(Jon Krause / For The Times )
It's Valentine's Day, when even reasonable people wander around, engagement rings at the ready, blathering about how "love is the answer."
Snap out of it! Love, in fact, may be the problem.
Passion often blinds sweethearts to the fact that matrimony is, at bottom, a contract. Figuring out how that partnership can prosper is critical for a successful union. Yet financial differences rank among the greatest sources of marital misery, in part because talking about money before you tie the knot makes many couples uncomfortable.
Some worry that prying into each other's finances might indicate a lack of trust, or that a prenuptial agreement is a self-fulfilling prophecy for splitting up.
In fact, experts say, just the opposite is true. Spouses who find themselves bickering about finances early in their marriage could well end up hashing out the same issues in divorce court, according to Tina Tessina, a licensed psychotherapist and author of "Money, Sex & Kids: Stop Fighting About the Three Things That Can Ruin Your Marriage."
"Everybody wants to focus on putting the wedding together and talk about things like having kids and a house," Tessina said. "But nobody wants to talk about the money part until you are married and financially entwined. Then it's too late."
No one is saying that money is everything. Romance, common interests, shared values and friends are important for the survival of a marriage too.
But couples must understand that money carries far more meaning than the simple things it can buy. How you handle money can telegraph how you feel about power, personal responsibility, charity and family. And these are the issues that can pull a marriage apart.
So what do you need to talk about? Here are a few suggestions from the pros:
Know the history
Understanding the past is important to building a solid future, said Cecily Maton, partner at the Chicago financial planning firm of Aequus Wealth Management.
Each partner needs to have an understanding of the other's experiences to grasp what might be motivating their behavior now. If your in-laws were cautious with money, chances are your beloved is too. If your parents spent carelessly, it would help to explain your credit card addiction.
This background can help you understand whether your partner sees money as a reward; a punishment; a tool or an albatross, she added.
"Even when couples think they know each other really well, it's amazing how often they say they're finding out something that they didn't know," she said.
Air the laundry
Forget affairs, drug habits and rap sheets. Some newlyweds have been most shocked to learn of a new spouse's checkered credit history.
That's why trading credit reports is also advisable before you tie the knot, Tessina said. These reports show how much debt you have outstanding and whether you've always been responsible about paying your bills.
You wouldn't necessarily dump somebody simply because they were in debt, said Brett Graff, a former government economist who edits the website HomeEconomist.com. But you'd certainly want to know whether that debt was linked to a lost job or an unexpected medical issue, or if it was a sign of something more ominous such as a hidden gambling habit or shopping addiction.
You may decide that you're so in love that you're willing to marry an overspender, said Laura Tarbox, a Newport Beach financial planner. But having that information might cause you to handle your finances differently, keeping your accounts separate, for example, so that the unencumbered spouse doesn't end up liable for debts he or she had no hand in creating.
"They won't let businesses merge without financial disclosures," Tessina said. "There's no law saying that you have to do that when you get married, but it should be a standard requirement so that you both know where you're at."
Set your goals
Next, you need to talk about the way you want to live and what you want to achieve.
Those conversations need to be specific, Tessina said.
"It's one thing to say that you both want a house. But one of you might be thinking about a little condo and the other wants a three-story home with a yard," she said.
Shared goals keep partners from blaming each other if things don't quite go as planned, said Lorraine Steen, a Miami Beach mother of two.
After Steen and her husband bought a house two years ago, they were dismayed to see prices tumble in the real estate bust. But they didn't take it out on each other because they had already agreed not to second-guess themselves.
Even on their honeymoon, they established rules about spending: If they agreed that a purchase made sense, they wouldn't fret later about whether they could have gotten it cheaper elsewhere or at another time.
"You can never go back and say 'I told you so.' Once we buy something, we enjoy it and move forward," Steen said.
Who does what?
