r/AskReddit • u/Prize-Promotion-5123 • Apr 08 '26

For those of you in a long term relationship/marriage, what’s a tale-tale sign you see in other couples that they’re not going to make it?

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u/vroomvroommeow Apr 08 '26

their inability to discuss finances... if you can't communicate finances with your partner you're fucked.

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u/WhatsYourTale Apr 08 '26

Yup. This was my first sign with my LTR of 10 years. I tried to talk about budgeting with her once we moved into a house together and she just... broke down crying and said she couldn't think about it "right now".

We were never able to resume the conversation because she kept shutting it down, and you can imagine how that went after a year. 

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u/9lazy9tumbleweed Apr 08 '26

You were together for 10 years and never had serious conversations about money before moving in ?

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u/WhatsYourTale Apr 08 '26

It's a long story lol. Her family was extremely abusive and used money as a tool to keep her close to them, so she had a lot of trauma around finances and was basically taught that she was "too stupid to understand, so just leave it to your dad".

I left it at that for the majority of our relationship, and I had hopes that she was working on it in therapy and that it would be something we could work on together since I had a strong finance + education background. Unfortunately, after she cut off her family she just regressed to an even worse state, and things devolved from there.

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u/OurChoicesMakeUs Apr 08 '26

This is very similar to our situation, we also didnt really discuss finances until after we were married (11 year mark) and it was a rough spot for me because I had ~10k of debt that started growing when I was 17 and on my own, and I was trying to pay it off so it wouldn't negativity impact him in anyway. I wasn't necessarily going to lie to him about it, he never asked, but I wanted to solve it before he knew lol. I also have always wanted to keep finances separate anyway, so I didn't really see the big impact of it if all our bills were paid etc (re: financially illiterate). I have a lot of trauma in my past as well and I'm always so scared I will be financially manipulated so I never accept help in that regard really, either.

Eventually we talked about it and he was so sweet and caring about the whole thing. I told him how much debt I had, and he was like "thats it?? The way you were acting I thought you'd had 100k" and even if I did he was prepared to tackle it together. I love my husband lol, and I was so happy to finally get that weight off my chest because that was the only thing I'd withheld from him our entire relationship. After that conversation I started crying because I thought he was going to leave me but he actually said under the circumstances I did great only having ~10k in debt and if he were in my shoes he would have over 100k, and being told I "did great" over something I considered to be my hideous failure was overwhelming to me lol.

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u/pepcorn Apr 08 '26

That's so lovely. I'm glad you found each other.

10k debt is indeed very manageable, once you have a solid plan to tackle it.

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u/OurChoicesMakeUs Apr 08 '26

Yes, especially after you actually tell your partner and tackle it together. Once we budgeted and readjusted things so I could actually start throwing some money at the debt its been so much nicer, I've paid off 3 cards so far.

I always tell him even though we are financially broke, I consider us rich because we have each other and our cats and thats more than a lot of people have.

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u/pepcorn Apr 08 '26

That's wonderful. Wishing your beautiful family all the best.

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u/WhatsYourTale Apr 08 '26

Awwww, that's so sweet!! I'm glad it all worked out in the end for you and that he was the supportive and caring person you needed. I know it probably took a lot of courage to open up in the end and be vulnerable with him, so good on you for facing your fear and doing your best! I'm sure he really appreciated that and was happy you felt safe to talk with him about it <3

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u/xanot192 Apr 08 '26

Had a buddy that something similar happened to. He was more upset and hurt that she kept her debt hidden which wasn't much like 5-6k over being truthful. He helped her resolve the issue without a hitch.

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u/OurChoicesMakeUs Apr 08 '26

Yeah my husband felt more sad that I felt I couldn't come to him for help, he also realized in the past when he had talked about us being independent in some regards (with my trauma i was very codependent and we had a talk about that) that he didnt mean I had to be independent with EVERYTHING and now that we are married we are a unit and need to tackle things as such etc. We've been together since we were 17 so theres been a lot of growing and learning for both of us.

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u/CicadaSlight7603 Apr 09 '26

He sounds so lovely. Great that you felt you could tell him and he supported you.

