in one or two generations. It shapes what questions feel appropriate to ask and whether a woman feels entitled to say, in a meeting with her family’s financial advisor: “Can you explain that again? I don’t understand.”

She should always feel comfortable to say that. And the answer she receives should be clear, specific, and centered on what she actually needs to know.

*Fidelity analysis of the investing behavior of retail customers, comparing the annualized return of assets of 5.2 million self-directed retail accounts from January 2011 through December 2021.

The Vulnerability Window: When Women Are Most at Risk

There are specific moments in a woman’s financial life when vulnerability peaks. These are transition moments, and they are the times when predatory financial behavior is most likely to occur.

Those moments include:

• divorce, particularly for women who have deferred financial decisions throughout a marriage
• loss of a spouse, as widows are disproportionately targeted by financial products they don’t need
• inheritance or sudden money, when women receive significant and often unexpected wealth
• retirement, especially for women whose financial picture is deeply intertwined with a spouse’s
• selling a business, a liquidity event that creates both opportunity and enormous complexity

 

In each of these moments, women are simultaneously navigating intense emotional stress and making financial decisions that will shape the rest of their lives. The combination is exactly what bad actors look for.

A grieving widow has people around her with good intentions: family, friends, clergy, community. She trusts the people close to her. And then a financial salesperson steps in, presenting as another caring presence, and sells her a product she doesn’t need at a cost she doesn’t understand, in a moment when she doesn’t have the capacity to evaluate it clearly.

Knowing this exists is the first layer of protection. Having a trusted financial relationship already in place before any crisis hits is the second, and more powerful, layer.

What Working with an Advisor Actually Looks Like

One of the most common things women share when they come to Mason’s Women of Wealth program is a version of this: I don’t want to be making financial decisions alone.

That’s exactly the right instinct. And it is entirely compatible with working with a financial advisor.

At Mason, the focus is on working with delegators, not DIYers. Delegation is not abdication. It is the recognition that time, energy, and peace of mind are worth something, and that having a deeply qualified team manage the complexity of one’s financial life frees a woman to do everything else she does extraordinarily well.

What Mason takes off the plate: the research, the monitoring, the rebalancing, the tax optimization, the estate coordination, the scenario planning. What stays with the client: the goals, the values, the vision, and the decisions that are truly hers to make.

For most women, the most transformative moment isn’t a financial breakthrough. It’s the moment they realize they can ask any question they have, no matter how basic it feels, and receive an answer that is clear, honest, and entirely free of judgment. That is what peace of mind feels like. And that, more than any investment strategy, is what the Women of Wealth initiative is built to provide.

What Belle Burden’s Story Is Really About

Belle Burden’s memoir is being described as a love story. It is. It is also, beneath the love story, a financial story about the assumptions women make when they feel safe, and the cost of those assumptions when safety turns out to be conditional.

The WSJ’s Cost of Divorce series puts hard numbers on what Burden’s memoir makes viscerally human. According to Pew Research Center, one third of first marriages end in divorce. Household income drops by half. The recovery takes a decade, if it comes at all.

None of this is meant to frighten. It is meant to empower. Because the difference between the women who navigate these transitions with confidence and the women who are blindsided by them is almost never about intelligence, income, or love. It is almost always about preparation.

Every woman deserves to be prepared.

Frequently Asked Questions About Women and Divorce Financial Planning

What should a woman do financially before a divorce?

Before a divorce is finalized, every woman should have a clear picture of the full household financial picture: all accounts, all assets, all debts, all income sources, and all jointly held property. Gathering tax returns from the past three to five years, recent account statements, and documentation of any inherited or individually held assets is an important starting point. Working with a financial planner who specializes in divorce transitions can help ensure that the settlement reflects actual long-term financial needs, not just immediate ones.

Why are women more financially vulnerable during divorce?

Women are more financially vulnerable during divorce for several interconnected reasons. Many have deferred financial decision-making during their marriage, leaving them with less familiarity with the full financial picture. Women are also more likely to have reduced their working hours or left the workforce entirely to care for children. The emotional weight of divorce can further impair clear-headed financial analysis. Having a trusted financial advisor already in place before any crisis significantly reduces this vulnerability.

What is financial infidelity in a marriage?

Financial infidelity refers to one partner hiding financial information from the other, including secret accounts, undisclosed debts, hidden income, or significant spending the other partner doesn’t know about. The Wall Street Journal’s Cost of Divorce series identified financial infidelity as a central factor in many marriage breakdowns. Women who maintain independent awareness of their household financial picture are better positioned to identify and address financial infidelity early.

How does divorce affect a woman’s retirement?

Divorce can significantly disrupt a woman’s retirement outlook, particularly if she reduced her working years to care for children or if her retirement savings are largely in a spouse’s name. In a divorce, retirement accounts can be divided through a legal process called a Qualified Domestic Relations Order (QDRO). Social Security benefits may also be affected. Working with a financial planner who understands the retirement implications of divorce is essential to ensuring that any settlement addresses long-term income needs, not just the immediate division of assets.

What is the Women of Wealth Initiative at Mason?

The Women of Wealth is Mason Investment Advisory’s financial planning initiative dedicated to serving the unique needs of women at every stage of wealth. Led by Sarah Baker, CFP®, the program provides financial planning, investment management, and ongoing guidance designed specifically for women, including those navigating major life transitions such as divorce, inheritance, loss of a spouse, or retirement. Every client engagement begins with her goals, her values, and her vision for her life.

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Sarah Baker, CFP®, is a Senior Financial Planner at Mason Investment Advisory Services and the lead advisor for Mason’s Women of Wealth Planning Series. She works with women navigating complex financial lives, including major transitions such as divorce, inheritance, and retirement, to help them build clarity, confidence, and lasting financial security.

Ready to understand your financial picture on your own terms?

This post is part of Mason’s Women of Wealth Initiative, an ongoing program dedicated to helping women navigate life’s financial transitions with clarity and confidence. Click here to schedule a conversation with Sarah Baker, CFP®.

The information provided in this article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal, or tax advice. Please consult a qualified financial professional regarding your specific situation.