Getting married can be one of life’s most exciting seasons.

Many couples find themselves caught up in the details of wedding planning or the logistics of where to live following their special day. However, there’s an important topic that’s often avoided until after couples say, “I do.” Money. 

Discussing your finances isn’t always a comfortable conversation, but talking through your resources, debt, experiences and expectations can help create alignment between partners and reduce money-related conflict in the future.

Here are six financial topics you should discuss with your fiancée before getting married:

What financial resources will you bring into the marriage?
The resources you have and will earn in the near-term impact foundational decisions for your household, such as where you’ll live. Before getting married, it’s helpful to understand your partner's monthly income and accumulated savings. He or she might not know their net worth or projected earning potential, but the more detail you can gather about incoming cash in the first year, the better prepared you’ll be to address financial gaps after you tie the knot.

What financial liabilities do you have?
Taking on debt might have been necessary to get you or your partner to where you are today. Repaying existing debt, including student loans, vehicle loans or credit card debt, should be a priority in your household budget, so it’s crucial to understand your fiancée’s outstanding commitments. Additionally, it’s wise to talk about your feelings surrounding loans and credit cards. People have varying degrees of tolerance for debt, and knowing your partner’s openness or aversion to it can be a helpful datapoint to guide money-related discussions in the future.

What were your early experiences with money?
Money can be an emotional topic—often stemming from your own family history with it. Your upbringing can influence whether you approach finances with an abundance or scarcity mindset, and this can affect everything from what you’re willing to spend on a new car to how much of your paycheck you squirrel away for a rainy day. Ask your partner how money was handled in their house growing up. Did their parents talk openly about finances and teach basic savings principles? Did they help pay for their first car or college education? When did they get their first job, and what were some of the earliest lessons they learned about money?

How do you expect finances to be handled in your household?
There's no single ‘right’ way to handle money in a household. Whether you and your partner combine finances or keep separate accounts and credit cards is entirely up to you. However, it's important to talk through the pros, cons and expectations of your options—building a plan together that works for your relationship. Be sure to discuss who will be primarily responsible for managing financial matters, such as paying bills, filing taxes, etc. If you plan to keep your finances separate, talk through how you’ll divide household expenses and save for your future in a way that’s equitable. 

What’s important to you today?
How you use available financial resources underscores what’s important to you, and those priorities might be different from your partner’s. Talk about what you each prefer to spend money on, such as experiences or material things. What line items of your budget make your lifestyle comfortable and give you more time to enjoy what matters most? Do you hope to take a family vacation every year, or is annual travel not a reasonable expectation?

It can be helpful to talk honestly about whether you are naturally more of a spender or a saver and how that will impact your household cash flow. When discussing financial priorities, don’t forget to talk about how you’ll save for emergencies and protect against unexpected risks.

What’s important to you in the future?
Hopefully you and your partner discussed goals for the future before your wedding day. However, picturing your life together doesn’t always mean you’ve had a detailed discussion about how to fund that future. With decades of wedded bliss ahead of you, you will have numerous priorities over your lifetime that can conflict with one another when financial resources are limited.

• How will you prioritize buying a home, saving for your kids’ college and saving for retirement?
• Do you plan to start a business?
• Who will care for your children if something should happen to you and your partner?

Often, working toward the life you want tomorrow requires that you put things in place today to make them possible. 

Before you get any pre-wedding jitters, let me assure you that it’s completely normal not to have alignment with your partner on all of these topics. In fact, just having discussions is the important part because it helps you grow in self-awareness and understanding of your partner. The context of their current situation, familial background and financial priorities will foster more compassionate communication. And if you need an objective third-party, a financial advisor can help you navigate these topics—leveraging wisdom and solutions from their own experiences. The goal is to arrive at a plan that makes both you and your partner comfortable, so you can begin your life together on the same page.