More Canadian couples are fighting—and even considering divorce—over finances
According to a new survey, most of these disagreements are over day-to-day spending and lack of savings
We all know that times are tough. The cost of living in Toronto is so expensive that a recent survey found missed mortgage payments in the GTA to have recently quadrupled.
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Financial challenges are causing trouble within relationships too, according to a new survey published today by the non-profit credit counselling agency Money Mentors. The results revealed that nearly one in five Canadian respondents (17 per cent) said they had considered breaking up with or divorcing a partner over disagreements related to money. (Last year, this figure was at 11 per cent, and this year it’s up to 17 per cent.)
The agency’s Love and Money Benchmark Survey found that, in the past year, 25 per cent of respondents said financial factors had negatively affected their relationships or dating lives.
More than half of respondents in relationships admitted to fighting with their partners over money, marking another increase compared to last year. The most frequent causes of those disagreements are day-to-day spending and lack of savings.
“The rise in Canadians questioning their relationships because of money is a serious red flag,” Stacy Yanchuk Oleksy, the agency’s CEO, said in a statement accompanying the survey results. “Financial stress is no longer just about dollars and debt. It’s showing up as anxiety, lost sleep, and tension at home.”
This isn’t the news anyone wants to hear so close to Valentine’s Day, but relationships are on the line. Consider stopping at a financial adviser’s office on the way to your romantic dinner reservation.
Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
