Money in Relationships: Playing Finance as a Team

Marriage and Money: Playing on the Same Team

Imagine ‘money-in-the-relationship’ as a soccer match. Each partner is a player, each with unique skills and strengths, working together toward a common goal. In this game, that goal isn’t just scoring points—it’s building a healthy, thriving financial life together. Just as in soccer, teamwork, trust, and strategy are essential for success.

Teamwork in Marriage
Soccer is a team sport: no single player can win a match alone. The same is true for marriage. When it comes to finances, couples need to collaborate, communicate, and coordinate their efforts. Sharing financial responsibilities and decisions ensures that both partners are moving in the same direction, like a well-practiced team passing the ball toward the goal.

Individual Skills
Every soccer player has a role. Some excel at defense, others at attack, some have the vision to orchestrate plays, while others are lightning-fast on the wings. Similarly, each partner in a marriage brings unique financial skills and perspectives. One may be excellent at budgeting, the other at investing. Recognizing and valuing these strengths allows the team to operate at its best.

Transparency and Trust
Hiding the ball in soccer is a surefire way to lose the game. In marriage, concealing financial information—whether it’s debts, spending habits, investments, windfalls (unexpected gains) or income—undermines trust and teamwork. Transparency ensures both partners know the full picture, enabling informed decisions and a stronger partnership.

Power Balance
No one likes a teammate who hogs the ball. In marriage, if one partner dominates financial decisions, it can create imbalance, resentment, and tension. A fair distribution of power—where both voices are heard and respected—keeps the team functioning smoothly.

Starting Point for Team Finances

Financial teamwork truly begins at marriage. Don’t start playing the soccer game off the field—the playing field for couples is marriage. Wait until you’re both on the field before combining finances. If you are not married yet – keep your bank accounts and house ownership separate. Combining finances before you are officially married is like playing the game off the field—you’ll never perform as well. Use your team, play on the field, and remember: that field, for couples, is marriage.

Rules of Engagement

Just as soccer has rules, so does financial teamwork.

• In soccer parlance, a ‘win’ for one partner, is a ‘win’ for the relationship. There’s no such thing as an individual win in a team sport like marriage. Don’t go off and do things on your own. Stay on the playing field. Remember that you’re a team. Individual winfalls go into the joint account.
• Decisions should be made together, with shared power, consent, transparency, and respect for each partner’s input.
• Consent – If it’s not OK for one of you, then it is not OK for both of you. Choose not to be OK with something your partner is not OK with. If they don’t like it, it can’t happen. Don’t go forward on anything financial without your partner’s consent. That’s consent in practice in the relationship. 
• Nonconsentual financial activity—whatever that is—is ‘against the rules’.
• Equality is essential—especially in sharing power—so that both partners have an equal say in financial matters, equal authority over bank accounts, and equal knowledge of all financial transactions and investments. Your partner can veto anything—and then you will not go ahead with it. That’s just tough!
• Transparency needs to be at the same level. You both get the bank statements directly from the bank. One partner does not as gatekeep to the information—because that’s not power sharing.
• No one should make significant financial moves alone. Consent is essential.
• Joint bank accounts are a structure that shows a sign of transparency and equality in power. Joint bank accounts help prevent misunderstandings and keep the partnership balanced. Bank statements to each of you offer transparency. 
• As in soccer—a team sport—progress can only happen together with unanimous agreement. Team-plays are team-work. There are no individual plays.

Leveraging Strengths
Great soccer teams capitalize on individual talents to achieve collective success. Similarly, couples can share financial responsibilities in ways that let each partner contribute their strengths. When each person plays to their best abilities, the team—not the individual—wins.

Final Whistle: Working Toward Victory Together
Managing money in marriage is much like playing soccer: it requires cooperation, strategy, and a shared vision. By working together, respecting each other’s strengths, and keeping the lines of communication open, couples can score big—building a secure and fulfilling financial future together.

A Parachute

If you are insecure in the relationship you might be tempted to have a parachute—a big stash in case either of you fail the relationship. Lawyers would advise this; however, relationally, the separateness shows your partner a sign—a sign of separateness, lack of trust in each other, a sign of the temporariness of the relationship, that you are planning to leave and that separateness has already started. What seems wise legally and financially is unwise relationally. Your choice in this will show your partner a sign of what you privilege—the money or the relationship.

Financial Advantage

You can have great financial success as a marriage team—more than you can playing finance as individuals in a marriage relationship. You can prosper ten times as much together than you can alone. These financial rules are relationship rules. Finance in the marriage is a relationship skill.

Further Reading

Adams, A. E., Beeble, M. L., & Gregory, K. A. (2015). Evidence of the construct validity of the Scale of Economic Abuse. Violence Against Women, 21(5), 546–567. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801215576939

Baek, E., & Yilmaz, M. (2024). Financial secrecy and relationship satisfaction: Examining the mediating role of trust and communication. Financial Planning Review, 7(1), e1246. https://doi.org/10.1002/cfp2.1246

Garbinsky, E. N., Gladstone, J. J., Nikolova, H., & Olson, J. G. (2020). Financial infidelity: Examining financial secrecy in close relationships. Journal of Consumer Research, 46(6), 1144–1163. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucz045

Johnson, K., Mesaros, A., Greeson, M. R., & Selwyn, S. (2022). The health impact of economic abuse: A systematic review. BMC Public Health, 22(1), 1571. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-13840-3

Mellar, R., Sharp-Jeffs, N., & Wager, N. (2024). Economic abuse in intimate relationships: Patterns of control and consequences. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 39(3–4), NP1793–NP1816. https://doi.org/10.1177/08862605211051202

Olson, J. G., Finkel, E. J., Rick, S. I., & Small, D. A. (2023). Joint bank accounts improve relationship satisfaction. Journal of Consumer Research, 50(4), 553–575. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucad007

Van der Cruijsen, C., & van der Schors, A. (2024). Hide and seek with finances: Financial secrecy, snooping, and relationship outcomes. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/53wrp

Related Literature

Addo, F. R., & Sassler, S. (2010). Financial arrangements and relationship quality in cohabiting unions. Journal of Marriage and Family, 72(2), 408–424. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2010.00707.x

Cheng, Y., & Li, J. (2023). Resource theory of marital power revisited: The influence of families of origin. Frontiers in Sociology, 8, 112345. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2023.112345

Karney, B. R., Bradbury, T. N., Fincham, F. D., & Sullivan, K. T. (2020). Relationship satisfaction: Development, determinants, and intervention. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 21(2), 101–143. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100620942973

Leonhardt, N. D., Willoughby, B. J., & Busby, D. M. (2019). Shared power and relationship outcomes: A longitudinal study. Journal of Family Psychology, 33(2), 179–190. https://doi.org/10.1037/fam0000489

National Endowment for Financial Education. (2021). Financial infidelity: Survey findings. NEFE. https://www.nefe.org/

Pahl, J. (1995). His money, her money: Recent research on financial organization in marriage. Journal of Economic Psychology, 16(3), 361–376. https://doi.org/10.1016/0167-4870(95)00015-G

Van Raaij, W. F., Antonides, G., & de Groot, I. (2020). Household money management and relationship problems. Journal of Economic Psychology, 81, 102318. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2020.102318

Vogler, C. (1994). Money in the household: Some underlying issues of power. Sociology, 28(3), 687–702. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038594028003009

Körner, R., Schütz, A., & Back, M. D. (2021). The bright and dark sides of relationship power: Links to relationship satisfaction. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 38(3), 748–772. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407520976033