Stressed over money? There’s a lot of evidence suggesting your relationship is being affected, the most recent statistic coming from the American Psychological Association, which just released data from a survey of 3,068 men and women showing that 31 percent of couples say money is a major source of conflict in their relationship.
It might cheer you up to know that as painful as money problems may be, your significant other would probably rather lose the money than you. At least that’s what two January online surveys commissioned by MassMutual suggest: Sixty-eight percent of the 2,616 American adults polled said they’d rather experience an unexpected financial challenge than go through a romantic breakup.
Even though money problems can strain a relationship, sometimes money problems can strengthen a romantic partnership or family bond. Of course, nobody’s suggesting that you start racking up credit card debt and fall behind on your bills to test this concept. But it may give you solace to know that financial strife has made some relationships stronger, as these people will tell you.
Rigoberto Alvarado: He asked his girlfriend to completely support him.
Many might consider this a deal-breaker: being asked to pay a girlfriend’s or boyfriend’s living expenses indefinitely.
When Alvarado, 28, got in over his head last year, he turned to his girlfriend for help. A resident of Calgary, Alberta, in Canada, Alvarado had poured all of his savings, $15,000, into starting his business, myweddingbids.com, which unites wedding parties and vendors. Before he knew it, he was completely engulfed by expenses and had to confess to his girlfriend, a restaurant manager and waitress, that his bank account was drained.
“She had to pay my mortgage, phone bills, car loan, insurance and some of the living expenses,” Alvarado says. “She did this for almost four months.”
But he says, while many would have run: “Without hesitation, she was able to carry both of us through the tough times until the business started picking up. I think we realized the hardship of being short on money together and how supportive we are of each other. I am almost thankful that we went through that time, as I really do think we feel closer now than we did before.”
Daphne Mallory: She stood in food lines with her preteen daughter.
Many parents dream of having a better relationship with their teenager. Mallory, 38, feels fortunate to get along very well with her 15-year-old daughter, which she credits, in part, to what they’ve been through in the past. Life used to be very different for Mallory, a single mom who now owns a family business consultancy in Twin Falls, Idaho. It was difficult raising a young child on her own, while going to school and working part time from her suburban Atlanta home doing data entry.
For a stretch, she and her daughter had a weekly tradition of standing in line at the Salvation Army for food. Mallory had about three years where her elementary school-aged child couldn’t make requests for toys or fancy shoes — Mallory just wanted a car that worked.
“One of our low points was when we were driving our car, which didn’t have a back window, and it started raining. A real downpour,” Mallory says.
Today, life is much better, something Mallory often brings up with her daughter. “I don’t want her to ever forget where she came from,” says Mallory, who believes their struggles brought them closer. “Most moms anticipate a strained relationship with their teens. Mine is the opposite,” Mallory says.
Shawn Fludd: He lost everything opening a nightclub his wife was opposed to.
Fludd’s dream went like this: You open your own nightclub; customers flock to your establishment; the money pours in; and you’re the toast of the town. But it wasn’t a vision shared by his wife. Her instincts turned out to be correct.
As he looks back on it now, he can easily see his mistakes.
“I didn’t do enough research on the market before opening,” says Fludd, who had recently relocated with his wife from the District of Columbia to Salt Lake City. “I cut costs on advertising and attracted the wrong clientele. We brought in a celebrity who wasn’t connected to the Utah market.”
He tapped the family savings to pay for everything and had to borrow money before the grand opening, which was nothing close to grand.
“It was a complete bust,” Fludd says. It went so badly, in fact, there was no second night. Ever. Fludd didn’t have the money to keep the club open.
In total, Fludd lost $90,000.
It’s easy to imagine some spouses saying, “I told you so” while Googling the words, “divorce attorney.” But Fludd says his wife stuck by his side, and that prayer helped them as they spent the next two years sinking deeper and deeper into dept.
“We borrowed money from family and maxed out credit cards,” Fludd says. He also found himself turning to payday loans, which quickly mushroomed into a bigger problem. “Our first payday loan was for $1,500 and we were not able to pay back that amount within the allotted time so we had to carry it over, and we even went as far as getting a title loan on our car to pay off the $1,500 payday loan,” he says. Fludd finally extracted the family from that mess seven months later.
But through it all, Fludd says he and his wife’s relationship has improved. For one thing, Fludd learned to better communicate with her.
“I began to not only include her in my ideas but I also listened and took into consideration her thoughts on my future ideas,” Fludd says. “I decided that if I ever started another business, I wanted her to be my business partner.”
Which is exactly what happened. He and his wife paid off their debts, and they and their two toddlers have since relocated to Los Angeles. Last year, they opened Bear & Boo Children’s Boutique, an online clothing store. It remains to be seen whether their business will become a household name, but Fludd says they’re shipping merchandise to houses around the world. In any case, they’ve been open far longer than their last business, they aren’t deep in debt and their marriage is stronger than ever. That seems like as happy an ending as anyone could want.
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How Financial Devastation Can Help a Relationship originally appeared on usnews.com
