Talk not cheap when it comes to love and money

WASHINGTON >> Valentine’s Day spending is hyped as a way to show your love. But one way to truly have a successful, loving relationship is to have frank, regular discussions about your finances. Bare your financial soul to your soul mate.

Yet many individuals aren’t honest with their significant others. Roughly 1 in 5 couples have a credit card or bank account that their partner doesn’t know about, for whatever reason, according to a recent CreditCards.com survey.

Millennials are almost twice as likely as older adults (28 percent versus 15 percent) to not disclose a checking or credit card account.

Financial infidelity can damage a relationship. In my experience working with couples, many say that financial unfaithfulness is just as bad as physical infidelity.

Here’s one way to help the love last in a committed relationship: Talk about money.

And to help get the conversation started, I’m recommending for this month’s Color of Money Book Club the “Official Money Guide For Couples,” by Susan and Michael Beacham.

The Beachams have been married for 30 years. They both worked in financial services, and they took their experience and founded Money Savvy Generation, a financialeducation company.

“Truth is, it’s much easier for most couples not to talk about money, at least early in their life together,” the Beachams write. “For one thing, it’s about as far from being romantic as any conversation can be. And as compatible as two people are in most ways, there’s no guarantee their ideas about how to spend and what to save will align.”

But how’s not having candid conservations working for you?

It’s crazy to me that couples will spend hours picking a reception venue or even the wedding cake yet neglect to spend much time at all discussing how they will merge their money styles.

Here are some conversation starters, which hopefully you can work through in a premarital course.

• How much money do you make? (I’m always surprised when couples don’t know how much each earns.)

• Should we have joint or separate accounts? Or both?

“We did a complete financial merger at the outset, taking the ‘what’s mine is yours, and what’s yours is mine’ approach to all assets, liabilities and expenses from day one,” the Beachams write.

(I vote joint, too. But even if you decide to keep things sep

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