It’s amazing how many marriages end because the two people involved in them can’t reconcile their financial differences. It’s sad that money comes between us and our lovers so often, isn’t it? So how do we stop fighting about money.

Here are some of the tips that I think make sense:

• Deal with your emotions surrounding money. People fight about money because they have all kinds of money emotions. Issues related to fear, power and control dominate people’s money conversations. If you learn to deal with your money emotions and to keep them out of your financial talks, you’ll fight a lot less with your partner.
• Create a plan for handling money in your home. It’s not easy to come up with money solutions that work in your home. You need to consider who will pay the bills and how, which purchases need to be discussed in advance and which don’t and what your long-term savings goals are. This is tough. But if you create a plan, you’ll have something to work with and won’t fight as much anymore.
• Pick a date to deal with money. You don’t have to fight about money every day of the month. Pick one date (perhaps when rent is due) to deal with your money problems. Commit to solving them on that date. Then put the rest on the back burner until the next month and just enjoy your spouse without money being an issue.

I think we just need to start being more responsible and more respectful in our conversations about money and we’d have a lot fewer fights about it!

Tags: fighting about money, kathryn vercillo, marriage, money, money fighting, Relationships, stop fighting about money, talking about money

Everyone says that couples fight most about sex and money. Although there are many reasons for this, I think that a big one is that these are the two core topics that seem to be off limits for discussion in our society. We need to learn how to talk about each of them more openly and less defensively in order to reduce the amount of negativity that we experience surrounding them.

I recently wrote an article with 100 Tips for Talking about Money. The article covers different tips for discussing money with different people at different times. For example, there are tips for talking about money with a romantic partner before you move in together as well as after and there are tips for talking about money with your parents when you still live with them, after you move out and later when it may be time for them to move in with you.

Money impacts all of our relationships. It is a factor in friendships when it comes to how often to eat out, where to go and whether or not you can talk about money together. It’s a factor in proper parenting and the education and independence of our children. It’s a factor at work where salaries can cause controversy. Because it’s such a prevalent part of our lives, we really need to learn how to talk about!

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