Combining Finances: Long Term Dating

This is the third post in a series called Combining Finances.

Once you’ve been dating for awhile, you naturally begin to progress past the financial limits you intentionally set on yourself while you were starting to date. While at first you might be a little more concerned with a sense of fairness, you now may start to lose a sense of what is “yours” and what is “mine”. This is natural, but brings up some potential problems for the dating couple.

After Ashley and I had been dating for six or eight months, we had reached a point where it wasn’t as necessary to make sure that she was buying “her” food and I was buying “mine”. We both just went through the grocery store, cut it in half at the checkout line, paid for it, and took it home. We ate so many meals together that it didn’t matter who paid for them anymore, because we were both working, we both made money, and we both needed to eat. So what difference did it make?

Unfortunately, this was also the stage where Ashley and I had the greatest struggles in our financial interdependence. We both recognized that we were paying for the other, and that we both needed to eat, but we were still transitioning from a “mine” and “yours” mindset. Learning to share is difficult, especially after you’ve been trained to think in solitary terms. Why would I buy salad when I don’t eat salad? Why would she buy meat when she is a vegetarian?

The best thing to do in this type of situation is to become aware of the problems, and then communicate about them. For Ashley and I, it meant that we had to sit down and recognize that we were both feeling a sense of lost independence. We didn’t like that the other person suddenly had a say over how we spent our money, when we didn’t remember giving them that authority. I know that I didn’t like feeling guilty if I wanted to buy a video game, or a TV, and Ashley didn’t like feeling guilty that she wanted new jeans or a magazine subscription.

So talk about your problems, and talk about your priorities. If you are serious about entering into a long term relationship with this person, then at some point you have to align your priorities. Talk about

• what money means to you, what is represents, and how you feel as though it should be spent
• how you manage your money
• what you feel is worth saving for
• your debt, how it impacts you, and what you want to do about it

Recognize that no answer is wrong – it just might be different from yours.

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