Money as a Stumbling Block in Marriage

Research has shown that agreeing on how to spend money is the thing that most separates happy couples from unhappy couples with regard to financial management. Overwhelmingly, happy couples reported that they agreed on how to spend money, as compared to unhappy couples.  Happy couples also had fewer concerns about major debt, reported that making financial decisions together was not difficult, and were satisfied with their decisions about saving.

However, there are some major stumbling blocks for couples regarding finances.  Many couples wish their partner was more careful about spending, have trouble saving money, have major debts, and report one partner tries to control the household money.

Spending and saving problems are common among couples because in their families-of-origin they grew up with different “family rules” about how money was handled (and by whom).  Since money often is not discussed during courtship, many partners do not find out until after marriage how different their family financial rules are from one another. On the other hand, finding out where differences lie can open the door to a meaningful exchange of ideas and alternative ways of looking at things.

As you work through the different ideas in this article, you can acquire skills that will help you and your partner with some common financial stressors.  The most important skills in dealing with financial issues are clear communication and non-judgmental listening.  There is less argument in marriages where both spouses share in the financial decision making and where they openly communicate about their financial situation.  It will take time, practice, and patience to be comfortable with new ways of handling money.  You may want to plan a time to meet together each month and decide as a team how you are going to handle your money.

Understanding and Sharing Your Emotional History with Money                         

“Money can be more of a barrier between people than language or race or religion” (Vera Caspary).  That’s a sobering thought.  Consider the following examples that highlight the emotional aspects of money.

Example 1:  Jackie and Jessie

Jackie and Jessie have very different views about financial security as a result of their family life growing up.  Therefore, as Jackie and Jessie enter into marriage, they will most likely have different ideas about how they should manage their finances together, as a result of their differing emotional history with money.  Jackie is probably more concerned about money security than Jessie, and he may be more willing to spend money without worry than Jackie.

Example 2: Wesley and Connie

Wesley and Connie also have different emotional histories when it comes to money.  Wesley has learned from painful experience as an adult to be very careful in using credit.  Connie, on the other hand, has not had this experience.  If they decide to get married, they will likely have very different ideas about how to use credit.

Discussion: The Meaning of Money

Individuals go into marriage with values, attitudes, and behaviors that are unique to them based upon their life experiences.  These life experiences come from differing ethnic and religious cultures, socioeconomic backgrounds, and choices that have been made along the way.  We sometimes go into a marriage relationship assuming that our spouse thinks the same as us in terms of how we want to do things.  Just as with other aspects of married life, family finance also has a history that affects how we expect to do things in the future.

Individuals rarely consider how their emotional history with money affects their behavior.  After all, many of us may think that money and finances have nothing to do with emotions and feelings.

If we think about concepts that have to do with money, we may be surprised to realize that the concepts evoke emotions that are rooted in our life experiences. Below are some concepts related to money and financial management.  As you think about the phrases, stop to consider what feelings or emotions go with them. 

• Winning the lottery
• Your home being in an earthquake
• Budgeting
• Having no savings for a financial emergency
• Receiving an inheritance
• Investing in the stock market
• Husbands managing the money
• Wives managing the money
• Life insurance
• Health insurance
• Having $30,000 in school loans

If you reflect on the emotional history that goes with these concepts, you realize they are not neutral.  For example, having life insurance may evoke feelings of security for some people because they know their beneficiaries will be cared for after they are gone.  For others, life insurance may evoke feelings of money wasted on insurance premiums, because in their family, the recipients of life insurance money “blew it” on material things that were gone within a couple of years.

Having $30,000 in school loans may create a sense of panic for people who see the years of indebtedness ahead as financial bondage because of their past experiences with debt.  Others may feel very secure in knowing that $30,000 in school loans is an investment in the future because of their increased earnings potential.  Both of the examples above evoke different emotions in different people, and these emotions are likely to be a result of a person’s past life experiences.  Often, when we have differences about money it is because each person feels different about money, rather than about money itself.

It is important to begin talking about our emotional history with money before marriage.  We avoid talking about money because we think it will take away from the romance of the relationship.  Because people have typically not had experience talking about money as a couple, talking about our emotional history is a good way to begin such a discussion.  Here are some things to keep in mind as you begin your discussions about money:

• Carefully choose a time and place to begin your discussion about money.  Being relaxed and without interruptions will allow each person to express thoughts and more readily listen to what the other person has to say.
• Allow enough time for each person to say what he wants to say.
• Listen to each other without interruption or voicing judgment about what has been said.
• Let your partner know that you heard what he said by restating what you heard him say.  For example, you might say, “What I hear you saying is….”
• Remember that when we share emotions we are usually letting the other person know our areas of vulnerability.  Do not misuse that trust by using what the person shared to hurt them.

Other suggestions for developing communication skills can be found in the communication module.

A Couple Exercise: Understanding the Present through the Past

The best way to understand our own emotional history is to think about past experiences.  We can start with our life growing up and continue until the present.  Take time to pursue the following activities. 

