Is It Normal for A Couple Married Five Years or More to Disagree on Family Budget?

Author's Note: This Hub has been written in reply to the HubPages Question (Paraphrased), "Is It Normal For People Married Five Years of Longer to Disagree on Family Budget?" A request for advice about what to do accompanied the question.

It's normal, although how serious the disagreements are, the manner in which spouses engage in those disagreements, and how well the couple works out those disagreements can make a big difference in whether the disagreements are likely to turn from simple disagreements to something that could potentially lead to a more serious situation in the marriage I'm assuming that, because the question has been asked and because a request for advice accompanied the question, the number, level, and/or nature of the disagreements are not such that a couple can easily work them out, or come up with new ideas or approached, on their own, the way many couples are often able to do.

Following are 1) advice that might be considered "standard advice" or "common advice" that is often offered with regard to any number of kinds of disagreements couples can have, 2) a personal perspective/discussion on the matters of disagreements about money, disagreements between spouses in general, 3) some suggestions for trying to gain a new perspective on the roots of disagreement (especially, regarding money), and 4) a few more ideas that may/may not help sort out some of the factors the contribute to the disagreements about money.

1. "The Standard or Common Advice"

Most people would say that you have to discuss the problem and find a way to comprise, one way or another. Some would say let the person who manages money best manage it. Some would tell you to let the person who earns it manage it. Others would say let the husband manage it, regardless of how well he can do that. (Let me make it clear that I'm not in favor of either of those last two approaches.) Many people would also add to their advice the suggestion that if talking openly and candidly about the money-disagreements doesn't help, and/or if it's not possible to find a way to compromise, couples should seek the advice/guidance of a qualified counselor who deals in this type of issue. My personal advice here isn't really different from what so many others would say, but I know, too, how futile it can seem when the same two people argue about the same one thing, over and over again, to the point where they're just going around and around in the same, old, circle.

Seeing a counselor could help, of course; because a counselor might be able to help offer enough different input to help break up that ever-spinning circle. Even if a counselor couldn't do much to help stop the spinning of the most immediate circles, s/he might be able to help a couple learn techniques for coming to compromise. I think something that often happens, however, is that couples feel as if they're "otherwise fine" and the only issue that gives them trouble is the finances issue. A lot of people who are used to capably managing their own lives aren't "the type" who'd tend to seek the advice or guidance of a counselor simply because they feel (and often know) that they are completely capable of working out a problem themselves.

Maybe, too, the act of setting up an appointment with a counselor can seem far "too drastic", given the seemingly limited, and maybe even seemingly minor, matter of disagreements over money. My personal advice to anyone for whom money-disagreements have gotten to a point where they're not isolated or rare, and where they're bringing a cloud over day-to-day life is this: If trying to work out the disagreements without help isn't working don't wait until those frequent disagreements seem serious enough to require outside, professional, help.

If a problem is serious enough in a marriage that it's making one or both people stressed out or unhappy too often, and if they've tried and tried to iron out the issues on their own and to no avail, it just makes sense to seek a little help from someone trained in, and experienced with, marriage difficulties. Seeing a counselor shouldn't be viewed as a last resort for only those marriages in serious trouble. Counselors aren't just for "fixing or saving" bad marriages. They're for people in good, solid, marriages who could use a different perspective too.

2. A Personal Perspective/Discussion (Deviating from "The Standard Advice" and offering (for whatever it's worth) what I think I've learned about some seemingly chronic disagreements between couples (with finances being an awfully common source of disagreement between spouses) (In other words, "getting personal"):

One of the biggest causes of misunderstandings and disagreements about a whole lot of things is often that the people involved don't know "where the other is coming from." With personal experience with the degree to which this kind of lack of understanding between people can lead to serious disagreements (and worse), I'm convinced that one of the first steps in improving the situation is to consider all the possible factors that could be going into each party's stand on any argument, as well as each individual's priorities when it comes to managing money.

The following thoughts are things I'd want to share with a friend, or one of my own grown (although yet unmarried) children, if any of these individuals were to ask me the question asked in the title of this Hub:

First, let me say that I'm a big fan of marriage and someone who would love to see all good marriages remain strong and whole. The world is full of good (even if often imperfect) marriages that survive the normal mix of disagreements that are so often inevitable between two people sharing a life together. The reason I bring up the fact that I'm such a big fan of good marriages is that I know there's the chance you'll think I'm not when I tell you that my marriage ended in divorce. The discussion and suggestions I'm about to offer here aren't aimed at turning the simple matter of disagreements over money into either implying that your marriage is in trouble because of those disagreements; or at aimed into turning a discussion about "money fights" into one about divorce (my own or anyone else's, past or future).

