Marriage, Money and Meaning: The Life Advice I Wish I’d Had Sooner | Shivan Sarna

I’ve produced twelve health summits and sat with more than three hundred experts. None of that stopped a Medicaid application catching me out last month.

What actually keeps a marriage together

The simplest definition I’ve heard recently is that marriage is two people deciding to stay together. Through thick and thin. That’s it. Everything you read about communication sits on top of that decision rather than replacing it.

There’s a limit, though, worth knowing before you need it. Where one partner has a mental health issue or an addiction and won’t deal with it, the deciding may not be enough on its own. I know women who adore their husbands and are quietly asking how sustainable it is. That’s a different problem wearing love’s clothes.

How to ask your partner for help without it becoming a fight

Here’s the line I keep for the moment I need it. I’m in over my head. I need help in this relationship, so I’d like to get professional help from people who do this every single day. We’re special, but we’re not that special. Would you join me?

It works because you’re the one in the sentence, not them. You’re saying where you are and asking them to come with you, rather than handing them a diagnosis. It may not land every time. Asking still beats waiting.

The Gottmans run weekend workshops, and no, you’re not sharing your business with the room. David and I did one last year and I wish we’d booked it before we married.

What the Medicaid 5 year look back asks you to produce

Medicare and Medicaid are different. Medicaid is the one to think of as needing aid. It applies where somebody has income under a low threshold and no assets, and it can cover nursing care and medical support. It reaches some people with disabilities too.

The application is robust, to say the least. They look back five years across the applicant’s finances. The IRS asks most people to keep records for three, so five catches everybody short. Bank statements for every account. Credit card statements. PayPal. The sale of a car or a home.

They’re checking the person hasn’t given their assets away to fall under the threshold. Knowing that is oddly steadying. There’s a health assessment alongside it too, and what qualifies is needing help with dressing, bathing and the other criteria of daily life, rather than age.

Why they want the blank pages too

Here’s the part that cost me weeks. Being efficient, I sent only the pages with information on them and left out the ones that say this page was intentionally left blank. They want those pages. So back I went through the bank, from another part of the country, asking them to waive fees and post paper copies, because they wouldn’t email. Five years. Five accounts.

Closed accounts need more than a last statement showing zero. You need the day it was opened and a statement of closure. So keep the records. I’d love to save you the aggravation.

Caregiving is a skill, not a duty you are failing at

The statistics on the designated daughter, the one who ends up caring for an older relative, are wild. Proximity. Nobody else stepping up. Not enough money for care. And here’s the thing to sit with. You can love someone deeply and not be a good caregiver. Those are two different capabilities.

You may be able to sell what you already know

The best career advice I got came from a headhunter in Tampa when I was about twenty, with almost nothing on my resume. She told me I’d be good at sales. I thought it sounded distasteful. She was right, and I’ve thought about it ever since.

The version for now is that the thing you already know may be worth something to somebody. Your cookbook. Your recipe. The way you work out a difficult thing. I met a car saleswoman who gave me an excellent education in buying one, and told her to make a mini course of it. She kept asking how you get the money, as though that were the mystery. It isn’t.

You may not have to earn it first

Four years ago I sat through a three hour meditation service. I wasn’t transcending anything. I was practising. The monastic leading it paused to teach, and said God is not waiting for you to be better to be loved.

Something went out of me. Years of tension, maybe longer. I’d been holding the idea that to receive that much love I had to clean something up first. Those things were worth doing and I’ve done them. None of them was the price of admission. If you carry fear, shame or guilt the way I did, try that on for size.

None of this is what you should do. It’s what I wish somebody had handed me sooner, and most of it reached me through another person rather than effort. So if one of these is sitting on your chest, that’s the one to take somewhere. Ask the question. Keep the statements. Book the weekend. Remove the shame from it. There are answers, there’s hope, and you are not alone.