Money, Men, and Meaning After 50: Rethinking Romance After You’ve Built Your Own Life

Money, men and meaning. In this podcast, we're going to be talking about how to rethink romance after you've built your own life. Gary we talk a lot about dating when we're older and how it can truly be one of the best times of your life to find love, whether you're in your 50s, 60s, 70s, or 80s. But I will say there's one benefit to dating in your 20s, and that is that everyone is broke. At least I was.

Yes.

You don't have to deal with money, right? Money is like a non issue. Welcome to the Love Strategies podcast where we help successful women attract high value men, date with a strategy and improve their relationships. Now, whether you're single or dating or in a new relationship, we're here to help you dive into the male mind and provide raw insights found nowhere else, backed by science, psychology and our own personal experiences. Your hosts today are myself, Adam lodolce, and professional dating coach and founder of love strategy, and Dr. Gary Lewandowski, a relationship scientist, professor and our head relationship coach here at Love Strategies. Please share with a friend and enjoy. When I met my wife, man, you know, I, I had some money, but it was a very different topic than if I'd be dating now. I mean, it's just, it's, it's just like massive, massive part of the relationship. And no one wants to talk about it, right? Everyone talks about chemistry, sex, like, you name it. But the money talk, the big M.

It is. I was telling you right before we hit record on this that I'm so glad we're putting, we put this podcast together because money is one of the most common topics and questions we get on our masterminds. And this one, there's a lot packed into this podcast because I said, you know, I just, oh, people also ask about this. They also ask about this and they ask a lot about the money thing because it is awkward, right? There's a lot of anxiety and awkwardness about money conversations where you don't necessarily have that. At least our clients don't seem to have that as much. Even around things like sex and communication and in laws and other, a whole bunch of other relationship issues. It's like the money thing just seems to be like this kind of weird soft spot in terms of things that you would think aren't that hard to talk about but become really weird to talk about. Like if I asked you just randomly out of the blue, Adam, how much money do you make? It's like a weird, it's a weird question, right? But it's like, you know, how much do you. How much in love are you with your wife? That doesn't seem weird, right? Right. But keep saying it, buddy. Just keep repeating it and keep. No, but it's like, that should be so much more intimate and yet it's not. It's weird, right?

Topic. And it's one of the topics that people are not comfortable talking about while dating. And we know that it is one of the top, if not the top, reason for divorce. For some of you who've listened for a while, you may or may not know my mother, Ann LeDolce is a divorce attorney or was a divorce attorney. She just retired, actually, which is incredible. But she's been a part of thousands, literally thousands of divorces or her 40 plus year career of divorce. And money is always the number one topic, of course, when you're going through a divorce. But even the cause of the divorce tends to stem from challenges with money philosophies on how we spend money. And if you think about it, if there's this one thing that ends up being the downfall of a relationship, but we can't talk about it at the beginning of the relationship, man, oh man, are we just taking a big old gamble when we get in a relationship? Yeah, it's crazy. So what are the things that we want to change that?

Yeah, and I was just going to. Sorry, I just got excited about a research finding that I want to pepper in here, which is we know from the research that when people get divorced, it's not a brand new issue that caused the divorce. It's something that has been there the whole time. And the money issues follow you around your entire relationship. And they cause problems because you don't talk about them in the beginning like you should. And so this is our attempt to help clarify a lot of these things to get today. We're gonna make sense. Get it. We're gonna make sense. Yes, I know.

Number one reason for divorce. A podcast host. I love it.

Take it. So we're gonna talk about who pays for what and when, what to do when you make more than him and when money should matter in your relationship and when it should. So let's make some sense of this, Adam. Huh? Huh?