The other thing I'd like to make clear before continuing is that I'm NOT someone who assumes that "just because I am divorced, everyone else is in danger of having the same thing happen." Far from it. The only reason I need to refer to my own experience is that it is that experience from which I've learned the things I hope to share here.

Many people would click away right now because they may be thinking, "Well, I don't want the advice of someone who didn't manage to hold her own marriage together." Whether I think of myself at a time when things seemed good in my marriage, or think of others who are in marriages that seem fine enough today, I think of one line from the song, "Colors of the Wind" (lycrics by Stephen Schwart, music by Alen Menken), and that is the line, "..if you walk the footsteps of a stranger you'll learn things you never knew you never knew." That "stranger" I have in mind, as a writer here, isn't just someone, like me, that you don't know. It could also be, at least in some small ways, the very spouse that, in so many ways, you know so very well.

The things I've learned only after becoming divorced are things "I never knew I never knew" when all seemed fine enough in my marriage. Once I'd figured out what things I never knew I never knew (until too late), I also discovered that those things weren't at all big things or seemingly important things. My husband and I had known "the big and important things". What we'd never thought to pay much attention to were the seemingly insignificant things that didn't even always seem to have much, at all, to do with the individuals we were within the marriage.

There are other things in the lyrics of that song that come to mind as I think about the matters of disagreements, priorities, and things to be learned or figured out in a marriage (or from divorce), and without getting more (at least right now) into a theme song for a Disney animated movie (Pocahontas, of course), I'd just like to mention one other part of the lyrics that kind of strike me as I'm writing this particular Hub. Those words are, "How high does the sycamore grow? If you cut it down you will never know."

When seemingly minor (or sometimes fairly major) fights over something like money go on in a relationship, whether or not they're ever really resolved in a way that makes both parties happy almost isn't the point. Each time some kinds of disagreements crop up there's often the increased risk that a little more of that "sycamore" (the relationship, itself) gets cut down just a little bit more (at least for a while). The world is full of "sycamores" that have been cut down, and it's full of those that have grown plenty tall. "How high" any of them might otherwise have grown is, in fact, something none of us will ever know; simply because so many of even the tallest of "sycamores" get chopped away at, a little at a time, over the course of their growth.

When a marriage was so awful that there's reason to celebrate its demise, that's one thing. When a marriage that was, in so many ways, a good one ends over a bunch of small things that added up and muddied up, and eventually destroyed, the whole picture there can be a sadness that something that otherwise really shouldn't have ended did, in fact, end. That's not saying ending a marriage that has reached that state of unhealthiness was a bad thing, or something to regret. What I find sad and regrettable is that all those small things would not have added up (or even existed) if at least one of us have known those "things we never knew we never knew" at the time. Maybe a lot of other couples already know all things things we never knew we didn't know. Maybe a simple, early, trip to a marriage counselor could have clued us in on the things we didn't know; but things seemed fine in the marriage. Who'd ever think about going to counselor when all seemed fine? How high does the sycamore grow? When you keep cutting it down every time it starts to grow at all, not only won't it not grow tall as otherwise would have. It simply won't ever get any taller at all.

So, we muddled our way through whatever seemingly minor muck and mud there was to get through, clueless in so many ways. We weren't stupid people, and we weren't even all that young. It just hadn't occurred to us to spend a little more time and energy sorting out all the ways in which we were actually more different than we had thought, and ways in which we thought so differently.

In any case, while I don't regret ending a marriage that reached the stage mine had, I do have regret that we didn't know enough to head off the small stuff when it was still new and small, and prevent the marriage from ever reaching that stage at all.

