Financial issues are often cited as a reason for divorce. In many cases, things like job loss or bankruptcy can cause divorce simply because a couple doesn’t have enough money to make ends meet. This puts stress on their lives and their relationship, eventually causing it to erode.
However, it’s very important to note that money can often cause stress even for those who are easily able to pay their bills. It’s not always about scarcity. Sometimes, it’s just about two people having very different values and looking at money in quite different ways.
Spending versus saving
One way that this can happen is when one person is a spender and the other is a saver. For some people, the value of money is in the stability and security that it can give them, so they are always saving and planning for the future. For others, the value is in the type of life that money can help them create. They are more interested in spending to accomplish these goals.
Either perspective can be the right one, or it could be some mix of the two. It isn’t that one side is correct and the other side is not, but just that these are very different values for people to hold. If two married people view money in such different ways, they often feel like the other person is working against them, and the relationship can turn combative. This can create the underlying financial stress that leads to divorce, even for a couple that has plenty of income.
Dividing assets in divorce can also get complicated, especially when money is at the heart of the marital split. Those involved need to know what legal options they have.