One of the issues that causes love to get soured in marriage which could eventually cause the marriage is poor financial management at home. Yes, marriage is prone to failure when either the husband is a stingy husband or the woman is a wasteful wife.
In discussing this topic, “focus on the family: handling money matters in marriages.” First and foremost, I wish to point out that no two marriages are exactly the same. That is to say that a principle working very well in one family may end up failing in another family.
For instance, a joint bank account works perfectly with some couples, but I found it not working with my family as my wife and I tried it only for one month when we first got married, and I found it was not working, and we jettisoned it.
That didn’t work with my family extended family member always cry to me for financial assistance. That month, I observed that I almost gave out all the money in the family account. Mind you that includes my money and her money.
As a result, I quickly separated the two accounts so as not to make use of her own money. Not that we don’t have access to each others account each individual accounts
What I am saying is that whatever principles that may be shared here, don’t expect it to work automatically with your own family as it worked with another family.
This means that couples must apply caution in the application as there may be the need to apply some modifications during implementations to suit your individual family before certain principles could work perfectly with your own family.
I decided on this topic because it pained me when I see couples quarrelling over the issue of money or seeing some marriages crashing over the issues of poor financial management at home.
Secondly, I wish also to point out that what may be obtained in each marriage is determined by individual differences of couples involved in such marriage. For instance, that my wife is good in an issue does not automatically make your own wife to be good in the same issue and vice versa.
This is because my wife has an individual differences from your own wife. That means that what is obtained with my family may end up failing in your own family and vice versa.
For instance, I remembered sharing with the staffs working under me saying that couples who love and trust each other should know their partners ATM PIN as to allow him or her to have access to each others bank account.
I told them that I know my wife’s ATM PIN, and she equally knows mine. Incidentally, one of the staff went home and implemented it by revealing his PIN to his wife.
However, It happened that some months later, the man went to withdraw money from his account only to be told “insufficient fund”.
The man was furious as he was convinced that he has enough money in his account. The man went inside the bank for explanation and the bank statement shows that he was the person making the withdrawals which he protested that he was not.
It was then that the bank replayed the video clips as captured by the security camera of the ATM. To the man’s shock, the video footage shows his wife coming several times to make the withdrawals using the man’s ATM Card. That is to say, it was the man’s wife who went and cleared all the money in his bank account.
That day, the man quickly changed his Pin thereby making his wife not to have access again to his bank account. So please apply caution in applying any of the principles shared here and don’t expect any to work automatically perfectly with your own family.
Coming to the main topic of our discussion, one principle that generally apply to all marriages without fail is allowing each of the couples to enjoy financial autonomy or financial independence from each other.
Secondly is for each of the couple in a marriage to view every income that comes into that marriage as belonging to the entire family and not for him or she alone. Thirdly, is for each of the couple not to see any financial matter that comes up in the as the exclusive responsibility of one couple.
Couples who imbibe these three things, they will never have problem or issues with finance in their marriage. When we talk about financial independence, it means a situation in which each couple can take care of his or her personal financial demands without having to rely on the other partner.
As a man, one of your greatest achievement in your marriage is to make your wife to be financially independence. I said this because some men argue that their wives will respect them more if they are the only one taking care of every financial demands at home.
I wish to say that the above is not true, as a man, your mind will be at rest if your wife can take care of certain financial demands at home without relying on you.
Furthermore, I wish to point out that at times trying to make some women to be totally financially independence is an uphill task because some women are so lazy and as well great wasters as they squander any bulk money that comes their way.
Another issue is that some women themselves don’t wish to be totally financially independence because doing so makes some men to become lazy and abandon all financial demands for the woman.
Of a truth, this is a reality because I have handled certain cases of some men who actually abandoned their financial responsibility at home leaving them only for their wives to carter because their wives are having total financial independence.
Moreover, marriages in which wives enjoy financial autonomy or independence, often, such are marriages where their wives are virtuous women. I said this, using my family as an example, even though I am an accountant, but when it comes to prudential financial management, I trust my wife as she is more prudential.
For that reason, I often push family income to her account to manage. Also, most a time, I often give her some bulk money I don’t want to spend to keep for me.
In most cases, there are situations that she was the one who reminds me that she was still in custody of a certain cash I gave her to keep for me. Please you can’t compare this situation with women that squander any amount she finds in her husband’s account.
This is the end of the part one, we will still talk more on financial autonomy or independence of couples in the second part. Please keep a date with us. Shalom!