I don't have Earth-shattering information or advice to share about marriage here, because that stuff I didn't know I didn't know was such incredibly small or insignificant-seeming stuff. Maybe I was just a complete dummy before my marriage ended, and maybe the world is full of people who have figured out all this stuff without being forced by divorce to try to figure out what went wrong. Regardless (and having shared where it is I'm coming from), my thoughts on the matter of disagreements over money and spending follow:

Differences In Spending Priorities (of individual stewing, shared stewing, priority-skewing, and the ways in which money-fights can become a whole, big, "stew"):

Disagreements about money aren't always the kind a couple can't easily sort out or compromise on. Most couples are used to compromising on the "less important" stuff all the time. With simple differences of opinion, such as, "Should we spend on movie tickets tonight, or should we stay home?", it's not all that difficult to arrive at a compromise (or to adjust to not getting one's way this time around). It's the more complicated differences about spending that lead to serious disagreements, fights, and resentments because those are the ones that are often not just about money and are, instead, about a whole set of other aspects to a person's personality, preferences, values, spending style, and anything else that goes into that "stew" created when shared money matters get complicated.

The problem is often that each spouse "comes from two different places" with regard to priorities, but also with regard to whether or not those priorities are the only priorities or needs in life at one time or another.

"And We Thought We Had It Altogether, And Thought We Had The Same Priorities When It Came To Money" (I'm probably not the first, last, or only one who has ever said something like that.)

With money issues being only one (but a significant one) of the issues that contributed to my own divorce, which ended a marriage that could/should have otherwise survived; I've realized that all the factors (including the money issue) that contributed to divorce could be said to fall under one "umbrella" of one person's not understanding "what the other was coming from" anywhere nearly enough to be able to reach a point where discussions about issues would/could ever be resolved.

What also became clear was that the things I'd always believed would immunize us against something like the disagreements over money ever becoming too destructive in the marriage simply did not. Those things I'd believed would immunize us involved all the things we had in common: We'd come from the same kind of working-class background, we'd both had two parents and a loving family. Our fathers were both the traditional, hard-working, fathers who went out to work each day; and our mothers were both stay-at-home moms who provided "extra income" in ways that didn't involve their going out to work at full-time jobs each day.

What we wanted were, we thought, the same things in life. It seemed that we in, in so many ways, the "same kind of person in general". All seemed so right "on the surface". During the divorce process we visited one counselor once, and it was both strange and sad that when he asked what we fought about other than finances we both replied in unison, "We don't fight, really. That's it."

In order to make it clear that I'm not saying that money disagreements were the only cause of my own divorce, let me say that there were things that were bothering both of us but that we didn't fight over. So, I'm not at all suggesting that having disagreements over money inevitably leads to divorce; and it's really important that anyone reading here understands that. At the same time, many of those disagreements over spending resulted in "secondary" issues that further complicated, and prevented, the resolving of some of the bigger disagreements.

Having three children, I've spent a lot of time trying to analyze exactly what went wrong, and when, in my own marriage so that, maybe, I could share some of what I've learned "the hard way" with my two sons and daughter. In other words, were there things I learned that could help them avoid having the situation of "learning things they never knew they never knew" only after knowing those things wouldn't help their relationship or marriage.

Of the issues that fell under that umbrella of one person's not understanding the other well enough, the day-to-day dealings of the money issue (unlike some of the others) were what resulted in resentments of one sort or another that wouldn't have existed had we known enough to stop looking at the spending-priority issues as "their own, separate, category of issues"; and, instead, looked under and beyond the surface to see why there were such differences in priorities in the first place.

Based just on what family members and friends have ever expressed about difference in spending priorities (and without even factoring in statistics or more formal analyses), it's clear to me that, in one degree of another, it's something two individuals will always have to sort out between them. That's what happens when a budget is two-people-involved issue. Lots of couples figure out how they'll work out any differences and compromises when it comes to money. Deciding to let one person "run the money show" works for couples for whom that kind of arrangement is satisfactory, although "that kind of arrangement, while eliminating the money disagreements, generally leads to at least one person (and often both) have a whole set of different, and bigger, resentments and reasons to be unhappy.

Hindsight is always 20/20, as they say; so having had time and opportunity to look back and analyze exactly how things happened in my own marriage, what's frightening to me (on behalf of people not yet married, or those who are generally happily married) is how insidiously those seemingly minor differences over some spending eventually combined to make up a problem that only showed up once it was big enough. Before the problems became big enough to get my attention, it didn't really occur to me to analyze things about us that really weren't about us, but that were about factors in our earlier, or even present, lives that contributed to who we were and how we viewed things. We knew each really well (or so it seemed), and we knew the other's family really well. "What else is there to know?" We accepted the other for who he was, and his family for who they were. Besides, we were pretty happy with who and what anyone in that particular picture was.

