After four years of dating, Katerina’s live-in boyfriend proposed to her in Pismo Beach, during a road trip along the California coast last January. Ecstatic, the couple quickly began planning a wedding in Malibu, Calif., for March 2023. Then, some things didn’t quite add up about her partner’s finances.
“He was super avoidant around money so it became an avoided topic in the relationship,” Katerina, who lives in San Diego, Calif., and asked to use her middle name for privacy reasons.
“He said it’s an uncomfortable topic for him and made it seem like he did or didn’t have money, depending on the situation.”
With their wedding date looming, Katerina began feeling anxious about the steady stream of online purchases being delivered to their home and all the sports gear piling up in the garage. She wondered if combining finances was really a smart idea.
“I didn’t know everything he bought because he would hide it, but a lot of the time it would be around hobbies: biking, weightlifting/gym, rock climbing, diving, golfing,” she said.
“But then I’d notice the hobbies never took place so it turned into useless junk.”
She confronted her fiancé and learned that his savings were nil and that he spent nearly $2,000 a month on these random purchases.
“It kind of felt like I was cheated on,” said Katerina. A few months back, she made the difficult decision to call off the wedding and break up with her longtime partner. He promised to go to therapy and change his ways, but she was dubious.
“[It felt] like an unrepairable betrayal to have someone hiding that from you,” she said.
Gen Zers and millennials are placing an increasing emphasis on the financial health of their romantic relationships. They’re talking candidly about credit scores and savings early in relationship, getting prenuptial agreements and calling things off over money issues.
“Financial infidelity is a serious issue, because it devalues trust within the relationship and it points to communication issues,” Esther Lee, deputy editor of wedding website the Knot, told The Post.
The Knot’s Financial Study 2022 found that 43% of those surveyed were most likely to consider it a deal breaker if their partner was secretive about finances or dishonest about money being spent.
Research has also found that more couples are signing prenups regardless of their financial status — they’re not just for Gisele and Tom Brady. A new report from the Harris Poll found that 15% of U.S. adults surveyed signed a prenup, which is up from just 3% in 2010. It also found that 35% of unmarried people say they’re likely to sign a prenup in the future.
New York-based lawyer Andrea Vacca of Vacca Family Law Group said that she has seen the increasing popularity of prenups in her own practice.
“More and more people are getting them — [even] younger people, people who don’t yet have a lot of assets,” she told The Post. “People just don’t want their parents divorce.”
This aligns with other data. A new survey from buy-now, pay-later company Affirm found that millennials see the ability to manage money as the most attractive trait in a partner. Meanwhile, a survey from TD Bank found that 97% of millennials report discussing finances with their partner at least once per month, compared to 88% across all age groups. And, 27% of all respondents said they discussed finances with a potential romantic partner before going on a first date.
Experts note that Gen Z and millennials have lived through continuous stages of financial uncertainty including the financial crisis of 2008, the pandemic, increasing student debts and the current inflation surge. As such, they are are more concerned about money matters.
Katerina said that she’s learned her lesson after her broken engagement and will talk more about money with future partners.
“Finances need to be on the table and transparent before serious commitment,” she said. “I could’ve ruined my life marrying him.”