Activity 1:  Individually sit down in a quiet place with paper and pencil.  Begin by thinking about your first memories about money growing up.  Write down some of the events that happened.  Try to list at least ten things.  Some things to get you started might include receiving an allowance, a parent being laid off, or how you spent money as a child.  Continue to think about your experiences through your teen years such as having money for recreation or getting your first job.  Your young adult years may also have provided you with some experiences that affect how you think about money today.  When you have completed this list, go back and identify the emotions that went with each event.  Then think about how those events affect your emotions and actions today.

Continue this exercise by thinking about adulthood to the present day.  You have just completed an assessment of many of the emotions you have today regarding money.

Activity 2:  Share what you learned from completing the first activity with your partner.  It is important that the person listening be respectful and listen to the other person without interrupting or making judgments. 

Identifying and describing feelings can be difficult and emotionally draining.  In fact, this exercise can bring up painful experiences that are difficult to think about and even more difficult to share.  Disclosing such personal feelings makes us feel fragile and vulnerable.  Treat such disclosures respectfully and do not use this information as a weapon against your partner now or later.

Activity 3:  Individually think about the list you developed above and ask yourself how the events and the emotions that go with those events affect your current financial actions.  In other words, how has your emotional history affected your current behaviors?  Write down your responses.

Activity 4:  Set aside time to share your personal findings with your partner.  Again, as a listener do not interrupt or make judgments about your partner’s findings.  Finally, share ways these findings might result in conflicts. 

Things May Cost More Than You Think

You may not remember the long-running television game show, “The Price is Right.”  The host would bring out items ranging from a can of corn to a new car and contestants would try to guess the correct price.  The contestant who most consistently guessed the correct prices was the winner.

If you have not had experience in renting your own home, buying your own groceries, and paying for your own utilities, the price of these items may come as a complete surprise and their total cost can be shocking.  You may discover that these expenses eat up most of, or even exceed, you and your partner’s take-home pay.  Before or after you marry, it is a good idea to do some “window-shopping.”  Look at the price of rental units in your area, take a practice grocery shopping trip together, and ask friends what they pay for utilities.  This will give you a background for setting up your own home together.

Financial Goal Setting

It requires wise planning to achieve your personal earnings, savings, and investing goals. It is important to be realistic about financial goals and to agree on them.  Otherwise, one of you will be dreaming of a killer stereo system while the other is determined to pay off a bill.  Goals are the foundation for any financial plan, and the actions that follow should be personally meaningful and clearly written. One reason couples can become financial failures is they haven’t thought through their goals, so they are working at cross-purposes or they let their income float through their fingers.

Short-term goals are goals that can be accomplished in one year.  Intermediate goals can be accomplished between 1 to 5 years.  Long-term goals are those requiring five years or more to achieve.  With goals as a guide, every financial decision becomes easier.

It is also important to be specific about your goals.  Achievable goals are SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound).  For example, if your goal is to save enough money for a one-week vacation, you would need to research the price of travel, lodging, entertainment and food for one week.  Once you know the total price (with maybe a little extra for unforeseen expenses), divide it by the number of weeks or months left until you want to go on your vacation.  How much will you need to save each week or month to reach your goal?  You may need to adjust what you spend on other things to be able to save that much each week or month.

Think about some financial goals you would like to achieve.  Divide them into short, intermediate, and long term goals.  Be as specific as possible.  How soon would you like to achieve each goal?  How much money will it take to accomplish each goal?  Take the time to write down (or tape record) each goal and attach a price tag to it.  Each partner should do this for him or herself before comparing their goals.  Sort your goals into those: 1) that are the most important, 2) that you want a lot but could live without if necessary, and 3) that you could give up easily.

The next step is to choose a time when you won’t be interrupted to discuss your goals. Which goals do you agree upon? If you don’t agree on a goal, where or how can you compromise? Here it is important to think creatively and to be open to each other’s ideas.

One or the other of you may have to downsize your goals, or postpone achieving them because of unexpected events, such as an illness, injury or layoff.  In this case, you will need to go back to the drawing board; discuss how you can eventually achieve these goals, or modify them so as to make them more possible.

Some couples find posting a financial goal list on a bulletin board in their home or the front of the refrigerator is very helpful.  Seeing your goals every time you go to the refrigerator can be reinforcing.  If you break your goals into small steps, you can treat yourself as you achieve each step.  For example, Ann and John wanted to save enough for a down payment on a new house.  However, they also had two children that would be college age in a few years.  By posting their goal on the refrigerator where everyone could see it every day, they actually achieved their goal 6 months earlier than expected.  They also built in rewards for each step.  When they achieved each dollar amount, they took the whole family out to dinner.  If they got lazy about their goal, their children would remind them.

How Much Do You Really Make?

For most couples, the money they have to spend, save, and invest is earned through work.  Today, two-earner families are the norm although each spouse may make widely different amounts.

Surprisingly, most couples marry without having any discussions about money, including how much each spouse earns, how much they will earn together, or what their plans are for earning money in one year or five.  They may not even know if their combined salaries are enough to cover their current expenses.  It just does not seem very romantic to talk about income, credit, and savings when you are dating.  Then when you marry, you are on unexplored territory with all the emotional baggage that money brings along.  

