Those shopping bags can kill your marriage

Talk to your spouse about their spending behaviour to avoid conflict

Dear husbands, if your wives are spendthrift then you may have to communicate about finances, especially early in marriage to avoid financial and marriage conflicts, warns a study.

According to researchers, when a husband thinks his wife spends too much money, whether it is a reality or perception, financial and marriage problems follow.The researchers suggest that no matter what the perceptions or realities are exactly, if finances are causing problems in a marriage, help is possible.

“The fact that spouses’ perceptions of each other’s spending behaviours were so predictive of financial conflict suggests that when it comes to the impact of finances on relationships, perceptions may be just as important, if not more important, than reality,” said co-author of the study Ashley LeBaron from Brigham Young University.

The study found that for husbands, having a wife who they saw as a spender was the highest contributor to financial conflict.For wives, having a husband who viewed them as a spender was the highest contributor to financial conflict.This was seen for couples with high incomes and low incomes as well as with couples who spent a lot and those who did not spend much at all. The views were completely relative to perception.”Couples need to communicate about finances, especially early in marriage,” said Sonya Britt-Lutter from Kansas State University in Manhattan, US.

The study showed that circumstances weren’t the issue here, perception was, and perception doesn’t always change when circumstances do.The study analysed 700 families nearly 700 families from two locations.

The findings indicated 90 percent of women and 85 percent of men reported that they experienced some kind of financial worries.The research appears in the Journal of Financial Planning.