We make decisions on a daily basis according to our personal life values. Our values are the key to our priorities and will greatly affect our lives and our marriage. Identifying those values can help you and your spouse bring your most important beliefs to the table for discussion. Many of our differences are actually rooted in our life values. For example, one of us might highly value being out of debt while the other sees certain types of debt as acceptable. What’s the difference? The difference is often found in our financial values.

Here’s a key: When we discover such differences it is actually an opportunity to find “us,” our value, rather than just his or her value. Finding us is crucial to growth and maturity as a couple. Finding our deeply rooted beliefs and how we will walk them out is a portion of the glue that holds us together. My wife and I struggled with the values of saving money versus spending money early on in our marriage. While that looks like polar opposites at first, it actually forced us to find our value. As we looked closer at the differences, what we discovered was that I was saving for a future need and she was giving to others for a present need. Combining those two values and keeping them in balance has been life changing to our relationship and to our finances.

Take some time as a couple to look at your “opposing” values and you might just find a new normal that wisely incorporates the best of both for “us.”