Imagine that you and a partner own a business in which you've invested all your money and most of your emotional energy. Your financial security is wholly tied to the success of this joint enterprise.
But you face one major challenge: Your co-CEO is just, well, not like you.
The two of you prefer different movies, have different taste in clothes and can't ever seem to agree about what to do on Sunday. Money, in particular, tends to be a delicate topic. All too often, conversations end with one partner walking away, saying, "You just don't understand."
Now if this really were a business, and not just a metaphor for marriage, you'd have hired consultants a long time ago to figure out what was wrong. But since the real problem here is the ancient state of mutual incomprehension between men and women, we don't even try.
Well, when it comes to getting through to each other about money, spouses generally have some work to do.
Men and women may not exactly be from different planets, but many still operate in distinct financial orbits. For all our supposed financial sophistication and equality, the vast majority of married couples still divide the family's financial labors along traditional lines, with women handling everyday spending and budgeting decisions while men plan and invest for long-term security.
Across the divide, misunderstanding often rules. The typical couple can't even agree, other research shows, on how much they earn or owe.
Almost all of our respondents admitted openly that money is a cause of tension in their marriage. Seven in 10 actually owned up to arguing about it -- in fact, money causes more fights than sex or even in-laws. In the poll's most eye-opening findings, men and women had dramatically different ideas about who does what with the family finances, and what their partners care about.
Husbands were especially clueless, tending to underestimate how much women care about almost every financial issue, from investing and saving for retirement to paying off debt. A hundred years after Freud, men still don't know what women want.
The gap between the financial issues that people care about most and what their spouses think they hold important may not be the Grand Canyon. But some couples will need an awfully big bridge to get across it.
For instance, a survey found that only 27% of men believe their wives think having the right investments is very important. Yet nearly half of women say they do care (approximately the same proportion as men).
Likewise, only 45% of men say that having cash stashed for emergencies is very important to their spouse vs. 67% of women who believe it's crucial.
Women come much closer in gauging what matters to men. If anything, they tend to give guys too much credit, believing their husbands care more about paying off debt and saving for big purchases than men actually do.
In real life, though, there's nothing funny about the arguments that can flare when financial roles are so divided. Consider Mark Haase, 37, a helicopter flight nurse from Reno, and his wife Becky, 47, a pediatric nurse manager. Like man husbands, Mark is in charge of the family's investing and long-term planning; Becky does the everyday spending, buying clothes for their two children and items for the house.
They don't talk much about money, both spouses say, but when they do, the discussion usually ends in a fight, mostly over spending. Says Mark: "Do we really need a new bedspread? The closet is full of linens.... Sixty dollars on crayons and paper for the kids? I don't want to deny them, but...." Counters Becky: "He doesn't understand how much things cost." Adds Mark: "The only time we really talk about money is when there's a problem."
Talking about money may also be challenging for many couples because men and women seem to have different levels of enthusiasm for the topic.
Consider: While half of men surveyed say they like to talk about money at social gatherings, only 22 percent of the women say the same. For some wives, the problem may stem from how their husbands approach the subject.
"Men have been taught this golf course, locker room banter they use to talk about money," says financial planner Mary Claire Allvine, co-author of The Family CFO: The Couple's Business Plan for Love and Money. Just watch CNBC some morning. It's ESPN in a suit and tie.
Some economists argue that marriage makes financial sense precisely because it allows each partner to specialize in what he or she does best. But you can get into trouble if you use Mars and Venus notions as an excuse not to talk about what's up with the money.
"If you are in a marriage where your husband is handling the money and he's terrible at it, you feel you can't step in," says Caryl Rivers, co-author of Same Difference, a book about gender stereotypes. That is, if you even realize he's terrible at it. Fact is, there's little reason to suppose investing is really something men do better.
In the end, it was found that what husbands wanted and what wives wanted was pretty much the same; they just didn't realize it. Whatever they say in Hollywood, most great romances aren't a case of opposites attracting. In real life, we get married to people who share our goals: a family, a home, a secure future enjoying each other's company.
