'She'd only spend it on silly things like curtains," a man told me once when explaining why he was anxious to prevent his wife from finding out about a bonus he had got at work.
He himself, I knew, would spend it on drink which he did not see as silly at all.
The point is not the relative merits of alcohol and curtains - in my opinion, you can overdo both - but about the meaning of money.
There is more to money than pounds, shillings and pence. That man saw money as something to spend on enjoyment. His wife saw it as something to spend on the security of a comfortable house.
This is not a gender thing. It can as easily be the woman who yearns to spend money on something frivolous and fun and the man who tut-tuts disapprovingly.
At this time of year, the emotions surrounding money are running very high in some families.
There is the hangover of the pre-Christmas credit card spending to be paid for, summer holidays to be booked and hikes in transport costs, energy and mortgages to be faced.
But quite apart from objective issues such as the price of goods and services, money is surrounded by emotional issues.
For instance, it can be linked in your mind to your worth as a person. You may feel that the more you earn the greater your worth as a human being and the more respect you deserve.
If that is so, watch out. This attitude may keep you on a treadmill of having to earn more and more not because you need it but to feel good about yourself.
And what will happen if you lose your capacity to earn money? Companies shut down, people get sick and all sorts of unexpected things can happen to take away a person's earning capacity.
If your self-worth has been based on money, what will happen to you then?
Money can also be linked, in our minds, to power over others. After all, we go through a very significant period of our lives - childhood - without our own money. Our parents have the money and the power to give it to us or to withhold it.
If money is excessively linked with power in your head you may, in a relationship, seek to deprive your partner of money.
We have all heard of the spouses who, in effect, live in poverty with a partner who lives well but who chooses to exercise power in that way.
Sometimes, eventually, the worm turns and the abused partner ends the relationship on the grounds that if they are going to live in poverty they might as well have a bit of independence while they are at it. But many times, I suspect, people stay trapped in this sort of situation for life.
Or maybe you see money as something that brings admiration and the rewards that go with it. Is this what is going on with chaps who kit themselves out with a trophy wife when they get older and richer?
This fact, that there is more going on with money than the money itself, just might be behind most of the rows about money that go on in households.
The fight about money might really be a way of telling a partner that he or she is frivolous or mean or irresponsible or dull. It may really be a way of expressing anger, control, insecurity or fear.
Of course, money can also be used to express affection, togetherness, a sense of fun and so on. And, actually, you do not need an awful lot of money in order to do that.
There is no law that says a gesture of affection need cost a fortune.
What gets in the way is the emotional meaning attached to money and, very often, people are quite unaware of these emotional meanings.
So think about what money means to you, emotionally. You might be surprised and it might change the way you look at life.
Padraig O'Morain is a counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.