Fighting Over Money: How to Reach a Resolution
Finance is a sticky subject that many people are uncomfortable discussing openly and honestly, but it is crucial to converse about money in relationships.
After infidelity, financial issues are the second leading cause of divorce, and if you’ve ever fought about money with your partner, you likely understand why.
If you’ve been fighting over money in your relationship, this article will help you understand why that might be, provide tips to reduce money fights, and finally offer ways for you two to start to grow together.
How Fighting Over Money Can Impact Your Relationship
Fighting over money can wreak havoc on your relationship when your finances trump everything else. It causes additional stress and can lead to distrust, confusion, and resentment.
That’s especially true if you find that your partner isn’t being honest about their finances or if they have completely different spending/saving habits than you. If the fighting does not resolve over time, it can even lead to the end of a relationship.
What Causes Couples to Fight Over Money?
If this article is already stressing you out – don’t worry! You can get back to a healthy and happy place in your relationship if you learn how to communicate about money, regardless of your specific situation.
But first, it’s essential to understand what’s causing you to fight in the first place. Here are some common reasons couples tend to fight over money.
Spending Habits and Priorities
If one of you likes to spend more on shopping, events, or entertainment – the “now,” but also the non-essentials – while the other likes to save as much as possible for a rainy day, it can certainly cause some frustration for one or both parties.
The spender can feel restricted and controlled, while the saver can feel annoyed and anxious. Of course, both emotions are valid, but money fights can easily occur without communication or compromise.
Earned Income Differences
If you make significantly more money than your partner or vice versa, this could result in different spending habits, financial goals, lifestyle goals, and more. It could also lead to one partner covering more than half of the financial responsibilities, which can cause tension, as well. Without compromise or understanding of these differences, you might feel like there’s constant contention between you and your partner.
Different earned incomes could also cause the person making less money to feel uncomfortable, self-conscious, or weak. Feeling self-conscious can make someone hide their true feelings or not speak up, and I’ve seen many times how this can lead to resentment and money issues within the relationship.
Current and Past Debt
Sometimes you get into relationships without knowing how much money someone has. Even if you know their current income, you still might not be aware of the debt they’re carrying. And even if you knew how much debt they had before you, say, got married, that doesn’t make it easy.
Whether it’s student loans, credit card debt, housing, or something else, having a lot of debt can cause financial stress and emotional strain in a relationship. This situation can also lead to fighting, especially if only one partner in the relationship carries most of the debt.
Too much consumer debt can make it hard to buy a home or get personal loans for other significant expenses. If you want to move your relationship forward, and debt keeps you from achieving those things, then it can harm your relationship, especially if there’s no plan and follow-through for tackling the debt.
Savings
Suppose one partner has more savings than the other, and you’re developing a closer relationship in which you want to start to share money. In that case, there may be different opinions about whether both parties should have access to and agency over those savings.
While you may feel that the hard-earned money from your retirement accounts or investments should remain with the person who saved it, your partner may think that you should share them. Both ways of seeing this issue are valid but can cause strife in a relationship if the two parties can’t see eye to eye, or at least understand each other’s perspectives and create a compromise.
Financial Dishonesty
Because it’s challenging to regain trust after it’s broken, any dishonesty can ruin a relationship.
Financial dishonesty is one of the worst types of deception because of its practical impact on the relationship. Also known as financial infidelity, this form of dishonesty occurs when couples with shared finances lie to each other about money. Examples include not telling your partner about accounts, debts, or income you have or significant expenses you’re making. This kind of dishonesty can impact both your finances and your lifestyle, and it may be hard for a relationship to rebound after that.
Resisting Compromise
A couple has to make many personal finance decisions throughout their partnership, from what types of groceries to buy and how much to budget for a vacation to whether they should send their kid(s) to private or public school.
If you don’t know how to compromise about these decisions – big and small – you will end up fighting about them instead.
How to Stop Fighting About Money
The good news? Money doesn’t have to have such a vice grip on your relationship. If you find your finances a common source of contention between you and your partner, use these tips to stop fighting over money and start engaging in more-productive money talks.
1. Schedule Time To Talk With Your Partner About Money
Having specific time scheduled for money conversations will provide the space to discuss what your likes, dislikes, or questions about finances in your relationship. You can discuss your financial health, work on your financial plan, iron out any tensions, and get on the same page about money.
It will also make talking about money more comfortable over time, as each healthy conversation will help your confidence build and build, and that is a very good thing.
2. Figure Out How the Finances Are Divided
It’s vital to understand whose money is whose and what is shared versus what is not. Establishing set boundaries will prevent confusion, miscommunication, and misuse of funds.
Make sure you agree on splitting bills, reducing debt, and which bank accounts the various money allotments go in. Done right, your structure of accounts can actually help each of you feel less restricted and more financially free, whether that’s regarding your spending if you’re a spender or saving if you’re a saver. Clear expectations and procedures often resolve much of the possible tension or anxiety.
3. Set an Agreed-Upon Budget
For the money you do share, it’s essential to set a budget that honors each of your preferences and priorities as well as possible. This might be a monthly or yearly budget, but I recommend both for the most accountability. When designing them, remember that your daily habits and plans should support your monthly structure, which should help you to achieve your yearly plans plus of course anything more long-term than that!
If you do happen to go over budget, hold each other accountable, but be kind to each other as well. This isn’t about being perfect, but about growing, learning, and improving your financial situation together. Plus, someone will inevitably make a mistake, mess up, forget to pay bills on time, and how the other person responds is a key indicator of how likely your financial plan is to stick.
Unsure how to respond if the mistake was your significant other’s responsibility? Here’s a simple tip: Ask yourself how you would want to be treated if the roles were reversed, and then do that for your partner.
