Last week, I discussed the rise of materialism among teens and young adults and how over-prioritization of money, possessions, and careers is playing an underappreciated role in disrupting family formation today. This week, I extend that discussion by addressing two ways that research has shown that materialism harms marriages and, most importantly, what can couples do to safeguard their marriage from these harms. Most people assume that financial problems in marriage are simply an income problem. The basic belief is that if a couple has a lot of money, they won’t have financial problems, and if they don’t earn a lot of money, they will have financial problems. This is the core assumption of those who endorse materialism as a practical fix to the economic realities of modern life — you just need to make more money! However, research has consistently challenged this assumption. This is because materialism harms marriages in two distinct ways — one obvious, one far less so — and understanding both is essential for any couple or family navigating the financial realities of modern life. The Spending Problem First, the most obvious way that materialistic attitudes can have a negative impact on marriage and family relationships is because spouses who give a high priority to money and the accumulation of material possessions are more likely to create “real money problems” by over-spending and not living within their means. This pursuit of possessions is amplified by the misuse of credit cards and other forms of lending that lead to stressful debt, financial strain, and conflict between spouses. The Perception Problem The second and less obvious way materialism harms marriages operates below the surface. Materialism quietly resets the perception threshold for what a spouse considers to be a financial problem in the first place. Simply put, the more you expect, the easier it is to feel distressed by financial limitations. Materialistic spouses carry a heightened sensitivity to financial matters that lowers the bar for what gets defined as a problem. For a highly materialistic spouse or couple, it takes less financial disturbance to trigger distress and dissatisfaction. This increased sensitivity then raises the stakes, making financial problems more likely to spill over into broader marital dissatisfaction. In a study my colleagues and I conducted with a nationally representative sample of 600 married couples, we found that about one-third of spouses can be classified as highly materialistic — and those spouses were approximately 40% more likely than their non-materialistic counterparts to frequently experience finances as a problem in their relationship. Nearly half of highly-materialistic spouses reported that financial matters were “often” or “very often” a source of trouble, compared to roughly one-third of low-materialistic spouses. And most striking of all, materialism proved to be a stronger predictor of perceived financial problems than the couple’s actual income level. Let me say that again: materialism has a more profound impact on the perception of financial problems than income. The threshold for what counts as a financial problem in a marriage is not set by the bank account — it is set by the mindset. As family finance expert Dr. Bernard Poduska has observed, “financial problems are frequently behavior and attitude problems rather than money problems.” The practical implication here is that we need to stop assuming that all couples experience financial matters the same way. Couples who habitually compare themselves to those who have more are likely to feel a chronic sense of entitlement and resentment that contributes directly to marital conflict. Couples who can view their situation through the eyes of those who have less are far more likely to cultivate the contentment and gratitude that research consistently links to stronger marriages. So, helping couples lower their financial expectations benefits marriages in two concrete ways — 1) spouses become more willing to avoid the debt-creating purchases that generate ongoing stress, and 2) they become more inclined to interpret their current financial situation with positive appraisal rather than chronic dissatisfaction. If a couple is already experiencing financial strain, scaling back expectations is often the most important first step toward regaining both financial stability and relationship peace. Joint Materialism Is Still Harmful One natural follow-up question is whether the harm materialism causes in marriage is really just about conflict between partners who have different financial values. Is this just a problem for couples where one spouse is a spender and the other is a saver? Does shared materialism smooth things over? In a follow-up study, my colleagues and I looked at this relationship dynamic. Using a national sample of over 1,700 married couples, we created a 2×2 typology of couple materialism that distinguished couples where 1) both spouses were low in materialism (congruently nonmaterialistic); 2) couples where both were high in materialism (congruently materialistic); and 3) two incongruent groups where spouses differed (husband high/wife low, and wife high/husband low). We found that couples where both spouses reported low materialism were better off on every measured dimension of marriage quality — including better communication, more effective conflict resolution, less problem areas, higher relationship satisfaction, and greater relationship stability. Congruently materialistic