S2 E19: 🗣️Why you REALLY argue with your partner about money, w/ Couples Financial Therapist, Ed Coambs
EPISODE SUMMARY
Why does your partner's stress surface as money worries? Why is it that one of you have more comfort about money topics and the other avoids it? It's actually all rooted in attachment styles. Financial therapist Rachel Duncan sits down with Ed Coambs CFP (R), LMFT, CFT-I TM, MBA, a fellow financial therapist and planner and author of "The Healthy Love and Money Way," to explore how your past relational experiences shape your money interactions, from fighting, to avoiding, to repair. We begins with a listener question about a spouse whose anxiety shows up through financial concerns, then we dive deep into creating healthier money conversations with your partner, and in addition, yourself.
💬 "Their past relational experiences are what's shaping their money interactions. It's not the actual money itself, it's the meaning and relational experiences tied to the money that's shaping their reaction." - Ed Coambs
Key takeaways from the episode:
Your approach to money conflicts is often rooted in childhood attachment patterns
There is no financial security without relational security, even for single people
Most people have never witnessed a loving money conversation modeled for them
How you enter and exit money conversations significantly impacts their success
Guest info:
Ed Coambs CFP (R), LMFT, CFT-I TM, MBA is a financial therapist and financial planner who founded Healthy Love and Money. He and his team helps couples understand their money in ways that strengthen connection and collaboration, and authored "The Healthy Love and Money Way."
⏰ EPISODE BREAKDOWN
The GREAT Framework for Money Conversations [00:05:40 - 00:17:00] Ed introduces his framework (Greet, Remember, Empathy, Attachment, Thank you) for approaching difficult money conversations with your partner.
Relational Rupture and Repair [00:17:00 - 00:25:00] How relationships cycle through states of relating, rupture, and repair, and why many couples get stuck at the rupture stage with money talks.
Understanding Attachment Styles [00:32:00 - 00:39:10] The four attachment styles (secure, anxious, avoidant, disorganized) and how they influence your financial behaviors and communication patterns.
Building Financial Security Through Relational Security [00:41:20 - 00:45:10] Why there can be no true financial security without first establishing relational security, both with yourself and your partner.
📚 Resources Mentioned
"The Healthy Love and Money Way" book by Ed Coambs
Take the attachment style & money quiz at healthyloveandmoney.com
Dr. John Gottman's research on relationships
💬 Join the Conversation
Have a story to share or question about money and relationships?! Please help me build a follow-up episode by leaving a voicemail! Click on the big orange button on our site right from your phone! https://www.moneyhealingclub.com/podcast
🎧 Your next listen:
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Full transcript: https://www.moneyhealingclub.com/podcast
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S2 E19 Money and Relationships with Ed Coambs
[00:00:00] -Music-
[00:00:03] Speaker 7: But their past relational experiences are what's shaping their money interactions. It's not the actual money itself, it's the meaning and relational experiences tied to the money that's shaping their reaction.
[00:00:16] -Music-
[00:00:20] Welcome to the Money Healing Club podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Duncan. I'm a financial therapist and art therapist, and you've come to the softest place to land in personal finance. This podcast is for education and entertainment purposes only. For help with your particular situation, please seek help from a licensed professional in mental health taxes and finance.
[00:00:40] On today's episode, we are talking about couples and money. So I brought in a special guest expert on the topic, Ed Coambs. Ed is a financial therapist and financial planner who founded Healthy Love and Money.
[00:00:54] Ed and his team offer a therapy based approach for couples to understand their money in a way that strengthens their connection and collaboration. He also helped develop the field of financial therapy and has a wonderful book called the healthy love and money way, which I highly recommend. He even has a quiz. To help you find out your attachment style, you can head over to healthy love and money.com to snag it. In this episode, we'll start with a listener question, and then Ed and I will respond with our thoughts and questions about what might help this listener start the money healing process with their partner.
[00:01:29] And before we start. If this conversation sparks a question or a story for you, I'd love to feature it in a follow-up episode because we just can't talk enough about relationships and money, and I know there is so much more to say. So would you do me a favor? Head over to money healing club.com. You'll see a bright pink button that says Ask a question for the pod.
[00:01:48] You can record it right there from your phone, and you don't have to leave your name. And don't worry, I will edit it so you sound good. All right. Let's get into the things we don't usually say when we talk about money and relationships. Let's begin. Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh.
[00:02:06] /
[00:02:06] I have observed that when things get stressful, oftentimes the things that my partner or my husband worries about or the, or his concerns will take expression in money. And I want to be respectful and considerate of the way that his experience growing up has, was quite different than my own. And so when he's feeling uncomfortable, it finds its expression in money and concerns about money. And so I'm wondering if you have recommendations or thoughts about loving ways to respond and reframe the conversation that don't reject the significance and the importance of financial considerations, but also recognize that sometimes when we're talking about money, we're talking about our feelings. Thanks so much.
[00:03:02]
[00:03:05] Speaker 7: /
[00:03:05] Yeah, this is a great question and the thing that I really appreciated about the person that left you this this message Is that there is a high degree of compassion and empathy already there like that's and and I want listeners to hear that That is a huge advantage if you're already in that place because sometimes we're getting people that are reaching out that are Angry and hurt and resentful and it's hard for them to connect with compassion and empathy for their partner's experience And so that's where I would say, if you're more in that hurt, angry, resentful place, that's where you've got to be able to do some of your own work first, before you're going to be able to talk with your partner, because you're going to just be coming in so emotionally reactive.
