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Dr. Charles Barugahare- November 25, 2024
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Did you know that finances and/or money are among the couple’s top three concerns or challenges? Couple financial challenges mainly arise from differences in spending habits, financial mistrust, not communicating well about money, and not harmonizing financial priorities.
You know things don’t end wrong; they start wrong. The previous article –How Money Plays out in Marriage explained the financial foundations of marriage.
Categories of Financial Situations in Marriage
Our attention is on a tool that describes the categories of financial situations in marriage, referred to as the Financial Matrix in Marriage, and how to deal with them. There are 4 categories which are the Mad, the Messy, the Ordinary, and the Magical.
The Mad
This is where; most times you are wondering where your partner puts money, how your partner uses money, and each partner is on his or her own regarding money matters.
For instance, I have met couples where one partner says the other has a lot of money but does not understand how he or she uses money. Such a couple falls under here.
The mad is characterized by financial conflicts and discomfort. With scenarios of one partner having money to spend while the other is financially strained. With everyone managing finances in his or her own way.
The Messy
This is where the couple agrees on several financial matters but does not go ahead and implement them as agreed. They agree to save but do not save, and agree to cut expenses but they don’t.
In the messy, they have unkept budgets, unmanaged expenses, and uncontrolled financial operations.
The Ordinary
Under here, financial operations have become routine, and boring and things are stagnant. The couple does not find a reason to be happy with whatever finances they have. Everything is seen as basic even when great financial changes are happening.
Recently, I coached a couple who have been married for 10 years. They were in a financial boring state. I asked the man; how much he was earning at the time of getting married and how much he was earning at the time of our meeting. I did the same to the wife. I was amazed at the financial growth they had achieved. They appeared not to see that financial progress which described well that they were in an ordinary state.
The Magical
Here the couple handles finances, in an inspiring way, it’s exciting to share information about the increase in salary due to promotion and what that means to the family. They are comfortable to talk about new projects and the likely returns from the projects. They share information on what each partner earns and they plan their holidays from their finances together.
I guess we would all love to be in the magical category but may be challenged. It’s a journey, not an event.
Why is it important to pay attention to financial matters in marriage?
- To achieve financial goals. You got married with certain financial aspirations and you were looking forward to work together to achieve them.
- To handle financial emergencies. You will find that you need money for emergencies such as medical and any other unforeseen expenses and you need to plan it together to set up your emergency fund.
- To enhance financial stability. You joined hands to grow and develop together financially. How you handle finances determines how you perform financially.
- For happiness and enjoyment. Please look back to when you were dating, you were looking forward to joy, happiness, and fun. How you manage finances irrespective of how much is at your disposal contributes a lot towards your enjoyment on a sustainable basis.
- To reduce stress and conflicts. Every couple I have met hates stress and conflicts in their relationships. Improving how you handle finances reduces stress and conflicts.
4 Top ways to enhance couple’s financial lives
Managing finances is serious business for a couple, money can indeed be one of the greatest areas experts agree can have a big impact on marriage, here are some top tips.
1. Financial problems in marriage are usually behavioral
You need to recognize that most financial problems in marriage are usually behavioral. Let’s examine it from 4 perspectives; emotions, habits, discipline, and attitudes.
- Emotions from somewhere else influence how you handle money as a couple.
I know of a couple, that had scheduled to buy a piece of land, the next day but disagreed on how to discipline the children the evening before the purchase and ended up canceling the land purchase.
Does this sound familiar to you where you have acted out of emotions and changed your financial decisions? I challenge you to be aware of this and take control.
- Habits, are ways in which you manage yourself; how you utilise your time, how you organize things, and how you fulfil what you say. These significantly influence how you handle finances.
When one partner drinks alcohol and the other does not, there is a feeling of wasting money, when one partner likes going out and the other does not, there is a feeling that the one who goes out regularly is wasteful. These are most times not true.
- Discipline, if you previously agreed on how to handle certain things and did not do it as agreed, you create doubt, if you indicated you had money for fees and money is used up somehow, speak up otherwise you may not easily be entrusted with more money.