All right, let's. So the first. So we kind of have this more of like a Q and A format. Some of the biggest questions that we get, the first one when it comes to money is, should you split the check? To me, Gary, I think this is a very simple one, which is offer to split or contribute. So you're on a date, the check comes, offer to split for sure. But then 99.82% of the time, very rough estimate, he's going to say, I got it, and I get it. We. I've had clients. I had a client recently when we were talking about this, she's like, I don't even want to offer, right? Like, why should I even offer this? Like, the guy should be taking me out on the date. And I get that. But it's just a really, really important thing that guys are kind of looking out for, which is the woman. Especially a man who's very, very successful. Men are looking out for women who are just trying to really tap into women, their wealth. And by actually, like, showing that you're willing to contribute, even if you know in the back of your mind you're not going to contribute, like, it does show that that's not what's important to you. Now, the other key part of this that I will say is that I have some other clients, and I have experienced this myself, where they might offer to split. And the guy says, I've got it. And they say, no, let's split. I mean, I once got into a debate with a woman, I'm telling you for, like, 10 minutes over me saying, I've got it. Like, I asked you on the date, I've got it. And, like, look, going back in time, if I could slap that, like, I should have just split it with that, whatever. But it was just such a silly debate that ended the date. And we know through psychology, like, how things end is kind of how you remember the whole date. And we tell you, I didn't really want to go out with her again. Like, I just didn't want to go out. And I'm sure she didn't want to go out with me again. It's just like a silly thing. So if he says he's got it, smile and say thank you and move on. That's my take on it. What do you think?

So not only did you lose the argument, you also lost 10 minutes of your life arguing about it.

I lost an hour and a half of my life on that date because it just wasn't gonna work.

But I think this is one of those things. You know, I've also heard clients say. Cause we have a lot of frankly successful clients. And she said something along the lines of, you know what? I don't want to offer because I don't want to make him think I'm going to be taking care of him. Because I had two previous Partners who I was a lot more successful than, and that's the kind of relationship they wanted. And it's like, again, I get it. But I think one of the things we are all trying to do when it comes to approaching relationships is. And one of these things that is just frankly fair is don't have the current person pay for the sins of a former partner. That's not fair to your current person. And so treat every guy like a brand new guy. Not all guys are the same. And so, you know, let's not treat this who pays thing as some kind of over indicator in terms of what it means. And I think, you know, like, it's like you said, guys are going to pay for this most of the time. But even if you're thinking like, no, I don't want him to. I don't want to put him out. Just know if you ins. If he says, I've got it, and then you insist on splitting, he automatically thinks, she doesn't like me, she just wants to be friends. And so just understand like what that means. Also, all of, I think pretty much everything we've said so far only applies to the first date or two after it's been a couple of dates, you can start offering to, you know, oh, you know, we just had a great dinner. He offers the pay. Great. Thank you so much. Hey, I know this cool dessert place. Let me go, let's go grab dessert, right? Or let's go grab an after dinner drink. Or, you know, I'll leave the tip. Like, there's just little ways for you to contribute. He still might turn all that down, but you can just start opening up a little bit more of showing a willingness. And again, if he lets you pay for part of it, don't do this as like a test, right? That's another big thing is like, don't. Like, I'm going to offer to pay and see what he says because guys are trying to read you too. And guys are also on the look like he doesn't want to seem too forceful sometimes and make it seem like he doesn't think you could pay if you wanted to. Because, you know, we also have, we have clients that will say things like, I don't want a guy who's looking for a nurse or a purse. Right? It's like, okay, I totally, that's fair. I get that. But guys are also on the lookout for women who are looking. I don't know what the parallel. A wallet, I don't know. But it's, you know, the guys are on the lookout for this too. And so you just have to be aware a little about where he's coming from.

Yeah, they don't want to offend you either. I feel like the whole paying for a first date is taking a very small thing and making it a big thing. It's just not a big thing at the end of the day. If I've had a client recently, actually, who went on a first date and he accepted her offer to split, and she's like, what does that say about him? I'm like, he's probably just scared, doesn't.

Know what to do.

So he says, sure. Like, you just don't use that as the one reason to not explore this relationship further. What a silly thing, what every guy is doing.

Every guy is just trying to do whatever they think you want. And he must. He probably just misread what she wanted. He thought, oh, she really wants to pay. I'm gonna let her pay. That's 100%. I guarantee what he thought.

The only exception to this, and I will kind of just give you a little fuel for the fire here, is if he makes you pay on the first date and he asked you out.

Next.

Big old next. All right, I'll give you that, because that is just rude. That's ridiculous.

So, yeah, like, he makes you. The. The check comes, and he's like, credit card, please.

He is so dead to you.

That.

That one I will 100 accept. He is out. All right, Gary, let's move on to longer term. Who pays for what?

