Love and Money

Most of the time when you read a love poem, hear a love song or watch a romantic movie, money is rarely mentioned. But, I believe money is a driving factor in a relationship. It's not necessarily the amount of money one person does or does not have, it's really how money is managed. Money is not taught in school. Your teacher never sat you down and explained to you how to balance a checkbook, what a mortgage is, why you should save in a 401(k) or even what a mutual fund really is. Mostly everything we learn is from our enviroment- family, friends etc. So, sometimes a person has a great money background and is a "saver" and when a "saver" falls in love with a "spender" ie a person who typically does not have great money background, it can sometimes lead to well, chaos. And it's not necessarily money as a medium, but it can be the catalyst for other deep rooted problems.

My parents got divorced over money. They were married 23 years and then boom, it was done. My perspective from hearing both parents talk about it is this: My mother grew up poor, never really had any financial independence on her own, got married at 18, divorced at 25. met my father, married him and had kids. She worked part time when I was little in the same job she had since she was 18. When my Dad's business was stable enough, she quit to stay home with us kids. Yes, in the beginning she would help with the real estate business. But, it was really my father's business, so she really never has had her own money. So eventually this led to excessive spending out of sheer boredom, in my opinon. My father took this as rejection, he worked hard, wanted to reinvest a lot of his earnings back into the business and became to see my Mom's spending as a rejection of his hard work.

In my own relationship, I strive to not make the same mistakes. My Mother has always taught me to make my own money, don't be dependent on someone else, this is one reason I strive to work so hard at my own career.

My boyfriend knows this is a fear of mine. In the beginning, at times I felt like things were unequal. I am a woman and make more money than my boyfriend. However, he is in a surgery residency so he will eventually make good money, so there is no resentment from him about making less. But, I still felt like things were not equal.. So, we talked about it-we sat down and figured out an agreement on our bills and other expenses and came up with a plan that made us both feel like we were having equal contributions based on the percentage of our incomes. Now, that we've done this, we have zero money issues, which is wonderful. So, to make love and money work- talking about it is most important. Everyone has different views about money, so getting it out in the beginning of your relationship hopefully won't lead to money issues later down the road in our happily ever after :)