The Uncomfortable Thing You Need to Talk About Before You Get Married

“We all must work together for the client, connecting and collaborating to help solve their problems.” – Jeff Motske

Robert Reiss: Let's roll back to 1999. Talk about your vision for Trilogy.

Jeff Motske: I created the model that we use at Trilogy Financial, which is the combination of tax, financial and estate planning. In my previous life I was in the retirement planning space, but I knew there was more out there. I was working with my clients, and I recognized they had needs that we didn't service. So, I built a little network to better serve those needs, specifically tax and estate planning. Then I realized that a more comprehensive solution needed to be created, and the only way to realize this vision was to start my own firm…and that was the very beginning of Trilogy Financial. The way I look at it, tax, estate and financial planning may be in different lanes, but they're all on the same highway heading toward our clients' final destination. We all must work together for the client, connecting and collaborating to help solve their problems.

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No matter how much you and your partner have in common, investing will uncover differences. Maybe one likes playing it safe while the other relishes risk-taking. One wants to invest every available penny, while the other yearns to live it up now. Or perhaps you disagree on when to retire.

Differences are inevitable, says Kathleen Burns Kingsbury, founder of KBK Wealth Connection in Waitsfield, Vermont. “That’s the nature of a partnership.”

But some couples don’t discover their differences until they fester into conflicts. You can avoid discord by bringing financial topics into the open, finding common ground and compromising.

“Learning how to talk about and work through conflict will make you stronger partners,” says Kingsbury, author of “Breaking Money Silence: How to Shatter Money Taboos, Talk More Openly About Finances, and Live a Richer Life.”

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