Money can't buy you love but your partner probably wants you to make at least $30,000 a year

Love can be complicated, but who thought it’d come with a salary range, too?

When in a relationship, people expect their partners to earn at least $30,000 annually, according to a new survey by Western & Southern Financial Group, a life insurance company. That’s well below last year’s median of $37,500.

But salary was a deal breaker only for one particular generation: baby boomers, a majority of whom said “too low a salary” could make or break a relationship. Younger generations had other deal breakers for their partners like debt and irresponsible spending. 

Almost 30% of the survey’s respondents said that salary was a subject they wished they had discussed earlier in their relationships and considered it to be a root cause for arguments.

That wasn’t the only taboo subject. Among baby boomers, 67% said they did not discuss life insurance with their spouses and 64% across all generations never discussed debt. 

The survey was based on responses from 1,008 married couples, from the baby boomer generation (born between 1955 and 1964) to Gen Z (born between 1997 and 2004). 

The survey also revealed the top financial deal breakers during the dating phase of relationships. Nearly 32% of the respondents said their partner having personal loans was a deal breaker; it was also the top reason for both men and women. 

Meanwhile, 29% of the respondents viewed credit card debt as another potential reason to call it quits. Poor financial literacy and irresponsible spending habits were some of the other turn offs. 

Among top sources of arguments over financial matters, spending habits topped the list with 37% respondents. Sharing financial resources by creating joint checking accounts was often the cause.

For millennials specifically, the most common topic to spar over was a partner’s spending behavior.

How men and women approach financial matters also differs. For instance, women preferred keeping their money separate rather than in joint accounts, which often led to disagreements.