So, you know, early on, guys take the lead. Later on, guys also generally take the lead. That, though, can become problematic if you earn much more money than him. Right. And so if he's always paying for everything and yet you have more financial resources, that can get complicated. And I think it's a little bit of just, like, who our clients are that this issue comes up a little bit more often than normal. But I think regardless of who makes more, right? Whether it's the man making more or the woman making more, I think we don't have to keep it even in terms of dollar amounts, right? Like, let's say, you know, we plan a $10,000 trip. It doesn't mean we both have to pay 5,000. I think we try to keep it even in terms of relative percentages, right? It's like, so if he makes twice as much as you, he can pay for twice as much towards the trip than you can you pay a third, he pays two thirds. Right? Or you, if you don't want to get into the math of it all, right. You just, he pays for the hotel, you pay for the flights. You know, he pays for the whole entire trip. But then while you're on the trip, you plan all the excursions, you do all like a bunch of others. It's like there's ways to keep it equitable. And equitable isn't the same thing as specifically dollar cost averaged even.

Right.

It's. And so we want to be clear about, it's not about the dollars, it's about the overall sentiment because you're in a long term partnership with this person.

Definitely. I have had clients who are worth literally over $100 million from their success, from their life, very. They've invested well and then they're dating. I, I've had this happen a couple times. So yeah, they'll be dating a guy who makes a half a million to even a million a year, which by the way, is the top.01% of. That's a lot. It's just, it's, it's still such a different ball game. It's insane. Like if a guy is making only half a million or even, let's just, let's go more normal. If he's making 200,000 a year, and that's not even normal, I should say that's still very, very high. Let's say he's making a measly 200,000 a year just for this topic of conversation, then that means that when you go on vacation with this guy, you're going to want to stay places that he would never even consider. And if that's what you want, then you will pay. Like, pay for the trip, bring him along. Because the reality is, and I know this is a speaking to your head, not your heart, but the reality is you don't need him to pay for anything. Right? And I know that's a very extreme example, but I think we can actually bring that back to your situation. If it's, you know, you, you have a couple million dollars in investment and he's still kind of working through his career a little bit. Let's say you don't need his financial support, then it's really trying to override some of that instinct of being like, you know, I find it sexy when a man pays for everything. I think there's a little bit of override that has to happen there because perhaps in this relationship his financial well being is not going to be necessarily what draws you to him. It might be the fact that he's incredibly kind, respectful, caring and Incredible. And appreciating those things is going to allow you to be set free to be with a guy like this. In that situation again, we, there is going to be a certain kind of like cutoff where it just won't make any sense for you to be with a guy who, you know, you're not going to be worth 5 million in dating a guy who works at McDonald's. Obviously you're going to want to be with a guy who has a certain level of, you know, financial well being, financial wealth. But there's, there may be a point, especially if you're that top tier, where you're just saying to yourself, like, look, you're just going to be the person who's going to be paying for some of these trips. And that is okay, because you can.

Right? Which perfect, magnificent, magnificent, brilliant segue into our next hot topic, which is, I have more money than him and I don't like it. Right. And it's, it's such a common thing because again, so many of our clients successful, very financially responsible. Like, I, I feel like there's so much just financially I could learn from our clients because they're so, all seemingly so good with money. But I think what happens with this is when you have more money as a woman than a guy, there's this overriding feeling of like, it's not supposed to be like this, it's not supposed to be like this. And you just have to realize that this is some societal programming, some, you know, overriding expectations that maybe don't always apply in every situation. And so one of the things when clients bring this up, I always say, hey, will you entertain me for a second? Can we do like just a little thought experiment? It's like, okay, sure. Said, should a guy who's a billionaire, or at least someone who makes a lot more money than you, automatically assume that you, because you're not a billionaire, aren't good for him? Like, should he completely rule out the possibility that you guys might have this amazing magical connection just because you're not in his tax bracket? And every single time the woman who asked this question, she says, well, no, well, no. Like I'm more than just, you know, how much money I make? Like, yeah. So say, right. It's the exact same thing because your relationship is more than the money. And if you let the relative difference between the two of you be a problem, it's going to be a problem. But if you don't let that be a problem, it also won't be a problem. Because if you're looking for a guy, money. Plus he's supportive and caring and kind and all that good stuff. That's great. But like Adam just said, you are not. We're not saying to date the McDonald's guy, that's fine unless he owns a couple McDonald's. But I think really what it's about is it's not about the overall money. It's about him making the minimum threshold. And so it's less about whether you make more than whether he makes the minimum. And so the minimum, it's going to be different for everybody. But it's like, what is the comfort level? What level of experiences is this guy used to? And so how do you find out that stuff? You want to focus on certain things. You basically just want a guy who's financially healthy. So when I say minimum, like you might think of a dollar amount, but really what I mean is financially healthy. You want to know about his debt situation, what's his credit score? I know that stuff's hard to figure out, but that's essentially what is much more important than his overall worth. Because he might say, oh yeah, I brought in 2 million last year, but he could have also spent 2.2 million last year. And so what are his expenses? How many ex wives does he have? Does he waste his money? Is he got a gambling problem? Spending on frivolous things? Does he have a job? Right. And it's like, what kind of job does he have? Does he like his job? Liking his job is also super important. And so I guess ultimately what I'm saying is it's much more important to avoid the broke guy than to say, I need to find this really wealthy guy.

