June 30, 2026
9 min read
How to talk honestly about money with your partner
Finances are personal, leading many to keep secrets when it comes to money. Here’s how to open up, build trust, and navigate financial secrecy.
Credit: Becka Kottke
The Love & Money Series
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Key takeaways
- Financial secrecy is common. Many people feel fear, shame, or judgment when it comes to their finances, Wells Fargo specialists said.
- Be honest about your money story. If you struggle with talking about money or have made financial mistakes in your relationship, analyze how you’ve formed a relationship with money over time. Use that to ground your financial conversations.
- Make money check-ins fun and routine. You can shift your thinking about money to be more positive if you and your partner treat it as an opportunity to do a fun activity and get aligned with your aspirations.
- What makes for a financially healthy relationship? Transparency, regular check-ins, common goals, joint decisions, and autonomy, Wells Fargo specialists said.
Managing money as a couple relies on trust. But what happens when that trust is tested or even broken?
Building and maintaining financial intimacy is key for any long-term relationship that involves major decisions. Often, that requires talking about your personal finances, which can be particularly hard if you or your partner have a complicated relationship with money.
“Talking about money is really, really hard,” said Lorilee Mills, a family dynamics, education, and governance consultant with Wealth & Investment Management. “The bottom line is that the roadblock to financial conversations is rarely about numbers. It’s much more about the emotion that’s tied to those numbers — fears, expectations, and past experiences where we saw failures.”
When communication breaks down, financial infidelity can undermine a couple’s well-being, goals, and even their relationship. If you or your partner find it hard to talk about money matters, or if you’re navigating a break in trust around finances, here’s what you should consider.
Most of us keep financial secrets
Do you keep some of your financial life secret? If so, you’re not alone. The truth is that many find discussing money uncomfortable. Mills said some people are raised to keep their finances private.
“Often, I’d say Gen Xers and Baby Boomers really struggle with discussing finances openly because it may not have been normalized in their families to talk about money,” she said.
Financial secrecy can turn especially negative when it leads to decisions that erode the trust you and your partner have built. While every relationship is different, these mistakes can undermine your shared goals or financial strategies:
- Dishonesty, such as lying, withholding information, or keeping secrets about money, debt, or accounts
- Overspending, such as impulsive or uncontrolled spending beyond what you earn or taking on more debt than you’re able to pay back
- Carelessness, such as not updating critical account information like beneficiaries or making major financial decisions without a partner
Why we struggle to discuss money
If you’ve made one of these money mistakes or find the topic uneasy, try asking yourself, “What’s my money story?” Mills said.
No matter how you grew up and experienced money, you have a relationship with it. Your money story could be influenced by how your family earned — or didn’t earn — money, how spending or debt affected your life, or how a defining financial decision or moment had a long-term impact on you. Maybe your loved ones passed on a lack of financial literacy or honesty that’s affected your own decisions.
How has your story affected your personal finances? Whatever that story is, it may lead to feeling anxiety, embarrassment, judgment, or shame with money later in life. These negative emotions can fuel poor decision-making, Mills said.
“For example, if a parent lost a job while you were growing up, you might feel more anxious about money or fear not having enough,” she said. “Those financial worries and trauma can really get us in hot water.”
If your money story doesn’t align with how you’d like to experience money, don’t worry. “Here’s the good news: You can rewrite that story once you acknowledge it,” Mills said. “Ask yourself, ‘What do you want your money story to be?’ Then, go out and create a new one.”
“The roadblock to [financial] conversations is rarely about numbers. It’s about the emotion that’s tied to those numbers — fears, expectations, and past experiences where we saw failures.”
How to talk to your partner about money
Here are some steps you can take to reestablish your relationship with money and build financial intimacy with your partner.
Remember: Transparency, consistency, and accountability
Transparency can help you and your partner make financial decisions together and keep each other accountable. Honest communication is the foundation of a shared financial strategy, whether that’s saving for a home or making the retirement you’ve always dreamed of possible.
