Financial Intimacy Blog

During a radio interview, the host asked me why I didn’t think it was a good idea to get engaged at Christmas. “Christmas is for exchanging gifts” I said. “An engagement ring is definitely not a gift. It’s a precursor to a contract, a marriage contract.” Not exactly the same category as perfume ,a cashmere sweater or Kate Spade handbag.

“Are you trying to take the romance out of marriage?” he asked combatively. I reassured him that I’m a big fan of romance in context, but the decision to marry should not be based on romance. Let’s face it – romance isn’t much use when it comes to dealing with the day-to-day realities of joining one’s life with another person.

Here’s how the dictionary defines romantic – dreamy, quixotic, impractical. Tending toward make believe, illusion. Characterized by or arising from idealistic or impractical attitudes and expectations.

Contrast that with words that mean intimacy – familiarity, closeness, understanding, confidence, relationship, transparency.

Intimacy gives us a better shot at not being disappointed with the person we marry. Our eyes are open wider going into marriage. We’re still going to learn a lot about this person  before we married, but at least we’ll be realistic about the fact that there will be surprises. The real person was always there. We just didn’t see it because it was obscured by romance.

So to that ‘romantic’ radio talk show host, I’m trying to strengthen marriage by encouraging financial intimacy, not financial romance. There’s no such thing – financial romance exists only in bridal magazines which devote very little space to the subject of money. Their focus is your wedding, not your marriage.

You probably noticed that a perfect wedding doesn’t foretell a happy marriage, especially if marriage begins with mountains of wedding debt you’re still paying off when the first baby arrives. Nothing romantic about that, is there?