How a Financial Planner Can Save Your Marriage

It’s Not Just Spending Less

Financial literacy is a bland-sounding way to describe the ability to understand money and the role that it plays in a person’s life. 

For couples, it means knowing how your beliefs about money impact your decisions about money, which in turn affects the person in your relationship. 

When your part of a couple, financial literacy should include personal financial planning, creating a budget, setting goals, and managing debt—not just because it’s the “right” thing to do, but because your decisions will affect your partner whether you make them intentionally or not. 

How to Prevent Financial Conflict in Couples

Straight up, money is an awkward topic, and you’re avoiding a conversation about it. 

Even if you think that you’re on the same page, checking in with your spouse can help you avoid or at least mitigate major miscommunication about how your money is being spent, saved, or invested. 

Here are some steps that can help. 

Commit to transparency

Being open and honest is the foundation of creating financial harmony in a relationship. 

Full disclosure includes sharing details about debt, credit scores, bank balances, and spending habits. 

When taking this essential first step, it’s crucial to listen without judgment so that you can gain a clear understanding of your financial situation. 

Understand their motivations

Like it or not, your approach to money is often strongly influenced by your parents and a lifetime of experiences that molded you. 

If you grew up wealthy, then your outlook is quite different than that of someone who grew up economically disadvantaged. 

Make a point to understand your motivations, too. 

What may seem thoughtless, selfish, or strange to you simply may be the way that things were always done in your spouse’s life.

Set goals, then share them

Sharing financial goals can help to build a happy relationship. Keep in mind that goal setting extends beyond money. 

Ask your partner about what they want to achieve in the future and how they envision their everyday life and your life together. 

Then put your goals in writing and include the steps that you’ll take to reach them.

Have regular checkups

Financial literacy isn’t something that happens once. 

It’s an ongoing conversation between the two of you. A monthly or weekly “marriage meeting” or “relationship meeting” is an excellent way to make sure that you stay on the same page when it comes to your finances. 

The Bottom Line

Money is tense. Money is awkward. 

Money is personal. It’s simultaneously one of the most uncomfortable topics in a relationship and the one most likely to play a prominent role in a couple’s success. 

Just as a mental health professional guides individuals and couples over their emotional hurdles, financial professionals can help ensure couples have the right vocabulary, financial literacy, and confidence to make the best choices with their money.