Collaboration on finances can help repair relationships for military couples

Lisa Lock
scientific editor

Andrew Zinin
lead editor

Teamwork really does make the dream work when it comes to finances and relationship satisfaction for military families, according to from the University of Georgia published in the Journal of Family and Economic Issues.
While financial anxiety in service member couples can negatively affect the pair, researchers from the UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences find that quelling that anxiety together can change things for the better.
"Relationships and finances—these two go hand in hand. When you ask people, "What's the biggest stressor in your life?" Chances are they're going to say money, relationships or both," said Catherine Walker O'Neal, co-author of the study and an assistant professor in Human Development and Family Science.
"They're both challenging, but that intersection, especially for military families, can be even more of a challenge."
Money troubles strain military couple happiness
There are a number of stressors that are and relate to finances.
Military families relocate often, and moving isn't cheap. They're sometimes placed in expensive cities with minimal notice, leaving them scrambling to find a good deal on a home. Constant moves also restrict job access and mobility for the other partner.
The researchers relied on data from more than 1,300 service member couples and found financial anxiety directly affected how they felt about their relationships.
"As financial stressors heighten and couples feel their financial situation worsen, they start to feel more nervous and stressed," said Clairee Peterson, researcher in Human Development and Family Science and corresponding author of the study. "That generally makes their relationship shift for the worse.
"Finances and relationships are one of those things where when it's going well, it's going so well. But when it starts to go poorly, it can become challenging for couples very quickly."
Service members' relationships were also typically more strained when one partner oversaw the finances alone and partners did not agree about their spending. These relational elements of financial stress caused conflict with the couples and bled into their perceptions of their overall relationship.
Collaboration is key to repair impact of financial stress
Having another person to share those tough choices and stressors with can make all the difference.
The researchers found that the couples who budgeted and made financial decisions together reported better interactions with their partners and an overall better relationship.
As discussing finances can be taboo even for the most loving couple, it's even more important for military families to work through that. That begins with communication, the researchers said.
"It's hard to talk about finances. It's hard to resolve financial conflicts, but it's so important. Most couples have struggled with that at some point," Peterson said.
"But those couples who were in alignment on their spending plan tended to be better off and their relationships were not as negatively impacted compared to other couples that were also facing financial anxiety. This indicates that coming together to agree on how to manage finances can help avoid the bleed from financial anxiety to poor relationship outcomes."
Once that door is open, both the couple's relationship and the family as a whole could stand to benefit in the long term.
"When finances feel overwhelming and/or the relationship feels overwhelming, it's so important to have shared financial decision-making or an agreement on spending," O'Neal said. "You can't solve all of the big problems, but you can focus on making sure that your partner and yourself are both engaged in financial decisions, that you both have a voice, and that you're hearing each other and accounting for what the other one values."
More information: Clairee Peterson et al, Service Members' Couple Finances: An Examination of Financial anxiety, Financial Decision-Making, and Agreement on Spending and Relationship Outcomes, Journal of Family and Economic Issues (2025).
Provided by University of Georgia