couples, by contrast, consistently reported the most problematic patterns and the fewest positive outcomes across every measure we looked at. Incongruent couples — those where one spouse was materialistic and the other was not — fell in between. What this tells us is that each additional materialistic spouse in a marriage compounds the harmful effect of materialistic attitudes. It doesn’t seem to matter which spouse is the materialistic one — what matters is how many materialistic spouses there are in the marriage. It is important to note that just like our previous study, materialistic couples with higher income levels still fared worse on relationship quality than non-materialistic couples with lower income levels. This is perhaps the most important finding of the study for couples to hear — a high level of financial resources does not protect a marriage from the corrosive effects of materialistic values. When we examined the character traits of the spouses, highly-materialistic spouses reported lower levels of other-centeredness and reduced emotional maturity, and placed a lower level of importance on their marriage compared to other pursuits. In a more recent study, we again found that materialism was negatively associated with how important people perceived their marriage to be. And that diminished sense of marriage importance, in turn, predicted lower marital satisfaction. Materialism harms marriages, not because partners disagree about money — but because of what placing money at the center of a relationship does to a marriage. Joint materialism is not a shared value that bonds partners. It is a shared liability. Our research also revealed something sobering about the prevalence of the problem. In our study, 1 in 5 married couples (20%) consisted of two partners who both self-identified as highly materialistic — and because congruently materialistic couples were significantly younger than their nonmaterialistic counterparts, these patterns are likely to become more pronounced as today’s younger, more materialistic generation moves into their prime marriage years. What Couples Can Do Research on materialism and marriage doesn’t just diagnose the problem — it also points toward solutions. Drawing on findings from these and other studies, five recommendations emerge as particularly important for couples navigating the current financial environment. 1. Live Within Your Means Together Materialistic values frequently drive overspending and debt, which in turn creates the real financial strain that damages marriages. Couples who build and follow a shared budget, approach debt cautiously, and maintain financial reserves avoid one of the most potent and recurring sources of marital conflict. Financial prudence is not just good money management — it is an act of care for the relationship itself. 2. Distinguish Needs from Wants One of the most important things a couple can do is sit down together and honestly examine their spending through the lens of necessity versus desire. Consumer culture is extraordinarily effective at blurring this line — as the saying goes, “yesterday’s luxuries have become today’s necessities.” This doesn’t require asceticism, but it does require patience and intentionality. Couples who regularly revisit this distinction together are better positioned to make spending decisions that reflect true family needs, rather than cultural pressure. 3. Beware of Financial Comparisons A recurring theme in the research is that materialistic spouses are more likely to evaluate their financial situation by comparing upward — measuring themselves against people who have more. This creates a persistent perception of deprivation even in the absence of genuine scarcity. This approach to life generates a sense of entitlement and resentment that can infect their relationship. Couples who habitually look downward — considering how fortunate they are relative to those with less — are more likely to cultivate gratitude and contentment, both of which are strongly linked to marital satisfaction. 4. Resist the Capstone Mentality For younger couples and those approaching marriage, be careful about getting caught in the trap of believing that marriage and parenting should wait until every financial milestone has been achieved. Completing every educational goal, reaching a certain income, owning a home — when these become prerequisites rather than shared aspirations, they can delay or prevent marriages that might otherwise thrive. Couples willing to build a life together rather than waiting until that life is already built often find that doing so strengthens rather than strains their relationship. 5. Put the Marriage Before the Money While all families must pay attention to the financial realities of life, couples should regularly and intentionally invest in the marriage itself — through time together, expressions of appreciation, and protecting relationship rituals — rather than allowing the pursuit of financial goals to crowd out the relationship. Couples under financial strain often report that they stop appreciating the dimensions of their relationship that money can’t buy — conversation, laughter, shared purpose, physical touch, trust. Deliberately investing in simple, inexpensive relationship rituals, such as regular connection, daily expressions of affection, and a weekly date, tends to reinforce the sense that the relationship itself is the most valuable thing the couple has. Economic pressures are real, and they do matter. But the answer to financial stress in marriage is not always more money. Sometimes, it is a different relationship with money altogether — one grounded in realistic expectations, delayed gratification, gratitude, shared purpose, and the recognition that the most important things in life can’t be bought. *** This is republished with permission from the Institute for Family Studies. The original can be found here. Jason S. Carroll, Ph.D. is the Director of the Marriage and Family Initiative at the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Family Studies. Dr. Carroll is a past recipient of the Berscheid-Hatfield Award for Distinguished Scientific Achievement given by the International Association for Relationship Research.