How can you avoid the stress that money puts on your relationship? Marriage counselors and financial planning professionals agree: Decide up front that your marriage is also a financial partnership — you and your spouse make decisions and develop solutions about money as a team.  Knowing your financial hopes and desires and sharing them with your future spouse become an important first step. The beliefs you embrace, early influences and the attitudes and behaviors you develop throughout the years define your money personality.

Marriage counselors and financial planning professionals advise that couples to observe each other’s money habits and spend significant time discussing money as soon as they begin to think seriously about marriage. Watch for the habits or attitudes that may irritate or concern you after you are married and discuss them. You must talk honestly and openly about your own money attitudes and expectations before you marry. Talking is preventive medicine for marriages. It is important to develop a dialogue about money that lasts the rest of your lives.

Based on what you learn about one another, you will also need to decide how to handle money after you marry. For most couples, that means compromise. Expect some or all of these questions to be uncomfortable. After all, talking about money is intimate and unfamiliar to most people. You probably will not agree on every issue. In the beginning at least, agreement is less important than discussing your attitudes and differences.

As you talk with each other, you will begin to understand why your views may differ from your partner’s views. Consider the deeper, emotional issues that direct behavior without judging or criticizing. This financial understanding of each other is the basis for compromises you will need to make about money management.