Keys to a Good Marriage? Money Part of the Equation

Here's a piece I initially saw in my local paper, then found on Yahoo. It details a new survey asking couples what makes a good marriage and lists the gain/loss versus results in 1990 The top four responses:

• Faithfulness -- 93% (down 2%)
• Happy sexual relationship -- 70% (up 3%)
• Sharing household chores -- 62% (up 15%)
• Adequate income -- 53% (up 7%)

My thoughts on these:

1. Looks like "faithfulness" is THE key by far. Not a shocker here.

2. I thought money was more important than sex. ;-)

3. Wow! This one's up a ton. I wonder if it's because many more women are working now than in 1990 -- and as such expect help with household chores. In our house, my wife handles most of the chores inside the house (cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc.) while I handle the outside chores (lawn work, trash, snow-blowing, etc.) I work outside the house and she doesn't, so things would be different if she did have an outside job.

4. Finally -- a money-related item! I'm not really that surprised that it's this far down on the list, though given that money problems are often cited as the reason for divorce, I could easily see how it could be listed higher. It's certainly gaining in importance (up 7%).

For more on money and marriage, see these links:

• Creating Financial Harmony in Marriage

• Couples Differ on Finances (Again)

• Five Simple Money Commitments Couples Need to Make

Comments

[Travis Williams]

Although money problems are often cited as a main reason for divorce, I don't think that it is a lack of adequate income. I feel that it is probably more of a lack of responsibility and money management. These days people live outside their means just to try and keep up with the Joneses.

I also find it interesting that all of these are up except for faithfulness. Not really much to do with money but interesting nonetheless.

[Chief Family Officer]

Money in a marriage is kind of like sex - if there's enough of it, it's in the background. If there's a shortage, you can't stop thinking about it.

[Ryan]

As for #3, I think that a lot of women forget to give men credit for some of the chores that they do that are not considered "household chores", such as maintaining the vehicles, cutting the grass, building decks, replacing windows, fertilizing grass, turning on sprinklers, new roof, etc. Ther is a lot more to household chores than cooking and cleaning.