Real World Research

Mo' Money? Mo' Problems

The real-life saga of Frank and Jamie McCourts has come to some kind of conclusion after two years of bitter wrangling over millions of dollars and the Los Angeles Dodgers. While the pair didn't make millions while owning the Dodgers, they were able to afford a major league franchised based on the millions they had already made in business and real estate. Now, all of that is somewhat over...at least the divorce part is. Whether Frank gets to keep the Dodgers will be decided in, where else (given their divorce struggles) in court.Jason Carroll, researcher at BYU would say to this, "See? I told you so!"
Carroll, the lead researcher in a recent study published in the Journal of Couple and Relationship Therapy (who knew?), discovered that couples who have a great deal of money and who value money are more likely to have unstable marriages. Really? To most of us, that would seem to be opposite...but then, most of us don't have a lot of cash.
Carroll and his cohorts studied 1734 couples to determine the effect on a relationship when both partners valued money highly, and while those couples tended to have more money than most other couples, the problems magnified with the size of the bank account. Carroll attributes this to the fact that money equals power, and those who have power are loathe to share it and expect all others to yield to their will. Hence, the conflict between two power- and money-hungry people can get ugly as it most certainly did over the last two years of haggling over the McCourts' millions. Carroll also opines that such couples face eroding communications, have poor conflict resolution skills and display a low responsiveness to each other (perhaps that's why they use lawyers so much!)
If, however, money is NOT of great importance to a couple, or even if only one person doesn't really care, the odds are 10-15% better for a more stable relationship. Carroll also noted that instability can be found in all extremes, including poverty. You think? Somehow, I think I could have predicted that.
As for those who say that money isn't important? They can say that because they HAVE it already. If I'm not eating regularly, mo' money means mo' food, and I'm all about eating.
So, while money isn't everything, I wouldn't mind seeing if I could have a stable relationship AND money at the same time...but it's not that important. (easy for me to say since I will never have THAT kind of money, anyway).