"If you really loved me you'd be more careful with your spending!" "Yeah, well if you really loved me, you wouldn't be such a tightwad!"

Nothing can kill a marriage quicker than money arguments. Let's face it, the love of your life may not share your financial habits. However, this does not have to split you up. Your challenge is to sit down together, realistically identify your financial differences, map out a game plan and stick to it.

What role should money have in a marriage? The true romantic in all of us will say none, but then history is against us. Although "arranged marriages" are thankfully gone, think about the man/woman who sets off fire alarms at first glance that you still wouldn't marry. Why not? Camouflaged behind what you tell others about dress, job, lifestyle, social circle, and who your parents and friends "like" is money. And why get married at all in an age when it's possible to simply live together without undue social disapproval? Because marriage places the relationship firmly within the protective bounds of contract law.

A popular option for today's couples is a pre-nuptual agreement, which details each spouse's separate property before the marriage and assures that, in the event of divorce, each spouse will retain that separate property. Sometimes this is the best solution when one spouse is clearly richer than the other, because it protects the poorer spouse's pride as much as the richer one's money.