[00:03:49] And so
[00:03:50] Speaker 6: the fact that this listener even, even can see, oh, my husband had a very different upbringing with money. So he reacts in this way. I can understand that, right? Already, they're kind of down this path of. Being ready to maybe repair, maybe try new things in a way that a couple that is like really entrenched in Contempt Anger, there's there's gonna be a different starting point for that couple.
[00:04:16] Speaker 7: Yeah a Hugely different and it's hard to fully quantify that. It's one of those things I think professionally you just learn that subjective feel of like what are people capable of doing or offering and so you know listeners as It's okay wherever you're at, and the point of working with professionals like Rachel or myself is that we can assess and help understand where your starting point is and then give you the right types of interventions.
[00:04:44] Now, when we're talking about couples, this is what's really important, and I think, uh, I love the work of Dr. John Gottman, and one of the things that he talks about is for couples that are successful and have a low probability of divorce, it's not the absence of conflicts for them, but it's the Something that he coined the term harsh startup versus soft startup.
[00:05:07] And so I think we can take that lesson, that scientific finding and bring it straight into our money conversations. And so I've created a framework that I like to teach couples to give them something to connect to as they're trying to move through their money conversations.
[00:05:23] Speaker 6: So is this something like this listener, if they were one of your clients, you might, you might start them in this way.
[00:05:28] Speaker 7: Yeah, absolutely. Right. Because I guess I think we, we may not remember the framework while we're trying to go through the conversation per se, but if we can come back and say like, oh, yeah, this is the way I want to move through the conversations, then we can come back and reflect and say, oh, which piece did I miss?
[00:05:43] Oh, I miss some of that. So the framework is called G.R.E.A.T..
[00:05:48] Speaker 6: We've got an acronym here and I will link everything in the show notes. Everybody. Okay, great. What does that stand for?
[00:05:54] Speaker 7: Right? So great starts for G. The 1st step is greet. And we'll, I'll dive into each letter a little bit more, but let's just go through them.
[00:06:03] So G is greet, R is remember, E is empathy, A is for your attachment styles, and T is for thank you.
[00:06:20] Speaker 8: Wait, and did you come up with this?
[00:06:22] Speaker 7: Yes.
[00:06:22] Speaker 8: Is this your thing?
[00:06:23] Speaker 7: Yes. And so really what I want listeners to hear, if they don't remember anything else, if even if they don't remember the acronym, great for Money Conversations is how we Enter and How we Exit the conversation matter a lot.
[00:06:40] Speaker 6: So, okay, so this listener who's like, how do I, how am I able to talk with my partner? Or um, re she said, how do I reframe the conversation that doesn't reject the importance and significance of money, but know that we're also talking about feelings. So we've got to back up and think about, okay, how do you actually enter the conversation itself?
[00:07:03] Speaker 7: So this is where I'm a big fan of trying to start these conversations when it's, you're not activated and to try to plan intentional time to have these conversations about our relationship with money. You know, it feels Most important to address it when we're not able to do the thing we want to do and we're starting to feel some frustration, but that's usually the hardest time to have someone work on or talk about their relationship with money because they're, they're defiling defensive.
[00:07:33] You might be feeling defensive. So that GREET piece is about trying to set aside time. To acknowledge and say, hey, and I love using we language, not you have a different background than me, which is the way it gets said a lot of the times. And I think this is a bit of the mindset piece too is. If your partner comes from a lower socioeconomic background or air quote, worse financial background, if you're framing it that way, that already creates a power differential.
[00:08:07] But if you can say, hey, we have both had different money experiences, and we want to explore and understand how they're shaping us, then we're entering this together.
[00:08:18] Speaker 6: It's a co creative acknowledges our individual experiences and that we are doing this together and that like they're meeting up in maybe some interesting ways. Yeah. I'm a big fan of money dates and scheduling money dates and the couples I've worked with, I get real specific. I'm like, well, where's it going to be? What time of day we're putting it in your calendar. I'll even put it in my calendar so I can think of them when they're having their money date and who's in charge of music, who's in charge of snacks.
[00:08:46] Like we brainstorm everything to make this a new and really nice experience. And yeah, I mean, in my mind, we're thinking about a regulated experience.
[00:08:57] Speaker 7: When I think this really builds, right, this is all part of that greet setup is because if we, what we want to consider is that for most people that we work with, they have never seen a loving money conversation in real life.
[00:09:13] Speaker 6: I've what I've noticed is, oh, money equals conflict. That's what I learned as a kid, that money equals conflict. So I'm already going in armor on, you know, knives out.
[00:09:23] Speaker 7: Mm hmm. Yes, right. So that that's a big part of this. The deeper work is that we're literally having to shift the meaning of money conversations.
[00:09:33] But the association for so many of us is that money conversations equal conflict, equal pain, equal shame, equal abandonment, equal these very painful psychological realities. And so it's no wonder that we're either avoiding them or we're getting lost in conflict, right? And so this is an imaginative leap for many couples.
[00:09:59] That's why working with them and creating that space for them. So they have the experience of actually talking successfully with each other.
[00:10:07] Speaker 6: So if you had this couple with this, the, the person with the voice, if you had this couple, like, in a little session with you, how would you, how would you start the conversation of the Greek part of.
[00:10:17] Setting a time when it's going to be a more neutral, more, you know, but you're in a good place. How do you, how do you talk to people through that?
