Love asks for openness. Money demands clarity. Most people are taught—explicitly or implicitly—that those two forces are in conflict. That if you talk about money too early, too honestly, or too structurally, you risk “ruining” the emotional connection. That protecting yourself financially means withholding trust. That intimacy requires surrender. None...

Marriage is not a financial cheat code. That’s important to say plainly, because too much personal-finance content swings between two extremes: either romanticizing marriage as an automatic wealth multiplier or dismissing it entirely as irrelevant to financial outcomes. Neither is true. Under the tax code, marriage can be a powerful accelerator; but...