One reason I'd never paid a whole lot of attention to some of those less than obvious aspects of our individual personalities was that we both just thought we really knew the other person well. Without even paying a lot of conscious attention to it, I just automatically took for granted that there were no big traumas in my husband's childhood that would mean he'd be bringing any "baggage" into the marriage. Similarly, my childhood was good and happy enough. There was no reason for him to believe I'd have any "baggage" either. Well, there's "big baggage", and there's tiny, wallet-sized, baggage; and how much we want/need to hang onto our actual wallets at any given time can be (is, I think) tied to that tiny, wallet-sized, baggage all of us carry with us into marriage and life, in general.

Needless to say, when both spouses are committed to working out their differences and disagreements, that's, as they say, half the battle. Couples are often made up, however, of one person who is more equipped and/or willing to be reasonable, or one who is more interested in working on any problems; and one who leaves most of the relationship work and worries to the other. Unfortunately, there can also be situations in which disagreements over money can be so tiring to one or both spouses, the interest or "mental energy" needed to try to take on the challenge of improving the situation can be running low.

3. "Starter Suggestions"

I don't know if the following suggestion will be of any help at all, but the reason I bring it up is related to the way couples can get into those "circles" of going around and around over the same, seemingly never-ending, issues that are the focus of each argument over money. I believe there's at least the possibility that introducing some new ideas/information into the discussions might help bring something new into one of those old "circles". The new information I have in mind includes two different types of information: 1) a better understanding of some differences in motivations, thinking, and priorities between two different spouses, and 2) a better understanding of the thinking of each spouse by talking about things that have gone into each person's thinking and "way of operating" that, perhaps, they haven't discussed in the past.

I'm not sure that the reading I suggest here is anywhere near complete or enough (because the two pieces I'm about to suggest are things I've written, not articles by experts on couples). I do know that, incomplete the information offered may be, it is information that I know would have made a very big difference in developments in my own marriage had we both 1) known enough to even discuss some things, and 2) discussed these things early enough to prevent laying a foundation of misunderstanding, and lack of respect, on which the future of the marriage would eventually be built.

If nothing else, the reading I suggest (which is material I put together with the idea of trying to share what I'd learned with my own children, as well as anyone else who read the material) may help give some ideas for further reading, research, or discussion.

I've written two Hubs that I think may call attention to some of those more hidden, more subtle, things about people. One is "When Your Spouse Spends Too Much". It's a discussion about the different priorities people can have when it comes to spending, or at least spending more than a spouse thinks one should spend on. A link to that Hub can be found above.

The other Hub is "Things to Talk About Before Getting Married". That Hub brings up some of the things about each partner that people often don't think to discuss before, or during, the marriage. The only reasons "before getting married" is in the title are the 1) the Hub was written in response to a question about what the title of it suggests, and 2) my hope, in writing the hope, was to, maybe, offer subjects for discussion that might help each partner understand the other a little better. A link can be found above.

Neither of the two Hubs mentioned here directly answer the question you've asked about advice for people who have disagreements over financial matters. The reason I've included links to them here is, however, directly related to my attempt to offer my own personal advice in response to your question because my first piece of advice would be to introduce new information/ideas into the old disagreements. I believe there's the chance the two Hubs I've suggested may help seed new conversations that could possibly lead to better understanding/insight (for both parties) in future disagreements. Again, if not, they may make a good starting point for finding, leading to, other reading that may be more appropriate for your own situation.

An example of some ways I believe talking about some of the factors listed in the "Things to Talk About" Hub is this:

My ex-husband is a first-born, only son with a sister six years younger than he. I'm a middle-child, youngest of two girls and older sister of an only boy. There are five years between all of us, which means that a lot of the things often associated with middle children aren't particularly true in my case. My ex-husband and I did, of course, note (right from the time we first dated) our birth orders. Other than "noting it", we didn't think or talk a lot about our different places in our families.

