In passing, I’ve heard several women comment that they feel comfortable leaving financial planning to their spouse. Some of them are new wives, some of them have been married a few decades, and a few aren’t even dating. I’ve seen this play out quite well several times, where a single person in the household – in my experience, it has typically been the male – handles the financial planning, and the other takes an inactive or less active role. The husband is typically the main or sole breadwinner, and with that comes the additional responsibility of planning for financial security in the future.
The women I have spoken with are not silly or uneducated. Many of them work, or worked at one point. Some of them earn as much as or more thans their spouses. They often participate or are responsible for many day-to-day aspects of household financial management. What they are saying they leave to their spouse is financial planning, primarily for retirement.
Let’s set aside the question of whether the husband is competent at financial planning, whether the husband enjoys or has the time for financial planning, or whether the husband is trustworthy. This article is not about any of those things.
The reason women need to participate in financial decisions and planning is because managing money is one of the best ways to build strength in your marriage.
The simple truth is that money matters. Some couples fight about money. Others may not talk about money at all. Most people never discuss whether they are investing their money and time in the things they value. Just because you choose not to talk about money doesn’t make it matter less.
Imagine that you had a powerful weapon in your house. It could protect you, and strengthen your marriage. It could also harm you, or make you combatants. Money is like a sword. You can keep it sharp and discuss how and who will use it to protect your family. Or, you could ignore it and let it get rusty. Worse, it could be used to harm either of you or the family as a whole. Just because you don’t use a weapon, doesn’t diminish its importance. You can use one of the most important and fundamental tools to make your marriage stronger. Or you can choose to leave it to one person, or ignore it. The money will matter, even if you don’t value its role in your marriage.
Many of the wives who don’t participate in financial planning have good relationships with their husbands. I’m here to tell you that discussing financials can make a good relationship even better. If you don’t take an active role in financial planning or management, but want the benefit that talking about money can bring, roll up your sleeves, and consider a couple of these options:
- Have each person take turns talking for 2-3 minutes (set at timer if it helps) describing, how their parents/guardians handled money, a good experience they had with money, a bad experience they had with money, how they feel on a scale of 1-10 (1 is the worst, 10 is the best) on where the couple is with money and why. The talking spouse cannot be interrupted, and you can only ask clarifying questions.
- Discuss a couple you know that you’d like to emulate and why.
- Develop a list of all your financial accounts, and start walking through each of them.
- Discuss 1-3 ways you could reduce costs.
- Discuss 1-3 ways you would like to spend money.
- Schedule a monthly financial meeting together.
- Offer to take over another person’s responsibility (paying bills, taxes) so you can learn
- Talk about the things that matter to you: having a beautiful home, being debt-free, giving to a charity. And then talk about them some more.
These fundamental steps will pave the way for a stronger marriage. Ongoing conversations and participation in finances helps you grow together as a couple, as you watch yourselves agree as a team on how you manage your money both in the day-to-day and in the future.