The Dow Jones Emotionals

Household Ways and Means

1. The most common fights between couples are about money management--and they're most hotly contended when there's a difference between means and desires. This is especially true when money is tight but one half of the partnership insists on the right to spend it as he or she sees fit. For example, Harry gets his pay check and immediately spends it on his car. He says, "I earned it, right? Damned if I'm not going to get some fun out of it." Fair enough, except that his wife was counting on that money to pay the plumber's bill.

2. The second most common fight is over whether to spend or to save. One person wants to live it up; the other sees rainy days in the future. The person who wants to spend feels that his or her partner's reluctance to use money is not only a spoilsport reaction, it's also a vote of no confidence in his or her continued earning capacity. On the other hand, the partner who wants to save feels unsafe with a spendthrift partner.

3. Common fight number three is when partners are not equally comfortable about the amount of debt they're willing to carry. Harry thinks a bank card is an invitation to carry a large balance on it every month. His wife isn't bothered by a few hundred dollars' being carried over but balks when the numbers start to rise higher. They share their credit rating, so she doesn't accede to his style of debt.

4. Even when people agree on a general approach to saving, they can still butt up against each other's financial philosophies. If money is to be saved, the next question is, How? Women tend to be more conservative about investments and are partial to C.D.s, money-market accounts, even passbook accounts. Men are more likely to think that oil wells and finding a fixer-upper property are the ways to go. A couple may resist each other's plans--especially when she reminds him about losing his money on gas exploration and he tells her what he thinks of her buying WHOOPS bonds.

5. Decisions over who will keep the checkbook and manage the budget can erupt into serious battles and hard feelings. Sometimes a man fights to be the only one who knows what money has come in and what has gone out. This makes the woman crazy, because she doesn't know how much money they have and can't make informed money-related decisions. She feels like a child. When she wants to be a grownup, he resists. Problems also arise if she does keep the checkbook but is constantly under surveillance and is really just a clerk without any decision-making power. She may think she's a trusted partner until he summarily reverses one of her budget decisions. Suddenly, she feels like an employee rather than a partner, and she feels humiliated. There are other perils in this arena. Let's say she's the bookkeeper and gives him an allowance. One day, he asks for money and she says, "Sorry, we can't afford that." He says, "That's impossible. I am a good provider. You must be a bad manager." She's insulted--especially if she's been a genius at making each of their dollars go for ten. But if he has never been to the supermarket, he can't understand where all the money has gone. They live in different worlds, and each thinks the other is being unreasonable.

6. Couples often quarrel over record keeping. This is a little issue that may surface around tax time. "What do you mean you have no receipts?" he gasps. A person who is a bookkeeper at heart, linked with a free spirit, is headed for some smoldering encounters.

7. Monetary independence is a crucial issue in couples' money management. In a household where one or both are never allowed to have "private," unaccounted-for money, guerrilla warfare (continued on page 146)Dow Jones Emotionals(continued from page 74) can happen. For example, a woman who has no right to discretionary funds--not even enough to buy her husband a present he doesn't know about--may start "skimming" some money out of the household budget. One day, he discovers her nest egg. He doesn't call it skimming, he calls it embezzling.

Paying Past Dues

8. Other flash points are arguments that pair children and money. Men often don't realize how much money it takes to clothe and feed a child. The conversation can be particularly intense when it is about children from a previous relationship. She may accuse him of not caring about her children or of protecting his kids but not hers. If there's not enough money to treat the kids evenhandedly, the entire relationship can be in jeopardy.

9. The same problem applies to in-laws and parents. Say Harry's family needs help and he has to ask his partner. If the partner won't help or isn't gracious about it, the other resents having to plead for something he feels his partner should gladly provide.

10. The last of these dreaded three why-must-I-contribute-to-your-past-life? arguments involves alimony, and here we get into the major leagues of money battles. The new wife isn't particularly pleased that half of his salary and some of hers goes to support his ex-wife in the style to which the new wife would like to become accustomed. Jealousy over the past gets mixed up with deprivation, and the result is volatile stuff.

Sinking or Swimming in the Money Pool

11. Some women feel that "your money is our money and my money is mine." A traditional man may encourage that feeling--after all, he is the earner, and having a woman who feels that way redounds to his provider role. Another man, however--particularly one who finds that the family needs her money for expenses--may no longer find this quaint. Her "mad money" makes him feel just that. This is especially tricky in a household where the man encourages a woman to feel this way but changes the rules when finances get tight.

12. The two-career couple has its own special money aggravations. If the two have been independent for a long time, they hate to have to be financially accountable to anyone else. They find anything that requires fiscal cooperation and compromise grating. They should tread lightly the first time they cosign a note--or lend their partner money.

13. Which brings up the wonderful world of pooling money. The first fight is about whether or not to do it. The second is about getting used to doing it--and what it means for someone else to have the right to draw (and overdraw) on a joint checkbook.

14. Then there are the fights over what's fair to contribute. Will each partner put in half or will each put in money according to what he or she makes? Some partners say, "You want an equal say? Then put in equal pay!" If he earns $50,000 and she earns $18,000 and he wants her to pay half of the $2000 monthly mortgage payment (or she doesn't get a full vote), he should be aware that he is manipulating her into a resentful junior partnership. Her money seems to get lost in the pool. She makes a suggestion about what to do with their money, but he doesn't feel that her contribution entitles her to disposition of the entire pot. Each economic decision brings up the issue "Whose money is this, anyhow?"