Consistency is also key. “If you know once a month you’re going to have a check-in, then it may not feel like you have to talk about it all the time,” Mills said.
If the foundation of trust and transparency is shaken, be honest and take accountability. Return to your money story if it’s relevant.
“No. 1, you have to be honest if there’s a break in trust,” Mills said. “Just like any other trust that needs to be rebuilt, you have to have full disclosure of what happened. Then there’s work to understand why it happened.”
One way of rebuilding trust after a mistake like overspending is agreeing to a spending guideline or disclosing purchases. For example, you and your partner could decide that any purchase over a certain price point requires approval from both of you. If one of you spends more than the guideline, then you might commit to regular check-ins or sharing account activity.
Make money fun (as much as possible)
If money feels like a scary, embarrassing, or negative topic, it may be time for some reprogramming, said Sylvia Guinan, a financial advisor with Wells Fargo Advisors. She suggests couples treat getting aligned on their finances like a date night. A fun activity or nice dinner may help to shift your thinking in a more optimistic direction.
“Is money being negative a story that you’re telling yourself?” she said. “We can change the way we view finances and take it from being a negative to it being a very positive.”
5 green flags when it comes to love and money
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- Not keeping secrets
Transparency with money can make decisions easier, keep you both accountable, and drive a shared financial strategy.
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- Open to regular money talks
Consistent check-ins can continue to make money easier to talk about. These moments are also great to measure — and celebrate — progress.
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- Sharing common goals
Discussing a shared goal or financial target will help you learn about each other and make sure you’re working in tandem, rather than going in separate directions.
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- Making joint decisions
Shared decisions help ensure both members of the relationship are heard, and their needs are addressed, whether it’s about buying a home, car, or another important choice.
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- Maintaining autonomy
You and your partner may both have financial roles. This may mean divvying up responsibilities fairly based on skills and interests, rather than evenly splitting them.
Having fun and being intentional with money talks might make the topic easier for you and your partner to navigate. Getting on the same page with your spouse can pay dividends. The earlier you can do this, the better, Guinan said, as you risk never addressing these important questions and not realizing your goals.
“Come prepared to talk about a vision, even if it’s five or 10 years out. Make sure you’re aligned with your partner,” she said. “A lot may come up. Ask questions like ‘What’s keeping you up at night? What’s scaring you about money? Where are we going? Are we reaching our goals?’”
Don’t be afraid to talk to a professional
Third parties can help with financial hurdles. For example, a financial advisor can help both you and your partner commit to regular check-ins, focus on specific challenges like overspending, and suggest potential solutions to help you reach your goals.
“A financial advisor can be a really powerful balance for a couple. That person can hear both sides and say, ‘Here’s a compromise,’” Mills said.
A psychiatrist, therapist, or other medical professional might be useful if you or your loved ones’ emotions around money are affecting your mental health. Guinan said she’s referred clients to these professionals before to help them with their family and financial issues.
“It’s worth working with somebody else who can really guide you because it’s something you want to get right,” she said. “You don’t want to keep having the same issue.”
FAQ
Help from a third-party like a financial advisor can be especially useful when you and your partner struggle with coming to an agreement or compromise on a financial decision. Outside guidance can cut through the emotions that may cloud our decision making.
Whether you and your partner decide to combine your finances is up to your preferences. However, the decision to combine your finances should not preclude combining your financial strategies through honest conversations about your money and goals.
Read more about joint versus individual accounts or combining finances before buying a home.
Yes, keeping some financial information private between you and your partner can be acceptable in a relationship. However, maintaining financial privacy is not the same thing as being dishonest. Be upfront with your partner about when and where you need privacy.
For example, you two may decide to have fun money accounts to use at your personal discretion. Or you may have sensitive family finances — such as a trust or business — that you’d like to keep private. It’s important to be transparent about information that is critical to you and your partner’s decision making.
Get professional financial advice
No matter what stage of life you and your partner are in, a Wells Fargo Advisors financial advisor can help you work toward your goals.
