Cash, dosh, dough, moola, silver…whatever you call it, there’s no escaping the fact that money is a big deal, not least in marriage, where it’s often cited as one of the biggest causes of divorce. (Just behind infidelity – well, it’s not like anyone’s surprised by that.)
Money is also one of those things we don’t like to talk about. It’s taboo, up there with asking a woman her age or whether she’s pregnant. Which makes money a double whammy in marriage. It could be a deal breaker, but it’s also not something you want to bring up.
In case you hadn’t figured this out already, I’m not exactly a shut-up-and-keep-quiet-about-it kind of girl. Which means I’m a pretty straight-up kind of wife. Sometimes this is a really bad thing, like when my husband Etienne dresses himself and I ask him if he’s colour blind.
Or when he tries to watch Top Billing without my running commentary…because seriously, sometimes I wonder if SABC3 has run out of budget for stylists. But at other times, like when it comes to talking about money, it’s a good thing. A really good thing.
We’ve been married just over a month and though a prenup forced us to confront finances prior to our wedding day, we’ve still kept our cash largely separate. We split bills and mutual costs, but if I want to blow my paycheque on Louboutin shoes or bags, then I can. (I really wish I had the kind of paycheque that meant I could.)
And if Etienne feels like squirreling away his money for months and then splurging on some fandangled camera thing – which he often does – I have no right to protest. Although yes, I admit, sometimes I still do.
The point is: a month into marriage and we needed to talk about shared finances. Not as in divvying-up-bills shared finances, but as in joint saving, house-buying, car-upgrading, pension-plan kind of serious shared finances.
So straight-up (and slightly OCD) me scheduled a meeting, and over a glass of wine and slightly burnt pizza, I asked Etienne the question, “Where are we going?” Then, after seeing the panic dart across his face, I clarified, “I mean, in terms of money.”
This is where things got interesting. I wanted clarity, figures, tangible goals. Etienne is a whole lot more vague, equivocal, unspecific. It’s not that we don’t have clear ideas of what we want to do with our money, it’s that our finance styles are very, very different.
I have accounts and piggy banks for every individual thing – pension, emergency fund, shoe fund, dining-out fund, gifts fund – while Etienne has a few big pots with plenty in them for his goals, but nothing specifically earmarked for anything.
For me, if I haven’t clearly labelled cash for a designated purpose, it gets spent. Etienne is the opposite: unless he’s clearly connected the spend with a planned purpose, he won’t fork out the cash. In principle, neither of us is right or wrong, but in practice, we clash. And it can be infuriating.
Why is money such a big deal in marriage? Because even if you keep your finances separate – like us – one partner’s saving and spending habits still affects the other. And even though you may love one another, your ideas of cash well saved and spent are likely quite different. Case in point?
Over another slice of charred pizza, Etienne I thrashed out our own differences. I would rather spend on a small flat in the city centre; Etienne would prefer a family home in the suburbs for the same price. I want our pension savings offshore, just in case; Etienne doesn’t see the point, or appreciate the tax break. I could go on…
So what do we do? First up (and perhaps most importantly), I keep topping up Etienne’s wine glass because it drastically increases my chances of winning the debate. Second…well, we keep talking.
We agreed to save mutual amounts towards a house fund and a car fund, even though we still disagree where and what we’ll buy, and when. And even though, post-bills, his money is his and mine is mine, we promised to keep each other in the loop about big spends, like that camera lens that could pay our groceries for a year, or that boob job that could be a deposit on a car (Okay, I’m kidding about that last one, but still).
It’s not about getting permission. It’s about keeping things transparent. Because yes, we’ll bicker about the small things, but when those small things lead to bigger things, like a bond or a baby, hopefully we’ll have learnt to mesh our clashing money styles.
And there should be less risk of any nasty surprises. I know Etienne will struggle to spend a small fortune on a tiny flat, so I’ll keep my eyes peeled for a garden flat on the outskirts of the city that could act as the perfect compromise.
Meanwhile, he’ll slowly lower his expectations of a four-bed home with a pool in the suburbs, where he knows full well I’ll die of boredom.
Could cash cause our marriage to crumble? Maybe. (Let’s be honest here, so could his beard trimmings in the sink or my shocking cooking skills.) But the fact that we’re straight-up talking about finances, arguments and all, makes it that much more unlikely.
Leave a Reply