Marriage and Money

One of my favorite guilty pleasures is The Ladies’ Home Journal column “Can this Marriage Be Saved”. I know it’s a magazine that women of my demo aren’t usually reading, but I used to read it when visiting Grandma and Grandpa B., so I carried on the tradition after she passed. I KNOW the marriage is always saved, but I always want to know how and why. And when it comes to marriage and conflict? Money is more often than not the biggest thorn, and personality type has a lot to do with the how and why.

Ray Linder talks about this extensively in his book, What Will I Do With My Money, and frankly the book is worth it just for the section on money and marriage. He identifies three big obstacles to harmony in marriage when it comes to money:

differences in family history that caused them to see financial issues from different perspectives;

personality type differences that affected their outlooks, communications, and action; and

poor relational skills, especially in terms of understanding each other’s differences and knowing how to put that understanding to work in a mutually satisfying manner, irrespective of the eventual outcome.

These three bullet points remind me of a story my mom tells about the day she stopped clipping coupons. Besides it being a difficult task for an Organic Structure (NFJ) (because it’s a very detail oriented activity that stretches her preferences because saving money isn’t a thrill for her as it can be for other types) her husband was a successful partner in a law firm. Logically, it’s a good reason, especially for someone who doesn’t like it, to drop the whole coupon thing, but having been raised by people who had lived through The Great Depression, her family history affected her decision making.

My dad was also raised by folks who lived through The Great Depression, but for some reason he’s never been as frugal or as outwardly worried about money as my mom. This is probably because he’s a Smart Structure (NTJ) and makes his decisions logically, but when he spent today’s equivalent of a grand on a Winston Churchill desk without even mentioning it to her, logic finally smacked her in the face and she’s never looked at a coupon since.