Financial matters are a major cause of money fights in couples and divorces. It will be more important than ever to work with your partner to keep your marriage together if you are going through a bankruptcy.
You will need to stay in communication with each other about your financial situation. In the case of some couples, one person handles most of the financial matters. Even if one person handles the finances, it is still important to have regular meetings usually once a week to make sure you are on the same plan with spending, saving and other goals.
If you find yourself in the situation of needing to file bankruptcy it is important that you both know what the situation is and what will end up happening with your financial lives. Sometimes one party of a couple may be hiding excessive spending from the other until they are in so deep that they have no choice than to file for bankruptcy. This is known as financial infidelity and can have similar circumstances to a marriage as sexual infidelity. If the other party doesn’t feel that they can trust the other party with concern to spending it can put a strain on a marriage.
If you find yourself in this situation, it is important to get marriage counseling and work to get on the same page with concern to spending. At your weekly finance meetings, go over what bills and expenses need to be paid that week or the upcoming month and how much income will be coming in.
Take steps to identify what kind of spending that brought on the bankruptcy so it can be hindered so you don’t find yourself in this situation again. It doesn’t help to pay off debt or file bankruptcy it you have a good chance of getting into that situation again.
If you have difficulties controlling your spending, one way to control is using an envelope system. Each payday, take out certain amounts of cash from certain categories such as groceries, dining out, clothing, entertainment and more. If you have made a monthly budget, take out the amount of cash that you have allocated for those categories. Then the expenses for each of the categories comes out of the correct envelope. Once the envelope is empty, then you are done spending in that category until the money is replenished on the next payday or first of the month.
Marriage can be hard enough, but situations get more strained when going through bankruptcy. It will take working together with your partner to have your marriage survive a bankruptcy.