Reconciling

Money is measured with more precision than anything else in a family, sometimes down to the dollar, if not the penny. Yet that precision discloses very little about the often messy stories behind it.

I've changed the details of the following experience.

On a video call with a prospective client, the wife represented the family by herself. We'd agreed I'd walk her through connecting their many financial accounts to one central planning tool. Both the fact that one person represented the family and the fact that we were assembling the big picture at this stage were routine.

We came to one recurring withdrawal that she couldn't explain and I couldn't reconcile. We were both puzzled. Then she blurted:
 

"That must be his brother. He's been paying him back or paying him. I don't know, but it's been going on for a while."

The ground shifted, and I paused to process what had just surfaced. I said:

"It may be worthwhile to ask him if he knows what it is, not that it's suspicious or anything like that, but simply to have some clarity."

I wasn't ready to explore it further. My sense was that she wasn't either. I can't say whether my hesitation was discernment or anxiety. I did steer the conversation to the remaining accounts.

On this call, I was working toward a full financial picture, something neat, tidy, and ready for analysis. What surfaced was a story and a relationship, and those can be ambiguous, fuzzy, and implicit.

In a culture like ours that prizes what's quantifiable, money can stand in for the parts of our lives that aren't. Sometimes intentionally, other times without awareness.

I've known this about money for most of my career. On that call, knowing it wasn't enough to keep me from steering away.

Estimates are that tens of trillions of dollars of wealth in the US will be transferred between generations over the next 20 years. Some of it will move alongside conversations. Much of it will move in place of them.

Her family's accounts can be reconciled. What that withdrawal means to them won't be captured by reconciling numbers.