Tag: discussion

Scott Boyles, a wealth manager at Brightscape Investment Centers in Dallas, Tex., admits that new marriages and money conversations between newlyweds aren’t exactly a big priority—but they should be.

"As a financial planner, I work with many couples on how to manage money," Boyles says. "Yet in my own life, my wife and I had to have difficult talks regarding money through the years because we started a business together."

Boyles and his spouse began discussing the budding business, with all of its financial implications on their lives, before they tied the knot.

Why you should change yourself instead of your spouse?

Change is hard for a lot of people. When you look at your relationship, I am sure you can see a lot of things our spouse needs to change, but what about you? What do you need to change to have a healthier and more conscious relationship with your spouse?

One thing you may not realize is the only thing you have control over in a conversation is your 50 percent of it. What are you bringing to the discussion? How are you behaving or reacting to things? How are these things impacting the relationship with your spouse?

Communication. It’s one of those words that cannot be ignored when talking about how to create and nurture a good relationship, and certainly a nonnegotiable in a marriage. But when health issues, ranging from a headache to a chronic illness, come into play—communication becomes that much harder, and that much more important.

I get it: it’s boring to talk about communication. It’s certainly not a novel idea and for the most part it seems simple. Listen. Don’t yell. Don’t point fingers, and so on. What makes marriage different from dating though, is that marriage is the ultimate partnership.

Are you and you spouse aware of one another's finances? Surveys show it is a big issue for couples. It’s important for couples to discuss finances at the earliest possible time in their relationship and to communicate frequently. Couples should also make sure they agree when it comes to financial practices such as budgeting and how to utilize credit throughout the marriage. Individually, each partner should make sure to be engaged with the household finances so they can protect themselves and their assets if nothing else can be done and the relationship ends.