Had we ever talked in any depth about our own place in birth order, I would have had the opportunity to point out to him how I perceived first-born children versus youngest children. He, of course, would have had the chance to talk about his own perceptions. As I imagine how such a discussion would have gone, I think about how I would have mentioned that it appeared to me that first borns grow up taking it for granted that they're "Big Cheeses" , and how, as a second-born girl, I'd often been aggravated at being made to feel like the "less important little one". This would have led to my pointing out that once I'd grown beyond the at-home/childhood-family stage, and taken my place in the adult world; I wasn't about to go along with being "the unimportant little one" in any adult relationship.

Well, we never had that kind of conversation, and it seems to me that because we didn't, and because my ex-husband had a sister only two years younger than I, he seemed, in a lot of ways, to view me as "the unimportant, little, one" of the two of us. I don't think he meant to do that, and I don't think he did it on a "conscious level". Still, I'm fairly certain that when it came to a lot of the ways he saw me, it was not as an equal, but as that "less important little one". I'm no psychiatrist, but - really - I don't think I needed to be to notice this. Where even this one thing caused some problems was that someone who has always taken it for granted that he's a "Big Cheese" (and one who was admired and adored by parents who weren't sure they'd ever have any children) doesn't quite know what to make of it when an "unimportant little person" expects her opinions and ideas to be viewed as those of a capable adult. Just bring up an issue like this (for both people) could have led to other perspectives, as well as making both parties aware of the ways in which this kind of thing may contribute to some priorities, arguments, and issues.

Another example is the fact that my ex-husband still had his two parents and hadn't been through any serious loss or trauma (with the exception of having lost his grandmother as a child). I, on the other hand, had already lost my father when I was 21. Also, I'd been through a variety of different losses/trauma by that age, as well. Those experiences made me feel I had learned a little more about life than he had, and I saw him as "naive" in a lot of ways. My ex-husband was dealing with "an unimportant little one" who believed she was wiser about life than he was. That wasn't something a "Big Cheese" really understood very well. (By the way, when I use the term, “Big Cheese” for “certain” first-borns I’ve known, it is with affection; and when I describe myself as an “unimportant little one” it is with a sense of humor.)

It’s so much more than just the birth order matter, though. Who grew up to be a nurturer or a peace-maker, who grew up not worrying about someone else’s approval, who’s family expressed itself by yelling, and who’s family saw yelling as a lack of self-control - these are just a few more issues that can color disagreements and influence priorities (if only, sometimes, in small or subtle ways).

This is why I think having discussions about all the things mentioned in that Hub might, at least in some way, help couples get themselves on that “same page” from which, at least in some cases, they may begin to work out some disagreements over money. In fact, there may even be the chance that, with enough understanding between the two spouses, some of those disagreements might even be averted.

4. Other Issues Sometimes Behind, or Linked to, Disagreements Over Money

The following highlights a variety of issues or situations

Disagreements, unpleasant as they may be, tend to be least disagreeable when they're between two reasonable people who see the other person's side to things, sees it as valid, and are willing to discuss all the issues, and the pros and cons of both sides, and find their way together to a resolution.

Things aren't always that simple, however, because one or both individuals may be reasonable in all ways except when it comes to money issue at hand. Worse, one or both individuals are simply not reasonable when it comes to disagreements.

Although there are, of course, some people who just want what they want, don't care about anyone else, and aren't going to be satisfied until they get what they want; sometimes a person who seems (is) unreasonable simply lacks the information required to reason most effectively. One example of this might be husband who has been reluctant to tell his wife that he's worried he may soon lose his job, and the wife who doesn't understand why her husband thinks "it's such a big deal" to sign up their four-year-old daughter for an extra dance class. While the husband may have his reasons for not wanting to burden his wife with his job worries, simply telling her his concerns could at least let his wife understand that he isn't being unreasonable or "cheap". That simple step of telling his wife his real concern could at least help her "be on the same page" before any discussions about the dance class began.

Sometimes not having enough information on which to based sound reasoning is not a matter of a single piece of information. Instead it may be a matter of each spouse having different areas in which they have more knowledge. When both spouses understand the areas in which each generally has more expertise, and when both respect the other's judgment in his own "area", both are more likely not just to see the sound reasoning in the other's side but also to be more reasonable.

An example of this type of situation might be the wife/mother who wants to spend on a certain preschool program for their child who's at a stage when she knows he'd benefit from it, and a husband/father who thinks it's completely unnecessary. It may be that one of the wife's "areas of expertise/knowledge" is with understanding child development and the needs of a child their child's age. If the husband respects that this is an area in which she has the better understanding than he, deciding whether or not paying for the program should be a priority can be easier.

