Name: Money ruins relationships. Here’s how to fix that. | Your Brain on Money
Uploaded: 2024-06-18T12:26:21.000Z
Duration: 6 min 28 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Studies show that conflicts over money is one of the leading causes for marital dissatisfaction and divorce, especially in the first three years of marriage.

Why is money such a source of conflict in our relationships?

Sentences with would like

Quite often, we're worried that we're going to be judged, or maybe we're with somebody who's more controlling than we would like them to be.

The way that we think we are behaving with our money may be different than the way that our partner is experiencing financial decisions in our household.

Somebody might be a spender, somebody might be a saver, but if you can work through these financial differences, that you can come out much stronger.

Having shared understanding about what you want money to do or mean in your relationship helps to set a foundation for so many other aspects of your relationship.

You'll have increased intimacy and increased marital satisfaction.

It can be tricky, but it is really important to power through and to engage in those conversations.

So, how can we take the danger out of talking about money with our partner?

So how does the brain process this fear around the topic of money, especially when it comes to a romantic relationship?

Romantic relationships are important to our lives.

Threats of exclusion, threats of losing that relationship are one of the strongest drivers of the areas of the brain that register pain.

The same areas of the brain that register physical pain, the potential for losing that close relationship is perceived as a very serious cost.

And when people get so in their heads around money, they think if we start to talk about money, it could ruin the relationship.

They'll come in and they'll say something like this to me.

We don't talk about money because when we talk about money, we fight.

So we don't talk about money ever, except for when we have to.

So conflicts are inevitable and they often offer an opportunity for us to improve our relationship with money.

When you're struggling with your partner, not seeing eye to eye, understanding that this is an opportunity perhaps for you to modify your beliefs around money so that you can be healthier around money.

Okay, so we all perceive things differently, which is why it's so important for couples to align on their money goals.

And talking about money is hard because often when we talk about it, our emotions are already high.

The stakes are high and that it can be a little bit scarier to engage in these conversations because you love that person.

And when do we have to talk about money in a relationship?

When things big are happening, like, oh shoot, I got fired.

Or, oh my gosh, I got a great job opportunity.

And so when you're only talking about money, when things are tense, it creates this feedback loop, this self-fulfilling prophecy of, if we talk about money, we fight.

So the answer is then we just don't talk about it.

But that's just not the best way forward.

You might be nervous or anxious or overwhelmed, or you saw other family members or parents struggle with this.

But here's your chance for it not to take you and your relationship out.

And that means, yes, being vulnerable and dealing with some stuff that's really hard.

Really ask yourself, do you want a successful relationship?

A lot of ways that we can have these conversations without it being conflictual really starts with our tone and our posture.

Are we coming from a one-up position as if we know better?

Are we coming with a way that just makes our partner feel less than?

Or are we communicating, you know, when you said that, that particular way, that really affected me?

The more that we're having conversation, we're being open and vulnerable, and just being willing to hear our partner, that can really help.

It's very important also for both partners to be financially literate and for one to not yield responsibility for the finances to the other.

This can set people up for financial abuse, for financial infidelity, a lack of financial stability.

It's really important for both partners to be on the same page with how we're managing money, where the money's going, because chances are, both will need to do that at some point in their lives.

For some couples, the language we use can be crucial.

For example, the word budget can bring up lots of negative emotions.

When we think of a budget, we think of cutting out all the things that we enjoy in life.

And to do that with your partner is even worse because you get to sit across the table and point at each other and all the stuff they love and tell them they got to cut it out.

It's the absolute wrong way to approach it.

What you need to do is develop a spending plan.

Like, what do you want to spend your money on?

What are the most important things to you?

Because money is a taboo topic for a lot of us, we oftentimes don't uncover the experiences of our partner when it comes to finances, how they grew up with money, what they did at a young age.

It's really important for us to understand not only our money history, but our partner's money history.

Because our behaviors around money, our hangups around money, our mistakes around money all make perfect sense when you understand the history.

And so taking some of the tension out of these money conversations starts with understanding perspective so that you're not going into a financial conversation, setting off a bunch of emotional and psychological triggers that they have around money.

And it also gives you an avenue for resolving it.

It's about getting to a mutual understanding, sometimes compromising, and sometimes agreeing to disagree.

Because when we talk about money with our partner, we're creating plans to make sure that we have covered our fears and we're working towards our goals and dreams.

 And that rekindles that intimacy and can really strengthen that relationship.