I was recently interviewed by the Financial Planning Assocation for their consumer website, on the topic of helping new couples merge their financial lives. I’ve written about newlyweds merging their finances in this previous post, but the FPA article does touch on some new ground.
I have to say also that while I was interviewed for the article, I don’t agree with each point. One of points is titled “Be methodical instead of emotional” and while that might be a great goal, we are emotional human beings. There’s no way around that. I believe the best we can do is create structures that we are happy with, and keep talking about areas of conflict. In relationships there’s no way to take the emotions out of our decisions. Let’s focus on having good, constructive conversations and nurturing the positive emotions of the relationship. When the negative emotions pop up, that’s generally a sign that we have work to do.
