Suze Orman Warns: Married Couples Who Do This Are Putting Their Finances at Risk

One of the biggest risks facing married couples is a persistent, and often unspoken, imbalance in who handles the family finances.

Suze Orman has pointed directly to this gap, citing a New York Life survey that found more than 6 in 10 men report making all or most of the financial decisions in their household. The flip side is equally striking: fewer than 4 in 10 women said they were in charge. In Orman’s words, “Maybe some of that is bluster, but I think it is generally true.”

Dynamics like this vary across different households, of course.

The more pressing question is why Orman argues this pattern needs to change, and what the real-world consequences are for couples who let it continue.

According to Orman, married women are far less likely to engage in the “big-ticket” decisions that carry the greatest long-term weight: managing investment and retirement accounts, setting insurance coverage, and navigating mortgage decisions. These are precisely the areas where disengagement carries the steepest cost.

Orman put the stakes plainly: “To not engage in and understand your family’s finances is to embrace weakness. You can’t be financially secure if you don’t know what decisions are being made, and don’t understand the ramifications of those decisions.”

The longevity dimension adds urgency. According to 2024 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American men have an average life expectancy of 76.5 years, compared to 81.4 years for women. That nearly five-year gap means most wives will eventually manage household finances on their own. Orman framed this plainly: “Even if your husband has made fantastic choices and has left a detailed blueprint of your financial records, you are going to be miserable if you find yourself engaging with all of that for the first time as a widow.”

UBS: Only 1 in 5 Couples Make Long-Term Financial Decisions Together

The research behind this problem runs deeper than any single survey. UBS’s “Own Your Worth” report surveyed 1,500 high-net-worth men and women in marriages or partnerships and found that only 20% of couples actually make long-term financial decisions together. This is despite the fact that virtually all respondents said both spouses should be equally involved. The gap between what couples say and what they actually do is striking.

Seven in 10 men reported taking the lead on those decisions, and nine in 10 of those same men said they wished their spouse was more involved. UBS also found that men who do take sole responsibility cite consistent reasons: 95% feel they have greater financial knowledge than their spouse, 90% believe their spouse is simply disinterested, and 84% think their spouse is too busy with household obligations. The trust deficit cuts even deeper, with 70% of men saying they do not trust their spouse to make sound financial choices.

The downstream consequences of that imbalance are coming into sharper focus. UBS’s 2025 “Own Your Worth” report, focused on the coming generational wealth transfer, found that 83% of recently widowed women encountered difficulties when they had to take sole control of their household finances. Baby Boomer women are expected to assume control of roughly $40 trillion of transferred wealth in the coming years, largely by outliving their spouses. Yet most are underprepared: the same report found that women who’ve already gone through a wealth transfer overwhelmingly cited a lack of communication and planning as the core problem.

The math of financial exclusion becomes clearest at the moment it can least be undone. Orman’s argument is not just about fairness in the present. It is about whether a surviving spouse will have the knowledge and confidence to protect what took a lifetime to build.

Editor’s note: This article was updated to include CDC 2024 life expectancy figures for men and women, the UBS 2025 “Own Your Worth” findings on widows and the generational wealth transfer, and clarification that the UBS “Own Your Worth” 20% statistic comes from a 2021 survey of 1,500 high-net-worth couples.