15. When money is separate, objects are usually separate. Then the fights are about who actually owns what. If she put 60 percent of the money down on the chair, does she own the chair or just the legs? The couple who mentally put tags on everything in the house sometimes have a problem with recall. Keeping fastidious records doesn't always prevent disagreements about who owns what.

Foreign Policies and the Welfare State

16. Even if items and money are kept separate, partners still have strong feelings about how money ought to be spent. Certain spending habits are considered morally offensive. Having a monetary morality different from one's partner's (e.g., he buys $100 wines while she is waging the war on poverty) causes bitter fights even if money isn't commingled.

17. In the Eighties, are women truly emancipated from housework, or do they have to buy their way out? A man may insist that a woman use her money to pay for child care, house cleaning and dining out, because she's creating those expenses by not covering those activities herself. "You pay for it--after all, you're the one who's getting out of it." Some women accede to that philosophy, so happy are they not to be doing it themselves. Others pay--but resent it. And some women call a pig a pig, and pack.

18. Strangely enough, the matter of having enough money isn't the most serious area of disagreement. The man's ability to earn is so sensitive a topic that it doesn't come up until a blood fight is in process. Men receive questions about their earning power as a frontal assault on their manhood.

19. Of course, the only argument worse is the one based on how much the woman earns--when she earns more than he does. He gets competitive. He may bad-mouth her promotion or indicate that she's lucky she's in such an easy industry in which to succeed. Often he adds injury to insult when she confronts him on his behavior and he adamantly denies it. They get into a cycle of oblique and head-on collisions. This is one money issue that can't be left unrepaired or it will unravel the relationship.

20. Let's say both partners are working and earning good money, and each likes the idea that they're a dual-career couple. Money becomes an issue when partners push each other to get ahead, get a raise, get their due (and, while they're at it, to bring home some more money to help support their overextended lifestyle). Being pushed to confront a boss isn't usually appreciated. Badgering will cause a battle.

21. No matter how much money the couple earns, there are some things that aren't done. One is making a major purchase without consulting one's partner. No man can go home and say, "Hi, honey, I just bought a cabin cruiser," and expect an uncomplicated reaction.

22. How much to spend on a vacation is a common enough source of argument--so common that many couples dread their annual discussion about it. If the trip is less--or more--luxurious than one or both partners feel comfortable with, trouble brews. Fights break out when the person who can afford to pay wants to call all the shots. They can also erupt when Harry generously offers to subsidize the trip but his partner refuses to go unless she can pay her own way. If that means the vacation can't happen on schedule or at all, Harry, who wants to go now--and is willing to pay for it--gets annoyed.

Spending in Style

23. But let's say that over the years, the couple have worked out their financial differences. Are they out of the woods? Not necessarily. They may get lucky by cleaning up in the stock market or winning a lottery or inheriting Aunt Mildred's fortune. That gives them new options they hadn't anticipated. Windfalls provide excellent opportunities for arguments.

24. Charity begins at home, but it may have moved out. The first question is, Should the money be given away at all? The second is, To whom? The third is, Does a partner have veto power on a specific charity (e.g., "If you give to the National Rifle Association, I'll divorce you")? The fourth is, How much ("You gave your inheritance to Save the Whales?!")?

25. Two people often don't agree on what is a lot of money and what isn't. This is also complicated by different patterns of generosity. Some people like to make small gifts--such as picking up a lunch tab. Others watch such things scrupulously. But the person who watches nickels at a restaurant may be very generous about serious issues (such as donating to peace organizations or social-service agencies). And the person who picks up the tab may find large donations horrifying. Two people who have no empathy for each other's monetary styles are going to fight.

26. One person may feel that you have to be honest about your emotions, your hair color, your golf score--anything but your taxes. Another may feel that if the supermarket checker gave you extra change, not reporting it should warrant a trip to the Bastille. Those two people should probably not be together. Doing their taxes together may help them to a new status--one that will allow them to file separately the next year.

The Fiscal Sunset

27. Issues about security and retirement crop up among people over 40. Fighting about life insurance is one of the early disagreements. Some people think they'll live to be 100, and they don't want the life-insurance company to profit from their longevity. A nonworking partner may not appreciate such optimism, since a wrong guess can be a financial as well as an emotional disaster.

28. To some men, filing a will is like signing up for an airplane that's scheduled to crash. To the family that wishes to avoid probate or a contest from a grasping relative, that attitude is not acceptable. The wife pushes and the husband accuses her of wishing him dead--which may not have been the way she felt at the beginning of the argument but is certainly the way she feels at the end of it.

29. Older couples have fights over any intimation of mortality. When a wife sees her 65-year-old husband take on a project that requires his attention for the next 15 years, she not unreasonably gets a little worried. He takes that as her betting on the wrong side of the issue.

30. Finally, there are little money habits that don't cause big fights but do drive one's partner crazy. Keeping a lot of money around the house just in case the banks fail; being afraid to carry cash and always borrowing from others; never asking for the check--no single one of those behaviors is enough to cause a divorce. But if you find yourself with a money quirk, understand that it can cause more trouble than it's worth.

"One day, he discovers her nest egg. He doesn't call it skimming, he calls it embezzling."