The Heart of Money: A Couple's Guide to Creating True Financial Intimacy

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INTRODUCTION

Money, love, sex … any one of these subjects represents a plethora of complex emotions and experiences that human beings have grappled with throughout history. When you mix these issues together, you have perhaps the most challenging and combustible material known to humankind. No wonder money issues are a major source of conflict in our relationships! Even in the best of economic times, over 50 percent of all marriages in the United States end in divorce. Given the current economic recession and the mounting financial pressures that couples are experiencing, it is likely that money issues and conflicts will continue to increase, as will the corresponding divorce rates.

The subject of money is still highly taboo and one that people will go to great lengths to avoid. Yet couples who are in a committed relationship or married cannot have a healthy, truly intimate relationship unless they are willing to be financially open and fully transparent about their financial wants, needs, and expectations. Financial intimacy requires the willingness to be self-revealing and vulnerable; to be seen for who we really are; to share our fears and our secrets; and to love and accept one another unconditionally, flaws included. It takes an emotionally and financially mature person to achieve this depth of intimacy. While many people may possess the emotional maturity, relatively few are also financially mature enough to manage this terrain alone. Achieving this level of financial maturity and consciousness is remarkably difficult for most individuals (let alone couples!), which is why we experience so much conflict in our relationships.

When it comes to identifying and changing our money patterns and behaviors, we receive very little help, if any, for understanding ourselves and our money issues. Even most psychologists admit that they are not trained or educated with respect to money issues. And, while the fields of behavioral finance, neuroscience, and neuroeconomics have begun to delve into this arena, any knowledge gained so far is not being utilized in the trenches with real people who are struggling daily to save their relationships and financial lives. At the Money Coaching Institute, we are working to change this dynamic by training hundreds of money coaches worldwide to integrate our programs and to help individuals and couples to heal and change their relationship with money.

Money is a core survival issue. When people are fearful and anxious about money and their personal finances, they are frequently too overwhelmed and stressed to be focused and present. Prolonged financial pressures also lead to increased problems with spouses; alcohol and drug abuse; and, sadly, a corresponding increase in depression, despair, and suicide. According to the Center for Financial Social Work, money issues are

•    the number one stressor in people’s lives

•    the number one cause of divorce

•    a major source of depression, anxiety, and insomnia

•    a primary reason for abuse and violence

•    a trigger for alcohol and drug abuse

•    overwhelming and immobilizing

•    accompanied by feelings of hopelessness, shame, isolation, and vulnerability

•    an emotional roller coaster that diminishes coping and decision-making skills

•    a cause of distraction, anger, irritability, mistakes, and accidents.

The bottom line is this: if we do not feel financially safe and secure in our primary relationships, we cannot experience financial intimacy. In order to become truly financially intimate, we must first learn how to openly and honestly communicate about money while safely expressing our hopes, fears, needs, and desires. Without financial intimacy and safety, our relationships lack the foundation required to survive the challenges and experiences that most relationships eventually encounter over time. Thus, at a time when the United States and the world are experiencing major financial meltdowns, relationships are also beginning to experience foundational cracks, and the fallout from both may very well be the worst in history. Even before the current financial debacle, couples were stressed by mounting debt, mortgage foreclosures, and bankruptcies.

When money is scarce, it is easy to become emotionally triggered, which is why many couples are prone to reacting impulsively where money is concerned. When we are highly fearful, the fight-or-flight response system is activated in the brain, which does not bode well for our interpersonal relationships. How can we learn to not abandon ourselves, our families, and our children when both global and personal financial challenges continue to trigger our own deeply unresolved money issues? Our money issues will not change or suddenly disappear simply because our finances improve or even if we decide to leave our relationships. Divorce is often more of a Band-Aid than a solution to money issues. As Confucius said, No matter where you go, there you are. For many couples, things might in fact get worse, especially for the woman. Women, particularly single mothers, tend to fare significantly worse financially post-divorce than men do. Not that I believe couples should stay married simply for financial security. However, many marriages might possibly be saved if couples were able to resolve their underlying money issues and communicate more calmly and reflectively, rather than reactively.

What the World Needs Now: Money Therapy

The list of money disorders seems to be growing by the day. Among the issues we grapple with are compulsive spending, financial infidelity, debt addiction, hoarding, overspending, underspending, money phobia, compulsive gambling, financial enabling, chronic underearning, and workaholism. Because it’s a core survival issue, everyone can feel vulnerable when it comes to money. It’s also an area of our lives that at times can feel out of control or deeply affected by the actions of others. That we become so easily reactive around money is not surprising when we consider that most people have not been given the proper training or education about money or personal financial matters. How can we feel safe, secure, and confident when we lack the tools we need to make good financial choices and to be financially empowered?

Perhaps it’s time for a little money therapy. If we have a plumbing problem, we don’t hesitate to call a plumber. If we have a health problem, we go see the doctor. If we have money issues, we deserve the help and advice of a professional as well. Money affects every aspect of our lives, and yet we know very little about our personal relationship with it. Isn’t it time we heal our relationship with money?

As we become more aware of our own money patterns and behaviors, we can begin to make new, healthier choices. This is a great first step toward creating a new financial legacy for ourselves and our children — a legacy built on self-awareness, knowledge, and power instead of stress, fear, mistrust, or dependence. But first we must each begin to understand and heal our own relationship with money.

