Come Together Tips and hints for how blended families can manage their finances and avoid conflict Most of us remember a time when divorce was a relative rarity ‒ and it was almost unheard of among those who'd been married for a long time. How times have changed. While divorce rates among the young have dropped slightly in recent years (partially due to more young people opting for common-law relationships instead of marriage), the incidence of “grey divorce” among couples over age 50 has actually been rising. That, in turn, has seen a rise in middle-aged marriages and ‘blended families’. According to the latest statistics, about 37% of Canadians over the age of 55 are in second or subsequent unions (either married or common-law). And financially, that’s where things can get complicated. While first marriages often start with a relatively clean financial slate ‒ both partners are usually just starting to accumulate assets and liabilities ‒ the finances of subsequent marriages can be quite a bit more complex. Coming together as partners later in life often means coming into a relationship with mortgages, pensions and retirement accounts, support responsibilities, and estate plans that can often be quite different from one another. Clearly, these complexities require some careful planning to get right ‒ and a lot of communication too. What follows here is an overview of how blended-family spouses can navigate the most significant financial issues that they face, while avoiding the arguments, hassles and conflict that all too often accompany those issues. By James Dolan 26 | www.snowbirds.org Finance
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