Let’s do this together

Let’s do this together#

It may seem obvious to point out that marriage involves two people who contract to work together as one entity. But surprisingly, this observation is news to lots of married couples. We just discussed how a couple needs to solve problems together. But lots of things come up in a marriage that aren’t problems—at least to begin with—and all of them will benefit from a joint approach, too. Let’s look at examples from some of the areas that most often lead to conflict.

Money is the root of … well, lots of problems in a marriage. This is true for rich and poor couples. Specific ways to deal with this will depend on the couple, but there are some general principles that are helpful to consider. First, it helps a lot if you can agree at least partially on a financial philosophy. This includes big questions like the following. How important is it to you to live according to a certain lifestyle? In detail, what is your desired lifestyle now and your desired lifestyle 10 or 20 years from now? Where are you on a spectrum from stubborn complete financial independence to profligate borrowing from banks, credit card companies and all your friends? What things are worth borrowing for? When do you start saving? How much? What’s the purpose of investing, and where do you fall on a spectrum of risk versus return in investing? Should you give your children everything they want? everything you didn’t have as a child? or only what they need or are willing to sacrifice for? How much of your income should go to charity? What will you do if you unexpectedly lose your job?

Even before getting into matters of personal preference, it can help for both of you to understand some key facts. You don’t have to be a financial wizard, but please try to learn two things: what’s the point of a budget, and what are the implications of compound interest when you owe it and when it’s owed to you. The rest you can learn as you go. For instance, what’s the difference between present value and future value? Do you understand the pros and cons of savings accounts, CDs, bonds, stocks, and mutual funds? What are the different components of your mortgage payments? What are the implications to your personal bottom line of inflation and deflation?

Obviously it’s ideal if you can agree on a financial philosophy, but if you can’t, there’s still hope. What you need then is an agreement on what you can agree on and what you can’t. As an example, early in my marriage, my wife and I had an income, but it wasn’t much, and we disagreed on what was worth spending it on. We decided that if something was more than $5, we wouldn’t buy it without talking it over first. (Even with inflation, that’s only about $9 in today’s money.)1 As I said, our budget was pretty tight.) We don’t do that anymore, and maybe you’d never want to do it. But you probably will want some kind of agreement that helps avoid big fights.

Other common points of contention include dealing with in-laws, whether and when to have children, how to raise them, and sexual relations. I’m not going to dive deeply into any of those topics here, but for each of them, the following three points can help:

communicate honestly,
try to agree on some basics, and
try to agree on some tentative rules about how to solve disagreements.

There will definitely be areas you disagree on. Don’t give up, and try to solve them gradually … together.

1: CoinNews Media Group: U.S. Inflation Calculator. Internet, 2023. Accessed 19 May 2023. URL: https://web.archive.org/web/20230520014449/https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/.