Dear Clients,
We can talk all day long about how money is just a resource – about how the amount of money you control does not directly relate to happiness or success in life, marriage or raising a family. And yet, few things can spike an emotional response (or argument) like a simple conversation about money.
In many ways this seems odd because money is fundamentally very simple and concrete. The way we evaluate most financial questions is based on easy arithmetic. The way we balance a budget could not be more straight forward: What you make minus what you spend…voila! Now why are my palms sweating?
One potential reason for the stress is that we humans don’t care much for scarcity. Many of us grew up in families where there was not an abundance of resources, and/or we were told that periods of abundance can end without warning. That innate fear of running out is powerful.
Another reason money causes so much dislocation is that most of what we know about money and relationships was learned when we were very young. Think about how many unwritten rules there are about how we talk (or don’t talk) about money. Many therapists will tell you that conversations around money are even more taboo and difficult than conversations around sex. Much of this can be traced back to mixed messages you experienced when you were very young. I’ll bet you could list a few if you thought about it.
And finally, we wrongly think having more money would solve our problems and eliminate our fear.
So how do we move forward? We need to be more curious and less fearful. Any time you feel yourself or perceive your spouse becoming uncomfortable or wanting to avoid what should be a reasonably straight forward conversation about money – ask for permission to be curious. Why is this conversation uncomfortable? Has this topic always been hard to talk about? How did each of our families address this topic?
Just because something is difficult doesn’t mean it’s not worth making progress on. Working together and sharing our stories is how we build better communication, better relationships and better outcomes for our families.
If you have big feelings about money and want to move forward – let us help!
Sincerely, John