each month to talk about finances and make sure you and your partner agree on basic saving, spending and investing issues. Discuss future goals such as college or retirement planning and create a written plan to accomplish them. Meet with your financial adviser at least annually to ensure investment strategies are still consistent with your goals, and rebalance portfolios as necessary.

policies, beneficiary arrangements, advance health care directives and wills at least annually or if a major life change occurs (the birth of a new baby, for example). Make contingency plans and establish guardianship for the care of minor children in the event both parents are killed.

that reflect joint assets or debts and store them in a safe place outside of the marital residence. Keep in mind that not all financial statements are generated on a monthly basis. For example, an employer-sponsored retirement plan statement typically is produced only at the end of each calendar quarter.

in your own name and order a free copy of your credit file to verify all debt associated with your name (www. annualcreditreport.com or (877) 322-8228).

for your financial future.Especially if you have been a stay-at-home parent, determine what, if any, additional education or career training you may need in order to become self-supporting.

The sign is a wink at the women who help fertilize her blossoming career as a divorce financial planner. Most have been married for more than two decades and don't want to be left in a financial lurch.

Arnott seems the razor-sharp image of a high-powered businesswoman ready to help women take charge of their own lives. But beneath that glossy surface is a romantic who has survived a rebellious childhood, a disastrous marriage and a handful of career changes.

Today, juggling up to a dozen divorce cases at a time, Arnott not only believes in love, she's open to getting married again. Still, belief in the concept of a soul mate only goes so far.

Those glib comments may hark back to her past. But during the struggle of raising two children on her own, Arnott gained a new career and renewed seriousness in her life.

The clients come to her, often through referrals from attorneys. The women often don't fully grasp the complexity of stock options, pensions and deferred compensation plans.

One client of Arnott's divorced after 33 years of marriage and raising three children. She asked Arnott to help her figure out what she should do about her spouse's healthy pension and 401(k), their home and her own job.

"Carol put everything into financial perspective," says the woman, who declined to be named. "You know round numbers of where you are and the ramifications of your actions."

Although both Arnott and her lawyer advised the woman to go to court, she decided not to because of the children. She chose not to claim her spouse's pension, but took 75 percent of his 401(k), which helped pay for much of the family home.

"I feel more sure of myself, more self-confident regarding financial matters," the woman says now, less than two years after her divorce was finalized. "This was a very big decision for me, and there really is no one else to help."

Many are older women who were housewives invested in long-term marriages who find they have no marketable skills. They must go back to school in their 40s or 50s and make their way in the world, she says. And they find the complexity of 401(k)s, IRAs and health benefits daunting.

Another client of Arnott's, who also declined to be named, is an accountant herself, but recently attended Arnott's class on "Surviving the Financial Pitfalls of Divorce." Arnott teaches monthly for the Delaware Money School, at different libraries in the region.

This client's divorce was finalized last October, but she and her ex-husband are still dividing assets. Even though she's an accountant herself, the client says she was unsure how to plan for both the present and the future.

"I don't have a clue about how pensions are calculated," she says. "Or what a fair settlement is. I can crunch the numbers, but she can extrapolate them into the future, and I can't really do that."

But it was her five years spent in Geneva, Switzerland -- from the age of 11 through 16 -- after her father again was transferred, that changed her life and shaped who she became.

"Our time abroad was rebellious," says Arnott's sister, Susan, one year younger than Carol. Left to "our own devices," she says they explored the city with an international group of friends.

"Her rebelliousness didn't take a form of drug use," Susan says. "It was more she set herself apart and had more of an internal life." Susan says that's when she first realized Arnott's love of doing her own thing without consequences.

"In Geneva, it was an interesting world with things to do," she says. The social whirl there included interethnic and interracial relationships. "It was an engaging life there; but high-school life here was not engaging for her."

Arnott didn't want to go to college, but her father sat her down at the dining room table and told her she was going to go. He didn't care where or what she studied. He would pay for it.

Only a year into attending a two-year school in Massachusetts, she married a man whom she had met in a bar during a school break. Even on her wedding day, she says, she knew the marriage felt like a slow train wreck about to happen.

Susan saw this as Arnott's way of finally "acquiescing to conventional life. She was just finishing college. We were puzzled as to why, and she said later that someone should have told her not to do it."

"People who go through divorce need a team," says Wilmington attorney Suzanne Seubert, who has referred many clients to Arnott. The team should include a lawyer, a financial expert and a psychologist, she says.

"Carol's good at knowing that a lot of mothers want to keep houses for the kids, but financially they're expensive to maintain, so she explains in terms that most people can understand why they may or may not want to keep portions of the marital estate," she says.

Those sorts of discussions are necessary when, say, the husband makes twice as much as the wife, notes attorney Jeanne M. Hanson, who has referred at least one client to Arnott.

"The rule of thumb is if the husband makes twice as much as the wife, the wife will get 60 percent of marital estate, and vice versa," she says. "He feels like he's getting ripped off because he's only getting 40 percent. Everyone feels like they've lost."

Two decades ago, Arnott's own marriage lasted barely five years. If that wasn't bad enough, her father died before she was about to graduate from what is now Philadelphia University.

"Wilmington Family Courts judges knew Carol by name," Fitzharris says. "She was quite outspoken in trying to protect her kids and their rights."

Arnott became a manager at retail stores. But money remained tight. Susan recalls Arnott always being "financially on the edge" after the divorce.

"One of her kids asked for something she couldn't afford," Susan recalls. "She sat down with them and showed them on paper what the financial situation was and that it wasn't possible."

One night two weeks before her 30th birthday, she walked into a dressing room at the end of a long day and found herself knee-deep in discarded clothes.

Arnott is the only financial planner in Delaware dealing exclusively with divorce, a growing niche. A handful of others do it as a sideline, including Devon Daniels and Lisa LaMarche.

"Ultimately, the goal is to arrive at an equitable division of assets, both short term and long term," says LaMarche, who has been in financial planning since 1998.

"I've seen a lot of situations where the man manages all the finances in the house, and the woman doesn't know how to do it," says Wesley Stafford. He was Carol's manager when she went to work for Prudential Insurance Co. as an insurance sales agent, shortly after she quit retail in the late 1980s.

At Prudential for five years, and then as a budding financial counselor -- working with bank clients to offer investment products, such as mutual funds -- for Dreyfus Investment Services Corp. for nearly two more years, Arnott built up a strong and steady income.

When she began work at the Wilmington Brokerage Services Co. as a financial planner, she branched out, doing more volunteering, bicycling and meeting many more people.

She had saved enough to take off several months to rethink where she wanted to be, she says. Although the brokerage company offered her a management position, Arnott said no.

"I was trying to find a career path that I could feel good about what I was doing and make a difference," she says. But she also knew that focusing on divorce would make her stand out in a crowd.

"It's no secret that, psychologically, men and women approach things from different places," says Stafford, who has never married. "They're emotional, we're logical; we're direct, they're subtle. In being so direct and logical, I miss some of the subtleties in a situation, and she's good at saying, 'Did you think about this?' Or, 'Did this cross your mind?' "

It was during the eight months she took off that Arnott she met Tucker Robbins, 51, a Realtor, on a bicycle ride. He didn't ask her out until she got a job, she wryly points out. They've been dating ever since.

"We're both relatively athletic, stay busy, active in the community, and we both have a tendency to be type-A workaholics," Robbins says. "We like to work hard and play hard."

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