Your Credit Score Affects Your Love Life

Then again, disagreements like these often represent a larger issue or disagreement about responsibility that might not easily be overcome. Using the credit score as part of early criteria would help prevent wasted time and effort on a relationship that might never work out. 

With a responsible approach to handling personal finances, one should be able to expect that a partner has the same. There is room for different philosophies. Someone who identifies himself as a “saver” could have a positive, healthy, long-term relationship with someone who identifies herself as a “spender.” In some situations, one person's strengths may complement another person weaknesses. If the underlying goals and philosophies are too disparate, it might cause tension and eventually dissolution.

The credit score is just one clue. A good credit score says someone has not made any grave financial missteps, while a bad credit score, by itself, is a little more ambiguous. It could mean someone has a record of bad financial habits. It could mean they've missed paying rent. It could mean they have more credit card debt than they can handle. But it could also mean they trusted a family member when co-signing a loan. There's even the possibility that a family member used and destroyed their credit without their knowledge, and they were unable to work with the credit reporting agencies to change the report.

Your FICO score, or any one of the various numbers published and sold by credit reporting agencies, doesn't contain any detail. That's why background checks often contain more than just a credit score. Along those same lines, if you plan on discussing your financial situation with a potential future spouse, you might want to go deeper than the superficial number. It doesn't make sense to waste time with someone with whom you won't be compatible, but a credit score alone isn't going to provide enough information to judge your financial compatibility.

While it might be more common to ask about your date's financial situation at your first dinner, and I certainly understand why some would not want to waste any time beyond a first date in the search for a match in love, I tend to think it's best to leave the discussion about finances until a later date, unless the situation calls for it specifically. Personally, I wouldn't take a first date to a real estate investing sales pitch, but if there's any time it's appropriate to ask someone you just met about their credit score, that might be it.

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