The unbearable heaviness of financial conversations

I have answered reader, viewer, and listener questions about money for a long time. I have seen them change over time.

- Monika Halan

There used to be entry-level questions about what to do with 50,000 in the bank, what stocks and funds to buy, portfolio questions around asset allocation, strategy questions a whole range of questions around the deployment of money. But as I complete a year of my audio-only podcast, some deeper questions are beginning to come-hesitatingly, with most asking for anonymity, but more steadily. These are around the family and finances, inheritances and the difficulty of money conversations between spouses, and the absolute myth of a big happy large Indian family. We might party together during festivals, but will also see each other in court the next day over the "Lajpat Nagar flat that papaji gave to bhaiyya and not me".

The stress in families over finances begins to emerge at various life stages. It might begin post-marriage when different value systems, spending habits and lifestyle-related needs begin to present themselves as the couple moves from its first flush to fixing the leaking flush. I got a question from a listener who could not manage his wife's lifestyle-related needs. She, it seems, wanted a life that he could simply not afford and was unwilling to cut back on spending to stay within the singleincome home. This was a train headed for disaster that would end in either debt or divorce, possibly both.