Financially Ever After: The Couples' Guide to Managing Money

FINANCIALLY EVER AFTER is every couple's manual for managing both the real dollars and the real emotions of personal finance that coarse through every relationship after the "I do's" are done--and even before they're ever uttered. The book taps into those first crucial years together' from before matrimony (and the financial questions you must ask one another before walking down the aisle) and into the early years of marriage.

At some point in every relationship couples run up against financial quandaries that neither imagined while dating. Some will be relatively small' such as worrying over a mate's bad credit history; some will be huge; such as a spouse taking financial control in a marriage of supposed equals. Too often with money' couples face two choices: fight and risk making the situation worse' or keep quiet and risk making the situation worse. FINANCIALLY EVER AFTER offers a third option: family financial fluency -- the insight' knowledge and vocabulary couples need to communicate effectively about their money and their feelings about it. Opdyke offers up dozens of real-life scenarios between couples' with actual scripts and suggestions of how to broach touchy subjects with your significant other. He covers every aspect of couple finance' including budgeting' the joint vs. individual account issue' dividing up family financial chores' confronting debt' making major purchases' mortgages' employment' children' and even engagement rings. FINANCIALLY EVER AFTER lays the groundwork for successfully building a healthy and thriving financial life together.