My Wife and I Never Fight About Money. Here's Why

Relationships are a whole lot easier when you're not arguing about money.

Money is often a serious issue for couples. According to a 2021 study by Fidelity, 1 in 5 couples said that money was their greatest relationship challenge. If you and your partner frequently argue about finances, it leads to stress, anger, and sometimes even a breakup.

My wife and I have been fortunate in that we haven't had any fights or arguments about money. We've had disagreements on other subjects, like any couple. But money hasn't been a battleground for us, which has been a huge help.

To have a healthy relationship, being on the same page financially is a must. If money has been an issue between you and your significant other, I'm going to cover what has worked for me and my wife.

We started in a good place financially

When my wife and I first got together, we were both financially secure and didn't have any money problems to worry about. We had stable income and work we enjoyed. We also had money in our savings accounts, as well as some investments. Perhaps most importantly, neither of us had any debt.

Because we had done well with our personal finances before our relationship, we were able to avoid a lot of common arguments. We didn't have to cut out dates because money was tight or have intense conversations about what we could afford.

If you have a solid financial foundation, it takes a lot of pressure off of your relationship. Here are a few good goals to work toward that can help you build that financial foundation as a couple:

• Focus on paying off credit card debt and any other high-interest debt.
• Save enough money that you have an emergency fund with three to six months of living expenses.
• Look for opportunities to raise your income.

We have similar financial philosophies

When it comes to money, I definitely haven't found the whole "opposites attract" thing to be true. One of the main reasons my wife and I haven't had money problems is because of our similar financial philosophies. We're both ambitious, and we save a large portion of our income, but neither of us is shy about spending money on something that's worth it.

Personally, I think finding someone you click with financially is huge. A popular financial expert, Ramit Sethi, even lists "marry the right person" as one of his 10 money rules. It's hard to avoid money arguments if you and your partner have completely different priorities. That's why money is an important topic to discuss if you're dating someone and thinking about a more serious commitment.

It's okay if you and your partner don't agree on everything, as long as you're able to compromise and find common ground. If one of you is more of a saver and the other is a spender, then you'll both need to sit down and decide on reasonable amounts to save and use for fun money every month.

We figured out our big goals together

Something that has really helped us feel like a team is agreeing on big life goals. We've talked about when we'll buy a home and how much we'll spend. We know we both want to retire early. In fact, even before we started dating, my wife mentioned how she planned to retire early. I had the same goal, but I had never actually met anyone else in real life who was working toward early retirement, so I thought that was the coolest thing ever.

When you and your spouse set goals and work toward them together, it strengthens your relationship. On the other hand, problems often arise when couples don't talk about their goals or don't put in the same amount of effort on them. If you're saving money for a home and your partner is spending every penny, that's bound to lead to resentment.

We learn from each other

To be honest, my wife is the more financially disciplined one between the two of us. I noticed that early on, and that motivated me to raise my game. Even though I was doing fine with money before we got together, I've improved a lot since then. I'm earning and saving much more, and I have to give her much of the credit for that.

My wife has also learned things from me in the financial subjects I know about. For example, we've talked quite a bit about investing, and I've shown her which of our rewards credit cards to use on different types of purchases. Because we're open to learning and we appreciate what the other person does well, our relationship has helped us both improve financially.

We trust each other and communicate

Trust is key in a relationship, and that includes financial trust. In our case, we've been open with each other about how much we earn, the accounts we have, and the amount of money in each one. I've also set my wife up as an authorized user on several of my credit cards, since we live in her home country and the credit card options aren't as good here.

We're comfortable being open financially because neither of us has betrayed the other's trust or made a serious decision unilaterally. Any time one of us is thinking about a major purchase, we talk about it first, and then decide.

For as common as they are, arguments about money are avoidable. Communication, setting goals together, and being open-minded about financial differences goes a long way. If you keep that in mind and talk with your partner regularly about money, you can make financial fights a thing of the past.