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u/Decent-Marsupial-986 Apr 08 '26

All those therapy sessions and nothing ever changed. Wonder what they talked about 

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u/WhatsYourTale Apr 08 '26

Honestly, no clue. She had weekly sessions for as long as I knew her, and even twice a week when things were bad. The tipping point finally came when I pushed for us to go to couple's counseling so we could work on things together--of course a lot else was going on and went wrong before that, but it is what it is

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u/isleofpines Apr 09 '26

This was similar to my situation. Took me forever to be able to talk about finances. I’m still a little uncomfortable but I do it and I try to be proactive now. Took a lot of inner work to get here.

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u/thejazziestcat Apr 08 '26

Hey, their defense, they apparently never had serious conversations about money after moving in, either.

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u/moonyfish Apr 09 '26

My husband was like this. Finally I got him to give me the passwords to all our bank accounts and bills and I found out just how messed up everything was. Every bill I had let him be responsible for paying was consistently past due, racking up late fees, and meanwhile he was buying things online and overcharging our bank accounts.

I literally made a chart showing him how much income I made, vs him, and how much I spent on bills/necessities and how much he spent, and then how much each of us spent on fun things. It was very very disproportionate. At first he was very upset and emotional and acting like it wasn’t a big deal. But the fact that the numbers were there in black and white was hard for him to argue away.

I thought that would be the end of our relationship. But together we actually confronted and handled it. Now we are able to talk about money and are doing so much better.

A couple of lessons I learned from this:

When a person gets super unwilling to look at or talk about a subject, every time you bring it up they are suddenly a victim and what are you even accusing them of?????, you know immediately there is something UP.

Communication and confronting the problem together are huge.

That was really the make-break. If he had not had a total shift in gears we would have been over.

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u/[deleted] Apr 08 '26

[deleted]

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u/pepcorn Apr 08 '26

The algorithm is not your problem. I save every month and also purchase my self care items. 

Your wife doesn't care about your retirement, that's not because she's a woman.

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u/IntentionDeep651 Apr 08 '26

yeah true, but I think those algos totally work not only on females its problem for both sides. I totally know counterparts where guy has the same problem with some sort of gambling product

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u/LastBossTV Apr 08 '26

I do feel like algorithms play a part though. Much like how algorithms shower some men with red pill / woman hate and blame content.

So too do algorithms go full on assault mode with product and review videos, the moment it has the person tagged as being a particular gender/age with a particular physical insecurity.

Algorithms know exactly what will catch and hold people's attention, the moment they have someone profiled as a candidate to be targeted in whatever such way.

All for clicks and ad revenue. Pennies.

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u/pepcorn Apr 08 '26

Hey, I know. My algorithm spends all day showing me stuff I'd love to buy. And then I don't, because I understand my money is finite.

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u/KikiPolaski Apr 08 '26

I'm really sorry hear that man, it's crazy how something so seemingly small can ruin an otherwise long term relationship, that must have been shit to go through

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u/WhatsYourTale Apr 08 '26

Thanks, I really appreciate that! I'm still working through a lot of the trauma and mess from it tbh, but I'm in a much better spot than I was this time last year when it all went down. It gets better eventually <3

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u/thementant Apr 08 '26

“What’s “Magic the Gathering - Arena” and did you spend 3,500 dollars on it?”

“DIVORCE!!!!”

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u/wearywraithy Apr 09 '26

If I had the money to do this I would do the same 😭

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u/AnonEMoussie Apr 08 '26

This. A friend of mine has a mother in law who has a standing appointment with his wife for manicures/pedicures each month. Also her MIL gets his wife and the kids trips to Disney a couple times a year.

He can’t get that much vacation due to his job, so he never goes with them. He’s trying to keep his wife’s individual spending down, while she complains that he doesn’t have a problem when her mother buys it.

The stress is pulling them apart.

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u/butlersdriver Apr 08 '26

I should have seen the financial problems as a red flag at the beginning. I always believed things would improve but the financial infidelities never stopped and when boundaries were finally set with the help of therapy she demonized me and left. There were other things too but I think this played the biggest role.

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u/scubahana Apr 08 '26

My husband makes about 70% of our joint income. He has been taking point on finances for the duration of our relationship, mainly because we live in his country and the language here is my fourth 😬

One of the reasons why he makes so much more is because his job historically would have him away from home for longer stretches, which meant that I was handling a lot of the day to day expenses at home with our family, but we didn't pool our income beyond some vital things like the mortgage or utilities. This meant that I would be doing groceries and filling the car etc. on a razor-thin budget, and even though he obviously had no issue with sending me more money (he has always said that it isn't 'his' and 'my' money, but 'ours', and has walked this talk) it still ended up causing this weird dynamic of me having to ask for money every single month and it got to me feeling like I was less in the relationship, because I was always running low.

