In the first-ever study to examine the impact of materialism on marital satisfaction, researchers from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah found that highly materialistic spouses are about 40 percent more likely than non-materialistic spouses to experience high levels of financial problems.

And it doesn't matter how much or how little you make. The impact of materialism holds true across all income levels.

While high debt is often blamed for conflict within marriages and even divorce, study leaders Jason Carroll and Luke Dean contend that financial ups and downs have as much to do with a couple's expectations as their paychecks and credit card bills. "For years there has been an emphasis on learning proper saving and budgeting techniques to avoid marital conflict over financial issues," Carroll said. "But our study found that financial problems have as much to do with how we think about money as they do with how we spend money."

That is, materialism has an indirect effect on overall marital satisfaction by increasing the frequency of financial problems. "For a highly materialistic spouse or couple, it takes less financial disturbance to trigger a financial problem," Carroll explained. "Some would say, 'I'm not living a good life and I don't have a good marriage if we can't afford to go on that vacation or purchase designer décor for our home,' where a less materialistic spouse would not view these limitations as a major issue."

In this study of 600 married couples, Carroll and Dean found that materialism among one or both spouses was more predictive of the extent of a couple's financial problems than the amount of their income. In addition, the greater the financial problems, the lower the marital satisfaction.