Before you and your spouse can make decisions about how to spend your income, think about how you earn your money.  How much do you expect to earn in your lifetime?  What fringe benefits (such as health and life insurance) come with your jobs or professions? What other expenses are paid by your employer?  Can you increase income by improving your performance or skills so that you are worth more to your employer?  How do you feel about both husbands and wives working outside the home?  Are you prepared for a loss of income if one spouse stays home to care for children? 

The self-employed, people who work on commission, farmers, and others with irregular income may not have the precision in plotting their income that those who work for a salary or wage have. If that is your situation, estimate your income for your smallest and largest amounts, arrive at an average of the two and plan your expenses to fall under that amount.  On the months or quarters when your income exceeds your expenses, save the excess for the leaner months.  A large surplus can pay for “extras” such as a vacation, a new oven, or something special.  Plan so that you know how much income flows into your household each month, breaking it down into salaries and wages, money from investments, money from self employment, and all other money (from both husband and wife, as well as a total).

Remember, the amount of income you earn has nothing to do with how well you manage it.  People who earn large amounts of money can have trouble making ends meet every month just as people who earn very little can, through careful managing, achieve their financial goals

Variations in Money Management

In some marriages, one partner may use money as a tool to gain power over the other partner.  If the controlling partner is the sole earner or they earn the most in a two-earner marriage, the controlling partner may feel that he has the “right” to say how the money is spent.  One partner may also use money in a power ploy by overspending, leaving the couple continuously struggling to pay all the bills that come in.

Controlling the household money has to do with deciding what issues are priorities, as well as who will establish them.  In any relationship, the possibility always exists that whoever has control may try to satisfy his or her own needs and wants before considering the needs and wants of their partner.  Finances work best when both partners consider themselves equals in decision-making. 

One way of dealing with issues of financial control and dominance is to set up clear rules about how money is handled.  In addition to agreeing on goals and establishing a spending plan, this may mean having two or three separate checking accounts rather than pooling income where everything goes into one account.

Even in the absence of a power conflict, keeping some money separate often helps partners retain a healthy sense of self-direction.  Some couples put an equal amount of their money into a joint checking account to cover household expenses.  The remainder of their earnings are saved in individual accounts or spent as each sees fit.  This way each partner has some money to call his or her own that he or she can manage without answering to the other spouse.

With some couples, especially those where there is a gap in earning power, each spouse contributes a percentage of his or her income to cover household expenses.  Savings are either kept separate or pooled.  This way both partners are contributing to household expenses while retaining some independent control.

“Pooler” couples combine all their income to use for both household and personal expenses.  However, the spouse with the lesser income may not feel he or she has much say about how their joint money is spent.  Both spouses may feel obligated to discuss each and every purchase with each other, and neither has an independent “allowance” to spend as they wish.

Variations of all these systems are possible, of course.  For example, a “pooler” couple could use one checkbook, but each person carries a “wild check” for emergencies.  A proportional share couple may divide household expenses into categories: one spouse pays the mortgage and insurance while the other pays for groceries and all utilities.

Managing Money Management

Partners usually discover early on in a marriage who can balance the checkbook efficiently.  However, it is not a good idea to make that a lifetime occupation.  Rotate financial jobs occasionally.  If one partner always writes the checks for the bills, the other partner may lose touch with what is going on with their finances.  It is important that the bill-paying partner inform his or her partner where the records are and how they are organized.  Some couples use a six-months-on and six-months-off system.  One couple changes roles every year — she takes care of maintaining the family car and he pays the bills and balances the checkbook.  The next year they reverse.

A regular schedule of tackling money tasks is critical to good money management.  It can be as basic as setting aside a couple of hours at the end of each month to balance the checkbook, pay bills, file papers, and evaluate your spending plan.  If you have a computerized money management software program, it will probably take less then one hour.  Set aside one place where receipts, bills, cancelled checks, etc. have a “home.”  It can be a file cabinet, a cardboard box, an expandable plastic folder or one desk drawer.  Office supply stores have a variety of items that can be purchased inexpensively and will organize your paperwork handsomely.

If one management system does not work, try to analyze why and change it. Then try again.  Both partners need to be involved in developing a workable system.  If they are not, the system will likely break down since they do not have a commitment to making it work.

Conclusion

Managing money is an important task of establishing a home together as a couple, and couples who want a smart start will take time to communicate about money issues.  Identifying the meaning of money to each partner, setting financial goals, and clarifying a system for managing money as a couple will help to put you on a solid foundation for marriage.  Couples should also seek out further information on managing debt, establishing a budget, dealing with credit, and managing other financial matters so they can build a successful marriage together.

(This is an article in the LDS Newlywed Smart Start Kit series sponsored by the LDS Marriage Network and Meridian Magazine.  James Marshall, PhD, works as an Extension Family Life Specialist at the University of Arkansas, and works with couples and families as a therapist, educator, and trainer.  He is a member of the executive committee for the LDS Marriage Network.

To respond to this article or share comments with the author, send your feedback to brotherson@meridianmagazine.com — we look forward to hearing from you.  For further information about the LDS Marriage Network, send to the same email address.)