Recognizing Your Financial Strengths and Weaknesses

If you’re currently involved with someone and considering a serious commitment, or if you’ve never discussed your spending habits with your spouse or significant other, take some time to talk about your financial mindsets.

Identify your differences and spend some time planning how you want to handle them in your relationship. By dealing with your financial differences, you’ll not only cut down on arguments later in life, but you and your partner will become a united front working for common financial goals.

You may well find that your significant other is a spendthrift and you’re a miser or vice versa opposites tend to attract each other. One reason opposites attract may be that on some unconscious level, people are aware of their own weaknesses and shortcomings and know almost instinctively what they need to “complete” themselves. If you have trouble keeping to a written budget, you may choose a life partner whose greatest joy is keeping detailed written records of every flower growing in the yard or every penny spent on bubble gum by the kids and imagine you balance each other out in the process. Having differences is healthy, but we also know from experience that these differences can test your limits of grace and reason.