DW drives me crazy with her investment decisions.

[Anonymous]

This would make me mad too. I feel your pain.

My wife is conservative too and she doesn't understand money. Lucky for me, she let's me manage everything 100%.

I remind her how lucky we are. Because we take a moderate amount of risk, I'm confident that we are at least twice as rich as a person who keeps all savings in cash. I think we have been lucky. She seems to think that I am very smart and somehow our wealth is all because of me. I let her believe that I am a financial genius.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 401k money has always been invested in the index funds. Although I realize there is certain risk, I feel like I can take it given that we still have 25-30 years to retire.
DW is an extremely conservative person when it comes to financial decisions. She insists to leave only cash in her 401k accounts. Her reasoning is that she doesn't want to risk any possible loss of her 401 money and is fine with not making any returns if it means not to lose any money.
I have tried countless times to convince her we'd better to invest it at least some way or we'are losing most of the values into the inflation. But she has been very stubborn about her opinion on this.
I'm starting to feel that we have lost significant chance of accumulating our wealth due to her over conservative mentality. Sometimes I probably made a mistake marrying her....

when the market absolutley crashed in 2009 and for the next 18-24 months who did better? I''ll be she did.
Now the market has been doing better, your index funds are outperforming cash - but that may not always be the case.
You cannot predict the market. I think being nearly all cash right now is wise.

Sure this can be argued. No one says it's completely risk free. But if your target retirement date is 30 years away, the risk of this kind of fluctuation is much less due to the typical length of the business cycles.

[Anonymous]

Both husbands and wives are allowed some flexibility to be irrational in heir marriages but in this case her irrationality is seriously jeopardizing their financial future. I don't blame OP for harboring some reservations about their marriage under the circumstances.

[Anonymous]

Yes, OP, your spouse is indeed irrational.

Now, I'm way more conservative than DH (who's been married to Apple all these years), but I am invested all in hand-picked stocks - a risk I'm comfortable with. We have both done well, even during the recession.

In these circumstances, I feel a talk with a professional other than yourself might be useful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm pretty sure SHE made the marriage mistake.

How so?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You married for her retirement portfolio and are down on the ROI?

OP here. No I didn't marry for her retirement portfolio. As a matter of fact, my retirement account is almost three time as large as hers mainly due to her lack of investment. And I can foresee the difference will further widen if this goes on.
It will just frustrate me when 20 or 30 years down the road we find out we could have been a LOT richer. Life is an optimization process for us although we don't always get what we wanted in the end.

[Anonymous]

Umm, yeah, it's called being a woman. My wife is the same way. But to say you made a mistake marrying her over something like this? Cmon, it's not like she's cheating on you.

I am a woman and I am not like this at all. I tend to be very pragmatically oriented and I personally find it annoying when people refuse to look at risk-benefit situations rationally. I put this kind of fear in line (in terms of risk-benefit analysis) with my MIL being afraid of flying and preferring to drive 20 hours to visit us, or someone refusing to vaccinate their kids. I am mostly in charge of our investments and I mostly invest in low fee index funds, and I think most rational people would, regardless of their gender.

FWIW I think the OP has a right to be concerned about this. I have seen so many marriages fall apart due to a lack of financial compatibility. My in-laws are a prime example of this, and although their marriage has other issues, their financial problems exacerbates all of their other problems. Perhaps you should have her see a therapist to overcome these irrational anxieties about money and have a more balanced outlook on what is seen as risky.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. This is more like philosophy difference that we didn't discover before marriage. Although I generally tolerate differences in marriage, financial decisions play too big a role in our life to just let it go like that.

Financial outlook and how you spend/save money should be a mandatory discussion (or series of discussions) before anyone gets married. If retirement savings style and "accumulating wealth" is that big of a deal to you, you should have talked it over with your wife before you got married and spared her your regret or doubts about the marriage or whatever else you're thinking of. This is as much on you as it is on her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You married for her retirement portfolio and are down on the ROI?

OP here. No I didn't marry for her retirement portfolio. As a matter of fact, my retirement account is almost three time as large as hers mainly due to her lack of investment. And I can foresee the difference will further widen if this goes on.
It will just frustrate me when 20 or 30 years down the road we find out we could have been a LOT richer. Life is an optimization process for us although we don't always get what we wanted in the end.

You are just one sorry dude and I am so glad not to be married to such an a-hole.

Just accumulate your own damn wealth and let your wife do what she wants with her earnings.

IF you make it " 20 or 30 years down the road" and that's a big IF considering you think this might be a marriage breaker, I hope you will come to realize that an awesome marriage and life partner is worth more than being "a LOT richer."

[Anonymous]

Oh stop acting like OP is money grubbing. You do not need to be money-obsessed to be frustrated if your spouse wastes an absurd amount of your joint money. (And putting all your retirement savings in cash is a collosal waste of money; not a slightly poor choice).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would she listen to a financial advisor? Someone with credentials? They can run scenarios, showing the impact of inflation, compound interest, performance of the stock market over time etc that will be very impressive. My husband and I took some short term hits over the past decade, but we have greatly benefited from professional advice and "riding out" the market over time. You just can't lose your nerve. As Warren Buffett says, "The best time to invest is when everyone else is afraid." If your wife isn't influenced by numbers, you may have to realize that she may have some deep-seated psychological issue that makes her irrationally risk-averse when it comes to money. Maybe if you talk to her about why that could be? I have family members who lived through the depression who still refuse to invest in anything but real estate. But you're right -- leaving anything more than an emergency fund in cash is crazy.

The craziest thing is that I AM a finance professional. My finance literacy is at least as good as those financial advisers and I've been doing well with my retirement fund investment. To make it even more crazy, she is an economics major and isn't supposed to be totally unfamiliar with the risk and return and inflation concepts.

What is your job?

[Anonymous]

You guys shouldn't be investing your portfolios in isolation anyway. If you can even work her up to a stable value fund, TIPS or a short term bond fund, then she can stick all her her money there, and you can put all your money in stocks to balance it out.

[Anonymous]

I think your wife is being irrational, but I think women as a rule tend to be more risk averse with our money. I am also in Finance (with degrees in Econ, Stats and Finance), so I invest as if I weren't a risk averse person (though I am extremely diversified), and I solve the risk aversion problem by just not looking at my statements right away. I look at them a month or two after they come, so I don't have to freak out about any short-term losses. That approach might work for your wife.

[Anonymous]

It drives you crazy knowing your wife isn't maximizing her investments. But, it would drive your wife crazy to feel like she could lose her money on a given day. So, you have to let this one go. People are different, and you can't try to control them or they will resent you.

Besides, if you divorce, you won't have her income to try to micromanage anyway. It's just "bonus money" at this point.

Frankly, it could be a lot worse. You could be married to someone with a spending problem.

Stop being an ass and enjoy what you have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It drives you crazy knowing your wife isn't maximizing her investments. But, it would drive your wife crazy to feel like she could lose her money on a given day. So, you have to let this one go. People are different, and you can't try to control them or they will resent you.

Besides, if you divorce, you won't have her income to try to micromanage anyway. It's just "bonus money" at this point.

Frankly, it could be a lot worse. You could be married to someone with a spending problem.

Stop being an ass and enjoy what you have.

Is this actually true? If they divorced, I would think that the retirement accounts accumulated during the course of the marraige would be considered joint marital assets. Therefore, if DW's account is worth 100k and DH's account is worth 500k, DW would be entitled to 200k of DH account. Maybe an attorney who practices in this area can tell me if this is accurate. If so, OP does have legitimate concerns all around. TIA.