[00:10:26] Speaker 7: Yeah, I think, you know, the reality is I just named that you're, you're doing it by showing up and working with me. Like, like, and I have couples tell me like, just this week I had a wife saying, and this is why I hired you.
[00:10:42] Right. Is because they know they can't get into the conversations they need to have without it escalating into a wild conflict. And so I think that the, that relational experience is the first place, but we are wanting to not create a dependent environment, right? We want you to be able to do this out in the wild on your own.
[00:11:02] And so I think it's really about probing both partners' readiness for change. And you know, for this one, we have the, the one caller who's really more ready for change and the partner may not be so if I'm meeting with them I'm gonna be talking a little bit more to the partner that is maybe not as comfortable and saying and I'm just gonna call him John for a conversation.
[00:11:25] But hey John, you know, like I'm so glad that you're here today and you know Your partner wanted us to figure out how to help the two of you work together And so I imagine talking about money has not felt so comfortable in the past for you So I'm starting from a place of empathy and acknowledgement about what it's been like.
[00:11:46] I'm not like
[00:11:47] Speaker 6: shoulders down. I'm like, Oh God, he gets it.
[00:11:50] Speaker 7: Yes. Right. Right. And so, just even giving him that experience in the way that I bring a non anxious presence to the topic about what's going on with him. And so, like, gotta get John changed, gotta get him having these money dates, right? And so, through a little bit more conversation, a little more rapport building, one might say, you know, John, what would you think about the idea of having a money date, right?
[00:12:17] And so, I use questioning a lot. To see where they're at to see if they're comfortable instead of directive statements.
[00:12:27] Speaker 6: You're gonna have a money date blah blah blah
[00:12:29] Speaker 7: need to have it. This is when you're gonna do it It's like always asking questions and more and more questions to try to help them figure out what they want What they would get out of it what they might fear they would happen as a consequence too
[00:12:43] Speaker 6: You know, I already feel this like imagining myself as a client in this Is that okay that actually the trauma healing already begins right now, right?
[00:12:52] And that's what it's about It's like actually this is a safe this is a safe place to talk about this thing that you've had a Fear reaction to before and then that start that starting like new neurons are connecting Immediately with that like oh could this be safe because that's the whole that's that that's the entry point to all of this
[00:13:12] Speaker 7: And I, I think, you know, what's working in my mind too is that, I mean, sure, it'd be great if in 15 minutes, John's like, okay, yeah, I'm ready to do a money date.
[00:13:21] This is going to be great. But the reality is there's also this piece called pacing. And so I'm all, uh, it's this paradoxical, like I want them to move towards the things that they think are going to be good for them, but I'm also going to let you get there at the pace that makes the most sense for you.
[00:13:37] Speaker 6: I love this is because we're also, we're sharing. How the therapist is thinking the framework that everything we are keeping in mind in a session and yes It may seem like oh, we're just having this nice conversation or oh, wow, the client's getting this healing out of it but to really kind of like Pull the curtain back a little bit on our training and how we construct a session and how we approach it I just I so appreciate knowing Knowing your framework going into this
[00:14:06] Speaker 7: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:14:07] Well, and I think it's that's what's fun is that it's the invisible work that's happening to support clients And I think you know, probably most clients, you know, I've heard This where this phrase comes from in this context, but it's like I don't need to know how the sausage is made I just want to have the sausage Right?
[00:14:27] Like, and so I think legitimately for quite a number of clients, they don't really need to know how you do your magic. They just want you to do your magic. But I think that where that, um, may unintentionally undermine clients. is that if you understand a little bit of the reasoning behind what we're doing, then you can draw on that knowledge for yourself when you're, when you find yourself stuck in that position.
[00:14:52] Speaker 6: And actually going back to what we were talking about at the beginning, it's like, that's why this bi directional thing is so important. And that, yeah, sitting down with a book, that's great. Like I'm all about it. And I've been transformed by books, but it's sort of like, well, then I'm in charge of the pacing of that book or, you know, I mean, books do have their own pacing, but like, The book doesn't know if you're ready for this information or not.
[00:15:13] A book doesn't know if you're ready for the next step or not. But a trained professional has a better sense of that. Of the direction to go, right? The book has already written chapters 1 through 10. Yeah. But with the therapist, we don't have a 10 step plan. And that's why it works.
[00:15:32] Speaker 7: Yeah, I think that this is the nature between like the structured process and the dynamic relationship, right?
[00:15:39] And I think culturally we're very conditioned towards structured processes for change I mean you think about that whole educational system the teachers have their curriculum They have like this week like this semester. This is what we're working on. So this month that's what we're working on Which means this week that's what we're working on which means today we're doing this and we're systematically progressing through this And the group of 20 students need to kind of keep pace, but we know that not all 20 students can quite keep pace and they might miss a piece and then they start falling behind.
[00:16:13] So that's where you have to get the adjunctive support.
[00:16:16] Speaker 6: It
[00:16:16] Speaker 7: might work for 10 of them. It might work for 10 of them. Right. But that's what, that's how we are socialized to think about learning primarily. And so that to me, what was unique in training to be a therapist and learning about the therapist is.
[00:16:33] That it's really unique, very specific customization to the individual, right?
[00:16:42] Speaker 6: And that's what makes the job really interesting, and every client experience so different. And it's also what makes the job hard, like, there are times where I'm like, God, I wish I just had a five step plan, because this is mucky.
