If you are in a relationship it is so important to understand your partner’s values and beliefs are when it comes to finances. Financial pressure is one of the top reasons for relationship stress and breakdown. And in our experience, we have found that this is often due to a lack of healthy communication, rather than solely money troubles. Don’t get me wrong, not having enough money to pay the bills is incredibly stressful, but it does not need to turn into a relationship problem as well.
So, what is the first step to having healthy, open communication when it comes to our finances?
We all look at life through glasses tinted by our personal perspective. Understanding this perspective and understanding that of our partners’, will assist us in having healthy communication. The truth is we all have different beliefs about money and these beliefs will drive our financial behaviour. You and your partner may have had very different experiences around money growing up and this may have shaped some very different views and relationships with money, which can be a point of frustration and tension.
Committing time together to understand our own and our partners “Money Personality”, as well as work on our Money Plan is not only an investment in our financial future but also our relationship.
Financial psychologists Brad and Ted Klontz, have coined the term “Money Scripts”, to describe our core beliefs about money that drive our financial behaviours. These beliefs are typically unconscious, trans-generational beliefs about money that we developed in our childhood and drive our adult financial behaviours.
We’ve adapted their work to form our Money personality quiz (available here). We encourage you to take the time to do this and if you are in a relationship discuss your results with each other. Once we identify these beliefs we can change or challenge them, if need be. It may be that for one of you, money management is more your strength, or at least more your strength than your partners. This person should be the one that take the lead in developing the Money Plan.
It may be, like it was for Ash and I, that you both could do the role as well as the other, in this circumstance negotiate who is going to be the family treasurer or decide how you want to share this role. In our instance I won that negotiation and have been our family treasurer ever since.
If you are not the “Family Treasurer” this does not mean that you can opt out of the process. Review the Money Plan and look at whether it needs to be changed… remember you are agreeing to commit to this plan so make sure it is workable for you.
Remember all changes to the money plan need to be made in agreement and stay honest with each other.
It’s so important that you do not hide financial matters from your partner. Whether it is overspending, secret credit cards, loss of job or an investment gone wrong. Don’t let shame or a misguided idea that you are somehow protecting your spouse, lead you away from being completely honest. This behaviour undermines trust in your relationship and breaks the power of unity, and as Jesus so wisely taught in Mathew, a house divided against itself cannot stand.