It is estimated that the combined total of financial casualties since 2008 in the United States alone may exceed 3.5 million by the end of 2012. That means roughly one in every fifty families will be affected by this recession, which is staggering to consider. One thing is certain: if we are to individually and collectively survive, and in fact thrive again, we must confront this final frontier and take the money conversation out of the closet once and for all. It is time to shift our collective money paradigm. Throughout this book, you will discover highly effective strategies and solutions to help you begin the financial healing process and strengthen the intimacy in your relationship. My intention is to provide help and hope for couples and their families everywhere, as I’ve witnessed the same money issues and dynamics in clients globally. Let this book guide you to discover and work through your money dynamics — and in doing so, live more purposeful and financially empowered lives. I truly believe that when couples develop financial intimacy and can effectively communicate about money, they can communicate about anything.

A Note to the Reader

Please note that throughout this book you will see references to God, Source, and Spirit, which I use interchangeably to mean a Higher Power. Please know that I have no religious agenda in writing this book. Humanity is my religion. How or whether a person believes in God is deeply personal, and I honor that in every human being. My clients come from all walks of spiritual life; they are Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Catholics, Sikhs, and Hindis, as well as nonbelievers. They all know that I honor their distinct relationship with God. Spirituality infuses and informs everything I do, and you will hear this echoed throughout these pages. I invite you to take or leave my spiritual perspective as it serves you. It is offered without attachment or agenda.

This book will guide you and your partner to move beyond limiting money patterns and beliefs through exercises designed to help you to safely explore, communicate about, and understand each other’s money dynamics. Each chapter in this book includes excerpts and exercises from coaching sessions conducted with actual clients. I suggest that you do this work together and that you both keep a money coaching journal throughout the process. The exercises included in each chapter are designed to help you work together and discuss your experience as you proceed. It is my intention that couples who read this book discover new and healthy ways to communicate safely and effectively around money, love, and relationship. Money can either be left as the unexamined shadow or become transformed by our willingness to look deeply into ourselves and take responsibility for our own choices and destiny.

MONEY: THE LAST TABOO

No failure in America, whether of love or money, is ever simple; it is always a kind of betrayal, of a mass of shadowy, shared hopes.

— GREIL MARCUS, Mystery Train

If you look around at the world today, our collective money issues lie somewhere deep at the root of every major global problem we are facing. Unthinkable greed, overconsumption, environmental abuse, mass poverty, outrageous military spending, and the global financial crisis have caused us finally to hit bottom. While waking up from this hangover may not be easy, there has never been a more compelling time to shift our collective relationship with money. The subject of money is the last taboo and the final horizon in the evolution of our human consciousness.

Almost every relationship encounters challenges or outright conflict around money at some point. In my experience, few couples know how to communicate effectively about this highly charged subject in a way that is compassionate and supportive. No wonder many marriages disintegrate and fail over money issues! Issues and conflict around money remain a leading cause of divorce, which leaves in its wake not only financial consequences but emotional devastation as well.

Left unmanaged and without proper and timely help, money issues will eventually chip away at the foundation of trust and intimacy in our relationships. Without trust, intimacy cannot survive, and without intimacy, love withers and dies. The good news is that if couples recognize and manage their money dynamics early in their relationship — or, better yet, before they live together or marry — they can learn how to work through and heal their differences.

How can we do this if we can’t even talk about money calmly and rationally because the subject is so taboo, triggering, and unsafe? Therein lies the challenge and what I most hope to assist you with. The money coaching strategies and support in this book will help you to achieve the understanding and compassion you need to foster the love and intimacy you both desire.

Breaking Free of the Money Taboo

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a taboo is something that is avoided or forbidden for religious or social reasons, and therefore, talking about a taboo subject is often considered wrong or distasteful. In the past sixty years, we’ve opened the door to exploring many historically taboo subjects, such as sex, ethnicity, religion, and politics; and in doing so, we have expanded and evolved both our individual and our collective consciousness. As a reward for these efforts, we have all witnessed and experienced greater openness, acceptance, and tolerance in the world at large.

Yet somehow, money has remained a vastly unexplored taboo, and there is more than sufficient evidence to show that this taboo is simply not serving us. The emotional and financial pain and consequences that couples experience are taking a toll and costing them far too much. It is time to break free of the money taboo and heal our collective money issues.

Facing the Money Shadow

Any area of our lives that remains off-limits to talk about openly, honestly, and without fear can become a shadow part of our being. In Jungian psychology, the shadow or shadow aspect represents a part of our unconscious mind that contains repressed aspects of ourselves. Carl Jung wrote that everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. In monetary terms, the shadow represents unconscious money patterns or behaviors we may possess that are harmful to ourselves or to others.

One example of this is when a person secretly invests a large sum of money without the knowledge of his or her partner and then loses the money, creating an extreme financial loss and feelings of betrayal. This has happened with many of the couples in my practice, and in each case, shadow influences were present in the partner who had secretly invested. In one couple, the shadow aspect of the husband had to do with unacknowledged anger toward his wife. Rather than learning how to address and communicate his anger, he acted out his feelings through secret behavior that ultimately sabotaged their finances and their relationship. Fortunately, they were able to heal and resolve this betrayal, but sadly, it doesn’t always work out favorably. Many marriages fail due to the shadow influences in one or both spouses that manifest in negative behaviors, secrecy, and betrayal.

Let these stories be a cautionary tale for us all, because to the extent that we are unwilling to move beyond the money taboo, we all stand to carry a part of this shadow inside us. Every day, we hear news about some individual (or corporation — they have their own shadow aspects) who committed an act that no one saw coming or was, by all accounts, not in keeping with his or her core personality. This is always followed by statements like But he was such a nice guy; what happened? from those who knew the person. Our shadow aspects are generally hidden deep within us. Most of us work hard to overcome these tendencies, but we often discover the money shadow in others only when we get hit between the eyes.

In relationships, the