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iQuestions Faculty, Ron Blue 
 
 
Question: 
 
What do you do when your spouse does not agree with you financial 
goals? 
 
Answer: 
 
It’s estimated that 50% of Americans who get married will end up 
divorced, and it’s estimated—in fact, it’s even measured—that over 
50% of the reasons given for divorces is finances.  
 
It’s been my experience that finances and financial problems are really 
only symptomatic of poor communication. Husbands and wives rarely 
sit down and set financial goals together—and there’s good reason for 
that. They don’t have a process of talking with one another. They 
come at the financial world with a difference in background, training, 
personalities—and when you put two people with all of those 
differences into one checkbook, you’re bound to have conflict.  
 
One of the ways to avoid the conflict is for a husband and wife to sit 
down and say, “What goals do we want to set?” and, “Let’s begin to 
set those goals.” 
 
My wife and I, many years ago, took a planning weekend and we went 
into separate bedrooms in the condominium where we were staying. 
Both of us spent a couple of hours writing down all of our goals, 
financial goals and other goals. Then we came back together and spent 
Saturday afternoon comparing our list. What we found is that in about 
80% of the cases, we were in agreement on the goals. We had been 
talking about these goals, but we had never defined them. The 20% 
were really the problem to us, because that’s where we had conflict.  
 
 
 
I like what my mentor, Dr. Howard Hendricks, says: “God did not give 
you a spouse to frustrate you, but to complete you.” And what I have 
found over time is that when Judy and I sit down and go through goal-
setting together, we eliminate a lot of the potential conflict—we make 
some really good decisions that are our decisions, rather than my 
decisions or her decisions. 
 
Many times, husbands and wives don’t want to talk about goals, 
because they know there is conflict. But the best way to overcome 
conflict is to have a communication process.  
 
I would encourage you, as a husband or a wife, to sit down with your 
spouse and say, “What do we want to accomplish over the next year, 
five years, ten years, or fifteen years?” And once you do that, you’ll 
find yourselves on the same path, as opposed to conflicting paths. 
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