Kate Winslet’s aristocratic character Rose may have had an epic—if ill-fated—love affair with Leonardo DiCaprio’s starving artist Jack on the Titanic. While on the boat, the two managed to fall in love despite their first class-steerage status. But what would’ve happened if both of them survived and lived a life together on dry land? What challenges would they have navigated? Would their love have kept their relationship afloat? Or would the differences in their upbringing and bank account sizes have tipped their relationship over?

These are some of the questions that sparked this thread on Reddit about couples who grew up in different socioeconomic classes. We chatted with four couples on their experiences and shared the lessons they’ve learned from growing up with—or without—money, and how that affected their relationships with their loved ones.

Ryan and Libby’s lesson: Poverty affects everything—your manners, your sense of security, your confidence—and learning to overcome that is a greater lesson than not having money.

Ryan, Reddit user morepantsroom, is a bank teller from Kansas City. His fiancee, Libby, is a teacher. Both in their late 20s, the couple met at Emporia State University through mutual friends, and started dating. “She was really kind, and always saw the best in people,” he says. “She was the only person I knew that didn’t think being negative was a cool thing. I really liked that.”

He figured out early on—“like, day two”—that they were polar opposites, financially. “She was asking me what I had planned so we could arrange for a date, and she asked if I had to work a job.” At that point, Ryan had two jobs—a full-time one where he worked 40 hours during the week, and a part-time job during weekends. He was putting himself through college and paid for everything himself. Libby’s parents helped her so she didn’t have to work while in college. “It just kind of went from there,” Ryan says.

Ryan’s childhood wasn’t just vastly different from Libby’s economically, but emotionally, mentally and culturally as well.

“My mother was murdered when I was a year old. My father and stepmother—both hardcore bikers—were given custody of me. I grew up learning learning how to sell drugs, fight, work on bikes, make moonshine … My parents beat me, neglected me, pimped me out. Until I was 12, I thought my stepmother’s name was ‘Squeak,’ her biker name.”

Libby had an upper-middle class upbringing and the accoutrements of such a life: she attended private schools, had birthday parties with lots of presents, went on family vacations, and had loving, supportive parents. “To them, having a half-full fridge was getting low on food.”

That was where their early relationship speed bumps came from.

Ryan’s upbringing led him to do things Libby didn’t understand. He didn’t have a bank account until he was 21, because he didn’t trust banks with his money. He got into fights because that was the only way he was taught to resolve conflict.

Early in their relationship, they also argued about Libby’s work ethic. To Ryan, paying bills on time and having food on the table meant stability. But whenever a job was making Libby unhappy, her parents would tell her to quit because she didn’t need it anyway.

“Growing up, I was taught that if you had a job, of course it sucked, so get over it,” Ryan shares. To Libby, however, personal happiness and satisfaction were equally important as getting paid. “She taught me to want more from life.”

Today, Ryan says he and Libby keep learning from each other. They acknowledge that the differences in their upbringing brings unique challenges to their relationship, and are proactive about getting help from support groups and classes.

“I don’t want to raise a kid with violence,” Ryan said, “so I’ve enrolled in parenting classes and volunteer in a child development center.” Libby is in a support group for partners of people who grew up in extreme poverty and violent backgrounds. “When it comes from people from different backgrounds, the biggest thing is communication. If you’re interested in somebody and you like them, just talk to them. Ask questions. If it’s confusing to you, learn about it, and learn from them.”

Other than that? “She knows how to field dress a deer and change her oil on her car. I know how to balance a checkbook and manage my college debt. Really, we just teach each other and love each other for our differences.”

Oddly enough, the two don’t fight about money, Ryan says. “We both view money as just numbers— she sees money as something not to worry about because it’ll always be there, I see it as something not to worry about because it’s already gone. As long as you have enough to cover your needs, it doesn’t matter how much money there is.”

Sarah and Phil’s Lesson: Kindness trumps all. If you’re kind, the social strata matters a lot less to you.

Sarah, Reddit user PandaProphetess, 25, is a web developer and social media manager in Colorado. Her husband, Phil, works in human resources. They met working at a toy store called Air Traffic in Minnesota. “I think that my initial attraction to him was that he was a hard worker, both at the shop and in his school career. We bonded over the struggles of being a young adult: finding a good job, finishing (in my case, beginning AND finishing) a degree.” They were both dating other people at the time, so they were just friends for about a year. “Eventually, I got it through my thick skull that we were meant to be together,” she says.

Sarah—who describes her childhood as “food stamps poor,” says growing up, every Sunday, her grandma would haul her off to church. “Then we’d get home and clip that week’s coupons.”

