And tell us what happened when you realized that the financial life that you thought you had wasn't really what you believed it to be.

So to back up, I think a lot of women my age, and just to let your audience know, I'm 45 years old.

is we start out this journey in life where we're very passionate about following our dreams right our young 20s we go out to school and it's the traditional tale as old as time you meet somebody you fall in love very young you decide to start a life together and the complicated part when you're so young and this is to encourage women out there who are younger who are mothers guiding people is that you start to think that joint means everything, right? You start thinking that joint, giving up your, what I call financial autonomy.

So that means the other person shares in every single financial account and every single financial decision and i think in some ways in some relationships that might work but i also think if in some relationships where there's a lot of unawareness chaos maybe things going on behind closed doors that people don't know about that there is situations that arise financially where you're just shocked You're just surprised.

You're totally caught off guard.

And all you can do is think, try to repair all the chaos that happens after financial decisions are made.

And pretty soon, because I think you're in a relationship, you share children, everything of that nature, it is a very difficult time and a very difficult decision to think of what the next step would be.

That's why I am so thrilled, Karen, to have you here today to share this story.