[00:16:55] Speaker 7: Well, and right, this is like, why I want listeners to hear is like. I have this a little bit of ambivalence about sharing the framework, the great money conversation framework is like, okay, great. You're telling me like, this is the sequence, greet, remember, empathy, attachment. Thank you. Okay, I got that. But like, there's a lot of sub steps in each of those letters.
[00:17:16] And
[00:17:16] Speaker 6: it might not go in that order. And it
[00:17:18] Speaker 7: may not go in that order, because there might be a place to include gratitude along each of these steps.
[00:17:25] Speaker 6: I'm also wondering about repair.
[00:17:27] Speaker 7: Repair would be, Oh, I like that. Remember?
[00:17:31] Speaker 6: Oh, remember and repair. Oh, look, see you guys, the co created process. We're like changing the acronym right here.
[00:17:37] Speaker 7: Live. I just made a note. I'm going to have to go update this because, and I think,
[00:17:42] Speaker 6: and maybe it's greater,
[00:17:44] Speaker 7: well, and I think, you know, but you, you, when you say repair immediately to bring something out to me, which is.
[00:17:56] There's so much I want to say, that's why I'm pausing to think about how to say this intentionally is when couples, by the time that couples reach me, especially, they have had many painful financial conversations. And so the need for acknowledgement and repair is huge. I can't remember who the author is, but there's a book out that came out, I don't know, maybe the last three to five years, it said, why won't you apologize? It was written by a therapist. I can't remember which therapist off the top of my head.
[00:18:25] Speaker 6: I'll find it.
[00:18:26] Speaker 7: Yeah. We linked that in the show notes, but it's this idea of like, we've never really learned how to repair.
[00:18:33] Most of us have not learned how to repair after really what's called relational ruptures and relational ruptures around money show up all the time. So what's a practical example of that is, why did you spend so much money on that? That was stupid, right? You're questioning and judging. And yet those types of commentary about people's financial decisions are so deeply normalized that we don't even realize that we're hurting the other person.
[00:19:04] We actually might think we're being helpful.
[00:19:05] Speaker 6: You know, we're thinking, Hey, why did you, I want to know, I want to work on this with you. But man, the person hearing that, what if that, reminds them of a way a parent spoke to them and admonished them about something. Then it's like, this has so little to do about this conversation about what you bought, and everything to do about how that adult as a child received judgment.
[00:19:27] And we're going right back there.
[00:19:29] Speaker 7: We're going right back there. And so I think that that's a skill that can continually be honed and developed. And look, when we're emotionally hurt, the last thing we're wanting to do is repair or acknowledge the pain that we've created. And so that's a big piece of this.
[00:19:44] Like know that if you're trying to enter these conversations, you may have to take accountability for doing things that you didn't even know were painful. And this is
[00:19:53] Speaker 6: wondering, like actually with our, with our voicemail here, our listener example. It's like there is a lot of compassion and empathy. But I would be curious in the conversation where the, the person who's a little bit, um, farther along in their willingness to change, though, is what do they need to out out to
[00:20:13] Speaker 7: 100 percent right?
[00:20:14] And this is 1 of those really hard things is like, for the well intended person, seeing that what they did was actually painful. Is really challenging because it's in conflict with their identity. Oftentimes.
[00:20:27] Speaker 6: Yeah. I'm a nice
[00:20:28] Speaker 7: person. I'm a good person. I'm a helpful.
[00:20:30] Speaker 6: I'm good with money. I've worked with couples where they definitely there's a narrative.
[00:20:33] There's 1 person who's good with money. 1 person who's quote bad with money. And then to the person who's good with money is really like, you know, trying to be the white knight about this and trying to get the other person caught up to them.
[00:20:45] Speaker 7: I don't
[00:20:46] Speaker 6: resemble that remark at
[00:20:47] Speaker 7: all.
[00:20:47] Speaker 6: Oh, okay. Okay.
[00:20:50] Speaker 7: That's me.
[00:20:50] Hashtag Ed, put the picture up.
[00:20:53] Speaker 6: The white knight, Ed.
[00:20:54] Speaker 7: The white knight. I still fall in that trap sometimes, Rachel. Let's just. Be honest, right? Like there's this, there's, y'all look, there's so many layers to that conditioning. And for me, I would say some of that conditioning is really comes out of my own religious heritage and tradition, right?
[00:21:12] About what does it mean to be Christlike and to be someone's savior and to really ultimately take on inappropriate responsibility for other people.
[00:21:21] Speaker 6: And what does it mean to be a man
[00:21:23] Speaker 7: and what does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be a white man? What does it, so there, there's lots of layers here where I have thought that I was well intended and supportive of my wife.
[00:21:34] And let's just say the reaction I was getting was not, oh, thank you so much.
[00:21:39] Speaker 6: That's just what I need to hear. You're right. I need to spend less .
[00:21:42] Speaker 7: Well, someone needed
[00:21:43] Speaker 6: to tell me that. .
[00:21:45] Speaker 7: Well, and this, fortunately it was, it's never been about her spending. And this is a funny little twist on the spending side is sometimes we're wanting our partners to be more open to spending, right?
[00:21:57] Like that's where criticism can come in too, is it's not about always overspending. Sometimes it's about underspending or being unwilling to spend and where it played out for us was really around her business. And career pathing and why won't you want to buy a business to set your dentistry practice up into why won't you want to buy a building?
