An Age Old Adage:
Wow, where do I begin with this one? It is an age old adage that money and marriage do not mix well. Most marital arguments are over money, she spends way too much, or he doesn’t make enough. I believe the stats say that 21% of divorced listed financial stress as the demise. The thought of discussing money issues with my husband makes me physically ill.
SAVER VS SPENDER
He and I have very different approaches to money. He’s the saver and believe me, I am 100% grateful for that. On the other hand, I have the “ you only live once” mentality which is the complete opposite of the saver, this makes me the spender. He’s constantly trying to save for our retirement. I wanna live now while I’m here, I may not make it to retirement. I have a theory as to why we are each the way we are. His mother is already well into her 80’s and his grandmother lived to be a little over 100 years old. My father died at 63 from cancer and my grandmother at 72. My father just retired and he and my mother purchased a nice motorhome to travel with. He got cancer a year later and was gone before he and mom even got to enjoy it. My grandmother worked until she ended up with pulmonary fibrosis, she lived for a few years on an oxygen machine and then her poor little heart gave out. Neither of them really got to enjoy retirement.
Seeing that life is short with my father and grandmother being gone far too soon makes me feel as though me saving every penny for something that odds are I won’t see is kind of a waste. Odds of seeing retirement age are much higher for him, he’ll live well into his 80’s or 90’s which is why he’s a saver. Now you can see why the very thought of discussing money with my husband makes me ill. Doesn’t mean we don’t have to talk about it every now and then but it’s not on our favorite topic list. So now the question is, how does one stay married with all the financial stressors we face in life these days?
Let’s Explore:
I’ve only given you my personal issue, but there are so many more. Over the last few years I’ve read so many self help and marriage help books, and so many articles because I don’t want to end up as a statistic. I know my marriage is far from perfect (a topic for another day) and I’m trying to work on those imperfections. There are so many suggestions on how to approach this issue. One book says that the finances should be left to the man to take care so he can take care of his wife. I have found that my husband doesn’t really want to deal with the bills so that doesn’t work for us. Another says to sit down and chose who should do it, well maybe that would kind of work, except what if neither of you really want the responsibility of the task? Then you have yet another that says to keep your finances separate, make a list and agree on who will handle which bills. That one is tricky, personally I think that keeping your finances separate brings on a whole different issue. You get married to become one unit, to me keeping separate finances kind of makes it seem like you have one foot in and one foot out. Not very good for a happy and stress free marriage.
The Solution:
This topic is such a hard one to solve. It’s such a hot topic and can ultimately be a destroyer of relationships. This one is solely going to be based on your personal issues, so there isn’t a real one size fits all solution for you. Some woman like not being involved in the finances. Some men don’t trust their spouses to handle the daunting task of paying all the bills on time. Some men don’t want to take on the daunting task of the bills.
Our personal solution has worked for the last 20 years or so. My husband hands over his signed check and expects me to take care of the day to day bills and expenses. Now with that being said, remember he’s a saver, so before I even get that check he has the funds withdrawn and put into his retirement funds. We never even see that money. It’s never calculated into our monthly income, I never get the chance to even attempt to spend it, the savings part is taken care of immediately.
This saves us from arguments about not saving for our retirement. With that out of the way our large purchases are discussed before they are made because we usually pick all those things out together anyway, as we should. It takes a lot of trust on his part, he’s the main income earner in our household but again he doesn’t want to deal with the bills so he’s ok with it. Every now and again he asks how we are financially and if everything is being taken care of. At that point I let him know the basics, and answer whatever questions he has. It works but the thought of the money discussion still makes me want to run away, I’d rather discuss where our next adventure is going to take us 😁
This is just my personal rant and how we deal with money here. I would love to hear everyone’s suggestions, the more help we can get, the better odds we’ll have to live harmoniously. Until next time friends, live your happy life❤️
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