You absolutely should fight about money in your family while you still can — how to clash over cash the right way

“A disagreement about spending may actually be a disagreement about security, freedom, or enjoyment,” Brian Page, Founder of Modern Husband, told Moneywise. “Money decisions commonly express values rather than being purely mathematical.”

The fight beneath the fight

Finances are one of those tricky topics that can quickly escalate from a small discomfort in your relationship into something much larger.

The study found that, despite participants coming from a wide range of financial circumstances, their money fights tended to circle the same few issues:

• Imbalance, when one person felt they were contributing more
• Irresponsibility, when one person seemed less invested in financial decisions or their consequences
• Competing ideals, when people simply had different beliefs about how money should be spent, saved or managed

And plenty of couples are still keeping parts of their financial lives to themselves: 45% of Americans in committed relationships say they don’t know everything about their partner’s finances. For some, the omissions are relatively minor, but 9% say they’re hiding what they consider major sources of debt, spending or income, according to Bankrate.

“Avoidance doesn’t eliminate financial conflict,” Page said. “It usually postpones it while allowing resentment, anxiety, or financial problems to grow.”

That can leave couples operating under different assumptions about spending, saving or who is responsible for what until something finally forces the conversation.

“At that point, couples aren’t simply discussing the financial decision in front of them,” he said. “They’re often dealing with months or years of accumulated frustration.”

How to fight fair

Fighting in a relationship is inevitable. Even the happiest couples don’t agree on every bill. The goal isn’t to eliminate conflict altogether, but to keep the disagreement from becoming a referendum on the other person.

“Fighting fair” means having problem-solving discussions, not ‘attack fests’ on each other,” Yvette Currie, a licensed marriage and family therapist in San Diego, told Moneywise. “It means coming at the issue as a team, no matter how different the spending philosophies, savings philosophies, the bankruptcies, or the missteps, not coming at each other.”

Currie says a fair fight often starts before anyone is actually fighting. She recommends setting the terms while both people are calm: pick a time, stick to one issue and decide how long the conversation should last.