[00:22:17] You know as couples we become interdependent upon each other financially
[00:22:22] Speaker 6: a big part of this whole coupling up thing
[00:22:26] Speaker 7: It's a huge part of it and we have a huge Uh, a headwind working against us because culturally we're conditioned towards financial independence.
[00:22:36] And so a big piece of what I'm talking with couples about too is the real goal is financial interdependence, we all start our life financially dependent on our caregivers and community. We cannot produce the resources that we need on our own to sustain our own life. So that's the starting point for all of us.
[00:22:56] Some of us learn that, well that system is not particularly great, I better take responsibility for myself. At a really young age, right? And in that state, then they can feel really kind of frustrated with other people that don't take responsibility for their financial lives. Or they can feel like, well, I just got to be responsible for everybody else,
[00:23:17] Speaker 6: a continued interdependence.
[00:23:19] So I've seen that happen where young adults have a continued interdependence on their family, and then when they get into their own intimate intimate relationship, they don't quite have the equipment to. To then be a co equal.
[00:23:32] Speaker 7: Yes. Yeah, right. So that's the big transition is we're hopefully growing into a healthy interdependence in our child parent relationship where we're taking on more and more responsibility for how we manage resources, both financial and employment.
[00:23:50] financial adjacent. So like, do I take care of my clothing? Do I take care of my school belongings? Do I take care of getting myself to practices, right? These are all adjacent money activities that kids are developing ideally so they can self manage them in the future, but also then they're going to have to continue to be relational about it both in their intimate relationship.
[00:24:12] But here's where the family creates the employee or the boss is into the marketplace. We go, Where we're, we're bringing our money narrative and story and it's meeting and mixing with every other person's money nor narrative and story and you know, I won't make this political but this is why we see a lot of the shit that we see writ large is It started, if you trace it back to the family and look at what was the family context like, there's a lot there.
[00:24:43] So, um, you know, I think this is where that skill, if we're moving through the greet process, we're greeting, so we're trying to set the stage for a good conversation. We're trying to be intentional about that, not reactive. We're wanting to remember that we each have our own money histories and be ready to repair and acknowledge when we've erred in the way that we've approached things.
[00:25:05] Empathy is a tool that starts to unlock a lot of that, right? The practice of empathy is showing an understanding of what that person's experience is from their perspective.
[00:25:18] Speaker 6: See this from where you came from. Yeah. Where are you coming from? I can see where that's at. And it doesn't mean, Oh, you're right.
[00:25:24] I'm wrong. It doesn't mean I'm right. You're wrong. It's not like that. It's like, it's holding the complexity. You know, we talked about like the both and like I can hold my experience and your experience in this space together. That's empathy.
[00:25:37] Speaker 7: Yeah, right. And I think empathy it's there's also like an emotional energy behind empathy that has care and compassion in it Versus judgment because there's plenty of people like oh, yeah your mother f'd you up like oh, yeah You came from a screwed up background.
[00:25:51] Of course, you're gonna screw up the money and that has like an empathy. That's not empathy That's an angry hostile, right? So that's where we have to be careful not to weaponize our partners painful past experiences And we also have to be careful to not be overly judgmental of our partner's family,
[00:26:10] because they're going to be sensitive to how you talk about their mother, their father, their step parent, grandparent, uncle, auntie. And so we need to be thoughtful about that too. Even if it feels wretched what they did, that may not be our place to name that.
[00:26:24] Speaker 6: And I wonder about this listener is kind of circling around that, right?
[00:26:28] Like, I get how your family effed you up. Like, I kind of hear that a little bit in there now. And, and it's great that you can see that. Right and but like be real careful about that right because we were you're also talking about you're really having empathy for your partners lived emotional experience in that And also I wonder with empathy, sometimes if we're not able to empathize, we need to get curious.
[00:26:51] Like maybe you don't know enough of the story. Or you don't, maybe you know the facts and not the emotions or something. Like sometimes I think that there's some, just information sharing. Um, one of the things I like to do when I have a couple in front of me is have them take turns telling the other their relationship with money from start to now.
[00:27:11] And the other person just listens, takes notes, is a good little student about it. Notice themes. Was there any new information? Right. And typically then and then we reflect what that was like what you heard and and typically both people say, I knew all those things like I've heard all those things, but I've never heard it all in one.
[00:27:31] And that helped me understand you.
[00:27:33] Speaker 7: I think you, that's probably like, if there's a top five favorite things in financial therapy, that's probably one of them. Right, and because that's part of that process when I'm starting with every couple, is we're spending time, and I'm often leading the questioning process through the whole family tree.
[00:27:50] About experiences with money and a lot of times there's not the reflection from the listening partner. It's not like, oh, wow, that's new information to me, but it's how that information is all related. And I'm intentionally stringing some things together. I always let clients adjust. I know that's not actually how I saw it, or that's not what it was.
[00:28:09] Okay, that's okay. And I think that's another piece of that empathy is how we string together what we think, how our partners mothers, you know, out of control spending and shape them. May not be the conclusion that they have about it. And so that's that's where that that rub that skin rub metaphorical skin rub can come is like well Yeah, of course your mom's overspending caused you to do this.
[00:28:34] No, it's no it didn't do that. It caused me to do this
[00:28:36] Speaker 6: Oh,
[00:28:37] an updating in yes. Yeah, you know, we talked about like a narrative Oh, that's your narrative, right? And then we're updating our understanding like, you know, we might think oh Well, my partner gets stressed about money because blank because that one time Right.
