your partner’s economic status and spending habits. This will help out greatly when it comes time to figure out how bills and future expenses, both planned and unplanned, will be handled.
One person may be more financially savvy or disciplined and you may decide as a couple to have the person become the ‘financial controller’. There is no right or wrong way to join finances, it really depends on what you two as a couple thinks will work best. You may decide to join 100 of percent your finances into one account, keep things separate or you may fall somewhere in between.
This really boils down to what you agree will work best for you. I think joining together financially can be one of the more difficult aspects of marriage for millennials than for previous generations. Although it is difficult to live comfortably without two incomes in today’s society, most millennials are getting married much later in life. The longer you are single, the harder it can be to break yourself from the single frame of mind when it comes to money matters so that makes this conversation extremely important to have.
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5. You don’t know what their idea of a good spouse is
A really big aspect of being in a relationship is being able to express yourself and be understood. What we don’t often realize is that the way we receive and express love can be different from our partner. The five love languages is a really popular idea and a book about this concept.
I think it is really helpful to figure this out and have a conversation with your partner about it so that you gain a better understanding of how they love. This will allow you to receive it and reciprocate it in a way that they will understand. If not, you leave the door open for a lot of miscommunication and angst.
Expectations work the same way within a relationship. Your partner may be under the impression that as long as they act as the provider by paying bills, then anything else, parenting, household chores, and even faithfulness, is not important or optional when this is not your expectation of them. You may be expecting that all household work, bills, etc., are shared between the both of you and extra tasks be decided over as they occur.
Some of these things may sound like a no-brainer but it’s amazing what you can assume about a person. Just because you get along and are in love doesn’t mean you hold the same beliefs and ideas on all subjects.
If we intend to repair the institution of marriage and avoid divorce court, we need to enter marriage with a firm grip on reality and the determination to put in work by being aware of expectations, being realistic and communicating.
Brittany Wright, B.A in Creative writing and English – University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, is an aspiring writer and creator of the She’s Wright blog. This black, millennial mom loves everything beauty, motherhood, and marriage related!