The Millionaire Next Door

Honesty is the Best Marriage Policy

What if you are contemplating marrige and you have outstanding debts?  Honesty is the best policy here.  You should advise your future spouse about your financial situation and you’d be smart to discuss further your proposed way of eliminating this debt.  I am reminded of this fact by Doug who shared his life changing moment:


For me it was meeting my [future] wife. . .she told me that “she would not marry anyone who had any debt.”  It took me 14 months to clean up the debt [$45,000] . . . . She introduced me to Dave Ramsey and The Millionaire Next Door.  Both had a profound impact on me.


Today the couple is happily married and at age 33 they are more than half way to millionaire status.   


Nearly 300,000 weddings will take place during the month of June.  In The Millionaire Mind I discuss the factors that contribute to a successful marriage.   A major component is honesty.  Ninety-eight percent of the more than 1,300 millionaire respondents nationwide rated this factor as significant.  The typical millionaire profiled in the book was married nearly 30 years. But  honesty should begin long before the wedding bells toll. 


Lack of honesty can put an abrupt halt to a flourishing courtship.  As an example, consider the case of Henry and Sally.  After dating for several years, they decided to get married.  But not long before the wedding Henry received a letter from one of Sally’s lenders.  His name had been given as a credit reference on several of her loan applications.  Later he discovered that she had violated her loan agreements.  She had already defaulted on a $20,000 consumer loan and was about to do so on $15,000 more; these did not include her outstanding student loans. 


When Henry  confronted Sally about her credit situation,  she had a proposed solution.   It called for Henry, who was a high income producer, to “help” pay her outstanding debts!  She believed that her credit problems would not be a major concern to Henry once he said “I do.”  She badly misjudged Henry.  He broke off the engagement.  And it was just not because of the credit issues and the betrayal of trust.  Henry determined that Sally was totally irresponsible concerning money.


Note that most millionaires are married, 92% in The Millionaire Mind.  And nearly all of them, both men and women, reported that their mates are honest-98%, responsible-95%, loving-95%, capable-95% and supportive-94%.  Most of theses millionaires predicted that their future mates possessed these qualities before proposing marriage.

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