Suddenly single and strapped for cash

“It was the first home I'd ever owned, and I was able to work with the designer picking and choosing whatever I wanted,” she recalls. “Everything from the colour of the walls to where the doors would be and which way they’d swing.” She was especially proud of her ensuite with its heated tile floors and double whirlpool tub.

To make this dream come true, Naomi – who asked that her name be changed for privacy reasons – cashed in the better part of her savings, including $20,000 in RRSPs, for a total down payment on her part of $45,000. She didn’t fret about depleting her reserves or the fact that the mortgage would be eating up all of her disposable income and preclude her from further investment in her retirement.

“I wasn't worried because by the time I retired, the house would be paid for and Mark, who was 10 years younger than me, would still be working, and then when he retired, we’d have his pension.”

Evidently not. After living together for four years, Naomi realized that her companion’s ongoing promise of marriage was suspect, so she moved out. Today, she lives in a $750-a-month rented apartment, a little older and a lot wiser.

In the end, Naomi was lucky. She's back to managing her own retirement and she got her money back out of the house and then some, thanks to Vancouver’s skyrocketing real estate market, but it could have been worse, a lot worse, says Douglas Welbanks, author of Finances After Separation: A Guide to Renewal and Success for Separated Families.

Welbanks, who was once the director of Debtor Assistance and Debt Collection for the province of British Columbia, says he’s seen it all and then some when it comes to personal and financial entanglements that blow up in people’s faces in the case of either divorce or the unexpected death of a spouse. In a section of his book headlined Sexually Transmitted Debt, he tells the story of Rhonda, a woman who married a predator who not only left her with $80,000 in new debts but had the audacity to file for spousal support and a one-half interest in the $300,000 home she had purchased prior to the marriage.