2011年12月四级考试仔细阅读真题第二篇：钱是恋爱的障碍

Sometimes love really can be measured in pounds and pence.

It's an annual argument. Do we or do we not go on holiday? My partner says no because the boiler could go, or the roof fall off, and we have no savings to save us. I say that you only live once and we work hard and what's the point if you can't go on holiday. The joy of a recession means no argument next year – we just won't go.

Since money is reputed to be one of the things most likely to bring a relationship to its knees, we should be grateful. For many families the recession means more than not booking a holiday. A YouGov poll of 2,000 people in May this year found 22% said they were arguing more with their partners because of concerns about money. What's less clear is whether divorce and separation rates rise in a recession – financial pressures mean couples argue more but make splitting up less affordable. A recent report from ICOR (the online Information Centre on Relationships) cited research showing arguments about money were especially damaging to couples – even more so to their children. Disputes were characterised by intense verbal aggression, tended to be repeated and not resolved, and made men, more than women, extremely angry.

So why are arguments about money so emotive? Since they seem to be so even without a recession, they have to be about more than literally pounds and pence.

Kim Stephenson, an occupational psychologist, believes money is such a big deal because of what it symbolises, which may be different things to men and women. "People can say the same things about money but have different conceptions of what it is for," he explains. "They will say it's to save, to spend, for security, for freedom, to show someone you love them, to keep score."

He says men are more likely to see money as a way of buying status, of trying to best the man down the road who's just bought a flash car, and of showing their parents that they've achieved something. He warns that, while couples need enough money not to struggle and be unhappy, an extra £5,000 above that amount won't make them any happier.

"The biggest problem is that couples assume each other knows what is going on with their finances, but they don't. There seems to be more of a taboo about talking about money than talking about death. But you both need to know what you are doing, who is paying what into the joint account and how much you keep separately. In a healthy relationship you don't have to agree about money, but you have to talk about it."

Research from a wholesome organisation in the US called the National Healthy Marriage Resource Center says that establishing a "fair and equitable pattern of handling money early in marriage appears to be important for the quality and stability of the marriage". Admitting your incomes to each other and making budgets for your household expenses may not seem romantic but it is, in fact, the real language of love.