The sweet smiling cat that you married turned into the most raucous tigress?

Well, it should not come as such a surprise for you, especially if you rushed to get married like an idiot.

Increasing levels of debt and bankruptcies are a frequent cause for divorces and conflict within marriage and a new research at Brigham Young University linked this to a couple's materialism, not to the actual material situation.

The researchers discovered that highly materialistic spouses are about 40 % more likely than non materialistic spouses to face financial problems linked to marital dissatisfaction, regardless of income levels. "For years there has been an emphasis on learning proper saving and budgeting techniques to avoid marital conflict over financial issues," said author Jason Carroll, BYU assistant professor of family life. "But our study found that financial problems have as much to do with how we think about money as they do with how we spend money."

Materialism was proven to indirectly inflict an overall marital dissatisfaction by rising the frequency of financial problems. "For a highly materialistic spouse or couple, it takes less financial disturbance to trigger a financial problem," Carroll explained. "Some would say, 'I'm not living a good life and I don't have a good marriage if we can't afford to go on that vacation or purchase designer décor for our home,' where a less materialistic spouse would not view these limitations as a major issue."

The research employed 600 married couples, selected to represent an average of ethnic composition, religious affiliation and socioeconomic levels and the participants reported their household income level, how financial matters and level of materialism affect their relationship and overall satisfaction with their marriage. 35 % of the couples were assigned as highly materialistic and the others as presenting low materialism.

Complex statistical analyses pointed out that materialism in one or both spouses was more linked to the couple's money problems than to their income, and also to marital satisfaction. "This study suggests that spouses set their own threshold for what they view as a money problem. If spouses are overly materialistic, their threshold will be quite low, thereby increasing the likelihood that finances will be a problem in their marriages", said Carroll.

"That materialism may increase financial problems in marriage in two ways: a spouse may use money unwisely in chasing unreasonable materialistic expectations, therefore causing actual money problems or a materialistic expectations may cause a spouse to interpret a financial situation negatively, leading to more complaints and conflicts, even when another couple with similar financial resources won't have such conflicts because of lower expectations", Carroll said.

"That's why expectations are a key part to solving money problems in marriage. We need to rethink the idea that financial problems are always money problems. We need to start adjusting how much materialistic issues factor into our idea of what makes a good marriage and family life", he added.

The researchers gave four recommendations for solving the issue:

1. Spouses must carefully distinguish needs from wants in family spending. Phrases like "Yesterday's luxuries have become today's necessities" must be overlooked.

2. Many people have too high financial expectations because they use to compare their spending habits to others with higher financial power, thus developing a sense of entitlement and resentment. Couples that regard themselves compared to those who earn less are more likely to develop a sense of gratitude in their lives.

3. In fact, materialist attitude should be undermined. "The most important things in life are not things." It is much harder to apply. High materialistic expectations often make couples to not fully appreciate the happy moments of simple life that money cannot replace.

4. Cutting off outcomes. Spouses must avoid purchasing small and unnecessary things that bring debt and stress in their relationship and spouses should regard their current financial state with gratitude and optimism.