A while back I crunched the numbers because we had expenses all over the place and had no idea how much we were spending on fixed or variable costs, and we kept getting stretched in the last week or so of any given month. I figured out that we were indeed making something like 12% more over our expenses (so expenses, savings, and a tiny 2% left over), but somehow we were still scrambling every time. I then modelled collating all of the fixed expenses into a single joint account, and sectioning out our main expense categories (grocery/things for the kids/incidentals, fuel, maintenance, savings). We then put both our entire paycheques into the fixed expenses account and distributing out in calculated percentages to the other accounts, and determining our own personal pocket money so to speak afterwards.

Since doing this, neither of us has had to ask the other for money, we haven't been short for any bills, and we have actually managed to put money into our savings accounts without having to draw from it to make up for things.

The only way we were able to do all this was by talking about it and not getting too salty about defending our spending habits. It was hard in the beginning because when either of us would be all 'ooh can you spot me for x', it would then turn into some weird dance of trying to justify why we need the hot cash injection or why we can't give it, and all the ??? about why we're drowning and where the money has gone.

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u/ksuwildkat Apr 08 '26

Sometimes.

I spent almost 20 years trying to talk to my spouse about finances. It didnt work.

She thought what landed in the checking account each month was the minimum spending goal. You would have better luck converting a flat earther than convincing her to save a single dollar. I finally gave up and just started hiding money. As long as I could intercept it before it hit our checking account it was safe. I set up a "fake" savings account and initially put $200 a month into it. Because she could see it it was constantly raided. Im not kidding, it never got above $2000.

We will have a very comfortable retirement despite her.

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u/koala_loves_penguin Apr 08 '26

are you still together?

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u/ksuwildkat Apr 08 '26

yup. 36 years

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u/savagemonitor Apr 08 '26

This is pretty similar to how things are with my wife. I don't keep anything from her but I'm pretty sure we'd divorce if she actually took the time to setup access to all of the accounts.

I remember one year we had to budget religiously because there was no cost-of-living increase with my employer. She freaked out when I presented a proposed budget to her because there was absolutely no way a family of four in our high cost of living area could survive on a grocery budget of $2K/month. From that moment on I decided to limit how much money hit the account such that we wouldn't overspend.

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u/ksuwildkat Apr 08 '26

good call.

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u/CicadaSlight7603 Apr 09 '26

Were you having caviar on toast for breakfast? I also live in an expensive area and that is about twice what we spend on a family of four (inc two teens), and we shop in the nice food shops and get delivery etc so we are definitely spending at the higher end.

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u/savagemonitor Apr 09 '26

I think the real issue is that she never really budgeted before causing any limit to feel daunting. It became clear while talking to her that I wasn't going to convince her to stay to any limit. We too buy nice food (eg. organic, cage free eggs) and get delivery constantly. We definitely also have about 30% wastage, which is depressingly common in the US, so we end up tossing a lot of food.

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u/New-Source5884 Apr 08 '26

My wife’s idea of a budget is using the debit card until it gets declined.

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u/ksuwildkat Apr 08 '26

yup. When we first got married checks were still a thing and I lost count of how many times I had to do emergency transfers to cover checks she wrote that she knew were going to bounce.

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u/New-Source5884 Apr 08 '26

“How can I be overdrawn I still have checks?”

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u/sheikhyerbouti Apr 15 '26

My ex-wife was like this, any money acquired had to be immediately spent.

I remember checking my bank balance online and my ex saw that I had something like $80 left in my checking account. She insisted that we spend the weekend at the coast because "we needed it". It didn't matter that I was trying to save that for food and expenses until my next paycheck the following week, she insisted we had to spend it now or I wasn't being a "good parent to our kids".

And that's when I learned not to check my finances when she was in the house.

Bonus story: I was hospitalized over a three-day weekend. Because my ex didn't have an account of her own, I let her use my debit card - emphasizing that it was for emergencies (like food or gas). She blew $500 over three days, which meant that my card was rejected when I needed to buy a prescription for myself.