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered a straightforward warning on Wednesday about efforts to push communist influence inside the United States. “The United States doesn’t want to be a communist country,” he said. “We’re never going to be a communist country. We’re not going to allow communist influences to undermine our politics or our society.” “Our system doesn’t want communism,” he continued. “And we’re certainly not gonna allow communist efforts to undermine American society and drive wedges into our country.” Rubio identified the Cuban regime as one of the leading forces behind these kinds of operations in the hemisphere. He tied the comments to a recent intelligence report from the administration. Rubio also stressed that while the United States interacts with different governments and systems around the world, there is a clear boundary when it comes to protecting American institutions and society from communist subversion. His comments on Wednesday come shortly after the Secretary of State delivered a major international address focused on the threat of far-Left militant networks. In that speech to delegates from more than 60 nations, Rubio described the militant networks as being driven by a deep hatred for civilization itself and laid out how America aimed at confronting them. Those steps include offering bounties to disrupt their financing and officially designating several violent far-Left groups as “Foreign Terrorist Organizations.” Rubio called for dismantling these networks brick by brick. He reviewed the history of earlier movements that followed similar ideologies. He referenced groups such as the Tupamaros and the Montoneros in Latin America, the Shining Path in Peru, the Red Brigades in Italy, the Red Army Faction in Germany, and the Weather Underground in the United States. He also pointed to current trends showing far-Left violence increasing in several European countries. Rubio noted that such violence has risen more than 40% in Germany and makes up over 80% of radical violence in Greece. Rubio outlined the administration’s responses to the issue, which include both domestic vigilance against influence operations and international coordination against violent extremist networks.

Rejoice, all coffee fanatics. The experts have concluded that drinking up to five cups of coffee is not only healthy, but may decrease your risk of various heart problems. On Monday, the American Heart Association published a paper detailing findings from a panel of experts on decades of research related to caffeine, especially caffeine found in America’s favorite drink.  The group concluded that the safe level of maximum caffeine consumption rests around 400 milligrams daily — that’s up to five eight-ounce cups of regular coffee. “Data are fairly consistent that moderate caffeine consumption, again studied primarily in the setting of coffee consumption, was associated with a lower risk of stroke,” the paper said, adding that caffeine consumption in coffee was associated with a lower risk for heart disease and type 2 diabetes. The paper also said that “Randomized controlled trial data among regular caffeinated coffee drinkers showed that caffeinated coffee decreases the risk of atrial fibrillation occurrence but increases the frequency of premature ventricular contractions.”  Atrial fibrillation is an irregular beating of the heart that can lead to blood clots, stroke, and heart failure. Premature ventricular contractions are irregular contractions in the lower part of your heart that give the feeling of your heart skipping beats. However, the premature ventricular contractions are mostly harmless. In other words, coffee could potentially make your heart beat a little differently, but it could also prevent bigger beating irregularities down the road. The experts did find some caveats with caffeine consumption. They determined that CYP1A2, the gene that creates the enzyme in your liver associated with metabolizing caffeine, is inherited, so caffeine tolerance and toxicity vary from person to person. The experts found that “unfiltered coffee raises low-density lipoprotein cholesterol” — that’s the “bad cholesterol” that can create plaque buildup in the arteries and cause heart failure or stroke. Caffeine could also cause an increase in blood pressure, which can pose a risk for individuals suffering from hypertension. Although caffeine in the context of coffee has been seen to be beneficial, the paper stated that “Data on high doses of caffeine such as that found in energy drinks are limited and generally suggest cardiovascular harm.” According to the CDC, heart disease was the number-one cause of death in the United States, taking the lives of 683,491 Americans in 2024. It might be that some of those people needed more coffee.

