Money Matters in a Relationship
Money is such an emotionally loaded topic that few couples discuss it directly. For most people, money is never just money, a tool to accomplish some of life’s goals. It is love, power, happiness, security, control, dependency, independence, freedom and more.
Men and women had dramatically different ideas about who does what with the family finances, and what their partners care about. Many individuals have a troubled relationship with money. Then, when they get into a couple relationships, money matters get explosive. Other people may have no problem with money individually; the trouble starts after they are in the relationship. As a result of the money taboo, we grew up as most kids do: imitating my parents’ way of handling money without being aware of it. Men are raised to see the world as hierarchical and competitive. There is always a winner and a loser. Women see the world as cooperative and democratic; they share. In addition, they are allowed and even encouraged to be needy and vulnerable, while men are discouraged from such display. Despite many social changes, women are still paid three-quarters of what men are paid for the same job. When men make more money than their spouse, they believe their superior earnings entitle them to greater power in decision-making. By contrast, women who make more than their mates almost always desire democratic decision-making. In addition, men are still bred to believe they will be good at dealing with money although nobody tells them how to do it. In that way, money is like sex; they are just supposed to know. Women are raised to believe they won’t be good at it and, if they are lucky, some man will take care of the details of money and investing.
Money issues are different from other problems in relationships. They are harder to talk about and harder to resolve because of our extensive cultural conditioning. Psychologists advice is that in couples communication the most important is empathy, or putting yourself in your partner’s place. It is almost always more important to be heard and understood than to have a partner agree with what you say.
