Couples who commit to spending their whole lives together until death do them part spend a lot of time dreaming and planning how many children they’ll have, what house they’ll live in, the corners of the planet they’d like to travel to together to give free rein to all that love, and so on. It’s truly lovely, but they rarely take the time to talk about how they’re going to pay for all of it.
According to Monica Mazzei, a family law attorney at Sideman & Bancroft, financial stress and differing values about money are often the biggest destroyers of marriages. Although couples tend to blame their problems on other things, the truth is that most of those problems appear and grow when problems, conflicts or disagreements about money arise.
Only a small percentage of couples spend any time talking about financial matters and interests, because they think it’s an awkward subject and that talking about something as cold as money could kill the romance in the relationship. Ironically, that cold subject is the one most likely to heat things up later on, which is why it’s so important to discuss it before joining together “for life”. Mazzei gives us some guidelines.
See also: When your partner refuses to talk about money
5 crucial conversations to have with your partner
Marriage is like an investment we’re about to make. We invest because we believe we’ll make gains, not losses, but just as with investments, we need to prepare for the possibility of facing the worst-case scenario.
Nobody gets married thinking the marriage will end badly (well, I suppose some do imagine it), and that’s where we need to remember that every sad divorce begins with a happy marriage. To get divorced, all you need is to be married. Starting from there…
Find out their philosophy about money
Before any conversation about joint bank accounts and where to go on honeymoon, we need to find out what philosophy this person has about money. Few people have ever stopped to think about their own money habits, so it can be a rewarding experience for both you and your partner, because it will help you get to know each other.
Do you consider yourself a saver? Do you think money is there to live for the moment? Do you believe in the need for an emergency fund? In the need to invest? What do you think about gambling? What are your shopping habits? And so on.
As far as possible, we need to find out whether the love of our life is a “compulsive shopper” or has had gambling problems.
Example: if a person has been working at the same company for 10 years on a salary of €2,000 a month, doesn’t own a home and lives from paycheque to paycheque, there are two possibilities:
- They have hidden expenses (let your imagination run wild…).
- They’re a born spendthrift. In principle that’s not a problem, because that’s exactly why we’re planning a financial conversation, where we’ll talk frankly about the things we don’t like and will need to change for the sake of love.
1. Your partner’s financial priorities
Curiously, most married couples, instead of improving their joint finances with two salaries, end up taking on much more debt and making their finances worse. Ask your partner what their financial priorities and concerns are. Do you want to save for when our children are grown up? Do you want to save for our retirement? Do you want to save to buy that luxury car you’ve been dreaming of for five years, or that luxurious house from the interior design magazines?
Imagine for a moment that you don’t discuss this before getting married, and when you’ve saved a small fortune, your partner says they want to fulfil their dream and spend it on “whatever”. You don’t think that’s a good idea, so it’s better to deal with it from the start.
2. Life goals
Imagine your wife’s goal in life is to be an excellent homemaker and look after her children. Her idea (a perfectly respectable one) is not to work and get ahead in her career. Her dream is to be a mother. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. The question is whether, as a man, that fits into your plans and you see yourself able to earn enough to support the family.
On the other side, there’s a very common cause of “marital decline”: a woman marries a very ambitious man, the CEO of a company. Five years into the marriage the company goes bankrupt and the man has to work as a waiter, a street sweeper, a shop assistant… And the classic words are heard: “I didn’t marry a waiter.” Try to find out whether they’re marrying you as a person or your profession, because life can take many turns.
3. Listen to the signals
“People tell you who they are, but we ignore it because we want them to be who we want them to be.” (Mad Men)
People really do tell you whether they’re superficial or materialistic. You just have to listen to them and watch them closely. If that person is superficial and you’re good-looking, there’s no problem. The real problem is when that person is very materialistic and you’re poor but pretending to be rich so as not to lose them. This happens very often.
4. Debts
Couples need to be completely transparent about their financial situation. If you have earlier loans or credit, or child support for children from previous relationships, you need to say so. Make sure your partner knows your financial situation (especially if it’s bad).
Many people don’t do this for fear that the other person will reject them. We need to bear in mind that we’re marrying a person who comes with a set of circumstances. We’re marrying that person and their circumstances. “Love me or reject me now.”
5. Prenuptial agreement, separation of property (or the equivalent in your country)
Talking to the love of your life about separating your property isn’t usually much fun, but a separation of property will only serve to protect the assets you had before the marriage in the event of a divorce.
That said, it’s pointless to bring up separation of property when there are no really significant assets. But if there’s a big difference between the two spouses’ wealth, separation of property should be compulsory, all the more so if there are children from previous relationships.
Don’t put at risk the assets that took you so long to build up. See an adviser who specialises in this area.
In short: if you take the time to have an honest financial conversation early on, your marriage will probably be long and healthy. If it has to end, let it be for other reasons, not because you never talked about these things.
See also: Joint or separate accounts in today’s marriages?
Featured image: Mauro Cateb, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
