The traditional wedding season is now upon us, and love is in the air! If you’re part of an engaged couple looking forward to sending out save-the-dates for next year this time, when, hopefully, the pandemic will have been in our rear-view mirrors, if you have not yet done so, it’s time to have a serious talk about finances. Serious: not cursory or vague. It is crucial that you and your partner get on the same page about money. It would probably surprise you to know how many people think that, as long as there is a foundation of love, everything else will sort itself out. And so they opt out of doing this, thinking that money conversations are too awkward. But the bloom can quickly leave the rose. Be reminded that money is among the top reasons for the break-up of marriages. Better awkwardness now than tears later.

It is important to understand that attitudes towards money are as fundamentally different as, well, the personalities of both you and your partner. Our upbringing can skew our outlook on money; for example, one person may have been raised with abundance and their expenditures seem superfluous to someone who was born with less and has adopted a more frugal lifestyle. How both of you view money, therefore, may vary completely, and thus determine how you spend it.

As a wealth manager I have been charged with providing financial guidance to couples and/families. That being said here are five critical areas to take into account when embarking on a future together:

Goal setting

When you begin to contemplate marriage or any partnership, your financial goals must be clearly articulated. In the same manner in which you talk about whether or not you will have children, or what your religious beliefs are, you must figure out your shared financial goals; a financial mission statement, of sorts. This is one of the seeds that will help grow a happy relationship. If you both had separate long-term goals when you were single, decide which ones will be incorporated into your goals as a unit now, like saving to buy a home or starting a family. Create a monthly budget that includes allocations for spending, saving and debt repayment and let this guide you towards fulfilling your short- as well as long-term goals.

Yours, mine & ours

You and your partner must decide on how the utility bills will be split. Will you share everything 50/50? Or will the person who earns more take on the bulk of the spending? Who pays the rent/mortgage? If children are involved, who pays school fees, maintenance, their extra-curricular activities? Raising children, while being a rewarding pursuit, is also a highly expensive one. Is one party coming into the marriage with children? How are those expenses going to be broken down? There is no one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter approach; all relationships are different, and so the dynamics of every couples’ finances will be different, too.

Financial infidelity

This occurs when couples hide money from each other for discretionary spending. This is a touchy one, I know. Will you pool all your money together in one bank account? Or do you each plan to retain both your separate accounts but, in addition, open a joint account? Let’s say you go for the first option. If you’re a woman who loves to shop for clothes, which, for whatever your reason, you fund through an account that you’re keeping secret from your spouse, not only is this a lack of transparency, but it can lead to deeper issues, such as trust and tension in the relationship, and maybe even the eventual destruction of the relationship if not dealt with.

Debt

If financial harmony is your aim, you have to be up front about any financial baggage you’re bringing into the union. Couples owe it to themselves to come clean about all their debts, regardless of how small or large, from credit card to student loans to gambling, etc. Everybody wants happily ever after, but God forbid eventualities like the loss of income, major medical issues, and even death crop up. It’s possible that some significant individually incurred debts could become joint after marriage, and so become shared if the party who incurs them is no longer able to service them.

Insurance and investment

Every true crime drama at some point examines an insurance policy as a motive for a spouse’s untimely demise. But in a healthy relationship such as the one you’re planning to have, there’s no need to worry about this. Insurance, and a carefully thought-out diversified investment portfolio, can be viewed as evidence of the love you have for your family by putting in place a financial plan to take care of them, down the line, if and when fortunes change. Or even for your joint retirement together sipping coffee or wine on cobblestone streets in some foreign country that you can barely pronounce. I digress a bit, but you get my point.

Bottom line

Love is a good thing; marriage is too. But it’s like a beautiful garden that must be tended for the best results. There is financial value in marriage, as blunt as that sounds: “Two are better than one; because they have good reward for their labour.” Open, honest and clear communication about your mutual funds must be part of your marital contract, as this is key to avoiding simmering marriage-killing resentment in the future and keep you as a couple on track to realising the financial goals of your dreams.