Stronger: Finances (Learning from Failure), Part 3 of 3

PAUSE, film review.  For those stubborn like me, who say I lease for this tax advantage and I borrow and have never missed a payment and still want more...Please be honest to yourself here...at least for those married  Has your marriage or life gotten better or worse as your houses got larger and you accrued more stuff?  Has your marriage gotten better or worse as your vehicles have become nicer?  Has your marriage gotten better or worse as you work more hours?  I don’t want your short-term answer either.  I want your long-term answer.  If you just moved to a new, huge home, you have another honeymoon phase…for awhile.  Sooner or later, we want more. Some of the worst dads I know are traveling CEO’s.  Oh, they certainly provide financially.  Big time in most cases.  But they are poverty poor in the relationship department.  Many are so successful on the business or fame front, but are colossal failures on the relationship front.  I’ll never forget the college kid I hired as a summer intern.  His dad was a CEO at a major healthcare company.  They attended church each week.  He and his brother and sister attended excellent schools.  They had the best.  They grew up in a huge house out in the country with a bunch of land.  He also told me that his dad was gone all the time.  He really didn’t have a dad growing up.  He later stated that his dad’s job was his family – not them.   So some of you are saying, “Hey, at least he grew up rich!”.    Yes, he did grow up monetarily rich.  He also grew up relationship poor.  What dream exactly are we chasing in the United States?  Is our dream to really keep up with the Kardashians and have broken relationship after broken relationship? Do we really want things at the cost of our most important relationships?  At the end of life, they don’t talk about all your things at a funeral.  They may fight about them.  They certainly don’t list them all and hand them out like a corporate annual report at the funeral.  They reflect on how good of human being the person was (spouse, parent, citizen, servant).   If money guaranteed happiness, Hollywood would be the mecca for the best marriages and families.  If that was true, nobody would divorce there, right?!May we find that truth.  Let’s go! Questions for Quality Couple Time/Date Night... Do you fight about money?  Do you work off of a budget of 10/10/80 (10% give, 10% save, 80% spend)?  Can your family survive on one income?  What would happen if your family income was cut in half?