Thursday, July 17, 2008

Questions to Ask Yourself About a Potential Mate

Maureen Dowd's New York Times column recently featured advice from a lecture a priest gives to high school students, in hopes that they'll consider this before they come in for pre-matrimonial counseling. It's all great advice, starting with "Never marry a man who has no friends," but as you can imagine, my favorite was the 2nd point:

“Does he use money responsibly? Is he stingy? Most marriages that founder do so because of money — she’s thrifty, he’s on his 10th credit card.
He's usually addressing girls, but of course the advice applies to men and women!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Long time reader, haven't commented ever. My friends think I am strange for making an issue about how a person I date handles money but as a Matrimonial Attorney I know that this plays the number one role in the destruction of marriages. How many people have I seen in my office whom were not on the same page financially? Almost every single one.

People still continue to be in relationships were they don't share the same goals and desires.

Noel Larson said...

My #1 advice...Don't marry a fixer-upper! It may work on a car or boat or house, not so much with a spouse. Take whatever annoys you now, and multiply it by the amount of years you'll be together, best case. Can you handle it? Then get hitched. Otherwise, Run Forrest!

Anonymous said...

Amen! Actually, this combines two problems. If you and your possible husband deal with money differently, you will be tempted to make him a project, and try to fix him. It never works. The person you know before marriage will not change fundamentally after marriage. At any rate, YOU cannot change him. Don't marry someone you don't like the way he is. If there's something that bugs you before you get married, you will either have to live with it, or get divorced. And divorce will certainly be expensive, both financially and emotionally.

Anonymous said...

This is so true and I totally agree with you. It matters a lot how a person handles money.
Because I care about handling money well so much my girlfriend has also begun to adopt the same philosophy as me. When people understand that money is something we need to steward, not just spend then we can begin to use our money for better things.

frugal zeitgeist said...

Yup. Major cause of my marriage cratering. Well, that and the infidelity.

Kevin Robinson said...

Maureen Dowd is hot!

Anonymous said...

sorry, i usually love you, but you ar getting lazy and boring. stop with the guest posts, stop with the outdatd NYT articles and stop with pandering to readers a la blind dates.

Anonymous said...

Please, you don't have to criticize people. Just say something constructive, like when my spouse couldn't control her spending, I decided to give my entire savings to charity. She forged the bank statement, so I gave it all away.
There was nothinig left for the divorce attorneys to steal.

A Man.

Anonymous said...

Financial Infidelity, WSJ video

Anonymous said...

They can waste their time and money.
WSJ video
Financial Infidelity