Money and Marriage: How Can I Get my Spouse to Agree with Me?

The holidays often provide more concerns than usual about money and budgets.  Couples experience tension and stress, especially when funds are limited as they are for many families.  There are also a lot of emotional issues around money, presents, giving and the holidays.

In our practice, couples often come in with finances as their biggest problem.  When marriage and money is the issue, we also hear comments about trust, control, stinginess, irresponsibility, lying and dishonesty.

Everyone comes to a relationship with ideas, philosophies and feelings about money. Often, when they are similar, there is not a problem. (Unless, of course, they both want to spend a lot.)

Marriage and Money:  Tips To Help You Work It Out

Here are a few tips for couples to help them move from being opponents about the family budget to players on the same team.

Talk with each other about the meaning of money and marriage for you and your life.

• What did money represent when you were growing up? How did your parents handle money?
• How does that affect the way you think about money?
• How do you envision your marriage and money?

Get a better understanding about your spouse and his or her thoughts about money so that when you hit any normal roadblocks about the family finances, you will be able to travel over them more easily.

Click here to read the rest of the article:  Marriage and Money: My Spouse and I Cannot Agree

A Healthy Relationship Is More Important Than Winning An Argument: Discover 6 Ways To Repair Damage During Conflict

Is it more important for you to protect your relationship than it is to win a fight?

Can you disagree without being disagreeable?

Are you able to keep the love showing while conflict is flowing?

If your answer is “yes” to all of these questions, then you may not need to read any further.  If any of these presents a strain for you; however, there may be some useful tips here for you.

All couples disagree.  According to researcher, Dr. John Gottman, it is usually about the same things over and over again.  In fact, his research points out that about 2/3rds of all disagreements are usually about the same issues.

Some couples are masters at working through conflict and keeping a good relationship as their primary focus.  They truly disagree without being disagreeable.

Couples who can find ways to repair any damage to the relationship while they are having a disagreement, or, as some might call it, a fight, have more than half of the battle won.  It makes so much more sense to compromise with or acquiesce to someone that you like and with whom you have a good relationship.

For others, repairing damage during conlict requires learning new habits and skills.

Repair Damage During Conflict.

Here are some suggestions for ways to repair damage to a relationship during conflict.

Click here to read the rest of the article: Discover 6 ways to repair damage during conflict.

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Discover Ways to Stay Calm Even in Conflict

Every couple has differences.  Some of those issues need to be discussed while others will work themselves out over time and may not involve any conflict.

While there may not need to be a reason to fight about the differences, there are certainly reasons to have discussions and figure out ways to handle problems when you disagree.

With volatile couples, those who are quickly triggered and have trouble avoiding a fight, it is important to signal ways to recognize when either partner is getting flooded and take a time out so that they can calm down before having any kind of conversation about their disagreement.  Areas of conflict are handled much more successfully this way.

With couples, or maybe just half of a couple, who are more likely to run away from conflict, it is also important to recognize that the urge to run also comes from feeling flooded.  If you give yourself or your partner the time to calm down, then it is likely that you can find a way to talk about the problem.

Learning how to identify when you are flooded and calm yourself down is a skill that can be learned.  Learning this skill can make you a master at handling conflict.

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Proving Your Point Can Be Hazardous for a Relationship

Some people are able to remain calm during a disagreement while others avoid conflict completely.  Still others blow up quickly and seem to enjoy the fight.  Letting go of the conflict and the need to “win” or prove your point is hard for many but crucial for the relationship.

Jill and Jim fought a lot.  Their friends referred to them as “The Bickersons” and kept their contact with them as a couple to a minimum, especially when it included drinking.

While their fights did not include throwing things or hitting each other … yet, there was still a lot of passion and volatility.

Jim and Jill liked their passion.  It went quite well in their bedroom; however, it was pretty destructive to their feelings about themselves and each other and, now that they had 2 children, they were especially concerned about their style.

Both halves of the couple agreed that they could share equally in the escalation of the fighting.  They could agree on that when they were calm, that is.  Otherwise, things quickly deteriorated to blaming and accusing the other of being the aggressor.

Both also agreed that they knew each other’s “hot spots” and even confessed to using them to gain power in fights.  They also acknowledged that they really had difficulty resisting the fight when it started.  Both felt a need to prove their point or win the argument.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Running Away from Conflict

• Do you immediately want to run away when your partner disagrees with you or makes a complaint?
• Do you feel like nothing ever gets resolved between you and your spouse?

If so, you are not alone.  Many people have problems with conflict and will avoid disagreements at all costs.

Sandy felt like she could never get Jim to sit down and talk through a problem with her.  Whenever she disagreed with him, he would run away from conversations.  Heaven forbid that she would ever want to talk about their relationship!

