Her Husband Died Suddenly. She Spent a Year Untangling Their Finances — and It Broke My Heart

Last weekend, I read a story in The Wall Street Journal that I can’t stop thinking about.

It was about Alice Stone Nakhimovsky, a 75-year-old retired professor, a woman of immense intellect who had written numerous books and spent her life teaching languages and literature.

But when her husband, Sasha, passed away unexpectedly, she realized there was one language she had never learned: the language of money.

For decades, Sasha had managed everything financial.

He maintained a complicated spreadsheet filled with account numbers and cryptic notes that only he understood.

Each time Alice tried to learn, she found it overwhelming, and they would promise to revisit it “one day.”

But that day never came.

Then, one morning, he didn’t wake up. In an instant, Alice’s life changed completely.

She was grieving the man she had shared fifty years with while also facing a mountain of financial confusion.

Piles of unopened bills and statements covered her husband’s desk.

It took her more than a year to make sense of it all — to consolidate accounts, contact advisers, and understand where her money actually was.

She discovered that her husband had lost a significant sum in a Ponzi scheme years earlier, and she worried constantly about being scammed again.

Sadly, this not uncommon.

A study from UBS found that an overwhelming number of widows and divorcees - 74% to be exact - discovered negative financial surprises when they were forced to take control of their family finances.

For Alice, someone who had built a life on intellect and learning, the experience was disorienting and humiliating.

She felt completely adrift.

And yet, her story is not unique.

It is one of hundreds we have heard from women in this community— women who are brilliant, capable, and successful, but who were never taught, or never felt empowered, to take charge of their finances.

The Silent Financial Risk Too Many Women Carry

Alice’s story captures a quiet but devastating truth.

According to the same study from UBS majority of women worldwide (58%) defer long-term financial decisions to their spouses, putting their future financial security at risk.

The result of this is, when one partner handles all things financial, the other becomes vulnerable.

For generations, women have been encouraged to trust their partners with money — to let them “take care of it.”

Often, it starts innocently. He’s interested in investing, or she feels too busy juggling work and family.

But over time, that division of labor creates a dangerous dependency.

When the person who manages the money is suddenly gone, what’s left isn’t just grief.

It’s fear, confusion, and an overwhelming sense of not knowing where to start.

Studies show that women live longer than men, yet less than half of widows feel prepared to manage their finances when their spouse dies.

It’s not because women are incapable — it’s because too many of us were socialized to believe that money wasn’t our domain.

That belief still echoes quietly through relationships today.

Why This Story Reignited My Fire

Reading Alice’s story reignited my fire for the mission we are building at Female Invest.

It reminded me exactly why we do what we do.

Because your choice of partner is one of the most- if not the most- important financial decisions you will ever make.

It’s also why we created a full course on money and relationships. Whether you are dating, moving in together, or married, money is not something you can ever fully outsource.

You can share responsibilities, but you must never give up understanding or control.

Even in the most loving relationships, life can change in an instant.

Illness, death, or divorce can upend everything. And when that happens, financial dependence can quickly become financial crisis.

At Female Invest, we teach women how to build real financial equality within their relationships — how to know where their money is, understand how it’s invested, and communicate openly about shared goals and decisions.

Partnership should never mean surrendering awareness.

Because money is not just about numbers. It is about safety, agency, and independence.

And those are things no one else can hold for you.

Our Mission: No More Alices

Reading about Alice, I couldn’t help but think how different her year might have been if she’d had access to a community like the one inside this app.

A place to ask questions without judgment.

To learn how to protect herself.

To find support from women who have been there before.

That is exactly why we exist — so that no woman ever has to face financial chaos and grief at the same time, alone.

Our goal is simple: that every woman, at every age, feels calm, capable, and confident about her money. Whether single, partnered, or widowed, every woman deserves to understand her finances and feel secure in her future.

Financial empowerment is not something you can delegate. It is something you own.

And if we succeed in our mission, stories like Alice’s will become rarer, serving not as warnings but as reminders of how far we’ve come.

That marks the end of this story. As always we would love it if you'd share your any comments or questions you might have in the comment section below.