Helping couples address money issues
Money comes up often in couples therapy. It tends to be a point of contention in relationships for various reasons:
People have strong emotions around money.
It can be a very visible form of inequity in a relationship.
People sometimes avoid talking about money with their partner for fear of appearing greedy. This allows financial arrangements they are unhappy with to continue long-term and resentment grows.
What does money mean?
An important task for me as the couple’s therapist is to uncover what money means for each partner. The reason people have such strong emotions around money is that it represents things that are often really precious to them. For example, money may mean:
security - the comfort of knowing their needs will be met in the future.
opportunity - the ability to stop working, start their own business, have children, etc.
a way of life - the freedom to enjoy travel, going out, having fun, etc.
inheritance - the duty to look after family money and pass it on.
When one of these things is challenged by a partner who thinks the money should be used or shared differently, it can feel very threatening and people become defensive. So it really helps if both partners can understand that when one of them says “I think half of that money should be mine,” for example, what the other hears is “I want to take away your security/opportunity/way of life/inheritence/etc.”
How should money be managed in a relationship?
There is no “correct” way to arrange finances in a relationship. Some couples prefer to put all their money in a joint pot, others prefer to keep their finances completely separate, and there are many alternative options in between.
The way we prefer to arrange our finances often reflects the way we prefer to be in relationships: how much you want to merge your finances tends to correlate with how much you like to merge as a couple (having the same social group, spending lots of time together, sharing hobbies, etc).
When conflicts arise around whether money should be merged, it’s because the partners have different preferences, not that one is right and the other is wrong. Nor is one way more loving than the other: for some people love looks like merging, for some it looks like respecting the other’s independence.
Inheriting preferences for financial arrangements
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that the way your parents arranged their finances is the “right” way (or that the way your divorced parents did it is the “wrong” way). Different levels of merging work for different people, and you and your partner are not your parents.
Any degree of merging (of finances or in the wider relationship) can work if you and your partner both want it. If you don’t both want the same thing, the two of you need to have a conversation (with the support of a couples therapist if you think that would be helpful) to find a compromise that works well enough for both of you.
Finding a mutual agreeable financial arrangement
I wish there was a simple formula to give you for agreeing a compromise financial arrangement. The reality is that in most cases these are very complex and difficult conversations.
If you both work the same hours, earn the same amount and contribute equally to your domestic/family life, it’s a fairly straightforward case of finding a midpoint between how much you want to merge your finances and how much your partner wants to. For example, it might be that you decide to both put the same monthly amount (the value of which being the point of compromise) into a joint account and keep the remainder of your income for you to do with as you please.
Things get more complicated, though, if you earn different wages, brought different levels of wealth into the relationship or make different unpaid contributions (for example, one of you looking after your children).
When I support couples with these conversations, I generally start with the questions I’ve covered above:
What does money mean to you?
What level of merging do you prefer?
Where do your preferences come from (eg parents)?
Can you recognise your preferences and your partner’s preferences as equally valid?
Then we get into tricky questions, to which there aren’t straightforward answers, such as:
Should the assets you accrued before you met/married be shared?
If your home isn’t jointly owned, what can you put in place so that both partners feel equally at home and secure there?
Does financial equity mean contributing the same amount of money? Or the same proportion of your income? Or the same hours? Or both having the same amount after the bills are paid?
How can you both have autonomy over your spending if you have different opinions on how money should be spent?
Ultimately the success of these conversations depends on the couple’s ability to communicate, so a large part of my job is supporting you both to:
communicate clearly, constructively and respectfully
avoid conversations escalating into arguments
ask for what is fair
really hear and understand what money means to each other
respect each other’s differences.
Talking about money is really not easy, but it is important. You and your relationship will suffer if you quietly put up with inequitable financial arrangements.
If you would like help with conversations around money, or any other relationship issues, I would be happy to hear from you. You can contact me here or book an initial consultation.