If you and your partner argue about money, you are in good company. Recent research by Relate shows that 55% of people rank money worries in the top three strains on a relationship [1]. The average couple has 39 arguments about money each year [2]. Compared to disagreements about other things, relationship conflicts about money can be more pervasive, problematic and recurrent, and may remained unresolved, despite more attempts at problem solving [3]. Sound familiar?
Talking about money can feel confrontational, and some of us will go to great lengths to avoid it. Back in the old days, sailors would sometimes opt to receive their allowances in cash from the ship’s office so that they could have money to spend without having to account for it back home. You could go out for a monster run ashore, and those at home would not see anything on a credit card bill. No itemised statement showing a payment to {insert name of lap-dancing club} to give the game away. On the home front, people also have strategies for concealing spending. Only this week, I found myself paying in cash for a Costa coffee. I didn’t want my partner to see it on my statement, not because he would care but because I want him to think I don’t fritter our money away (even if I do, sometimes).
