MONEY MATTERS

The other day in a men’s group I usually attend every week, one of the men was sharing with us his trials and tribulations with a pyramid scheme where he lost kshs.40, 000 and almost lost another Kshs.600,000 but for divine intervention. I was reminded myself how I was saved from a similar predicament because of my wife’s intervention. Amidst a lot of pressure from friends and colleagues to invest in this “ponzi” scheme, I decided to consult with my wife as we always have and because there was no consensus between us I couldn’t go ahead with the deal.

My wife and I have agreed that nothing major financially will be done without the agreement from the other. This can sometimes be painful as there are times I see my wife as a major impediment of my enjoyment and I know she sometimes feels the same way as well. Yet it is this being accountable to each other that not saved me from that ponzi scheme but has also helped us make good financial decisions since two is better than one.

We all need some aspect of accountability in our own lives as when left alone we can end up being like the Kanu regime during those days of “multiparty moja”. We are to keep each other accountable as husband and wife for us to not only avoid financial pitfalls as a family but also to build trust between us. This brings me to another aspect of dealing with finances as a couple and that is transparency.

Being open about my financial dealings helps a lot in building and maintain trust with each other. It is because of my being accountable to my wife that I am transparent with her financially and this leads to more intimacy as trust is built.  

MONEY MATTERS

A recent poll by Roper Starch Worldwide found that in the United States, money is the most common source of conflict between spouses. And research in the Center for Marital and Family Studies Report shows that coming into their marriages; new couples find money to be more of a problem than in-laws, jealousy, or communication. Four years later, they still find money to be the most troublesome aspect of marriage, ahead of communication, sex, and in-laws (in that order).

That is not much different from a research done here locally by infortrack-Harris for Nation media. In this research, they found out that, in quite an interesting twist in marriage and separation trends, money and overly nosy in-laws have overtaken infidelity as the leading cause of broken marriages. Half of all married people who took part in the survey said money was the main cause of marital conflict, followed by interference from members of the extended family at 39 per cent.

Thus money matters especially in marriage. In the next couple of weeks will be discussing how you as a couple can avoid being a part of these stats.