Ellen grew up in a home where there was a lot of fighting.  Any time that Bill raised his voice, or she thought he raised his voice, she would cry and become very upset.  Bill was really frustrated because he thought that they were never able to get through any discussions and reach decisions.

While fighting is usually not good, NEVER talking things through and resolving differences is also unhealthy for relationships.  When couples don’t resolve issues, when one or both of them have the conflict avoidant style, they are more likely to grow distant from each other as they each feel frustrated, hurt and disappointed.

Men are more likely then women to run away from conflict; however, many women also become flooded with conflict and are prone to struggle with how to remain in difficult conversations in calm and productive ways.

Some people directly refuse to discuss an issue and will use comments like “You are being unreasonable and I refuse to talk with you about this” or “We never get anywhere when we argue and I am not going to talk anymore.”

Click here to read suggestions for how to get your conflict avoiding spouse to talk with you.

Seven-Step Process to Resolve Conflict in Relationships

There is nothing that can be as destructive to a relationship, whether the relationship is a romantic, family, friend or work one, than having conflict.

There is also nothing that can be as healing and helpful to a relationship as resolving conflict and handling it well.

I would like to share with you a 7 step process for resolving conflict. This process is especially helpful when finding a solution and resolving conflict seems to be nowhere on the horizon.

Often, when locked in conflict, people are not able to see and understand any other perspective than their own.  Understanding WHY someone feels differently is also hard to do.  (Think Democrats and Republicans in highly contested races.)

Click here to read the rest of the article.

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When Savers Marry Spenders

Money Conflicts Can Be Strong in Marriages

For many people, money is not just money.  Money can symbolize love, power, control, dependence or independence, security and peace of mind, freedom and so much more.

How we are reared, how our parents thought about money and how much we had as we were growing up affects our habits and thoughts about money and relationships.

Spenders + Spenders = Conflict

Spenders enjoy splurging on extravagant dinners, the newest cars, interesting experiences and stylish clothes.  Spenders live more “in the moment” and want to enjoy what is interesting and pleasurable today.

Savers sleep better at night when they know that their bank account is in the black and they have money saved for emergencies and retirement.  Savers can make do with old cars, fashions from 3 years ago and have little need for the latest technology.  Having a solid nest egg helps savers relieve their anxiety and feel more secure.

Childhood Experiences Affect Our Attitude Toward Money

Some people grow up in families that talked a lot about money while others grow up without talking about money at all.

For some talking about money is as “dirty” as talking about sex.  This is dangerous however, because often our attitudes about money are so strong that we cannot be flexible enough to think that there is any other right way to handle finances than the ones that we hold.

When couples each have their own belief about the “correctness” of their position, they often cannot entertain any openness to other possibilities and can become judgmental and disrespectful in their thinking and in the way that they approach their spouse.  Money negatively affects their relationship.

Money disagreements are one of the top reasons that couples fight and how those fights about finances go are one of the best predictors of divorce.

Check back here for Part 2 of our article on Spenders and Savers.

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Tip Number 2 … How To Be A Better Spouse

2.  Learn how to complain softly. Even though you may pride yourself in your ability to be blunt and straight-forward, it is often not a great quality with a spouse.  This does not mean that you have to ignore things that bother you … although, heaven forbid you would have to complain about everything! … however, when you do need to complain, please do it nicely.

A nicely put complaint is much more likely to be heard than one that is harsh.

Practice, just in your own mind, three different soft ways you can make a complaint so that, when you really have something to complain about, it will come a little more easily.

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Make Some Rules For A Trial Separation

Are you thinking about separating from your spouse?
Do you think that you all are so locked in a pattern that you don’t know how to change?
A trial separation may be something to try and might give you each the space to focus on changing yourself and your part of the problem.

Here are some times when a trial separation might be considered as a possible remedy.

• When you and your partner are fighting frequently, at least daily, with little or no resolution about any problem.
• When the ugly pattern has been going on for months and neither of you can find their way out of it.
• When there has been physical violence … even once.
• When the fighting has escalated to such a point that there is frequent name-calling and the use of explosive language.
• When one person has asked for space a lot but their spouse has not been able to allow that to happen and has continued to push for more time together.

Here are some things to consider together as you talk about whether or not a separation might be something to try.

Click here to read the rest of this article.

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Tip of the Week, September 13, 2009

Change the time of day or the location when having a disagreement or fight.  If you usually fight at night, get your partner to agree to only disagree during the daytime … and actually schedule a time for the conflict.  If you generally fight in the bedroom (one of the worst places to fight) then agree to move all of your fights to the kitchen … or out to the back deck.  If you have fought in every room in the house, then agree that all disagreements must be taken outside.

Changing the location and time can change the flavor and feel of the disagreement and help keep partners from falling into the bad patterns that caused problems in the past.