THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 20, 1996 TAG: 9610160054
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: REAL LOVE
LENGTH: 124 lines
Tucked safely down inside Lisa Lucius' pocketbook is hte tie that binds her to her spouse.
The couple's checkbook.
It's also the thing that best illustrates the difference between them.
Lisa is a stickler for detail. Arnie is a big-picture guy.
``I'm very funny about it. I balance it to the penny,'' Lisa. says. ``Before we got married, he was happy if he balanced his within a hundred dollars. I said, no.''
A joint checking account, that thin little booklet of paper, can be for a marriage what bamboo is to fingernails. A single checking account means the end of any financial secrets and can start a skirmish over how to maintain that pesky check register.
In Lisa and Arnie's case, humor helps.
``He always teases me and calls me The Comptroller,'' says Lisa, who doles out checks to her husband on demand. ``He gets however many he needs. Of course, I'm very strict. If he takes one, he's got to record what he's done, and that's something he's not very good at.''
And when Arnie behaves badly and does not note the amount he spent at Sears?
``Then The Comptroller calls him in for a meeting,'' Lisa says with a laugh.
The Virginia Beach couple is in good company. Checkbook tribulations happen in the best of marriages. Even when one of the couple has made a career out of tending other people's money.
Jett Holland is vice president of Central Fidelity National Bank and branch manager of its Janaf office. There, customers have shown up with shoe boxes full of unbalanced bank statements and checkbook registers in hopeless messes.
Nineteen years ago, as romantic newlyweds who pledged to love, honor and share their mutual incomes, Jett and Beth opened a single account. Every month Jett sat down to balance it.
``It got to the point where I was balancing statements with checks on them for $1.03. That's when I gave it over to her,'' he recalls.
Beth found the arrangement most sensible. She manages the bulk of the money. Jett has a separate account with enough in it to pick up his shirts at the cleaners.
Of course, it hasn't all been wine and roses. There was the time Beth left the checkbook on top of the car at the grocery store.
``I went back to the Be-Lo, and there it was, pretty as you please, on the asphalt,'' he says. ``It was hair-raising.''
These days, when Beth is running late and the Hollands are out of spaghetti sauce, Jett grabs the household account and runs for the grocery.
That's when he peeks at how his better half runs their book.
``We both write down the checks we've written, but there are plenty of people who will not bring down a balance and will just keep it mentally. . . . I will not name names,'' he says.
Not all newlyweds come to the conclusion that two checking accounts are better than one. Some plug away for years at a financial union even though it makes them both nuts.
Take the case of Kathy and Howard. No last names, please. From the beginning, Kathy saw doom when she thought of sharing her money with her beloved.
``The hardest thing for me in getting married was having to pool our funds together, because I knew I'd have to answer for everything,'' Kathy says.
Howard, she suspected, was more practical. She was right.
He expects her, for example, to always know where the checkbook is.
``Once I lost it when I was Christmas shopping, and I was praying to God he wouldn't get the phone call before I found it,'' she says. ``And a few weeks ago, at a coaches meeting, I left my pocketbook behind with my wallet and the checkbook.
That's like losing your child at the mall. I was freaking out. How do you call your husband and tell him that?''
Howard is also more frugal.
``Whenever he takes over, there's somehow always leftover money. When I do, there's nothing left. I'm more frivolous,'' she says with a sigh. And the evidence is there, in black and white.
The single checking account they established 16 years ago quickly turned into Kathy's nemesis.
``He'd balance it and I'd run for the hills,'' she says.
Now, just the word ``checkbook'' gives her palpitations.
``We keep it in the kitchen drawer, the dreaded bill drawer. Every day I open it up, look at the checkbook and go, `Poison!','' she says.
Kathy is also one of those free spirits who's guilty of writing checks without deducting the amount.
``I keep a running total in my head,'' she says. ``He would like me to stand in the checkout line, open up the register and write in ``Food Lion' and the amount of the check. Or, God forbid, I forget to write in the date.''
Sometimes the specter of Howard's wrath gets to be too much.
``I'll jump ahead a few checks sometimes and write one,'' Kathy says. ``It gives me peace and tranquillity and buys me a few days so I don't have to hear it. I'm sure there's a self-help group out there for me somewhere.''
At least a kindly ear. Lie down on the couch, please.
Ira Pearlman, a Norfolk psychologist, has heard his share of checkbook complaints in the 20 years he's counseled couples.
``The checkbook,'' says Pearlman, ``is a language. It's another way people express their feelings about something more deep in the relationship.''
Pearlman says that what happens with that little pad of paper can represent some pretty complicated stuff.
``The not writing down in the checkbook is a passive-aggressive thing that is usually a symptom of something else that's going on - some other issue - sexual, parenting style, something with the in-laws or friends,'' Pearlman says.
So, like with everything else in a marriage, it's a good idea to start off on the right foot. But it's one thing to try to like your mother-in-law. Tender debate about joint checking can be like walking on eggs.
After five years of dating, two of them while engaged, Lara Storms and Dennis Noble got married Saturday.
After much discussion, the Nobles woke up this morning with three checking accounts - his, hers and theirs.
``We've kind of bickered back and forth about what we wanted to do,'' Lara said a few days before tying the knot. ``He wanted to maintain a separate account for his personal debts. But first I was, like, `Are you excluding me for some reason' ''?
In the end, they decided that Lara should pay off her own debts, too, and for now the shared account should be for the household.
In years to come will the Nobles have 2.5 children, a house with a picket fence and one checkbook to pass back and forth?
``Maybe eventually,'' mused Lara. ``I don't know, though. I kind of like having my own account.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
LAWRENCE JACKSON ILLUSTRATION/The Virginian-Pilot by CNB