The first time Sarah realized Phil’s family was different from hers was when she met his parents. “They—like every Minnesotan, apparently—have a cabin ‘up north,’ so we hopped in the car and drove up there for a day trip. It was what I imagine going to a foreign country would feel like, except that foreign country is their five bed/two bath cabin with a pool and hot tub, custom design, acres of land… It was just weird to me.”

Two years ago, Sarah and Phil were married at the Science Museum in St. Paul. While they both wanted a really small wedding of just close friends and family, Phil’s family pushed the couple to have a bigger event and offered to pay for it. “We went from having a small budget to a $10,000 budget. Don’t get me wrong—that’s awesome. Our wedding was amazing. I felt guilty accepting the help, but it was just pocket change to them,” she says.

Being with someone who grew up with money has also helped her appreciate the “finer things”—as cliche as that sounds, says Sarah. “When we’re with Phil’s family, we go out to eat more, we go on trip, we fly instead of drive. It’s nice and all, but I still carry on my grandma’s tradition of coupon clipping.”

Sarah says they know money really doesn’t buy happiness, so they don’t really fight about it, adding that “We keep everything [bank accounts, credit cards, etc.] separate.”

Today, Sarah says she’s glad she grew up the way she did.

“It’s made me more humble, and it’s made me a hard worker,” she explains. “I look forward to home-cooked meals. I don’t mind the delayed gratification of waiting to make a big purchase. I appreciate where I came from, and that will never change.”

Cameron and Rebecca’s Lesson: Just because someone grew up privileged doesn’t mean they don’t have their own struggles.

Cameron, Reddit user bigbenz, is a 21-year-old economics and arts management student at the State University of New York at Purchase. His ex-girlfriend, Rebecca, 21 is also an arts management student. They dated for almost a year and just recently broke up.

“She is from the upper class of New York City and I’m from a small farming community in upstate New York,” Cameron says.

The first time Cameron realized Rebecca was rich was when he first went into her room and looked at her closet. “She is very into fashion, and I realized its contents probably cost more than my college tuition for a year,” Cameron describes. “There were all these designer brands, and her jacket cost at least $700. I wear mostly clothes from Target and Forever 21.”

Cameron calls himself a country bumpkin. At his hometown, he was paid minimum wage for manual labor. His mom worked at a bank and his father was a contractor. Rebecca’s mom was a prominent figure in New York City’s business and finance worlds.

“She didn’t have jobs growing up, and her friends were children of millionaires and billionaires who went to posh private schools and threw amazing parties from penthouse apartments,” Cameron says. “There was a real class divide.”

That divide was one that Cameron was really insecure about: “When we’d go out I was embarrassed when she paid, I would avoid doing things with her that she enjoyed that I wasn’t familiar with and would always tease her about the price of her wardrobe.”

Cameron adds that a level of embarrassment—and jealousy—was involved.

“I felt so embarrassed all the time because I was jealous of how she grew up and all her experiences that I never got to have,” he says. “She had the life I wanted, and that caused a big strain in our relationship at first. Plus, I felt like I was always in a losing competition with everyone else she knew.

“When you date someone out of your league, it’s incredibly hard to try and fit in, and when it goes unchecked it can lead to resentment. The worst part it, though, is that they really don’t care—they just love you for who you are.”

As they spent more time together, however, Cameron, who is white, learned that Rebecca—who is Vietnamese-American—faced her own challenges, despite the class divide. “One day, a girl came up to us and asked me, ‘What are you doing with a chink like her?’ [As a white guy] I’d never experienced [racism] like that. Just because she had all these things going for her didn’t mean that she had no issues.”

He also saw first-hand how money didn’t solve a lot of problems: “A lot of her friend’s parents work really hard, and as a result have really estranged relationships with their children. They don’t know how to solve a problem aside from throwing money at it.”

Although Cameron and Rebecca recently broke up (“She’s studying in Paris, and before she left, I got scared that she was going to find someone else there so I broke it off. I was just an idiot.”)

Nevertheless, Cameron cherishes the time he spent with Rebecca. “She really taught me to explore my passions. I love art and fine dining—we would eat at these beautiful New York restaurants and go to art museums. Most of all, she taught me to appreciate these things that I just wondered about, because I grew up in the middle of nowhere. I thought fashion was the stupidest thing, until she showed me the artistry behind it. [It’s the] same with really good food.”

Conversely, Cameron taught her to appreciate the, uh, less fine things in life, like county fairs and cheap Chinese food.

“I also taught her to how to shoot a gun and how start a bonfire,” he adds.

Lexi and Nathan’s Lesson: Each person from every walk of life deserves respect.

Lexi, Reddit user imhereforthemeta, 25, is an administrative assistant in Austin, Texas. Her boyfriend Nathan, 25, works in IT. After moving from their respective hometowns to Austin to work at the same company, they began dating. “He thought I was weird and I thought he was fun, but kind of a jerk,” Lexi says.

