One of challenges most couples face when dealing with their finances in marriage is the lack of understanding of individual financial strength as well as potential shortfalls. Understanding your partner’s financial language from the start is key to enjoying financial harmony in your marriage. As much as it is great to marry a spouse who has similarly financial values, it can also become unrealistic in practice because marriage has the potential to preserve as well as restore each person’s values and goals too.
Complement and not compete
One of the most important elements of a good marriage is complement, and when embraced from the beginning of your marriage, it can bring respite to every financial challenges you may be facing as a couple. Tracing your spouse’s financial habits to childhood and adolescence can help you become more engaged and comprehend their potential shortfalls in life in general.
It is quick to judge when you haven’t been in the other person’s shoes before; as things that may aggravate you about your spouse can also lead you to an understanding of yourself in the end therefore seek understanding first. You can start by encouraging the good aspects of your spouse’s financial habit and then identify the aspects making you apprehensive about the future and both come up with the best strategy to help your spouse manage his finances better.
Identify the purpose
Everyone has his/her own purpose in life and aspiring towards those goals can be a huge undermining problem in your marriage. Perhaps your husband’s aspiration is to build a comfortable house to meet the needs of his growing family while your own goal is to give your children qualitive education; understanding the importance of both goals will help you identify your personal purpose.
The fact that you both have different priority doesn’t mean that one is more important than the other if both goals are important in fulfilling your purpose, they will also be significantto sustaining fulfilment in your marriage and family life.
Budget! Budget! Budget!
Budgeting can be a difficult task for many couples irrespective of the length of marriage, it’s about individual mindsets to understand how budgeting will impact on your finances. Whichever way you both look at it, budgeting is key to managing your incomings and outgoings which can be mismanaged when not monitored.
There are certain priorities that need to be budgeted for; such as rent, food and household bills and meeting these obligations is as easy as placing your needs before your wants. Budgeting also allows you to set aside funds that you can both spend on your individual wants.
Be prepared together
They say that tough times don’t last but tough people do. When you suddenly have to deal with certain financial obstacles such as debts, unemployment, sickness, retirement or death in the extreme situation as a couple, they can certainly cast a huge shadow over your marriage.
Financial security can only be made possible when you put a plan together in case the inevitable happens especially when you have children who may not be able to understand the sudden shift of event. Putting some funds aside in a separate account for emergency will go a long way in meeting those immediate needs.
Credit: Elizabeth Badejo, Punch