If the husband, on the other hand, doesn't have a grasp of the importance of some needs of children of some ages; and if he doesn't respect his wife's "area of knowledge", he's not going to be willing to consider that the expense may be one worthy of considering a priority.

A different kind of problem that can crop up is when a couple decides that one will manage the money, and the other will "handle everything else" (or at least several other things). A problem that can happen with this type of arrangement is that managing the money, which is the very thing on which how some of those "everything else" things are based, can become completely independent of the realities of "handling everything else". This is another case of one person not having enough information on which to base sound reasoning.

An example might be the wife who manages the money and announces to the husband, "We can't be spending $80 a week on gas every week." The husband may reply, "The only place I go is work and wherever we go locally on weekends, and that's what gas costs these days," to which the wife replies, "Well, that's not good enough. We can't be spending that. Look at these bills!" This over-simplified example is one that points out how when one person manages the money completely independent of whatever else it is that's being managed in the couple's shared life, the one managing the money can seem to become oblivious to the realities beyond the figures in the financial files. What kind of solution might a couple like this find? The first would be that the wife would need to respect the husband's grasp of reality in pointing out that he doesn't drive more than necessary. The next might be for the two to figure out ways to cut down on other spending, increase their income, or change to a vehicle that uses less gas. The point here really is how a couple like this would work out a problem like this. The point is that believing one can "manage money well" completely independent of the realities of day-to-day living is over-estimating the individual's ability to truly manage money well.

People often have a tendency to focus on their own money management skills and/or their own know-how when it comes to finances when they're considering whether or not they're "good with money". It's always easier to manage one's own money well. It can get more complicated when a spouse and/or children become factored in. When an individual who has managed his finances well as a single person, and who has earned his confidence in his own money management skills by doing so; brings his confidence into the more complicated situation of a marriage there can be times when the degree of confidence that was appropriate in the simpler situation is no longer appropriate for the more circumstances of a marriage. To put it the way many a spouse has put it: "Just because you managed your own money well when you were single, that doesn't mean you have a clue now that things aren't just all about you!"

A suggestion for a couple with one or both partners having "built his identity" as "someone who manages money really well" is to be aware of the ways we tend to build our confidence on the things we've done well up until the marriage, but to keep in mind that how well we managed money when single doesn't always count quite so much in a different kind of money-management situation. The point here is primarily how some people automatically associate having managed money well as a single person with being "the one who is good with managing money". Sometimes it's not that simple, and sometimes the person who has a good money-management track record from his single days may not necessarily be the best choice if only one person will be managing the money.

Another way people can go a little astray when it comes to deciding who is the spouse most skilled at managing money is not to realize that there's a difference between "being good with money" and "being good with figures" or "being good with math". One of the most amazing "money-managers" I know was a woman whose math knowledge was limited to only the basics, but who managed her family's modest income with such skill that few people could even imagine how she did it. She knew what family's need to not feel like "have not's". She knew which corners could be cut without having much impact. She wasn't knowledgeable enough, or enough of a risk-taker, to get beyond her modest income, but she provided security for her family (complete with health care and life insurance), as well as having a savings cushion, an excellent credit history, plenty of niceties, and college tuition for her son. This woman was the first to say she was "no good math", and that was, for the most, accurate.

On the other side of the math-knowledge equation, I've know more than one person who have been professionals in accounting and/or technical/scientific areas; and whose way of "being good with money" has been simply "not to spend it - period". "Not spending money - period" can appear to be "being good with money" unless/until there are children who need to sleep in a bedroom that's warmer than 55 degrees or until the car that's getting one spouse or the other to work each day requires repairs in order to keep getting that person to work.

As with the other points made above, the suggestion here is that couples talk about some of these points at a time when they're not in the middle of an argument and are, instead, more open to considering things beyond the immediate matters of priorities and spending.

