Financial Habits that Can Sink a Marriage

By Laura Rowley

Money conflicts can sink a relationship, even in households that aren't struggling financially. A study published in the Journal of Socio-Economics, for example, found that women argue with their significant others about money more than any other topic, including love, children, in-laws, leisure, drinking, chores, other women, and religion.

The first step to avoiding money-fueled strife in your relationship is to recognize your money styles. Psychologist and author Brad Klontz, a therapist specializing in financial issues, says everyone develops unconscious beliefs about money through childhood experience.

"Money scripts," as he calls them, are "only partially true but contextually accurate -- that is, they make total sense in the context from which they arose, but may be inaccurate in other contexts." For example, a woman he knows has been hoarding money for years without her husband's knowledge. She fears being left alone and penniless -- which happened to her in a previous relationship.

"She brought her unresolved hurt from that relationship and the resulting belief that 'you can't trust others around money' into her current relationship where she lives in dishonesty, fearing getting caught," Klontz says. "With therapy, she could have been open about taking care of herself financially in her relationship while being trustworthy herself."