If you have been making purchases exceeding your monthly budget, you may be guilty of financially cheating on your partner.

We tell you more about it.

Shopping for designer bags, clothes and shoes was a norm with 24-year-old Shruti Sen until she tied the knot with Rahul. An accountant by profession, he was used to planning his finances saving for any eventuality. The spender-saver combination did not bother them at first. However, once they got married all of that changed. Shruti says, "Rahul is a planner by nature, and both of us have a different approach to finances. I do save money, but I have not really planned finances all my life. It's something that I had to do once we got married. There have been times, I have not disclosed the actual amount of a dress or a pair of shoes because I knew Rahul would flip. I do feel guilty about it, but I want to be able to splurge once in a while."

Financial indiscretions can wreck havoc on your relationship

Psychiatrist, Anjali Chhabria says this situation could easily be sorted if both would communicate better with each other. She adds, "If you or your partner commits a financial indiscretion that sets your mutual savings or budget goals back, it can create real trust problems and wreak havoc on your relationship. And though it isn't uncommon for individuals in a marriage to have conflicting money management styles and priorities, it's important for your overall financial well-being and relationship to have good lines of communication about money."

Clinical psychologist Seema Hingorrany says, "Often one person is a saver and the other is a free spender. This can lead to a great deal of stress in any marriage when the couple is already fairly tight on finances, or when one spouse is far more frugal than the other. Being transparent about your earnings and not doing things clandestinely works in such situations."

How to cope with financial infidilety?

Finance is a big part of a relation according to Chhabria, who adds, "Financial infidelity leads to loss of intimacy and trust in a relationship. Having lost both these the whole groundwork on which a marriage is based can be lost causing conflicts, separation and divorce. The best way to deal with this would be to sit down and calmly confront and talk about the problem rather than blame the spouse directly."

A guide to surviving financial infidilety

Have a mature conversation: Once you and your spouse have agreed to have a mature conversation, you may ask them the reason they feel the need to lie about their expenses?

Get to the bottom of the problem? Sometimes the partner may feel too restricted and is afraid of being denied or sometimes it may be impulsiveness or he/she may also feel their spouse may not understand what may be important to him/her.

Discuss monthly expenses: You and your spouse should sit down and discuss your monthly expenses and open a joint account. In the joint account, both of you could have direct deposits for the monthly bills. Make sure you both save up, and keep a little share in your personal accounts which both of you can use for personal expenses.

Share information and communicate: The most important part is that all this information is shared and communicated. No one should feel deprived and thus money allocated for personal expenses should also be equal. In case there is a big amount one wants to spend he/she should make sure it doesn't affect the monthly expenditures which are inevitable.

Planning in advance can be helpful. However, if there is a pattern of such infidelity then one may have to take serious steps to resolve the conflict. Having separate accounts along with a joint may be helpful. Financial infidelity can lead to impediments in a relationship hence it must be resolved and not overlooked.

Source : TOI