With the spring wedding season arriving, I’m getting lots of news releases with tips for couples to assess their financial compatibility. The unspoken message is that those who are not compatible should call it off.

Which doesn’t happen. Love is blind to the balance sheet. We ought to pepper one another with financial questions on the first date.

We don’t ask – that’s taboo.

So if you and your intended are not financially simpatico, what do you do?

Find ways to reduce the financial points of contact, where friction occurs.

In our early years, my wife and I had an awful, friction-inducing bill-paying system of my own design. We each paid certain bills, then settled up every so often to keep even.

Then we adopted our current system: separate checking accounts for him, her and us. The joint account is for the mortgage, utilities, car costs, groceries – all the things we split down the middle.

We try to avoid face-to-face communications, thanks to day-by-day online monitoring. One of us will take the initiative when the joint account needs money, then the other will see the deposit and ante up an equal sum.

Preparing tax returns, unfortunately, does not lend itself to such a system. After doing a joint return on TurboTax, I figure our shares of the tax bill by doing two individual returns. It takes only about an hour, and it eliminates unpleasant debate.

Investments are another matter. In our case, we agree on the broad strokes – favor low-cost index funds, put lots in and leave it alone. So we operate comfortably with separate accounts, each making decisions without consultation.

But for people whose financial knowledge is not so equal, it’s harder. The person who takes charge is subject to second-guessing.

If this is a problem, try life-cycle funds, offered by most fund companies. These routinely adjust the mix of stocks, bonds and cash to suit the investor’s age and tolerance for risk. Set it up so money is invested every month with automatic withdrawals from your checking accounts.

That way you don’t need to talk about it. By eliminating a lot of the decision-making, these fire-and-forget funds can reduce friction between partners.