But you face one major challenge: Your co-CEO is just, well, not like you.
The two of you prefer different movies, have different taste in clothes and can't ever seem to agree about what to do on Sunday. Money, in particular, tends to be a delicate topic. All too often, conversations end with one partner walking away, saying, "You just don't understand."
Now if this really were a business, and not just a metaphor for marriage, you'd have hired consultants a long time ago to figure out what was wrong. But since the real problem here is the ancient state of mutual incomprehension between men and women, we don't even try.
Well, when it comes to getting through to each other about money, spouses generally have some work to do.
Men and women may not exactly be from different planets, but many still operate in distinct financial orbits. For all our supposed financial sophistication and equality, the vast majority of married couples still divide the family's financial labors along traditional lines, with women handling everyday spending and budgeting decisions while men plan and invest for long-term security.
Across the divide, misunderstanding often rules. The typical couple can't even agree, other research shows, on how much they earn or owe.
Almost all of our respondents admitted openly that money is a cause of tension in their marriage. Seven in 10 actually owned up to arguing about it -- in fact, money causes more fights than sex or even in-laws. In the poll's most eye-opening findings, men and women had dramatically different ideas about who does what with the family finances, and what their partners care about.
Husbands were especially clueless, tending to underestimate how much women care about almost every financial issue, from investing and saving for retirement to paying off debt. A hundred years after Freud, men still don't know what women want.
The gap between the financial issues that people care about most and what their spouses think they hold important may not be the Grand Canyon. But some couples will need an awfully big bridge to get across it.
For instance, a survey found that only 27% of men believe their wives think having the right investments is very important. Yet nearly half of women say they do care (approximately the same proportion as men).
Likewise, only 45% of men say that having cash stashed for emergencies is very important to their spouse vs. 67% of women who believe it's crucial.
Women come much closer in gauging what matters to men. If anything, they tend to give guys too much credit, believing their husbands care more about paying off debt and saving for big purchases than men actually do.
In real life, though, there's nothing funny about the arguments that can flare when financial roles are so divided. Consider Mark Haase, 37, a helicopter flight nurse from Reno, and his wife Becky, 47, a pediatric nurse manager. Like man husbands, Mark is in charge of the family's investing and long-term planning; Becky does the everyday spending, buying clothes for their two children and items for the house.
They don't talk much about money, both spouses say, but when they do, the discussion usually ends in a fight, mostly over spending. Says Mark: "Do we really need a new bedspread? The closet is full of linens.... Sixty dollars on crayons and paper for the kids? I don't want to deny them, but...." Counters Becky: "He doesn't understand how much things cost." Adds Mark: "The only time we really talk about money is when there's a problem."
Talking about money may also be challenging for many couples because men and women seem to have different levels of enthusiasm for the topic.
Consider: While half of men surveyed say they like to talk about money at social gatherings, only 22 percent of the women say the same. For some wives, the problem may stem from how their husbands approach the subject.
"Men have been taught this golf course, locker room banter they use to talk about money," says financial planner Mary Claire Allvine, co-author of The Family CFO: The Couple's Business Plan for Love and Money. Just watch CNBC some morning. It's ESPN in a suit and tie.
Some economists argue that marriage makes financial sense precisely because it allows each partner to specialize in what he or she does best. But you can get into trouble if you use Mars and Venus notions as an excuse not to talk about what's up with the money.
"If you are in a marriage where your husband is handling the money and he's terrible at it, you feel you can't step in," says Caryl Rivers, co-author of Same Difference, a book about gender stereotypes. That is, if you even realize he's terrible at it. Fact is, there's little reason to suppose investing is really something men do better.
In the end, it was found that what husbands wanted and what wives wanted was pretty much the same; they just didn't realize it. Whatever they say in Hollywood, most great romances aren't a case of opposites attracting. In real life, we get married to people who share our goals: a family, a home, a secure future enjoying each other's company.
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