Eleven. Money

Everybody needs money!
That’s why they call it money!

David Mamet, Heist

When you’re young, money isn’t that big of a deal, ‘cause you’re spending someone else’s. When you get a job, it’s still fun and games because now you have even more to play with. But at some stage you grow up, like with house payments or medical bills. All this is kind of daunting for the teenager cum adult, but then you add another person to the mix, their priorities and their way of dealing with money, and things can get really tense. Money turns into a very big deal and can either develop into a solid basis for growth or a constant argument. In their book Divorce, Professors Alison Clarke-Stewart and Cornelia Brentano say that for first-time marriages, money is the most frequent source of conflict.