How to talk about money with your partner

14 January 2025

Few couples need persuading of the importance of being able to have open and honest conversations about their finances. However, many couples could benefit from learning how to have those conversations more effectively.

Sharing your life with a partner usually requires you to share financial resources too, with most couples recognising the importance of negotiating their financial dreams and the feelings that ground them. Yet acknowledging the importance of something is not the same as actually doing it, let alone doing it well. Indeed, something feeling really important can just as easily lead to putting it off than taking it on.

Nowhere is this truer than when the emotionally charged but traditionally taboo topic of money pops up between partners. Simply ‘knowing’ in an abstract way how talking about money can strengthen the trust within a relationship or even the percentage of divorce cases that cite different views about money as a major cause doesn’t change this.

William Stevens

Partner, Head of Financial Planning

Couple looking at each other with laptop

Three ways to make talking about money with your partner easier

The unfortunate truth is that we’re simply not trained how to have good financial conversations: how to start them, how to progress them, and how to stay open, honest, and comfortable throughout. So even in the strongest, most loving relationships, we tend not to even try, or not to try again after what happened last time.

This can be good enough to get by. But making the most of money within a couple requires something more.

As with any financial conversation, preparation is key. The following points are all worth consider prior to arranging a chat, and to remember throughout it.

Capital at risk

Please be aware that the value of your investments may fall as well as rise. The content of this blog post reflects our current understanding of UK legislation and only impacts those within the UK tax system. Tax treatment depends on personal circumstances, and the rules may be subject to future change.

1. Remember, this is a conversation, not a lecture

Your aim is not to make a logical case that persuades your partner to come around to your way of thinking. Money is a far less objective matter than we typically take it to be; our views of it are grooved in deeply embodied emotional connections traceable to our earliest childhood experiences. But because we don’t talk about it well, it's easy to overlook this.

The best conversations are a mutual uncovering: by understanding how your partner sees the role of money in their life (perhaps they see opportunity where you see only risk), you will not only likely come to understand previously unfathomable actions of theirs, but also see actions of your own as not quite as lacking in alternatives as you once took them to be.

Start by exploring what money means to each of you. We tend to assume more than we should about what money means to each other. It’s worth taking the time to examine these assumptions. For example:

What role does money play in your lives?
Can you call someone ‘successful’ based primarily on their salary?
What’s a more important financial legacy to leave for our children: money, or beliefs about money… and how might we be prioritising the other one?
To what extent do you link to your sense of self-worth to your salary or assets – would you feel differently about us if we doubled/halved our salaries?

2. Resist the temptation to jump to the details

Because we overlook its emotional roots, a common mistake is to jump straight to the numbers. This can work against the openness we’re after. For example, before judging an apparently silly spending choice, seek to understand what needs are being served by it, and whether there’s a better way of meeting them. Jumping straight to the numbers can also reinforce the idea that talking about money means talking about accountancy (which you may well not be at all interested in) rather than how to make the most of the money in your life (which you almost certainly are interested in).

3. Look forward more than backward

Linked to the tendency to jump to isolated incidents and focus on the numbers is a tendency to leap to explanations. While it’s great to understand where a certain worldview comes from, it can also mislead us into thinking that identifying an original cause (even if we’re right!) is the same as instantly changing, or permanently excusing future behaviour. Focus on identifying a few unhelpful beliefs, so you can help each other learn to catch them, challenge them (is that what I want, or is that my father talking?) and, where necessary, take a different path next time.

The messages we send don’t always match the messages the other person receives, so always confirm your understanding before moving on, by repeating back to the other what you heard them say. This takes time, but remember there’s no rush, you don’t need to cover every point in one meeting.

Consider expert help

While these tips can make financial conversations easier, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be easy, and it can help to meet with a financial professional. Talking about money in the presence of a professional can help in several ways, from simply providing a fixed time and place, to learning from the experience of others who’ve dealt with similar issues, to having a dispassionate observer help you remember the things you’d most like to remember, but which it can be difficult to do so at the moment they most need remembering.

For a limited time, readers of The Knowledge can book a complimentary Financial Roadmap consultation with one of our Advisers, to discuss your objectives and a plan to help you meet them. Book now

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‘How we talk about money has transformed’

‘It’s amazing,’ said Alice*. ‘Honestly, in the, what is it… six months since our last meeting, how we talk about money has transformed. It’s so much better!’

‘It really is,’ added Jason.

‘I’m very happy to hear that,’ I said, thinking back to how they’d mentioned in our last meeting that they’d tried to get better at talking about money by going through their credit-card statements together each month, but it had backfired: seemingly every purchase making perfect sense to one of them, and coming across as insane to the other. ‘What in particular changed?’

‘It was being on alert to always look for the “need” we were each trying to meet with a particular purchase, rather than to fixating on the price, or how much we ended up using it,’ said Alice.

‘When we really thought about it, and zoomed out a little bit, it became very clear, very quickly, that actually we were both doing the same thing… we were both buying things thinking that were somehow a direct way to meet an abstract need – like to be a good friend, or partner, or interesting person, or whatever – which of course they, being “things”, could never satisfy.’

‘All of the expenditures that the other saw as crazy suddenly seemed, well, still crazy, but also understandable… and as soon as we understood each other better, all our discussions after that just became so much easier.’

*Names changed to protect client's privacy

"As soon as we understood each other better, all our discussions after that just became so much easier."

Alice and Jason

For illustrative purposes only

This client story is for illustrative purposes only. The use of Killik & Co’s services does not guarantee similar outcomes, as investment results will vary based on individual circumstances. The value of investments can go down as well as up, and you may not get back the amount originally invested. Tax rules and regulations are subject to change and may affect your investments.

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