Carl Richards

Carl Richards is a certified financial planner in Park City, Utah. His sketches are archived here on the Bucks blog and on his personal Web site, BehaviorGap.com.

I’m not a marriage counselor, but sometimes I feel like one.

In my role as a financial planner I’ve heard countless discussions between couples about money. Even after 16 years of marriage myself, I’m still learning when it comes to money and marriage.

With that in mind, I thought it might be helpful to review a few things about money and its impact on relationships.

1. It’s almost impossible to underestimate money’s role. Arguments about money, whatever they may be, often lead to divorce. There’s no question that a relationship is better when the financial side of life is stable, both people know what’s going on and work together to make decisions. So we shouldn’t ignore money in our relationship discussions.

2. We all come with baggage. One big challenge is that each spouse brings a set of deeply ingrained beliefs, habits and feelings about money. Most of us were raised in families where money (and religion and politics) were subjects not to be discussed in polite company. As a result, we have very little training on how to talk about and deal with the emotional issues that are inherent to our financial lives.

The challenge here is that money is not simply a means of exchange; it represents our goals, dreams and fears. In fact, money has (unfortunately) almost become the air we breathe. For most of us this represents a challenge, because we have to figure out someone else’s (sometimes unspoken) views to build and maintain a successful relationship.

3. Money seems to be the last thing we talk about (at least at first).
During a courtship or engagement, money is often not a topic of conversation. There’s this sense that if you need to talk about money in your relationship, you may not be in love. Prenuptial agreements are passé, and no one wants to be accused of marrying just for the money.

But no matter how much we avoid this discussion before marriage, the time will obviously come when reality will hit, and we will have to deal with the role that money plays in our lives and our relationships.

Not every couple has a problem talking about money. But it is clear based on the conversations I’ve heard, and even within my own marriage, that we need to do a better job of it. And it seems like a good idea to start those conversations before anyone says “I do.” Learning to have meaningful and honest conversations about money is something that should be part of every relationship both new and old.

From the sketch above, you might think that I believe there’s some specific point when money becomes a problem. Not quite. I could have written, “One Month,” “10 Years,” even “20 Years.”

But financial honeymoons always end, so there is no time like right now to do the hard work of having honest and meaningful conversations about money.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=4885724fe7d000cb00a38649922bc9b1