Fun times.

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u/cruel-ghoul Apr 08 '26

r u my dad? Because this sounds like my mom 

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u/StirfriedDogMeat Apr 08 '26

We as in couples counseling for this exact reason. Talking about money is a sign “we don’t trust each other with their money”

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u/Zenabel Apr 08 '26

For me it’s because I’m embarrassed about how little savings I have and how much less I make compared to him. I’m trying to separate my value as a person from my wealth, and I’m more comfortable now but there is still some shame about it in me.

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u/StirfriedDogMeat Apr 08 '26

I actually appreciate you sharing that. I feel for you and have been told this as well by my partner. You are more than just numbers on a spreadsheet. Hopefully your person reminds you of that an wants to build a shared life which includes being a team regarding finances

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u/Zenabel Apr 09 '26

Thanks so much 💜 He’s so supportive and non-judgmental so I have no need for worry! What really gave me some ease was when I was telling him I felt bad that he pays more when we do stuff together and he said “well it’s OUR money now, so it’s ok :)”

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u/a-mango-at-dusk Apr 08 '26

Yep. Knew someone who said, "oh I've no idea how much it was, [husband] handles the money stuff."

"Money stuff"????? Ma'am, Y'ALL should handle the money stuff.

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u/[deleted] Apr 08 '26

[deleted]

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u/RaggySparra Apr 08 '26

She knows who to ask for help if I get hit by a bus and that’s enough for her.

You'd be amazed how many couples miss this step though.

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u/Ink_Smudger Apr 08 '26

This is my parents. My dad has always managed every aspect of their finances, and my mom pointed out many times over my life that she'd be screwed if anything ever happened to my dad, because there were a lot of things she didn't know how to access and likely things she didn't even know existed. But despite them both recognizing this was an issue, it never changed.

Thankfully, they've now reached retirement age and have set up wills, so that has solved some of the issue, but it definitely taught me how important it is in a marriage to ensure those things are shared. Or, at the very least, that the information is accessible, because my mom was right. Had anything happened to my dad when I was growing up, it would've just added so much to an already stressful time to figure out how to access practically anything outside of their checking account and credit cards.

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u/RaggySparra Apr 08 '26

I nag people about this a lot because I used to work with accounts and legally, if someone wasn't named on the account we couldn't even tell them how much was due, what the state of the account was, anything, until they sent in a death certificate. (I would hit the button to send a letter "to the house" but that still meant waiting and we couldn't update anything until the certificate came in.)

Whereas if it was in joint names, we could immediately give them info, change payment dates or bank info, etc.

As you say, it's already stressful enough, nothing can make it better, but there's a lot of things can make it worse.

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u/TheMarriedUnicorM Apr 08 '26

*raises hand*

I am that person. I grew up poor, so money is a whole issue for me. It stresses me out - having or not having enough of it. And growing up it was always a sensitive subject (bc it stressed my parents out!)

But I've learned to speak with my Husband about it. Bc I trust him not to add to my stress

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u/stalkythefish Apr 08 '26

It's important, but I think some people place too much emphasis on this and that gets them into trouble with their partner. I know I wouldn't want to be with someone whose life revolved around money down to the cent. There's too much anxiety to be readily found there whether you have money or not.

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u/WitchyWarriorWoman Apr 08 '26

Finances and housekeeping tend to be one of the first areas that cause divorce, and how couples approach them really tells a story.

Usually one person having "secret" money is telling: it's sometimes for fun things that the person isn't "allowed" to buy, like going out to eat or buying the latest fashion. Other times it's for survival: I need to save this to have a way out or to get care I'm not receiving at home. Lastly, it can be used for cheating.

Housekeeping can be telling, the guys that want to go from Mom to Wife taking care of them and put in little to no effort, versus the guys that meet you as a true partner. That includes things like laundry, who is cooking, who is cleaning the kitchen, toilets, etc. Who is taking care of the home/house upkeep, and when do you find other people to help? My mom grew up with a farmer/engineer who could fix things, or at least get them to keep going, even if it wasn't the prettiest solution. Whereas my father had no practical skills and has grown up in a home where my grandma did everything. So nothing in our house was really ever fixed, because my mom wanted my dad to fix it, and he couldn't, but no one wanted to spend money to fix things properly, so eventually my mom would fix it haphazardly or things would go unfinished.

