Money and Relationships

On July 31, 2017, I had the opportunity to get on one knee and ask my best friend to marry me. I can vividly remember the restless sleeping the night before and the anxious pit in my stomach the morning of. Without question, it was the best day of my life up to this point.

Getting engaged in July was great, but getting married this upcoming July will be even better. While I am very excited, I also understand that this decision will bring significant changes to my life. We will both be graduating from Indiana Wesleyan University in December, entering the “real” world, and beginning our life together as a married couple in July. As a financial peer coach, I have had a great opportunity to learn how to apply many advanced financial concepts into my day-to-day life. Many of these same concepts can be transferred to a marital relationship, but adding an additional person can make the situation more complicated.

A recent poll revealed that three out of every ten American couples commit “financial infidelity” by lying to their spouses about money (moneyhabitudes.com). This stat was fascinating and led me to realize how so many couples argue about finances. If thirty percent of couples are lying to each other about finances, why wouldn’t they be inclined to argue about it?

Kari (my fiancé) and I talk about finances quite a bit because, frankly, we are both very intrigued by the idea of combining our finances in a few short months. We recognize that there are many paths that couples can take when combining their finances, and we are in the process of searching to find the right one for us.

A phrase that is often used at the Ron Blue Institute is “God owns it all.” Psalm 24:1-2 says, “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters.” Through this phrase and scripture passage, Kari and I have the freedom and flexibility of seeing that all that we have been given is from God, and in the end, it is ultimately His.

It is important to be thinking about the idea of setting up joint bank accounts or separate bank accounts. It is also important to know how we are going to divvy up bills. But ultimately, it is important to remember whose resource it is and how we can decide together how to use it for His glory.