Can financial infidelity be like marital infidelity?
Farr: Very much. It can be if somebody has a bunch of credit cards that the other doesn’t know about and then one day it comes to the surface and the unsuspecting partner gets home early, picks up the mail and finds out there’s $18,000 on a credit card he or she didn’t know exist, that’s very much like finding out that there’s been an affair going on. Or, if there’s a decrease in income, if one of the partners has gone through something and maybe a percentage of their income is commision and the commissions are way off but they don’t want to tell the partner, so instead of telling the partner they’re taking advances. Then that comes to the surface. Another one is compulsive gambling. That’s a financial infidelity that’s immensely damaging. Q: It sounds like we’re entering a period where we see a lot of these issues bubbling up. Do you see that already? Farr: Sure. It was last year when the credit markets started to tighten up. By the end of last year people were having more difficulty