Amen. Amen. And these are the kind of. I know that this is going against the grain. I get it, I get it. But this is exactly what we do here at Love Strategies because we are optimizing for your long lasting, healthy relationship that leads to just like again, the most joyous and fulfilling relationship. And it we can all recognize that having more and more wealth after a certain point, it is very much a dimin. It's diminishing returns. The same thing goes with wealth and relationships. And so if you're enjoying this conversation and you're finding that you're dating in your 50s, 60s, and 70s or beyond, we have something really special that we love. We love for you to be a part of. If you go to lonely to love dot com, we have a very special seminar that's by Dr. Gary and I where we talk a lot about finding love after 50. And so we have these seven simple steps to finding long lasting love without the games, guesswork or the ghosting. And Gary, we have a special guest as well that I'm not going to tell you about until you get to that webinar. Again, that's lonelytolove.com is specifically for those who are finding love after 50 and are dealing with some of these challenges that you don't deal with when you're dating in your 20s and 30s. So go check it out and yeah, I think that'll be really helpful for you.

Well, and I think, you know, you said twenties and you mentioned this a little bit earlier too, is like I remember my 20s. I was broke, poor, right? Like just so my wife and I, my daughter is about to head off to college and we were just having this conversation. Last night is also my daughter's birthday. So we were tape, we were out to dinner last night and just talking about what our life was like when we were in our twenties and just how drastically different it is from now. And it's like talking about milk crates is like nightstands kind of stuff, like that level of broke. And so one of the things, and I say this to students all the time, and I was saying this to my daughter last night too, is it's a gift, but you got to take it with you. And the gift is when you're young and you don't have money, you realize that finances aren't everything. And that is a gift because you carry that often in the future. Because what we know from the research is money does not equal happiness. You can't buy your way to being happy and fulfilled. Definitely not fulfilled. And so what we try to emphasize with our clients around this theme is it's not all about the money. It's not all about even the fancy vacations because no fancy vacation is any fun if you take it by yourself. It's all about the company. It's about the person you spend that time with. And so something we, we talk to our highest level clients about is this idea of really looking for an emotional millionaire. This is the guy who gets it. This is the guy who gets relationships. He's confident, he has emotional intelligence. He's a lot of the healthy masculinity things we, we've talked about on, on a previous podcast. But it's a whether he has a million dollar bank account that's not going to impact your long term fulfillment in a relationship as much as his ability to be an emotional millionaire.

Yeah, definitely. If you had to choose one. An emotional millionaire or a financial. Even deca millionaire. I'll take the emotional millionaire any day. Right. Especially if you're at a point in your life where money is not an issue. Right. If. If you get to a certain point where your burn rate, your investments exceed, your return on your investments exceed your burn rate, you are, by definition, wealthy. That means you're making more money on your investments than you're spending. And so if you're at that point in life, then every incremental amount of money that comes in in a partnership, honestly, isn't going to impact you. It's really not going to make a huge impact if you're with a guy who is not necessarily. Let's say he's a professor and isn't.