A 30-year-old immigrant from Ethiopia faces three counts of second-degree murder after allegedly opening fire inside his apartment complex’s leasing office in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Monday, taking the lives of three staff members following a disagreement over a garage parking contract. Authorities arrested Tsegaab Binessu, a former truck driver, in the city of Virginia, Minnesota, about 200 miles away from the crime scene, The New York Post reported. He was apprehended driving a vehicle belonging to one of the victims. According to charging documents, the murderous spree stemmed from a $65-a-month parking garage agreement. Binessu, who was preparing to enlist in the U.S. Navy, contacted the leasing office seeking to terminate the agreement. Staff members informed him that cancellation was not possible because he had recently renewed the contract. Binessu then informed workers he was heading down to the office in person to discuss the matter. Surveillance footage captured Binessu speaking with community manager Adam “AJ” Wilwerding, 43, and assistant manager Dena Silcox, 56. Video shows the suspect lifting his shirt, drawing a firearm, and shooting both employees, according to authorities. According to the criminal complaint, Binessu shot Wilwerding at least six times, including three times after Wilwerding fell to the ground, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported. Silcox was shot five times “in rapid succession,” and then hit a sixth time as she attempted to get away from Binessu, according to the complaint. The camera then allegedly captured him moving toward a back room where 25-year-old staff member Nansi Fuentes Zambrano was trying to escape through a window. She was found dead from a gunshot wound to the head. Investigators recovered 21 spent shell casings at the scene. Police were alerted after receiving multiple emergency calls reporting gunshots and screaming. Binessu’s roommate also contacted law enforcement, reporting that Binessu had confessed to the shooting during a phone call and said he was attempting to turn himself in. During police interrogations, Binessu expressed frustration with the American immigration system, explaining that a seven-year struggle to bring his wife and children from Ethiopia had ultimately ruined his marriage. Documents reveal he said he had been unfairly treated because of his race, stating that he felt he had lost everything that mattered to him, including his family, business, and peace of mind. He did not offer a full formal confession to police. Residents in the Highland Park community organized vigils and memorials outside the office, remembering the victims. Binessu is scheduled to make his initial court appearance on Wednesday. If convicted, he faces up to 40 years in prison for each murder charge.