[00:28:51] And in not knowing the whole picture of actually how maybe there was a peak experience, but like, Oh, no, this is a series of events or a series of experiences. And it's. It's helping to create, yeah, sitting in empathy helps us create a more complete picture, a more nuanced picture of our partner's reactions to things, our partner's lived experience.
[00:29:13] And then expressing that empathy, receiving that empathy, it starts to already, we are untangling and rewriting narratives. Where, oh, maybe we're not a couple where one person is, quote, good with money, one person's not good with money, right? And then now we're experiencing that in real time together, that actually like, wow, we both come to this with a lifetime of lived experiences.
[00:29:35] And this is tough to weave together.
[00:29:38] Speaker 7: Yeah. I think it is, and I love that you, I think you've used that word weave multiple times in this conversation, and that, that is an active process, it's an intentional process for healthy, strong couples as they're weaving their life and their stories together. And I do think there's this, this piece where we can say, Maybe in some objective way, like, you know, or understand money better than your partner.
[00:30:00] Like if we give you a 20 question test and one of you might be able to answer 18, and one of you might only be able to answer five. Like, and that's true, but that's about usually more about the how money functions. So like, do you understand how compound interest works? Do you understand what net worth means?
[00:30:17] Do you understand inflation? Yada, yada, right? Like there's all these.
[00:30:22] Speaker 6: I can say there's, there's often one member of a couple who just has a higher tolerance for like dealing with a budgeting sheet. Like I talk about kind of like a tolerance level or an interest level or like where do our strengths lie?
[00:30:32] Like in my family, I'm diddling with our budget daily. Like I love the day to day. My husband loves the big picture. Right? Two really important strengths. Like they both need to happen. They're complementary. And so I like finding that in a couple. Like what do you enjoy doing? And sometimes a couple is like, I hate that I'm the one in charge of paying the bills.
[00:30:52] And the other person's like, I didn't know you hated it so much. I can, I can tolerate that. Like I don't hate it as much as you do. And even, even in the practical side, because people do come to us to try to figure out the practical side. I think there's some really loving ways we can figure out who's in charge of what.
[00:31:06] Is that working? You know, and thinking sometimes creatively because I think sometimes there's like one member of the couple that's like, I would like to get involved. I have strengths to bring to the table. Okay. So then that now we have a new, a new idea to, to toss around it, a new thing to, to play with.
[00:31:26] But I, I often see that even happening, even in the, in the practical side of money. This is not without its emotions, because then sometimes, right, and then, and then one person who has maybe been handling it all has a lot of built up narrative around, well, I'm the one who's supposed to handle it all. Or what I saw in my family is that member handled it all and didn't let anybody in, or I don't want to be judged for my mistakes.
[00:31:51] Speaker 8: Oh, yeah.
[00:31:51] Speaker 6: Right. So now we're back in emotion land, even though I thought we were talking about budgeting. So it never stays there. It's always like these other blocks and layers coming up.
[00:32:01] Speaker 7: It's such a false compartmentalization that like this practical money task is devoid of any emotional or relational concepts.
[00:32:11] It's not possible. You may have cut off or dissociate it from emotional realities, but that does not mean that they're not there. And this speaks to much deeper levels of psychological functioning and capacity to integratively experience money as part of the experience of life. And so when we think about going from greeting, to remember and repair, to empathy, to this fourth piece, which is attachment.
[00:32:41] And attachment is this huge field of study and In psychology, it's been around for 80 plus years, and it's really about what's the model in my mind of what relationships are like, right? And that we develop very distinct patterns of how we experience close and intimate relationships and what we do both when we're being received and when we're not being received.
[00:33:05] Speaker 6: Do you do a quick rundown of the types real quick? Yeah, of course.
[00:33:09] Speaker 7: So there's A pretty general, sorry, I'm getting more anxious about the way people parse out some of the words. Listeners, just be patient with me. Let's keep it real simple and straightforward. In general, what we say is there's four categories.
[00:33:25] There's secure, there's anxious, there's avoidant, and there's disorganized. Now, depending on which group of people you talk to, it's like, oh, they like preoccupied or dismissive. They're all pointing to very similar phenomenons. Phenomenon is In secure attachment, I generally have a positive view of myself and a generally positive view of others.
[00:33:51] I generally trust that people can be there for me both in the good times and the challenging times. That they're going to understand me and that I feel pretty capable of being able to understand them. Our nervous systems stay regulated in relationships more when we have that pattern of experience. I always think
[00:34:09] Speaker 6: I associate secure attachment with my needs are met and I meet others needs.
[00:34:14]
[00:34:14] Speaker 7: And, also, when my needs are not met, or another person's needs are not met, I trust that we can get back to meeting those needs. Right, the, because this, secure attachment is not about having perfect relationships. Actually, secure attachment allows for imperfect relationships.
[00:34:32] It feels okay with In perfect relationships because it knows that we can keep coming back around to repair connection, right? This is back to the R that repair and I'm going to take a short tangent here because what I Way that I like to talk to couples is you're in one of three places in your relationships at all times You're in a state of relating You're in a state of rupture, or you're in a state of repair.
[00:35:03] Speaker 8: Rupture. Repair. Okay.