Yet a different type of problem can occur when a couple decides that neither will have sole responsibility for managing the money. There can be a "too-many-cooks-spoil-the-broth" situation with this arrangement, for one thing. For another thing, there can at times be inconsistencies with plans if each partner isn't careful about sharing any shifts in plans with the other. An example of this kind of problem might be a couple who has agreed to buy a new washing machine, but who haven't been specific about exactly when. Knowing what model had been agreed upon, and running into in a store, one partner may make the purchase while the other had assumed he could be free to pay one bill or another on the same day, because he'd also assumed the expense for the washer would be coming out of a later paycheck. (Of course, a cell phone or a simple e.mail could prevent this kind of problem.) The real point here is, again, that couples need to remember to discuss even seemingly minor matters; because in a case such as this example, the disagreements may not be over the need for item, or the purchase, itself; but over something like returned-check fees incurred when the check for the appliance store gets to the bank after that bill was paid by the other spouse.

Larger Issues

What all these examples and points have been leading up to here are some larger issues. Besides some of the issues addressed in the Hub suggested above, "Things to Talk About Before Getting Married"), one of those larger issues can be that in many relationships there is an imbalance of power in general, or there may be an imbalance of one, individual, kind of power or another. More importantly, there are situations in which the person who appears to have more power is, in fact, the person who has little. A passive-aggressive spouse can effectively have most of the power while creating a situation in which it would seem that the other spouse has most of the control. An aggressive spouse simply takes more control. Either way, the spouse who has less, if any, control in the relationship is not very likely to be able to establish better balance of control unless the situation is one that has resulted from circumstances or events that caused the couple to simply slip into the situation without either party really intended it that way. An example might be the military wife who has become accustomed to "running the show" in the absence of her husband, and when he returns home it takes some awareness and effort for the couple to establish better balance.

Another of those larger issues can be that each person has his own view of how much control or power he should have, and his view may not be the same as the view of his spouse. The individual may or may not voice his own ideas about why it is he should have more say in one area or another, because he may just assume the other thinks as he does. A simple example might be that one spouse believes he should be the one with the most say because he believes "the person who earns the money should have the most say". His stay-at-home spouse may believe that the person who spends the most time and effort on the house and children should have more say, simply out of being more familiar with the events and needs associated with the home and children. Both of these people may, if they have some kinds of spouses/relationships, be in a damned-if-the-do/damned-if-they-don't situation; because if neither expresses is belief and assumption that he's the one who should have more say, neither knows that's what the other is thinking. On the other hand, the person who expresses that he believes he should have more say for the reason he does will essentially be asserting that the other's say is of less importance by virtue of whatever it is the other doesn't contribute to marriage and home life. Spoken or unspoken, is the person who believes his own contribution to the marriage and home earns/buys him more say in all matters really change the fact that he values one type of contribution over another (and that the type of contribution he values more highly is the type that he happens to bring to the marriage)?

Another larger issue involves one spouse simply thinking he's superior to the other when it comes to who it is he believes should have the most say when it comes to money. One spouse may be believes he's generally more intelligent than the other, or he may believe he is more sensible, more mature, more trustworthy, more clever at finding good prices, or more tuned in when it comes to spotting cheap goods or questionable services.

In any relationship, one person may be superior to the other in any (and maybe even all) these ways (although there is such a thing as two people of similar and equal abilities and positive traits). The point here is not whether one person actually is superior to the other in one or more ways. That's not the "larger issue" to which I refer. The "larger issue" occurs when one person believes he's superior and in reality is not.

People need to be "on the same page" if they're to work out something like disagreements over money, and if one spouse can't, or won't, operate from reality he obviously will not be on the same page as a spouse whose "page" is reality.

The first step is resolving differences is to get both parties on that same page. In the case of the person who incorrectly believes he's superior in his thinking and judgment to his spouse, the chances of his listening to the other aren't great.

When disagreements, including those about money, are beyond the more basic disagreements and are, instead, the result of issues so much larger than when or whether to fix a car or replace a refrigerator, seeking the advice/guidance of a marriage counselor may be the only hope of resolving the problem of chronic disagreements over money.

When one spouse feels superior to the other there's the chance he will refuse to participate in marriage counseling because his belief may be that his "inferior" spouse's belief that outside help is needed is misguided. A suggestion for the spouse dealing with a partner who believes he's superior, and who refuses to consider marriage counseling, is to see a counselor by himself, for himself. A spouse in this situation is dealing with more than he can deal with by himself (unless, of course, he plans to just leave the marriage).

Seeing a counselor alone would be a first step in a spouse in this situation getting some support from a person who is, in fact, on the "same page as reality". What any next steps for this individual would be would depend, of course, the situation.