Would you consider it cheating if your romantic partner hid a debt, a credit card or other financial secret from you? While some may not consider financial cheating as harmful as a physical affair, about 1 in 4 Americans in relationships believe otherwise — and it seems keeping financial secrets can be corrosive to romantic partnerships.
A Bankrate survey reveals that 42 percent of U.S. adults who are married or living with a partner say they’ve kept a financial secret from their significant other. More than a quarter of these adults (28 percent) believe that keeping financial secrets from a romantic partner is as bad as physical cheating, with 7 percent saying it’s worse than a physical affair.
“It’s not always easy to talk about money, but it’s so important,” says Ted Rossman, Bankrate’s senior industry analyst. “Financial secrets can take on a life of their own and undermine the relationship. In years of studying this, we’ve often found that the breach of trust has a greater impact than the dollars and cents. If you have a secret spending habit or undisclosed debt or a credit card or bank account that your spouse doesn’t know about, I think it’s best to come clean right away.”
Key insights
• More than 4 in 10 U.S adults who are married or living with a partner said they’ve kept financial secrets from their significant other.
• Younger generations are more likely to keep financial secrets from lovers than are Gen Xers and baby boomers.
• The leading form of financial infidelity is spending more than a partner would be OK with (30 percent), followed by racking up debt without a partner’s knowledge (23 percent).
• Main reasons cited for keeping financial secrets are a need for financial privacy or a desire to control one’s own finances (37 percent), followed by a lack of desire to share or it having never come up (33 percent) and embarrassment about money-management habits (28 percent).
Financial infidelity
There are many ways financial matters can be kept hidden from a partner. Other common financial infidelities include maintaining a secret savings account (19 percent), a hidden credit card (18 percent) and an undisclosed checking account (17 percent).
A further 11 percent pleaded guilty to spending $500 or more without their partner’s knowledge; 7 percent said they’ve spent at least $1,000 unbeknownst to their partner.
Democrats (52 percent), Republicans (40 percent) and Independents (34 percent) all confess to having committed financial infidelity. There’s not much difference between genders, either, with women (43 percent) and men (41 percent) nearly tied for this lapse.
Generations offer a clearer divide, with younger people more likely to confess to at least one crime of financial infidelity.
Leading the generational pack is Generation Z at 67 percent. Millennials follow at 57 percent, with Generation X (34 percent) and baby boomers (33 percent) least likely to keep financial secrets from their partners.