Making.

Just a teacher.

No, no. Professor Fitz. No, it's fine.

Professor.

No.

A lonely teacher who doesn't make a lot. But he's an incredible emotional millionaire, and it's fantastic.

Which.

Sorry, Gary, I. I didn't mean to take a jab at professor.

No, I Actually, I have a sincere question, or at least clarification, as the poor professor here. Deca millionaire is what, Tens of millions. Tens of millions. Okay. I thought so. Just kind of piecing the words together, but I'm like, wait a second. I don't know if I've ever heard that word before.

Did I just make it up? I was like, I think the Latin would be tens of millions.

Well, yeah, or you're just much more learned in the Latin than I am. But I was like, wait a second. Like, I feel like the broke guy that doesn't even know that that exists. But I'll ask on behalf of the audience, like, Adam, what's a deca millionaire?

I'm just CEO, just says things. I don't know actually what I'm saying. So, yeah, ignore. But that does actually bring us to the question of how do you actually know if someone is financially healthy? Right. We keep talking about financial health, but we've had this come up a number of times with clients where they're like, I don't know. I don't want to waste my time with this guy, because he's not even at my same financial level. Right. I can just tell. I can just tell. And the immediate question is always, really, how can you tell? And they'll just say, I could just tell. And the reality is, no, you can't. And that's harsh, but it's absolutely true. Especially now because there is a massive movement among wealthy people, wealthy men in particular. But wealthy people in general, where people are actually downplaying their wealth and their flashiness substantially. Like, you go back to the 90s. You know, I think there was, like, a flashy phase where it's like you get the Ferraris, you get the fancy watches and all that stuff whenever you get some money, but it's actually become kind of out of fashion at this point. Wealth isn't necessarily obvious. It's not wealth. A lot of people will think that wealth is very flashy. The only person we got to think of is Warren Buffett. Right? Warren Buffett. He still gets McDonald's every single morning, drives the same car, lives in the same house as he did 30 years ago. It's incredible. You know who's broke, Gary? Who do you think are the broke guys?

The decimal. No, the. The people with the yachts, the people with, like, the super fancy cars, the people that are showing off. It's funny you said the thing about the understated wealth, because I saw something recently. It was like showing three pictures of people, and one was somebody who looked kind of homeless, somebody who looked very wealthy, and then someone else who looked kind of homeless. And it's like, the first person was. Didn't have a lot of money. The middle person also didn't have a lot of money. The only person had the most money was the person who looked the, like, big, baggy sweats, cutout, sweatshirt. Like, it just. It's hard to tell because I also think the other thing that people use, not just, like, how people dress in the cars and all that kind of stuff, but I had a client recently who's like, I don't know about this. This guy. He's. He's not well off. I'm like, well, how do you know? He's like, well, he's a plumber. Like, well, okay, what else do you know about him? Well, you know, like, does he have a truck? He's like, yeah. Like, does he have his name on the side of the truck? He's like, yeah, he's like, he owns the business. And, like, he's not broke. He's not broke. Like, he's plumbing. But if he owns a plumbing business, he's not broke. And this is. It goes back to something that I think you shared with me when we first started working together is like, it's. The millionaires are not the careers that you think. Right? We always think of, like, high level, like, investment bankers and. Sure, like, that's some of those people. But the top five careers and millionaires, engineer, accountant, Teacher, management, attorney, working class kinds of things. And it's, it's not even about having a high paying job, right. It's the stat is 31% only 31% over average, over 100k in their year, in their career. And so there's other ways that people are obtaining wealth and it's not always like, oh wait, he's got a high paying job, he must be wealthy. It's like, no, he could have a very reasonably paying job, but invests well. Right. And there's many ways to do this, I guess.

