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

When Savers Marry Spenders, Part 2

In order to have a healthy relationship with someone who has a different style with money, there are some tips that will have a better chance of leading to success.

Eliminate Judgmental and Critical Thoughts and Comments

“We would die poor if you had your way.”
“You will take every penny to the grave.”
“Who could talk with you about money you get so uptight so quickly!  It has to be your way or the highway.”

Thinking and talking about your partner with these labels is hurtful and usually untrue, and yet, thinking and talking in this way can have a spiraling cycle into a destructive place.

Different is not wrong, it is just different.

Couples do so much better when they try to understand their partner as well as to explore their own ideas and beliefs about money and finances.

Have a Money and Meaning Conversation

One way to come a little closer to each other is to have a calm conversation about money and the meaning it has for you and in your life and relationship.  Here are some questions to use as a guide as you and your partner talk with each other about money and its meaning.

Once you both feel heard and understood, you  will be able to see each other better as you talk about your family’s finances.

1.  What messages about money did each of you receive as a child?
Was your family motto more “A penny saved is a penny earned” or “Enjoy it while you can”?
How might those messages be affecting you today?

2.  As you have grown up, what lessons have you learned about money?
How did you get through lean times?  How did you feel about how you got through lean times?
How do you reward yourself?

3.  What are your secret fears about your partner’s money habits?
What is the worse thing that could possibly happen if he or she continued with their current spending or saving style?

4.  What do you most, maybe secretly, admire about their spending/saving habits? What do you wish you could find a way to do even a little of yourself?

5.  What goals do you have for yourself in the short-term as well as the longer term? Be sure to paint a clear and specific picture for each other about your hopes and dreams for your future.

6.  How can you work together to give each other a chance to reach individual as well as couple and family goals?

7.  Plan to get together again on a regular basis, in a calm time, to talk about your progress.

Compromising About Money is Crucial  in Relationships

Compromising is a must in couples and, with a better understanding … as well as feeling understood, it is easier to reach enough of a compromise that the saver does not feel frightened by a lack of savings and the spender can appreciate some opportunities to enjoy good things.

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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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Couples Counseling of Louisville

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