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Why Couples Argue Over Money

Ian Hammonds

In the five and a half years of being a licensed marriage and family therapist, the concept of money has been omnipresent in all of the couple cases I have worked with. I see financial stress being such a hot button especially in the last two years since the pandemic began. With the fluctuating gas prices, the impending inflation, and the gruesome housing market, financial distress in relationships and marriages is difficult to not talk about in 2022. I recently made an Instagram post on this topic and felt that it needed an entire blog entry! How couples share financial responsibility can cause significant distress, anxiety, and depression. But there is nothing that says that this should be a long-lasting theme in a marriage or relationship! For this particularly important article, I plan to highlight the three main reasons (scarcity, shame, and safety) that couples argue over money and finances to provide an understanding of a phenomenon that feels hard to name and manage. I also plan to offer solutions to couples who are under financial strain in their marriage or relationship. Scarcity

The first reason why couples can have a communication breakdown over money is the concept of scarcity. A lack of money can cause the feeling of scarcity, which is linked to an obsession or preoccupation over the lack of something, and it might be hard to focus on anything else that requires mental space. Scarcity mindsets trigger past memories of repressed or unmet needs, isolation, or any other time when we have had to live in survival mode. I refer to survival modes often in my couples therapy. It essentially means the fight/flight/freeze/fawn that we have needed to rely on since the beginning of evolution. When a scarcity mindset triggers our own survival modes, we engage in some all-or-nothing behaviors, we are more apt to have our anxiety or depression triggered, and our means of connecting to our loved ones (in this case our partners) is severely compromised. When I refer to survival modes when working with couples, I usually am referring to their own individual means of adaptive survival mechanisms that are activated. All of us, whether we are single or in a relationship, have our own unique survival techniques that we have been forced to use when going through a traumatic event. When activated in a relationship, relying on survival modes can lead to a couple feeling caught up in a negative communication pattern that seems to repeat itself over and over again.

As a couples therapist, I work to slow down this pattern so that each partner can view each other in a vulnerable and peaceful way. Once the pattern of negative interactions is slowed down and the survival modes have softened, they may come together and conquer their finances as a team. This will alleviate the scarcity mindset and trauma felt in the relationship, giving way to a higher ability to achieve tasks together.

Shame

Another reason that contributes to disagreements over finances in a partnership is the dreaded feeling of shame. Shame is essentially our nasty inner saboteur telling us “You aren’t good enough” or more simply “You aren’t enough”. Brene Brown has done decades worth of research on shame and highlights it beautifully in her book Daring Greatly. A lack of money can be and usually is a shame trigger, and this can be exacerbated in a relationship where one or both partners are feeling shame. Shame can also be viewed as a lack of connection at its core. When we feel the “warm wash of shame” as Brene Brown often says, our ability to connect and reach out for help and emotional support is severely thwarted. If we are not feeling good enough about ourselves, we certainly won’t be fully present for our partners and the people we love.

To look at shame broadly as to how it pertains to shared financial responsibility in a relationship, it is pretty obvious that our capitalist and workaholic culture fosters a hyperfocus on money and financial success. And if we are not making a certain amount of money per year or we haven’t achieved our self-imposed unreasonably high goals regarding wealth, this can be a huge shame trigger. I wish I could say that the money and class shaming only comes from within, but it is a broad problem where people are shamed both overtly and covertly for not making enough money. And money shaming can absolutely trigger relational shame in a marriage!


Lack of safety

When people ask me for a list of things for what it takes to make a marriage or relationship work and last, I firstly tell them that you can’t have a checklist for a long-lasting marriage as checklists tend to be more appropriate for short-term solutions (at least from my perspective). I can say that the one thing that I have found that makes marriages work from couple after couple, case after case, year after year… is emotional safety. When shame and scarcity, the two above-mentioned issues that contribute to couple arguments about money, are both very present in a relationship or marriage, it contributes to a lack of feeling safe within the partnership. Shame and scarcity are both traumatizing. And if either or both partners are continually feeling traumatized, the chances of a lack of emotional safety (the very ingredient needed for marriages to last) will be very high. Scarcity and shame make people feel unsafe, and unsafe people cannot easily access each other when trying to manage staying emotionally connected along with shared financial responsibility.


As previously mentioned regarding couples getting caught in their own survival modes, couples are very likely to experience the feeling of being caught in a negative pattern. As this pattern goes unhealed and is exacerbated over time, the feeling of safety is corroded in the partnership, and the ability to handle money as a team can feel almost impossible.

What to do about it?

Well, first... We name it. Now that we have gone over the several different key factors that can trigger arguments about money in relationships, we have done something very powerful here: We have named several very difficult components like shame, scarcity, and safety that feel impossible to talk about in the moment that they are activated. But as I say in so much of the material I put out, putting words to things that feel unspeakable gives us the power over them. This is why it is important to name any feelings of shame scarcity, or lack of safety in a marriage. Turning toward instead of turning away.

Naming a negative or debilitating feeling within a marriage is a perfect turning point into my next possible solution for managing conflicts around money: Turn toward instead of away. This looks like reaching for your partner, accessing and attuning into their needs and fears, and checking in with each other almost daily to see where the other partner stands. Turning away can look like stonewalling, shutting down, spending more time with friends than in the relationship, and developing an addiction. To ward off these things, it is imperative to turn toward your partner in times of financial stress.


Building a culture of safety.

Fostering a culture of safety is also crucial when a lack of money can so easily give way to a lack of safety. Couples expert Dr. John Gottman happily ascertains that couples who maintain happiness are frequently scanning their environments in search of ways of appreciating each other. Methods of doing so could be giving compliments, surprising each other with gifts, going on dates to a place of sentimental value, and asking each other what the other can do for them to make them feel more loved.


Invest in couples therapy!

Lastly, if you or your partner have armed yourselves with tools, resources, books, understanding, and conversations, and you still are not communicating well when it comes to finances, it would probably be best to invest in couples therapy. I specialize in helping couples develop a stronger bond so that they may communicate over finances in a healthy and productive way while also helping them find meaning in their shared lives.


If you are an Austin and/or Texas resident and are interested in beginning couples therapy with Ian Hammonds, reach out to newwavecounselingatx@gmail.com to book your remote or in person appointment with him today!

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