Читать книгу Investing For Dummies - Eric Tyson - Страница 59

Over the years, you’ve probably learned how challenging it is just for you to navigate the investment maze and make sound investing decisions. When you have to consider someone else, dealing with these issues becomes doubly hard, given the typically different money personalities and emotions that come into play.

In most couples with whom I’ve worked as a financial counselor, usually one person takes primary responsibility for managing the household finances, including investments. As with most marital issues, the couples that do the best job with their investments are those who communicate well, plan ahead, and compromise.

Here are a couple of examples to illustrate my point. Martha and Alex scheduled meetings with each other every three to six months to discuss financial issues. With investments, Martha came prepared with a list of ideas, and Alex would listen and explain what he liked or disliked about each option. Alex would lean toward more aggressive, growth-oriented investments, whereas Martha preferred conservative, less volatile investments. Inevitably, they would compromise and develop a diversified portfolio that was moderately aggressive. Martha and Alex worked as a team, discussed options, compromised, and made decisions they were both comfortable with. Ideas that made one of them very uncomfortable were nixed.

Henry and Melissa didn’t do so well. The only times they managed to discuss investments were in heated arguments. Melissa often criticized what Henry was doing with their money. Henry got defensive and criticized Melissa for other issues. Much of their money lay dormant in a low-interest bank account, and they did little long-term planning and decision making. Melissa and Henry saw each other as adversaries, argued and criticized rather than discussed, and were plagued with inaction because they couldn’t compromise and reach agreements. They needed a motivation to change their behavior toward each other and some counseling (or a few advice guides for couples) to make progress with investing their money.

Aren’t your long-term financial health and marital harmony important? Don’t allow your problems to fester! Remember what the famous psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw says about problems and making changes: “You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge.” I couldn’t agree more with this assessment when it comes to money problems, including investing issues.

In my work as a financial counselor, one of the most valuable and difficult things I did for couples stuck in unproductive patterns of behavior was to help them get the issue out on the table. For these couples, the biggest step was making an appointment to discuss their financial management. Once they did, I could get them to explain their different points of view and then suggest compromises.