Well, I just remember my 30s when I was starting, you know, the company or getting things moving really. And I would hang out with a lot of quote unquote CEOs which by the way is a very cheap title. It's very easy to call yourself a CEO. And a lot of these guys would go out, I'd be going out with them and hanging out and they would tell all the women that they're CEOs of this new founding company and how impressive it would be. And, and everyone was so drawn to them. And I think back to every single one of these guys, every single one of their companies failed, never made a nickel, like I'm talking, failed horrifically. And I feel sad for those guys, of course, and, and what they went through. And I understand that as a fellow CEO, it's, it's hard, man, this stuff is hard. Most. But that title in itself is so alluring, it's so attractive because we have this association with really successful CEOs that we think, oh my God, everyone else is going to be like that. But it's not necessarily true. Another one that I just have to throw out are doctors. Now, doctors, yes, of course they're well pay, very well paying jobs. But if you look at the debt that someone needs to go into in order to become a doctor and then their general career trajectory and how they spend their money. Doctors, when it comes to wealth of a significant proportion of them are not actually wealthy because the moment, so a lot of these doctors, they'll make, they'll come out of med school with half a million dollars in debt and the moment they start making 200,000, they start buying the yacht, the car, the, the house. Let me tell you, their balance sheet is not looking so pretty. Even when they're 50, it's pretty wild. Whereas you get the teacher who comes out of school, maybe they went to a local school and they've been putting money in the 401k every single year. By time they're 50 easily can be a millionaire easily.

Yep. Well, because it all comes down to approach people. You know, it's less about how much you have. And this is something I talk to the clients about a lot, is like, you do really want to figure out financial health, for sure, but also what is his approach to money and also kind of realizing your own approach to money. And so the research on this actually on couples in relationships is basically, there's two kinds of people. And this is going to sound kind of obvious, but there are spenders and savers. And so this is one of those things. Though the research shows that opposites do attract in this case because the spenders look at the savers and they're like, you know what? There's something a little appeal. I do spend. I. They will help me be more financially responsible. Now the saver looks at the spender and is like, well, they look like they're having fun. Like they're going to. Like they're doing all this stuff. Like, look at all the stuff they have. Like, wow, like, that's super appealing. And so it's attractive. But at the same time, going back to the very first thing was like, where is one of the biggest sources of conflict in relationships around how we spend or save money? And so the opposites attract, but as we've said many times on this podcast, opposites attract and then they attack. And so it's something to be very, very careful about in terms of who you're finding yourself attracted to. The one other thing I would say about this is two spenders together, very bad combo. Right? You have two people who are like, let's get this thing. No, let's get that thing and this other thing and this other thing and this other thing. It becomes very, very hard to be sustainable. And it's like, it doesn't matter how much money you make if you have two people spending it. It's like, you know, putting water into a bucket with three holes in it. It's just like, it's gonna. It's. You're just never gonna catch up. And so it's important to. To. To get a handle on these things.

Yeah, I mean, that's something that I'm consistently realigning our clients on is rather than understand, if you've gone out with a guy three times, it's going to be nearly impossible to understand his net worth. You're just not. You might have an idea of it, but what you can get a feel for is their philosophy towards money. How they feel about debt is that. Is it important for them to go on a vacation or are they more the investment type? Like, what is their feel? Like, let's say you had a, a very fun third day question. Be like, let's say you had $10 million. What would you do with it and why? Right. Well, you're going to get a lot of different answers. One might be like, oh, my God, I'm going to go on vacation for.

The next five years.

And maybe it's a playful response and you'll get a good answer. Maybe I'll buy the yacht, maybe I'll buy the mansion down the street, or maybe I'll invest it in Bitcoin or whatever. That's a million different responses that you might get. And it gives you just a little bit of a taste towards their philosophy towards money. It kind of begins the dialogue a little bit, and there really is, like, no real wrong answer. It's just whether or not it's kind of in alignment with your philosophy towards money. So really being aware of that. And obviously, as the relationship continues, you're going to want to have more and more intentional conversations about money, which I think leads us to the final question, which is, should you combine accounts with a person? And my take is very clear on this. Before you are married, absolutely not. Absolutely not. Do not combine accounts. Do not be giving anyone money. There's no reason to be doing that. But once you are married, then what's yours is now ours. And this is something that I was really intentional about when I got married is just ensuring that there is, like, we do have separate bank accounts. And, you know, that's just more of a logistical thing in many ways. But all of our money is our money. Right? It's, there's, there's no separation, like, oh, this is going to come out of your account, or this is going to come out of my account, and. And so on, so forth. It's, you know, maybe for, like, play money and, and like, if she wants to buy me, you know, birthday present, like, sure, fine. Like, little stuff. But overall, I think marriage, that is what marriage is in many ways. It's a contractual agreement where you are now partnering with that person to do life together. And since finances fuel the decisions you make in life, it is so difficult to manage a marriage when you're trying to keep everything separate. Gary, I'm curious on your thoughts on this. We've never really talked about this.

