Candace Bahr:
Women's financial situation often diminishes by as much as 27 percent after a divorce. And men's, in fact, can increase by as much as 10 percent. After hearing that information Ginita and I said "What can we do to make a difference?" and we decided that creating a program to help women understand what the process of divorce was and understand how assets should be divided in divorce and the tax consequences of it and what the legal ramifications of it and what psychologically they may be going through and to create resources for them we thought would be beneficial.
Ginita Wall:
Second Saturday was created 30 years ago to teach women about the emotional, financial and legal aspects of divorce. Divorce is the biggest single transaction of your entire life. It's a time that you rearrange everything you've built up piecemeal and now you are making decisions regarding the whole thing that's bigger than anything you will ever deal with.
Unfortunately, when we have to deal with that, we're feeling the least empowered that we ever have been. We're having to make decisions about the future when we're feeling very uncertain about the present and that can be very daunting. That's why a program like Second Saturday is so important.
Elizabeth’s Story:
So good morning everybody. Welcome to the club you never wanted to join. I was 25. I fell madly in love with someone who was very famous. This man waved a magic wand and overnight my life became A-list celebrity, travel, lifestyle -- the things that you kind of dream about and read about. But it came with a rule and the rule was that I would never have a say in the finances.
Well, I was 25. He was making millions of dollars. I was crazy in love and I couldn't care less. My reaction to that was that I put on blinders. 14 years and two children later I took the blinders off and we had an issue of a little bit of debt. It was four million dollars.
Candace Bahr:
WIFE.org isn't just about women going through a divorce, it's about women at any stage of their lives becoming more financially responsible and involved in the decisions because frankly no matter how great the marriage is. All marriages end either in death or divorce and 70 percent of the time we're left alone as widows and 10 percent of women choose not to marry. So we wanted to become advocates -- really a wife for women-- as they learn about finances. That was the impetus of the program.
Ginita Wall:
And women are always going through transition. There's the transition of having children of educating children of sending children off to school going to work working part-time divorce, retirement, widowhood. It's all a transition. And that's the things that we help women deal with.
Ginita Wall:
We've talked about the legal aspects of divorce. We've talked about the emotional aspects of divorce. Now it's time to talk about the money. Money makes us feel secure. We get a lot of response from people saying “I was so scared coming in but now I feel like I can do this. I feel like I'm not alone. I feel like I've got help out there. I feel like anything's possible.”
Candace Bahr:
I think for so many women. It's helpful to be in a community and understand that there is help out there and there are other people going through the same thing you're going through.
