More Than 2 in 5 Americans Believe Financial Secrets Are at Least as Bad as Cheating, Bankrate Survey Says

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More Than 2 in 5 Americans Believe Financial Secrets Are at Least as Bad as Cheating, Bankrate Survey Says

By: Ana Staples/Bankrate.com (TNS)

Angry married couple arguing about their finances

Money is an uncomfortable topic for many, yet it’s an important ongoing conversation to have in a relationship. Financial secrets undermine trust. And for many, it may even feel like betrayal.

More than two in five U.S. adults (43%) believe keeping financial secrets is at least as bad as physical infidelity. At the same time, almost half of Americans (45%) in committed relationships (defined in this survey as married, living together or in a civil partnership) admit they don’t know everything about their spouse’s or partner’s finances.

For Rhonda Noordyk, a certified divorce financial analyst and CEO of The Women’s Financial Wellness Center, these findings aren’t surprising.

“Most of the time people are not sitting around singing Kumbaya around the finances,” she says.

While it may be common to not discuss every credit card transaction, bigger secrets can impact relationships—and livelihoods. According to the survey, almost one in 10 of Americans in committed relationships (9%) are keeping major sources of debt, expenses or income secret from their partner, according to the survey. In her practice, Noordyk has seen people taking out home equity lines in secret, card statements revealing actual affairs and spouses using secrecy with money as a lever of power and control.

Learn what financial secrets people tend to keep—and why they do it.