When couples argue about money, it's never about money

We are remarkably meticulous about due diligence when it matters. We will research laptops and all sorts of tech gadgets before buying them. We will read lease agreements on different car models, compare insurance premiums, be petty about million insignificant and cheap purchases. We will apply logic, gather data, and weigh options about pretty much everything under the sun.

But then, one day, we will merge entire financial lives, take on shared debt for decades, and in many cases create human beings together — with someone we have never once asked a single tough and serious question.

It would be so easy to just say that we are doing that because we’re stupid. In some way, we might be, but there is another element to it: we’ve been systematically conditioned that asking uncomfortable questions before committing is unromantic, premature, and worst of it all — a sign that we don’t trust the person we supposedly love enough to build everything with.

What love got to do with it

Pretty much nothing. Societal norms have spoken: you got to commit, then you got to procreate, as for compatibility — deal with it later, or perhaps not.

By the time you discover your partner wants fundamentally different things from life, you’re already emotionally invested, possibly financially entangled maybe even dependent, and trying to make incompatible systems work through sheer will, lots of therapy and some dark magic. We are on tight schedule, guys! Society pushes toward commitment at certain age regardless of actual alignment, so you end up making permanent financial decisions with someone whose ultimate life goals are mystery, and for no other reason than for “it was time”. Don’t you dare to question this. It’s just how it’s done.

Subsequently, we stay quiet about the actual price of this ritual. Should we ever talk, it would be all about concrete, compounding, decades-long financial reality of building a life on a completely unknown foundation.

Soon enough, there will be mortgage repayments on a property chosen together before you understood each other’s opinion and understanding of debt and children conceived with someone whose financial irresponsibility toward family you discovered when it actually mattered. Add to that shared accounts that are not really shared — just merged, because that’s what couples do and you are already deep in and operating under assumptions about money, freedom, security, and obligation which are in conflict. Sure, more money or equal incomes very successfully mask these issues, making life liveable while the difficult questions wait patiently for difficult times.

Research discovered: couples argue about money

Believe it or not, there are actual studies about financial conflicts in relationships and about financial management of couples. Some of them elaborate in lengths about different financial management styles of couples, some of them state the obvious — financial conflicts can be detrimental for relationship, none of them discusses reasons for financial conflicts — fundamental incompatibility of people in a relationship.

Before my husband and I decided to live together, we had what I now recognise as a “relationship system design” session. At the time we called it “the tough conversation,” because it really felt more like mutual interviewing for the most important position either of us would ever fill.

Completely intentionally, we didn’t talk about money at all. We talked about what we actually wanted from our lives — not what we thought we should want, but what genuinely drove us: career ambitions, geographic flexibility, children, the role of extended family in our decision-making, what financial support for people we loved looked like in practice and where the limits were. We also discussed how much each of us needed independence versus partnership in the financial but also all other decisions we’d make together.

That was not romantic conversation and it shouldn’t be. We were making our own specification for compatibility and determining whether we could build a shared financial system or whether we’d waste years of our lives managing incompatible priorities and protecting ourselves from each other, until it finally turns into hate and regret.

Once you cross that bridge, the actual money management is the easiest part. None of this happens because we’re exceptionally compatible in everything or uniquely rational — we are definitely not. The “ease” comes from knowing what you can expect, not only when money isn’t an issue, but also when money is scarce or non-existing or when you have situation in front of you that demands from you to go against yourself but knowing that other person has your back.

Shocking: it’s rarely about money

This whole insanity of scheduled commitment doesn’t reflect in people being stupid or making bad choices. We have simply constructed an entire culture around avoiding the uncomfortable, on any topic, money too. Then we come up with all possible explanations for all the bad outcomes like we are not active participants in our own ecosystem that we built ourselves.

You simply can’t engineer a financial life with someone whose life specifications you don’t know, because you simply can’t engineer anything without specification. Neither money nor lack of it are the issue. Money is just the most visible place where incompatible values eventually surface and loud conflict you’re having is a symptom of something unspoken.

What we are actually afraid of is whether all those unspoken things can coexist without one person quietly funding the other’s vision at the expense of their own or constantly feeling that they somehow need to protect themselves.

Now, the math question: is the cost of having “the tough conversation” higher than the cost of not knowing?