I absolutely do believe that a person's financial standing matters more as we get older.

It's perhaps unfortunate to say and think, but the fact of the matter is that finances play a huge role in relationships.

That's Lynette Calphani Cox. She's a personal financial expert I met during the third season of the

podcast. She told me about a three-step strategy for talking about money. Disclose, discuss, decide. Now, Lynette's answer was in

response to someone trying to figure out if they should go the distance with a new romantic partner.

But her advice is valuable for established couples, too, especially if money is a topic they've been

ignoring.

There was a loud knock at the door. I went to go, and There was a loud knock at the door.

I went to go answer it, and there was no one there, but there was a summons that had been

taped to the front door.

That's a woman we called Ginny from season two of the podcast.

Ginny was married to her college sweetheart.

They basically split the bills, but

because he made more money than she did, he was responsible for the mortgage. But he started

missing payments after being laid off. They weren't talking about money at the time, so Jenny

had no idea what was going on when that knock on the door came.

Yeah. on when that knock on the door came? My first thought was, oh, they must have the wrong house. This is for us. But then when I pulled it off and looked at it, it was a summons for court related to our home, which had been apparently sold at auction.

Wait a minute. To sell a home at auction, that means the mortgage has not been paid for how long?

So it had been six months. Had you seen any notices in the mail?

No. No, I hadn't. And, you know, I, I worked pretty long hours,

and my husband worked for himself and I had switched to online. So he was home. So as this

ruse unraveled, you know, I came to find out that, no, there had been a number of notices

...