Income Earner vs. Income Supporter
Recently, on the Wevorce blog, we opened up a conversation about Divorce Archetype profiles and offered a preview of groundbreaking research we’ve compiled over recent years. This post continues our series: Divorce Archetype Profiles™ Uncovered. Today, we explore the Income Earner and Income Supporter profiles.
Dividing the marital finances is perhaps one of the most perplexing aspects of divorce. For many couples, money-related disagreements during a marriage are compounded by the slew of challenges that arise with the inevitable prospect of distributing assets and debts.
Specific financial roles and obligations can weigh heavily upon husbands and wives during a marriage, but reassigning duties and changing roles can be equally as or more stressful during a divorce. However, as with many aspects of uncoupling, it helps to understand the underlying Divorce Archetype profiles that affect the motives and beliefs behind our financial decisions.
Profile: Income Earner
The Income Earner often makes enough money to support the entire family, and this person may be referred to as the sole breadwinner. In generations past, the male spouse has historically been the primary Income Earner, but as women have entered the workforce it’s more common than ever for wives to play the starring role in providing a substantial part of the family’s income.
Profile: Income Supporter
While an Income Earner may work hard to provide financial support for the family, an Income Supporter has, in many cases, put his or her career on hold to focus on managing the family. The Income Supporter may not earn enough income to support the family, but instead plays a supportive role in helping his or her spouse earn household income.
Historically, women have been the accepted norm, but as gender roles have become less rigid in recent years, more and more men are opting to embrace the role of stay-at-home dad while their wives support the family financially. ;
Common Marital Challenges
There exists a common thread between Income Earner/Supporter profiles and the archetypal layer of Infidelity: the breakdown of the emotional relationship. The Income Earner may provide financial security, but money can’t buy love. A relationship needs other forms of capital — such as esteem and self-discovery, according to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs — to thrive.
But after the courtship phase, attention and adoration within a marriage often lessens, and marriages can easily settle into more of a financial and childrearing arrangement. For the Income Supporter, this can be disastrous. Because their life revolves around the home, they don’t get the validation from a career. Not to mention, as children grow up, it becomes all too easy to lose one’s sense of identity and purpose.
For these reasons, it is crucial that an Income Supporter’s emotional needs be satisfied. It isn’t easy to keep up with these needs, which are always changing, but in the intricate dance of relationships, growth demands honest communication and mutual support.
During a Divorce
In traditional divorce, money has often been treated as a logical issue; economic formulas were in many cases applied to determine asset distribution and spousal/child support. But, as human beings, our relationship to money is anything but logical. The decisions we make about money have psychological and emotional roots, and formulaic settlements often leave families with incomplete solutions.
In a divorce, the spouse in a financially stronger position — usually the Income Earner — may be directed by the courts to make payments to the other spouse in the form of spousal support, also referred to as alimony or spousal maintenance. (Spousal support should not be confused with child support, which is a separate legal order by the court that is strictly enforced.) For a Reactor (or a partner who feels betrayed by infidelity) who is also the Income Earner, the spousal support conversation is an especially difficult one. Being forced to write a check to an ex-spouse they feel has wronged can inflame existing financial conflict.
Income Supporters will usually encounter significant lifestyle changes during divorce. Generally one spouse keeps the house or apartment the couple shared, and the other spouse finds and furnishes a new place. But both will need to rethink how they can support themselves as they return to single status and may include the Income Supporter returning to the workforce. For a spouse who hasn’t worked in a professional environment in years, this prospect can be difficult and frightening, so it may be helpful to attend job fairs, take catch-up courses, and join a networking group to get back up to speed. (Womenforhire.com offers several great suggestions in this regard.) ;
While men are six times more likely than women to leave the family home during separation, women are more likely to encounter financial difficulties, according to a study conducted by This Is Money. In fact, half of the divorced/separated women surveyed said they had seen a drop in disposable income (twice that of men) and 18 percent said they were forced to rent after a separation because they couldn’t afford to purchase a new home in the area.
Even if the Income Supporter remains in the primary residence and receives spousal support, this is oftentimes not enough to cover basic living expenses — because one income is now providing for two households. (Determining spousal support can be fairly complex, and this support isn’t always a black and white formula. See the weLife article How is Spousal Support Determined? for an in-depth look at this topic.) The Income Supporter may need to return to the workplace, which means childcare costs should be considered when figuring budgets during the divorce process. He or she may need to obtain his or her own health insurance, as well as rethink certain spending habits, just a few of the important costs that need to be included in detail to show how each spouse will live after divorce.
What Can Go Wrong, and How to Make It Right
In our interactions with couples, we have sometimes seen an income supporter give up spousal support in the name of “fairness” and split the estate 50/50, even though the supporter’s income amounts to a small fraction of the earner. Now, the former income supporter struggles to keep up with his or her former spouse, feeling resentful about a former’s spouse’s ability to provide for the children, while he or she doesn’t have the money to spend on vacations and gifts.
To avoid common financial pitfalls that affect both Income Earners and Income Supporters, here are some tips to consider:
- Don’t let shame allow you to resign to the divorce and surrender into an emotional settlement.
- DO know your rights.
- Don’t go it alone.
- DO seek out a neutral advisor to help guide you through the financial implications of the divorce process.
- Don’t be caught unprepared.
- DO acknowledge the financial realities of divorce.
For additional suggestions, visit Part II and Part III of Wevorce’s Financial Dos and Don’ts series.
With help from Wevorce and qualified financial experts, couples can better understand the Money-related Divorce Archetype profiles, thus defining their needs and relieving the pressure of unconscious emotional money patterns as they divorce. Personalized educational tools can also help money-related profiles transition to financial independence and ensure that money isn’t used in the settlement to compensate for emotional holes in the relationship.
Divorce Archetype profiles in review
Initiator vs. Reactor (Influencers)
Every divorce will have an Initiator (one who has reached their breaking point) and Reactor (one who isn’t ready to face it). The only variant may be when an additional archetypal layer is added by an affair, during which delicate emotions may seem to be wrapped in barbed wire.
Dependents
The Dependent ;is rather self-explanatory; if you had children, or adopted children during your marriage and they are still legally in your care, you fall under this profile.
Happily Even After vs. Solo
The Happily Even After profiles describe couples who want to work together to keep divorce amicable. The couples who can’t agree on whether or not to get a divorce, or the terms of a divorce fall under the Solo profile.
Traffic Lights
The Traffic Lights profiles correspond with literal traffic lights and signify the readiness of each spouse during the divorce process. These profiles are as follows: Red Light (also referred to as Positional), Honeystuck, and Green Light. When the Positional/Red Light profile is involved, couples are often unable to agree on most things. In the Honeystuck profile, a spouse may have days when he or she feels ready to move forward — and days when divorce seems impossible to face. Variations of this profile include Gas and Break, Parent/Child, and Driverless. The Green Light profile describes couples that have been wrestling with the decision to divorce for a while, but are now ready to part ways and move on to the next chapter of their lives.
Money Manager vs. Non-Money Manager
The Money Manager profile describes the spouse who handles the finances during marriage. The Non-Money Manager often has not participated in these activities, and may have little to no access to financial account information.
Find more information about the Divorce Archetype assessment ;here. ;
