Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, a show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge, skills,

insight, and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now while building a plan

for financial freedom in 10 years or less. My name is Joshua Sheets. I'm your host. Today on the

podcast, I would like to introduce a new series I'm going to begin called Money in Mating. And in this series, I want to take on some of the significant questions and challenges that people face with regard to money in their mating and marriage relationships.

In this first episode in the series, I want to discuss with you,

is this even a valid perspective? Should we care about these things? Now, to ask the question

is, in essence, to answer it, given that it's relatively obvious. Just from personal experience, I think most of us would recognize that money

plays a significant role in our relationships. Money plays a significant role in our initial

attractability, the ability that we have to attract someone into a relationship with us. Money plays a role at every

stage of relationship development. Frequently, people will say, well, I've been dating someone for a

long time, but I'm not married because I can't afford to get married. Or other things,

after marriage, right? Why do I not have children? Well, because I can't afford it. Money plays a

significant role in divorce. I think I've heard that, if my memory is right, that in many

money fights are often, I think, the second most common cause of divorce. And I've heard that

almost half, something like 40% of divorcing couples will often

cite some kind of financial disagreement as a major cause of the breakup of their relationship.

Married people who go through divorce often find themselves financially ruined and often need

many, many years to recover, if ever. We also know that the difference

between the wealth of married couples versus non-married couples and the wealth of married persons

versus unmarried persons is very different with wealthy people, excuse me, with married people,

basically accumulating virtually all the wealth

of society over time. So there are many questions and issues that we can explore in the context

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