Yeah. So the research on this shows pooling your money is the way to go. Right. It's. And again, like you said, like, Once you're married, once you're together with this person for the foreseeable future, definitely marriage. Pulling your, pulling your finances together allows for, and this is what the research shows, more open communication about finances and financial decisions. Because now it's not, hey, you pay for this. Yeah, I'll pay for this. It's like, what are we together going to do? And you want as much of that mentality in your relationship as possible. Because when you're together and you're married, it is a we and us deal. It's not you, me and keeping things separate. It's like, let's put it all together. The other thing that really helps is we know that power imbalance in relationships is terrible. And so when you have a power imbalance where it's like, my account, your account, and really the only reason that couples tend to like to set things up in my account and your account is they perceive some imbalance in the first place. Otherwise, why not just put it all together? If we both have 50 in our accounts, putting it together makes no difference. But if one of us has a little bit more, that's where it's like, I have more than you do. And that's where you start running into trouble. And so it all comes down to communication. And we know when it's pulled, there has to be more communication. Like my wife and I, we want account. I don't look at the fine, like the paying the bills and stuff. I have no idea my paycheck goes into that account. I don't know how much, like I am very bad with monies because I don't like to know about it because it gives me like, I grew up without a lot of money and so it just gives me like weird anxiety to think about it too much. And so she just handles it all. And I'm like, yeah, great. Like it's all ours. And hopefully, yeah, just that makes it better for us at least.

Yeah. And I think the, the question that many of you might be thinking is if you are in your 50s, 60s, and you have a large amount of wealth and you don't ever want to pull money with another person, then it's a serious, a serious conversation we have with our clients, which is don't get married. Right. Like, do not. Why would you get married? Which is a perfectly acceptable decision for you if you're at a stage in life where you just want companionship and a long lasting relationship. And we've had many, many clients who have made that decision. I don't judge on that. Front. I do tend to try and guide clients towards marriage if they're in the right relationship and they're really wanting that lifelong partnership. Because I think there's always a divide between two people if they aren't married. But if that's the decision you want to make where you're like, my money is my money and I'm keeping it safe, just don't get married and you can live together, you can have a life together and move on. And these are again, a lot of the topics we talk about in that webinar and that seminar we have for you. Check it out. Lonelytolove.com I think you're gonna really enjoy it. And yeah, Gary, this a really good one. I really appreciate your time on this. And I think we finally talked about a topic that, A little bit taboo out there, but I think people want to start talking about it.

Can I. One last thing. This is a little bonus right here at the end because there's one more question that I think is important that we, we should address. All right. And it's. Every once in a while we get this question from a client and it's when is it okay to give guys money? And my answer, it's very complicated answer is never. Never. Just don't. Like, I mean, if you're in a long term relationship, it's a whole other thing. But like if you're in a dating situation and a guy's asking you for money, it's the biggest red flag of all. 99 times out of 100, he's a scammer. Don't give money to guys while you're dating.

No, no. I mean, never get that, honey.

Ever.

Until marriage. I mean, I'm going to just make this hard.

Yeah.

Even in relationships, I, I gotta just make this extremely clear. Until you're married, you're not giving anyone money. You're combining your finances. Right, Right. I mean, that's. Again, we talk about power imbalance. If someone's asking you for money, then you're really putting yourself in a weird situation there where it's gonna create this uncomfortable power imbalance between the two of you. And I would just not touch that topic. Yeah. I would just not even broach that situation where you're, you're becoming someone's sugar mama.

Yeah. And it's. Sorry, I, I had to get that one in there. I, I feel a little protective sometimes about. Because again, like we, you know, we just talked about another podcast. Like so many clients are like romantic and so kind and generous and giving and it's like, fantastic personality traits, but don't give guys money.

Yeah, just don't do it. Just talk to it. All right.

Edible.

Thanks, Gary.

I appreciate it.

And I hope you all enjoy it. Let us know. All right.

Bye.

Bye.