She realized almost immediately that they had vastly different backgrounds.

“He loves to talk, and he has a lot of what he considers humorous, ‘When I was dirt-poor growing up” stories. I always thought they were a little less ‘funny ha-ha’ and more ‘OH MY GOD!’,” Lexi says.

Lexi grew up in a stable and secure family. Her mom regularly took her on shopping sprees growing up, and her friends had stables of horses and swimming pools. Nathan, on the other hand, grew up in the “ghetto south.”

“He used to have to constantly pawn his TVs, amps, and his mom’s jewelry to keep paying the bills. He learned to fix cars so they wouldn’t be stranded when the car broke down, and lived within a roach infestation most of his life,” Lexi describes.

The realization that they were raised differently led to Nathan and Lexi coining the term “going to the pool.” The term refers to the couple having the same memory, seen through different socioeconomic [filters], and is relevant to the ways they handle money and react to things.

“We realized this after both of us were sitting around remembering how much we loved going to the pool,” she says, “and then had a good laugh about how different our circumstances were.”

As a child, Nathan would save money to go to the pool for himself and his siblings. The event, while a rare luxury, was a responsibility for him because it meant having to watch his sisters. They couldn’t do it every day.

Lexi’s memories of going to her community pool involved a season pass, water slides, and her mom giving her cash for snacks. She went every single day of the summer unless it was closed. Both of their experiences were joyful—yet completely different.

“That’s sort of how we treat everything,” she says. “I think it helps us a lot because we respect how the other grew up, and both of us have gained from seeing things ‘from the other side.’ It sometimes instigates some really interesting discussion, and helps us understand each other a little bit better.”

Learning this respect, Lexi says, is a big deal. “Not that I wasn’t respectful, but I think I was a lot more selfish before, and had higher expectations for accommodation.”

She’s also learned that some people—such as her boyfriend Nathan—really DON’T care about money.

“For him, money has little value, so he uses it to make others happy,” Lexi says. “He is willing to spend a lot of it on me, which makes me uncomfortable.”

Alternatively, from being with Lexi, Nathan has learned that he is allowed to treat himself, too, and genuinely enjoys getting a nice shirt or a fancy meal. Before meeting Lexi, he was a hardcore minimalist who hated owning things.

“I think it’s more because he always had a sense that those things would be taken away,” she says.

The real lesson? Talk about it.

Money can’t buy you love, but talking about it with your partner could be the key to keeping you in love longer

No one ever sang a song about love and money going together like a horse and carriage—but research says those are the two of the most important aspects to a stable marriage.

Researchers at Kansas State University’s School of Family Studies and Human Services say arguments about money are the top predictor of divorces. Professor Kristy Archuleta, a licensed marriage and family therapist at KSU who teaches a course on money and relationships, works with many premarital couples to help them avoid financial distress. She says regardless of socioeconomic status, everyone deals differently with money.

“But the way [couples] learned to interact with money growing up—and how it makes them feel—can definitely cause conflict within a relationship,” Archuletta says. “One person might view money as security and another might not trust other people (or institutions such as banks) with money.”

Archuleta’s advice for any couple even thinking about getting serious? Talk about money early—and regularly—in the relationship.

“It’s extremely important that couples talk about money before they get married or cohabitate and deal with finances together,” Archuletta explains. “At some point in the relationship, when it’s pretty serious and it looks like it’s going to be a long term thing, couples need to be dealing with questions about each other’s debt and expenses—and how it’s going to get managed.”

That means it’s also important to figure out who does what regarding money. Who’s keeping track of bills? Keeping track of insurance needs? Filing taxes?

“Some of those bigger pieces and the day-to-day management can really cause hiccups in the long term,” Archuleta says.

She advises couples to pull their credit reports before getting married and discuss them, to be knowledgeable and upfront about what they’re bringing into the relationship in terms of debt and credit history.

It helps to list down goals and hold regular budget meetings with your boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife/partner to manage expectations.

“When people have similar goals and values about money, they’re much happier with their financial situation. And they’re much happier in their relationships because it’s not a conflict,” Archuleta says. “Money arguments are one of the top predictors of divorce because conflict around money is so much more intense and frequent. It’s an emotionally charged issue for both partners… so that leads to more thoughts about divorce.”

Having a financial therapist can also help, Archuleta adds. Families are often conditioned to think that you’re not supposed to talk about money openly. If that’s the case, it’s harder to have a money conversation with your partner. Not only is there anxiety built up around having the money conversation, but there’s also anxiety about having a conversation that you’ve never been part of before.

The Financial Therapy Association, made up of scholars and practitioners from the financial and mental health professions, are brought together by the recognition that the cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and relational aspects of money impact financial and physical well-being.

“It’s not just a mental health or financial issue,” Archuleta says. “It’s both.”