[00:35:06] Speaker 7: And it's a simple model. It's maybe not perfect, but it helps you stay oriented, right? In repair, I feel pretty good about things. I feel excited to see you or to be with you and comfortable. In rupture, it's like, I feel anxious about seeing you or being around you or I'm with you and I feel anxious or uncomfortable.
[00:35:22] Speaker 6: I have anger.
[00:35:24] Speaker 7: Or have anger or resentment or any of the other gnarlies or, you know, and this is where I think that third piece, that repair piece, sometimes people just try to go back to relating. It's almost as if nothing ever happened.
[00:35:36] Speaker 6: Right. And it feels like that can feel with the other person who is in the rupture as you swept it under the carpet.
[00:35:42] Speaker 7: 100%. Yes. Yeah.
[00:35:44] Speaker 6: But if that person has not had a lived experience of seeing repair happen, of learning how repair happens, then they just don't know. Or if the attempts to repair were punished or dangerous, then they're not going to go there. That's not their go to.
[00:36:00] Speaker 7: A hundred percent, right? And so much of this relational stuff is a lot like learning to ride a bicycle, right?
[00:36:07] It's, I mean, you can read books about riding bicycles. You can see videos of people riding bicycles. You can watch other people, live person, but until you get on that bicycle and feel the experience of the bicycle balancing and moving forward and what it takes for you to move with the bicycle at the varying paces and speeds that bicycles can go.
[00:36:28] You cannot ride a bicycle well. But if you don't have someone help you get started or launch well on that, it's going to be hard to do it on your own. And so that's what the attachment relationship is. is supposed to do is it's helping you learn to ride the bicycle of relationships in life. And when you have poor instructors or ones that create dangerous and scary environments for relating, that's where you end up fearful of relationships, anxious about relationships, right?
[00:36:56] One end of this continuum. Or you end up avoidant, right? And so on the anxious side, you usually have a lower view of yourself and a higher view of others. You're looking to please and accommodate. You're looking for acceptance and approval. You, even when you get it, you may not feel confident that it's, it's true or genuine or valid.
[00:37:17] And so it makes it very tenuous being in relationship with others. You're working often pretty hard to try to maintain relationships on the other side. The avoidance say, oh, I'm good. What do I need you for? I don't really think relationships are that satisfying or that great. My history tells me otherwise Right because I mean really underneath it's that this is scary.
[00:37:40] This will hurt me under both sides of this is really relational pain and hurt. And it's just the response pattern has gone one of two directions. , and that's because typically what happens is we get consistent types of relating from our family.
[00:37:56] The behavioral patterns are consistently dismissive of us. But there is a small group of people that develop what's called disorganized attachment. And this is where you get very erratic behavioral patterns in your caregiving environment. Sometimes it's loving, sometimes it's safe, sometimes it's scary and threatening, sometimes it's withholding and distant, and so you have a very disorganized model of what relationships are actually like.
[00:38:25] That's a relatively small percentage of our total population, but in general the rough numbers 20 percent ish avoidant, 20 ish percent anxious, 50 percent secure. These are, and each of these exist on a continuum. Yeah, there's a blend there. So you can be like secure ish, you can be anxious ish, or you can be very relationally anxious.
[00:38:48] You could be avoid it ish. And that doesn't really roll off the tongue quite as nicely, but you're right, it's continuums here, folks. So it's not, I am an anxious, I am an avoidant, so that's attachment. And so we started with this very simple framework, a great money talk, but as we're talking through each of these points, we realized like, there's a lot to go into this.
[00:39:09] And so hopefully listeners might be feeling some overwhelmed, but also to know, like if you're having trouble getting coordinated, getting through a good money talk, it's understandable. There are resources. And so we just, and when we try to go to that money talk, wherever we get to is. Gratitude acknowledgement, and maybe it's not because we've reached the end point, but it's we've taken another step to getting closer to having these conversations. Incremental progress matters.
[00:39:35] Speaker 6: I love the idea of kind of like a bookend, right? We have the greeting and the thank you. And that's doing so much for the repair is the whole thing as like. This, this might've been a tough conversation, and I'm so glad we had it. Hoo, right? There's already, we're, we're sliding a little more towards secure attachment.
[00:39:53] This is saying, we had a tough thing. I really appreciate the experience. I understand myself better. I understand you better. Thank you. Wow. Okay. If you never experienced that level of repair as a child, well, now you have as an adult. And that's, that's the incredible experience, I think, or the opportunity of adult relationships.
[00:40:15] your attachment style is not forever. It doesn't have to be forever. And it is in these intimate relationships that we can heal it. Like I was probably a little, you know, uh, on the anxious side of things. And I can really see in my relationship how I have really healed a lot of that and have much.
[00:40:38] More secure attachment style myself because of my intimate relationship Like we have worked hard and I think my husband's really has really helped me I remember when we were first together and we had some little disagreement about something and I had never had an argument in a relationship before it oh Talk about people pleasing over here.
[00:41:00] I always would just over compromise or just appease and He started to have a little disagreement and I started appeasing him And he stopped me. He said, No, I want to hear what you think. What do you really think? I had never had that experience before. Right? I had always been encouraged to get along with everyone.
[00:41:21] And I was like, Oh, you want us to disagree? Like he just has a higher tolerance for conflict. He knows it will work through it. And it took a long time for me to be okay with that. Now I'm all about it. Now. I gotta really let him know what I think all the time, because I feel secure that I can do that.
