Friday, February 22, 2008

How Not to Hurt a Romantic Relationship... and a Free Dating Site for Beautiful Girls!

I was reading an article at LifeHack.org called 10 Ways We Hurt Our Romantic Relationships. This was one of the 10 ways:

5. You spend like a single person

This was a hard lesson for me to learn — until it broke up a 7-year relationship. When you’re single, you can buy whatever you want, whenever you want, with little regard for the future. It’s not necessarily wise, but you’re the only one who has to pay the consequences. When you are with someone in a long-term relationship, that is no longer a possibility. Your partner — and your children, if there are or will be any — will have to bear the brunt of your spending, so you’d better get in the habit of taking care of household necessities first and then, if there’s anything left over, of discussing with your partner the best way to use it.

This is an increasing problem these days, because more and more people are opting to keep their finances separate, even when they’re married. There’s nothing wrong with that kind of arrangement in and of itself, but it demands more communication and involvement between the partners, not less. If you’re spending money as if it was your money and nobody else has a right to tell you what to do with it, your relationship is doomed.

The funny thing was that the article was accompanied by this ad for a dating site:



100% free for beautiful girls! Whatta deal!

5 comments:

Noel Larson said...

Beautiful - $Free!
Attractive - 80% Off!
Engaging - 50% Off!
Nice... - 10% Off
Great Conversation - +10%

:)

Escape Brooklyn said...

Keeping separate finances is one thing my husband and I still fight about. Basically I'd like to control everything and he won't let me. But I say: look at how good I manage my own money - why wouldn't he give me his to manage, too?

Although neither of us is a spendthrift, we do accomplish more when we're sharing financial details and setting joint goals, separate accounts or not. Posting his net worth and monthly spending on my blog has really helped facilitate that, actually.

Anonymous said...

I've gotten that ad too! Must be behavioral targeting based on reading a lot of financial / high-income articles. Funny.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for a great post! Money has been a bone of contention between my husband and I for almost 20 years. He controls the finances and we have joint everything. I work full time and make about $53,000 a year to his approximate $65,000 a year. So together, we're not doing badly. We own our home and have two kids, ages 11 and 8. We're well invested; I increase my 401(k) each year, and we live modestly. Sometimes I think too modestly. I don't want to spend spend spend, but I hate thinking about every penny I spend. I would never go to a Target and go shopping without discussing with him first (okay, arguing because he wouldn't spend a penny if he didn't have to). There are days that I'd love to have all of my salary go into my own account. Or when I'd love to take over keeping the finances. I'm not sure I could do better than him, but I think I'd make some good decisions. Well, to make a long story short, this is one of those really difficult aspects of marriage that bot partners need to be committed to. The author of the article is absolutely right...you just can't spend like you're single. Although I still wish I could...

Font Finder said...

I personally am not comfortable with the idea of having separate accounts. It'd be a sign of distrust and division to me. How can you be all in a marriage but not share finances? And besides, you would still be held responsible for your spouses' financial matters if you divorced, it's not really protection. When I got married, we didn't have much money and it combining our incomes actually made it so much easier to save and plan.

BUT we do have our own money so to speak. We figure out what we can each have as disposable income each month and are free to spend on what we want. The only rule is we have to leave enough for going out money together. Meaning if we spend $40 for dinner, $20 comes out of each of our 'budgets'. This way if he wants to spend $100 on zombie movies and I want to buy crap from Target, no one is arguing about it.