In Your Debt: Money red flags can make or break a couple

And remember, even if your partner has money habits you don’t agree with, don’t treat them like a rebellious teenager. If you scold them, they’re going to become secretive about their spending.

“Everything should be able to be worked through if there is mutual respect and love for one another,” says Tiffany Welka, a financial adviser in Livonia, Michigan. “If you have those things in your relationship, realistically, hard things are going to come up, and you have to learn to overcome them together.”

DON’T IGNORE WARNING SIGNS

When the red flags are flapping in hurricane-force winds, it doesn’t matter how much you love someone. Here are some signs you may be in a potentially unhealthy situation:

— YOUR PARTNER WON’T TALK ABOUT MONEY: “One of the biggest things that I’ve found is that if someone is unwilling to discuss their finances with you, that’s a really big red flag,” Welka says. “It means that they’re hiding a part of their life and they want to keep it separate from the relationship.”

— YOUR PARTNER HAS AN OVERLY POSITIVE ATTITUDE: Positivity can be a bad thing when it’s a defense mechanism used to avoid dealing with serious issues like overdue bills. “The reality is that we all have good and bad things happen to us in our financial life,” says Ed Coambs, a financial therapist near Charlotte, North Carolina. In Coambs’ view, when you can reflect on your money choices and acknowledge both what you’re proud of and what you’re ashamed of, it’s a sign of financial maturity.