4. Attack Your Debt Together
Speaking of improving together, a partnership is about just that – the act of working together. Even if one party has more debt than the other, both parties should work together to develop a plan to tackle it.
This might mean that both people’s earnings go into paying off the debt. Or perhaps the partner with less debt can help in other ways, like covering more shared bills, taking care of budgeting, or contributing to other financial goals. They could also help increase the financial literacy of their partner by training them in debt management and other money topics.
And perhaps most importantly, make sure that a partner with (more) debt knows you’re on their side, rooting for their progress, offering them a sounding board or a shoulder to lean on when they’re feeling stressed. If you work together on your debt, then that can actually make your relationship, and of course your finances, stronger!
5. Recognize and Appreciate Your Differences, but Compromise When Necessary
The same reasons you love your partner can also be the same reasons they frustrate you. Your differences can cause a lot of annoyance or even resentment in your relationship, but they don’t have to!
For example, you may love that your partner is outgoing and adventurous, but you might not love that they spend money on outdoor excursions or outings with friends. Well, try this: recognize that the spending you don’t love is related to the personality traits you do love. This will helpful you approach them with understanding and compassion, to start seeing eye to eye.
However, it’s still essential to set your boundaries and speak up when you feel like the spending (or saving) has gone too far. Don’t be afraid to kindly ask for compromise when you are uncomfortable with the way things are going.
Insider Tip: First, talk through your financial histories, values, and individual and joint goals. Then, you can set up your plan, budget, and account structure (i.e. #1-#4 above) in ways that will help you to optimize for the teamwork, progress, flexibility, and freedom you desire.
6. Be Positive & Open-minded
Money may hold many negative associations in your mind, and that’s understandable.
Whether you:
Grew up with an unfortunate relationship with money;
Lost a significant amount of money in the past; and/or,
Experienced the having and spending of “too much money” destroying close relationships;
…you’re not alone.
Being positive and open-minded about money can be difficult, but it’s one of the best ways to stop fighting over money and start compromising about finances in your relationship. Here’s a game-changer:
Discuss money when you’re in a more-positive mood, at pre-established times. These constructive conversations will, over time, reshape the relationship with money in your mind.
But don’t deny your feelings either; instead explore a balance between expressing challenging emotions, processing them, working on healing, and being intentional about incorporating positivity into your relationship with money.
However, don’t hesitate to seek professional help if there are more deeply-rooted reasons for this negative association or you are otherwise finding progress slower or more difficult than you want it to be.
Insider Tip: If positivity seems inappropriate or disingenuous, try being objective and neutral, simply stating the facts as they are, without adding any interpretations, meanings, or narratives.
7. Track Your Progress
For additional transparency and accountability, consider tracking your expenses on the same spreadsheet or in the same application. This doesn’t mean you can’t have individual accounts or autonomous spending; just figure out how you can incorporate that, and there are even some apps that can help!
This kind of tracking promotes both shared goals and trust without both of you having to “check in” all the time. And it will help you recognize growth so that you can celebrate it!
8. Avoid Financial Exaggerations
Hyperbolic statements and over-generalizations are common communication culprits in relationship fighting. Sure, your partner may have spent a lot, but avoid saying things like, “I hate it when you spend millions on the weekends!”
Or maybe your partner want to save money the same way their parents did growing up — i.e. aggressively — but refrain from making statements like, “I wish we didn’t have to eat potatoes for dinner every day.”
Such exaggerations are counterproductive, often coming across as disrespectful or passive-aggressive and putting your partner on the defensive. Needless to say, this can lead to further negative associations with money.
Insider Tip: Watch out for binary language, i.e. “always” or “never.” Those kinds of words are almost always inaccurate, and they’re no fun to hear if you’re on the receiving end.
But they’re also flashing neon signs that the person who says them has needs that aren’t being met. See, exaggerated language is often a frustrated or desperate attempt to get a point across and be understood. If you can mitigate your defensiveness and instead get curious about what led them to use the binary language, then the conversation might go someplace unexpectedly good.
9. Think About the Future End Goals
When couples fight about money in relationships, they are often hyper-focused on the current moment, a decision that was just made or needs to be made soon.
In those moments, it can be valuable to take a step back, pause, breathe, and consider your overall future end goals. Likely, both of you just want to be happy, fruitful, and financially healthy together.
Focusing on the future end goal instead of the immediate disagreement can help you calm down, get back on the same page — or at least the same team! — and compromise more effectively.
You Can Stop Fighting Over Money
Personal finance can be stressful, but minimizing fights and tackling your money together is one of the best ways to ensure a happy relationship. Remember that you’re better as a team, and don’t let financial disagreements ruin a good thing!
If you and your spouse/partner often argue about money and want to put an end to it, I hope that this article has helped bring some clarity as to why it might be happening in your family. The more you understand, the easier it will be to end the cycle.
If you’re interested in professional assistance, I’m a Couples Financial Coach and can help you both find peace, clarity and stability in your relationship and your finances. Schedule a free consultation today.
Want to level up your game around money in your relationship? My free quiz will help you learn your Couple’s Money Personality Type AND how you can grow from there!
Adam Kol is The Couples Financial Coach. He helps couples go from financial overwhelm or fighting to clarity, teamwork, and peace of mind.
Adam is a Certified Financial Therapist-I™, Certified Mediator, and Tax Attorney with a Duke Law degree and a Master's in Tax Law from NYU. He is a husband, dad, and musician, as well.
Adam's wisdom has been shared with The Wall Street Journal, the Baltimore Ravens, CNBC, NewsNation, and more.