For a left preaching tolerance, the emotionally stunted quackery emanating from the mouths of “I’ve Had It” podcast hosts Jennifer Welch and the cackling, near-mute sidekick Angie “Pumps” Sullivan proves it’s a pants-on-fire farce. On Monday, Welch promulgated a conspiracy theory from the bowels of her Luciferian sense of punditry that Vice President JD Vance and Turning Point USA CEO Erika Kirk are far more than just friends. Welch extrapolated the Vances deciding to have a fourth child following Charlie’s assassination as something beyond the regret Erika had about only having two children: I want to remind you guys that Erika Kirk practically dry humped the vice president on stage at one of those Turning Point events. You remember the way she, like, grabbed his head and how excited she was to see him, and everybody’s like, oh my God, are they screwing? Like that energy is weird. Well then, a couple of months later, Usha ends up pregnant. Like, the timing of all of that, could you imagine if Kamala was embracing somebody like that on the stage somewhere … Look at that. You don’t hug a person. You’re not screwing and grow up with her hair like that. “JD Vance is a weird guy. I mean, he is so weird. The relationship is with Usha is weird, roping in Erika Kirk into their relationship that she’s there, like — what — birthing coach or something. I mean, that was some weird sh*t,” she later added. Despite the vitriol, they’ve been heralded by elite media. Welch has been given hero’s welcomes by ABC’s “The View,” CNN’s Dana Bash, The New York Times, and The New Yorker, to name a few. And there’s been utter silence from this crowd about the comments. But this wasn’t the first time Welch and Sullivan went after the Vance family. During a November 2025 show, Joy Reid told the cackling quacks that the vice president will divorce Usha if he truly wants to become president and instead marry Erika Kirk because MAGA “can’t have the successor” to Trump “be the guy with the brown, Hindu wife.” “And he’s playing slap and tickle with Erica Kirk, the weirdest sh*t I’ve ever seen,” Welch declared, to which Reid said Charlie’s widow dispensed with “widow wear” in search of her “MAGA fairy tale.” “But wouldn’t it be the most perfect fairy tale — MAGA fairy tale if he finally sees the light that he needs a white queen instead of this brown Hindu? I mean, I’m not saying that’s happening,” Reid said. Yes, Welch believes the Vances had another child because something untoward happened last year involving the vice president. When you’re resorting to demented nightmares that might give the National Enquirer pause, you know you’re far more than just a prepubescent lunchroom bully. Welch addressed the new lamb for the Vance family a second time, except this time with the vacuous Sullivan alongside. She told listeners this fourth “mixed-race child” could fall prey to ICE because of their father’s support for “the Kavanaugh rule … that ICE can pull somebody over that ‘looks suspicious.’” Because of this, she asserted Vance “will not stand up for [his] own kids.” Sullivan wasn’t to be left out, declaring Vance a “failed” father and husband. Dovetail this with her ongoing shtick that widespread numbers of MAGA men are closeted, and you have proof that, for the Left, homophobia and racism are not only okay, but accepted so long as it’s framed and delivered in a manner that would make Regina George blush. Welch and her clapping seal of a sidekick asserted on October 27, 2025, that Democrats need to “get on board” with the “shift” toward political assassinations or MAGA will be “coming after you.” A month later in the Reid episode, they said MAGA is willing to “commit jihad” for “proto-fascist” Trump and thus are incapable of being “patriotic.” To their delight, Reid asserted: “The fear is that if you don’t obey [Trump], his cult will try to kill you … MAGA supporters are armed to the teeth. They are rabid in their support of him, and it’s a religion.” Welch told “The View” in February 2025 she and Sullivan perceive “I’ve Had It” as “authentic trash talking” and “counterprogramming to the toxic positivity culture.” But with “I’ve Had It,” defamatory allegations are in, along with homophobia so long as the accused gay is a Republican. They frequently refer to Speaker Mike Johnson as “Moses Mike Grindr Johnson,” insisting outright he and other Hill Republicans are fervent homosexuals. In the same show with Reid, they declared without evidence the Epstein Files proved the president has given blowjobs. For their funhouse mirror dystopia, gay jokes are in, but say “illegal immigrant,” and that’s on-par with the n-word. And I haven’t even touched their comments about homeschooling as “trickle-down stupidity” and “a patriarchal step of the fascist project” overseen by people who are “f*cking weird as f*ck that you want your kids around you all day, every day, and all night.” Despite all this, they’re the new cool kids. They’ve welcomed on fellow liberal podcasters such as Jim Acosta, Don Lemon, Sam Seder, and Emma Vigeland, fellow liberals such as Brooke Baldwin, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Daily Beast editor-in-chief Joanna Coles, Leigh McGowan, David Rothkopf, Al Sharpton, Jason Stanley, Kara Swisher, and even members of Congress such as Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Simply put, they’re not going anywhere, so it’s past time someone took these miserable psychopaths to court for defamation. *** Curtis Houck is the managing editor of NewsBusters.