Sure, you share the same taste in music, books, and dinky Chinese food joints, but when it comes to money you and your spouse couldn’t be more different. She likes to save every penny, foregoing even little luxuries like the occasional bouquet of flowers in favor of a heftier IRA contribution. He treats her to candlelit dinners at pricey bistros and figures a couple should enjoy life not keep track of every dollar. The situation is common according to a study released earlier this year, which concludes that spenders and savers are often attracted to one another. And this differing approach to money can often cause a rift in a marriage — or it can potentially make it stronger. Here’s why researchers theorize tightwads and spendthrifts can’t resist each other.

Laws of Attraction

Business and psychology researchers Scott I. Rick, Deborah A. Small and Eli J. Finkel wanted to take a closer look at how the interplay of financial values affect marriages. Usually, people look for complimentary characteristics in a spouse — so savers would wed tightwads and spenders other spendthrifts. Yet their survey results revealed that among married couples just the opposite often happened: “We found that people tend to marry spouses with opposing emotional reactions toward spending.”

Fiscal Flaws

But why would someone marry his or her fiscal nemesis? “One possibility is that tightwads and spendthrifts actively seek their opposites perhaps as a conscious attempt to find someone who can help them overcome their normal emotional reactions toward spending,” researchers say. In other words, just because you’re a saver doesn’t mean you don’t resent your tightwad ways. Ditto for spendthrifts who are wary of their dismal banking accounts. So individuals look for that special someone who compliments their flaws. Maybe, your wife secretly does want that occasional dozen roses!

Fighting Over Finances

But differing approaches to money management inevitably lead to marital conflicts. Once the initial attraction of marrying a spendthrift wears off, the resentment sets in. Researchers are unsure whether individuals who enter into a marriage with a fiscal opposite are simply unhappy because of financial clashes or whether they might have been dissatisfied no matter what the characteristics of the spouse. “We cannot rule out the possibility that people who select mates with opposing emotional reactions toward spending are naturally more prone to be unhappy in marriage.”

Hope For Opposites

But there is a silver lining. Perhaps marrying your fiscal foe might be just what you need to balance a tendency toward saving too much — or reigning in a desire to spend more. Says the study: “Even if spendthrift and tighwad spouses can ‘repair’ each other’s emotional reactions toward spending, the repairs themselves may not be painless.” The researchers predict that these spouses may haggle the most over finances. Yet through these arguments the spouses may come to a better, more balanced understanding and “ultimately reach satisfying spending decisions and thus have the greatest marital well-being.”

The lesson for couples: clashes over different spending habits can potentially lead to marital discord or wedded bliss based on a couple’s ability to adapt — and merge each individual’s fiscal style into a more equitable approach. And isn’t marriage about finding common ground anyway?