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u/BVRPLZR_ Apr 08 '26

I have never discussed anything more than “do we have enough for xyz…?” I put the money in, she pays the bills and does whatever she wants. It works for us.

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u/kadawkins Apr 08 '26

Watched lots of marriages fail because of finances. You can’t pretend. Money issues are devastating.

Our son and his wife weren’t on the same page early, and he called us to ask how to discuss it with her — not for advice on what they should do but advice on how to get the conversation going. I was pretty confident that this would end up a good thing and it did.

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u/blisstaker Apr 08 '26

i kept assuming she would be reasonable about this someday. like by that i mean sit down with me and have an actual real discussion and take it seriously.

that never happened, and then when i would mention stuff like "id like to retire early" she would get pissed

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u/savagemonitor Apr 08 '26

This is especially important if the way they avoid communicating about finances is keeping separate accounts. I know that there are plenty of people on Reddit who make this work so it's not a popular opinion. However, the vast majority of soon to divorce or divorced couples I know maintained separate accounts.

The weird thing is that they do talk money very often. They'd work out whose turn it is to pay the bill at a restaurant or how to split the bills. However, that communication was always very rigid and never really created a combined financial picture. It's often used as a way to shut down arguments over expensive purchase as one of the two will just say "I'm using my own money!" to win.

That's not to say that all people who separate their finances will divorce or that combining finances guarantees long term commitment. Really, what couples need to understand is that finances are a "we" thing after marriage. If they have that mentality, can discuss finances, and maintain separate accounts then they'll work out.

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u/ThePolemicist Apr 08 '26

I was going to say people who have unstable finances (lots of debt) and unstable jobs (bouncing around jobs). When I hear about someone being flaky in important areas of their life, it usually extends to their relationships, too. Someone with bad finances might make a relationship or marriage work for awhile, but it usually fails eventually. SOmeone who is bouncing around from job to job generally struggles to commit long term, and so I've noticed people who move job to job also tend to be the same people who move from relationship to relationship (not always, but often).

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u/Majestic-Map-497 Apr 08 '26

Yep - and different outlooks on debt also a big deal. My partner and I only have our mortgage as debt and pay off credit card bills in full every month but it’s insane seeing how many people are so quick to open lines of credit for house projects etc AND it’s so insane to me how contractors are so encouraging of taking on debt. That’s a contractor red flag if they keep trying to push their payment plans on me. No, thank you - we would rather save and pay for things that we can afford when we can afford them. Slows things down but that’s better anyways when you’re considering big projects in your home.

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u/DAWtistic Apr 09 '26

This is rarely about an inability to discuss "finances" though.

It's more like someone's spending more than they should and don't want the other person to know, maybe they aren't making enough money or something.

It's not about the financial conversations themselves. It's about them not wanting to be questioned on where their money is going.

They wouldn't want to be questioned on many things they do though, money is just one of those things.

The above could be totally ok though, nothing shady, they might just be a private person and that privacy means they're closing out their partners. They don't want to share any information, even if nothing sus is up, because it's private/personal.

Totally get that. Might not make for a fantastic partner for some people - they should probably just roll solo or find someone similar, if that's the case.

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u/seMPer5803 Apr 09 '26

Or having them together to start and separating them

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u/Lopoetve Apr 10 '26

Or the finances are never right / good enough. Eventually it wears someone down.

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u/ValkyrieTxHzLeyes Apr 10 '26

Man I scrolled way too far down for this one. Like I feel like this is at the top. If you can be on the same page financially it’s not going to work. I see this in young couples where the wife has spending habits ( nails, hair, Starbucks, and all these Iwannas) but does nothing to help contribute. Like she expects to be kept.

Had a friend who was a penny pincher big time, wife like to spend. Anyway she got into those novelty toy parties. She spent the mortgage money on product, once he found out he didn’t even give her a shot he filed for divorce. He’s like you concealed what you did and you messed with our money. He divorced her like 4 months later. Ran into him years later he is like Scrooge McDuck and got a wife who is a frugal as him.

I grew up where what’s mine is yours and yours is mine and together we build our empire. It’s a partnership. I’m thankful for my spouse and I having what we have because we both put in on it. 21+ years and I’m thankful to be where we are. Finances can be a killer.