Whether you have modest means or you’re fairly affluent, money can easily come between you and your spouse.
Sure, any marriage may feel a bit of strain when money is tight. When a couple’s financial obligations are mounting due to a job loss or unexpected expenses, anxiety and tension can cause conflicts in the relationship itself. However, some much bigger money issues can ultimately lead to divorce.
Financial infidelity
This is any situation where one spouse lies to another about their financial transactions, debts or assets. This could involve things like your spouse running up secret credit cards or loaning money to a relative without telling you. The deception – not the money – is what can erode trust in the relationship and lead to divorce.
Divergent financial personalities
If you’re a “saver” who thinks about the future and craves security, your spouse’s freewheeling financial ways that only focus on present wants and needs can quickly frustrate you. Over time, your relationship may become untenable as you realize that your goals simply don’t match up.
Using money to exert control
When one spouse calls all the financial shots, the other can end up deeply unhappy. Common financial “power plays” in a marriage include sabotaging a spouse’s career by demanding they stay home with the children, treating a dependent spouse’s unpaid labor as worth less than the working spouse’s labor or putting a dependent spouse on an unreasonable budget.
Even happy couples can have financial disagreements. If your spouse is unwilling to work with you to resolve those disagreements through compromise, however, it may be time to consider divorce as an option.