- Attitudes, Tim Storey emphasized that if you feed your faith with positivity and starve your doubts, you will change your life in many ways.
If you feed your mind with things that don’t build the family’s financial muscle, you will be weakening it.
If your attitude is that your wife or husband is wasteful with money or your wife or husband does not care for the family, that’s what unfortunately you will start to see.
2. Financial Education
Couple financial education is a powerful tool that can change minds and actions. Let’s examine it from three perspectives;
- Shift from I to us or we. You need to be aware that if you pursue an interdependent life but remain dependent or independent, there will be a heavy cost to pay.
That cost may be dominancy from the person who meets the burden and the other cost maybe you becoming a hostage from what you were running away from (dependant or independent life).
So, I challenge you to learn and work on balancing the cost of being a dependant, independent versus he benefits of interdependent life.
- Think and act win-win. When you are empowered, you start to see things differently. I know of a couple that was blaming their partner for being wasteful, after learning and experiencing what the other partner was doing, the partner understood, accepted, and even apologized.
Where you see a big stone in your partner’s eye, you may have much bigger stones in your eyes. So, learn to view from your partner’s perspective as well.
- How Money Works – You need to understand the real source of your money as a family and not just see, the husband or wife come back home with money. What valuable goods or services are you providing that bring in that money?
The basic idea of financial education is that you need to understand four important aspects – How to attract money, how to effectively use it, how to grow it, and how to protect it as a family.
3. Financial disagreements are like any other
You need to recognize, that differences will arise but what is the foundation for dealing with them?
Let’s look at it from 3 perspectives to minimise financial disagreements.
a) Quality of Relationship – if your relationship is good, chances are that you relate well to finances.
- Trust is key to family money matters. Where there is good trust, most times they handle their finances well. So, you are challenged to enhance trust, it will promote how you handle money.
- Intimacy – promotes engagement and discussion of many matters including money. So, don’t just be intimate in sexual affairs alone. It won’t be helpful in the long run. Use your intimacy to bond financially.
b) Power dynamics in your family
How is leadership exercised in the family in terms of;
- Coordination – how do you initiate and promote family programs, do you announce, do you discuss what your priorities are, and so forth as a family?
- Control – Directives or engagement. Do you treat each other with respect and honor in family matters. A story was shared of a couple that agreed to go on a holiday but did not agree on the venue and one of the partners dictated on where to go and it ended being a sad holiday for all them. As any small glitch like delay in food service, a cab delaying to arrive, the other partner would say, anyway I did not expect anything better here.
c) Culture, upbringing and communication
i. Culture, if you are from a community where they kneel and you don’t, it may start some small fire. This fire ends up in finances. Northern Uganda, ladies roof houses, take charge of many things in a home. In Western Uganda, it’s the opposite.
ii. Upbringing, how were you mentored, trained, advised before you went into marriage. There are those who were told your money is your money, family money, or you have to look after your wife or husband. Such persons will behave differently.
iii. How you communicate, there are those who call a spade a spade and those who will rotate around the point and you have to imagine what they are thinking.
So, you have to understand your partner and you may have to start learning some of these things together.
4. Agree on some Basic Money Practices
a) Regular Money talks on budgeting, how to deal with dependent’s, discussing family financial growth, managing financial accountability and how to deal with emergencies may be some of the areas to regularly talk about.
Deliberate and intentional engagement on funds flow, attracting, spending, investing and protecting money.
b) Negotiables and non-negotiables. Agree on husband-and-wife money. Discuss the important family money matters and the rest may be done independently. Common things to do together may include home essentials, investments, emergency provisions among others. Things to do separately may include personal effects like clothes, entertainment and such related things.
Conclusion
You are Responsible for;
- Feeding your mind with positivity and starving your negativity in your financial marriage life.
- Bringing the Ubuntu, I am because you are, you are because I am. Stressing each other financially will increase bills and will deny you benefits of living together as a couple.
- Nobody forced you into marriage, you willingly joined it. You found being dependant not feasible, being independent, not viable, now, you have to make interdependent financially work.
Finally, remember, “The more you invest in a marriage, the more valuable it becomes.” —Amy Grant
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