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Marriage counselors know it, children hear it and couples will eventually admit it. The thing they fight most about is money.
Don’t let it be inevitable in your marriage. There are positive ways to budget your money and stop the bickering. A marriage is a partnership; budgeting is just another place to act as partners.
First, spend time discerning what meaning money holds for you, or even over you. During this time spent working on yourself, revisit how money was handled by your parents. Was money tight and you felt deprived of all the clothes and attachments that make a kid fit in with his peers? Were your parent careless with money, buying furniture and vacations they couldn’t afford? Did they gamble or drink away their income? Were your parents investors and responsible about avoiding debt? Were you taught, as a child, how to save and shop for bargains?
Your spouse should be asking himself the same questions. Share your money backgrounds with each other. Be honest about your individual spending styles and needs. Realize that as a couple you will have to find a middle ground to meet your financial, and your emotional needs.
You may already have debts. Student loans, car loans, mortgage payments - these are part of most individual’s lives. Sometimes the loans are pre-existing to the marriage; sometimes they are acquired after the wedding. While most spouses are understanding about the above types of loans, credit card debt, which can be overwhelming, may not be forgivable in your husband or wife’s eyes. Beginning a partnership in the financial realm of a marriage means letting go of the past so you can move forward. Face the debts, consider how to pay them off, begin saving money - this is where you need to be now. Stop pointing fingers and blaming someone for the debt they ran up four years ago. One woman was still moaning about the business losses her husband suffered ten years earlier, even as the loans were nearly paid off.
She lived in the past, fretting over the vacations she’d missed and the big house they could never buy. Yes, a business loss or financial catastrophe is disheartening. And yes, the best way to control the disaster (and not let it control you) is to confront yourself, your fears and plan to move forward.
One way to move forward, even when bickering is still a problem, is to hold weekly sit-downs. Review the bills, discuss where the money is going and share ways to save money.
If anger on either person’s part rears up, you will want to set a time limit of five or ten minutes. Use a timer, and stick to it. Some small work can get done, and the frustration doesn’t have time to build.
Listen to each other’s ideas. A gourmet coffee each morning may be a necessity for you to buy on your way to work. Your husband may enjoy his costly micro-brewed beer. Decide, as partners, what you can do without, permanently or short term, and then allow room for maneuvering. If something is that important, then give yourself that coffee two or three times a week instead of five. Compromise by bringing a lunch to work, and then the cost of the beer won’t be such a burden.
It’s not just the adults that need to know how to budget. Involve children in the discussion. One family, anticipating rising heating costs, dreaded the onset of winter. The previous year’s mail brought outrageous electric and gas bills. A family meeting was held, informally over dinner, and the children offered up the best ideas - no lights on in empty rooms, and use of the gas fire was strictly limited to special times when everyone was in the room. The thermostat was kept low and everyone wore layers. Towels were hung up after showers so laundry costs were reduced. By working together and honoring the children’s ideas, the bills came down, much to everyone’s relief.
Sit down and write out a tentative budget - listing where you think your money goes. Then carry small notebooks around with you and write everything down for 30 days. What a shock! As bills come in study them and make notes on what the cost is for and whether you need the expanded cable, call waiting, the electric dryer during the summer or the odds and ends you throw into your grocery cart on each shopping trip.
After six months of following your money around, you will be able to write out a realistic budget, one that you can stick to without arguing.
Money itself is often a volatile issue for couples, but sometimes it’s not about the money at all. What does money represent for you? Does a savings account mean freedom? Does holding tightly to your money or, the opposite, spending wildly give you a sense of control over yourself, and your spouse? Therapy is not a last resort. A professional, objective outsider may see problems, and solutions, where we may feel completely lost. If money continues to create arguments, and the debts continue to pile up without any relief in sight, see a professional counselor or psychotherapist to help you and your spouse work through the money issue and into a happier marriage.
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