The 5 key areas of conflict in relationships: Managing Finances
Finances, Work (in and out of the house), Sex, In-Laws, and Children are the five big areas that dominate conflict in most relationships. Ensuring timely and open communication and pragmatic approaches to discussing issues that arise in these areas will ensure our relationship is sustained for the long term.
All Relationships including those with your spouse and children (and others) tend towards entropy, disorder, and dissolution. Marriage and divorce can be disastrous for those concerned, especially for children. Being intentional and principle-centred can revitalise and enrich your marriage, ensuring your marriage is sustained and endures.
This series of blog posts explores each of the five big areas for conflict in relationships emphasising that by taking intentional steps to discuss and resolve these issues, they will have a lasting effect.
1. Finances: As a couple, you may have separate finances, savings, assets, debts, credit cards, etc and at some point, you will need to either talk about your individual situation or your combined financial position.
Understanding what are our individual drivers are with regards to Money: Discuss our orientation to money and understand your partners’ orientation to understand the pitfalls and to capitalise on each other's strengths. Are you concerned about money as proving status, security, enjoyment, or control? Compare with your partner.
Setting financial goals: What are your short and long-term goals and how much money is required to achieve those goals. Set down plans to how much you will spend and save. Determine who is best placed to manage the finances and communicate regularly with each other on how you are tracking.
Developing a budget to understand your incoming and outgoings is fundamental. Listing and controlling your expenditure can be very empowering and required where access to credit is easily obtained. Whilst understanding how much we spend compared to how much we earn is key, realising the link with our spending or saving habits in our relationship is also required.
Gambling and other spend-related issues may require counseling or assistance from a financial advisor. I encourage you to seek it should you feel that your finances are out of control.
Tune in next week for more tips and ideas related to the 5 key areas of conflict in relationships.
Marriage and Relationship Education is a learning opportunity, much like you would do in any other important life event. Check out the video for couples on YouTube: https://youtu.be/xyuUl-JnIhM.
Tune in next week for more discussion about relationships and mental health.
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Written by Shane Smith