[00:41:36] Right. And I wouldn't have learned that before with this relationship going in this way. And so there's such opportunity. And I was like, here we are two financial therapists. We have talked about money very little y'all. And this is the work that makes, that makes a relationship with money as well improve.
[00:41:55] Speaker 7: Well, right. So there is no financial security without relational security, right? Let me say, even if you're
[00:42:00] Speaker 6: single, even if you're, even if
[00:42:02] Speaker 7: you're single there, because you have a relationship with yourself and people miss that. And so relational security is the foundation of financial security. The other thing is we realized like we can't control the full outcomes of the financial markets, the financial world, there's some things that we have control over and there are some things we have no control over. And so how we dress ourselves is, you know, what matters, but I think it's, we have a lot more influence or ability to show up relationally healthy. And that increases our odds of success significantly.
[00:42:38] Speaker 6: And I'll share, like, if any of this is interesting to you, there's a wonderful listing of financial therapists on the Financial Therapy Association. So, you know, maybe we're a little biased here, but we do. It's a list of really incredible people. If you want to have, um, some, some help having these conversations with your partner, um, it can really, it's, it can be really hard to do on your own.
[00:43:03] So I think that's what we're saying. Not impossible at all, and there are great resources, but, um, to really workshop your relationship in a way that can be really reparative, um, you know, it's great to have this third person in the room.
[00:43:20] Speaker 7: And I would go as far as to say for some, if not many, it's necessary.
[00:43:25] Speaker 6: How would you know if it's necessary, Ed? How would someone know?
[00:43:28] Speaker 7: Well, I mean, I think a few of the clues are if you've read the books, listened to the podcast, scrolled to Instagram, and nothing's changing, there's your sign.
[00:43:37] Speaker 8: Yeah,
[00:43:38] Speaker 7: that's a good sign. Right. But I would also just do, even if you haven't gone to that length, and I think this is, you know, to some extent, what I wish someone could have told me sooner is like, You know, check in and use a subjective scale.
[00:43:52] How much distress you feel in whatever your distress is. If it's more than a 3 out of 10, professional help, right? Like, I think, and this is that help seeking behavior that we also learn through our childhood is like, when should we take care of our cold and flu and just take some Tylenol and crawl in bed and put a blanket over us and be done?
[00:44:12] And when do we need to get our butt to the doctor? Right? And this is the same type of self evaluation is, there are times when we need to get professional help. The sooner we get professional help, the sooner we get through to the other side. But we know, brought more broadly from the therapy field, that many people defer years and years and years before they get professional help.
[00:44:34] And the same is true with financial planning and our personal finances. And you know, the longer you defer getting help around your personal finances, The harder it is to make the progress and recovery that you want, and this is not intended to be a scare tactic in any stretch of the imagination, but it's just the reality.
[00:44:53] You know, it's like our physical health. If you get further and further down the poor health continuum, the harder and harder it is to recover your health and the lower the chances. And the same is true in our financial life.
[00:45:06] Speaker 6: It can't take one person relationship to self help.
[00:45:09] the relationship to improve with the finances. Um, so yeah, there is often one person who's a little more on board with this than the other. And so that's why having a, uh, a financial therapist who is also trained with couples is really important because it's, it's different work for sure. Well, I, I hope this helps our listener a little bit.
[00:45:29] We talked a lot about theory and everything, but I really hope that, um, this idea of, I also want to add, like, This is a series of small conversations often, like we're not going to have this, but I do tell my couples, you're not going to have one knock down, drag out conversation to go every aspect of your money and it's going to be done.
[00:45:50] And I often put a time limit. If you're going to have a money date, make sure it's at a time that's good for both of you. You're in a good place and maybe keep it under 30 minutes like that. There's one topic, right? It's about having. More positive interactions, or not, not, I shouldn't say positive, more healing, more safe conversations, um, that are going to be scattered, you know, not necessarily one big one, although I, you know, having a money date and that kind of practice can be really helpful for couples to maintain, like, like you said, like take this out of the therapy room and actually do it in, in real life.
[00:46:24] Speaker 7: Yeah, a hundred percent.
[00:46:26] Speaker 6: Well, thank you, Ed, so much for sharing your wisdom and, uh, share with us how we can get in touch with you.
[00:46:32] Speaker 7: Sure. The best way to get in touch with me is through my company's website, healthy love and money. com. Uh, we provide professional services of therapy, informed financial planning, as well as financial therapy.
[00:46:45] Um, I have two additional incredible team members at this point, we're going to be continuing to grow and adding more providers there. So that's one way. We have a book called the healthy love and money way that's available out on Amazon. So you can grab that a couple of different courses. And then we have loads of free content, you know, blogs and podcasts.
[00:47:03] And so all of that you can discover at healthy, loveandmoney. com.
[00:47:07] Speaker 6: Ed's emails are really good. All right. And thank you so much for joining us today. We'll see you in the financial therapy sphere.
[00:47:14] Speaker 7: Thanks Rachel. Appreciate it.
[00:47:15] Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh.
[00:47:19] Thanks for listening to the Money Healing Club podcast. You can find resources and links from this episode in the show notes at moneyhealingclub. com slash podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, you'd probably really love my free email course on curbing impulse spending with compassion and mindfulness.
[00:47:35] Check it out at moneyhealingclub. com slash challenge. Do you have a question about how financial therapy might help you? Leave me a voicemail at moneyhealingclub. com. And I might answer your question in a future episode of the pod. We are in this together and I really appreciate it.
[00:47:53] -Music-