The Code of Silence
If you’re involved in any type of long-term committed relationship (married, living-together, whatever), you need to get current with each other about your money. Talk about your past mistakes and successes, your present situation, your future goals, and your individual money habits. Many people come from families that treated money as a taboo subject. If you came from one of them, it’s time to break that destructive family tradition.
If you come into a relationship with a boatload of debt and don’t ‘fess up about it, it will eat away at the foundation of your relationship. Are you a compulsive spender? Is your other half a spendthrift? If you don’t get these money personalities out in the open, you’ll likely end up driving each other crazy and fighting a lot, which may ultimately result in you going your separate ways. Remember that the majority of divorces come about because of money issues.
The key here is communication. Talk with each other. Read up on all the areas of money and share what you learn with your other half. Ask questions, but don’t fall into the trap of accusations. If one of you spends when the other is trying to save or pay off debt, you’ll need to talk about the whys of it: why did they spend, why might saving be more important, why paying off past debts might be a better use of the money right now. Work on your money priorities together so you don’t end up operating from different mind sets.
In my marriage, I’m the one who does the budgeting, but my husband and I review the budget together and talk about what needs to be on it each month. He, on the other hand, does our taxes every year. We both pull the information needed, but he does the tedious “fill in the right information” part that I hate. We learned that our money personalities, and our past backgrounds in bookkeeping and tax preparation, made this arrangement work best for us. As for investing and long-term saving, we both do everything we can to educate ourselves, discuss our options, and make decisions together. We communicate in all areas.
A key decision we made early on—since we both could spend compulsively when caught up in a moment—was to discuss any purchase of more than $100 beforehand. The amount has fluctuated as times have been lean or flush, but there’s always been a threshold that helps keep our spending in check. Pick a number that makes sense for your financial situation.
Look, if you’re willing to share your life with someone, you need to share everything. The current of cashflow in your life is no exception. Don’t make judgments about each other. Just communicate and learn together how to weather the storm by managing the flow.
2 Responses to “The Code of Silence”
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Wisdom. Pure wisdom.
I have long said that a household that splits its finances between “his” and “hers” is a household destined to split at some point. If you can’t trust a person enough to share a singular “wealth pool” with them, then why are you married to them at all?
Not telling someone about your past history with money is like withholding a vital health statistic or pretending to be someone else. You shouldn’t do it.