By Dr. Joy Eberhardt De Master, WCI Columnist
It was 2016. The year of the US presidential election. The year the Cubs won the World Series. The year my grandfather died weeks before I gave birth. It was also the year I got divorced to save money.
Yes, you heard that right. I got divorced to save money. My then-spouse and I were looking at the numbers and creating a trust before the birth of our second child (or third child if we count the one that died in-utero). We spoke with our trust lawyer and floated the idea to our accountant. There was no reason we couldn’t get divorced and stay together. If we were divorced, we could file taxes separately. If we were divorced, my earnings didn’t pull up the financial burden of my spouse’s income-based student loan repayment; these loans were in the hundreds of thousands and could easily cost more than our mortgage of $2,390. If I wasn’t in the picture, at least in a legally married sense, he could pay less on those loans.
Before you judge me, know that we took out as few loans as possible and tried paying them down. In 2013, my spouse/partner lived away during the week (home on the weekend) to complete their doctoral-level training. (Yes, it was one of the many hoops to get the doctoral degree.) I started a new pediatric job with a large organization (aka more money, like twice the amount!) and cared for our toddler. We paid over $1,000 per month in an attempt to pay down the student loan interest so it wouldn’t be…
