We Get Along Financially, Except

When I tell people that I am a marriage counselor that specializes in working with couples and their money, I usually get one of two responses. The first is diving straight into the details of their marriage and financial lives and some specific event that happened to them.

The other is a more cautious response. It goes something like, “We are really fortunate. We get along well on that page.” Then there’s a positive explanation about how good things are. As I listen for a bit, I acknowledge and say that is wonderful.

Recently I was talking with a doctor who thought my work was really interesting, and he said he and his wife get along well in that department. He went on to say “We are blessed”. To which I responded great not expecting much after that. Then came the exception, he said my wife thinks I have too much insurance. I think oh, is that so? Now this was a social setting so I did not get into the details, but this is one of many examples of what I hear once someone feels safe enough to share with me about their life. The reality is that we all have financial sticking points in our marriages. So the question becomes, are these sticking points driving a wedge into your relationship with your spouse? Is it affecting your ability to enjoy each other’s company?

Most couples can navigate a few minor disagreements, but stack a few together and the stress increases. The reality is that there is often both an emotional cost and a financial cost when it comes to financial differences.

In the case of the insurance for this spouse, it was a common source of tension. Even if for this doctor he is spending $200 a month in extra premium for insurance that is not necessary—that adds up to $2,400 a year. Peace of mind just became more expensive for this couple. But the bigger question becomes why is this insurable risk so important to the person?

Without knowing the details, we could assume that it was a disability policy that the doctor has. But the policy might not be technically necessary for a number of reasons. Beneath the surface the of that decision the doctor's father became disabled at a young age, and that memory lays in the back of his brain about the need for disability insurance. Perhaps this is not a connection that he has made, but it then becomes a clear explanation about his desire to have more disability insurance than would normally be reasonable. Further yet, the disability was caused by a motorcycle accident. The doctor does not even own a motorcycle and won't ride one. So does he really need this disability policy? Perhaps not. Hopefully this demonstrates that insurance policies can become about meeting more of an emotional need than a financial need. Yet if we remain overly-insured based on subjective needs, then we may be cutting off cash flow that could be used to allocate towards other important goals for the family.

Falling In Love With The Profession And Not The Person

You would never marry for money—or would you? You meet the special someone and they tell you about their line of work. You think to yourself, “Wow this person must have it going on! I sure would like to get to know them better.” You engage this person in fun, friendly conversation. Over time the relationship develops and you decide to get engaged to this amazing person. At the conscious level you are thinking, “ This person is smart, charming, seems to be doing all the right things. Why wouldn't I want to be with them”. In return they are thinking the same thing about you.

So the relationship progresses and you get married. You think you’ve hit the jackpot. You met this wonderful person and will spend the rest of your life together… Until one day you wake up and you realize, “Wow I thought I married this person because I love them and they make me feel so wonderful.” But things are not always as they appear.

There are some professionals that our society holds in high esteem—you know, those people who will get to live the good life: doctors, lawyers, successful business professionals, etc.  It can all seem like a wonderful windfall of good fortune, especially if you were not expecting to marry this type of person. But over time you realize what it looks like to actually live with someone who’s achieved that level of success.

Sadly, we often pursue a certain career or someone in that career, because we have an idealized image of what it would be like to become or be with that person. We can become blinded by our own idealism of being associated with that title. Okay, now I know by now you are saying who me, “I would never do that,” and maybe that’s true. But from my experience we all tend to romanticize certain types of people. If we are fortunate enough to meet and then "fall in love" with them, we are in for a rude awakening—they too are people, subject to their own faults and limitations.

Eventually you will hit this point of waking up from the idealized image of who you married, and see them for who they are. Then the hard work of the relationship begins. Sadly, this is when many couples bail out and say, “This is not who I married. What happened to that amazing person I met and fell in love with?” Well the sad reality is that we fell in love with an idealized image of the person, not the real person. But once we recognize this, then we can start to effect positive change in ourselves to learn how to love the person who we fell in love with.

At a deeper and often unconscious level, we have internalized money messages about what certain society positions should be able to provide us. There is often a period of disillusionment when we realize that this person who holds an idealized position is not as good as they seem. At this very juncture it is time to lean in and get to know the person behind the profession. They are likely neither as good or as bad as you might think.

Entering into this season of life can be challenging and overwhelming. If we put the position before the person, then the relationship remains shallow and unfulfilling for both people in the relationship. But given time, and often a bit of professional help, you can move to a place of loving the person behind the profession, and then ultimately enjoying the benefits of their position as well.

In my next post I will be looking at the effects of what I call the personal boom and bust cycle.

Written By: Ed Coambs – Marriage Counselor and Financial Therapist

Edited By: Joey Glass

What Is Your Financial Story?

The power of narrative is often missed and misunderstood in the process of financial planning.

We all have an untold financial story that is working in the background of our lives. Bringing light to this story helps us to find our way forward.

I don't know when the first story was told, but I know that it was thousands of years ago. For as long as we can go back, stories have carried the power to pass along values of the family, community and broader culture. Modern day Hollywood has figured out how to tell the best stories, and they make huge money telling stories. They’ve become so adapt at telling stories, that I wonder if we have lost the ability to tell our own stories—the stories of our families, and the challenges and triumphs that they’ve overcome and yet to overcome.

Stories, when told by the people who have lived them, do not miss the little details of family history and the meaning associated with different events. Stories are often how we learn best, as there are strong emotions associated with stories, which tie into the facts and figures of our lives. Stories take us on a journey and carry us through to the next generation. Yet as I meet with people to talk with them about their finances, I am surprised to learn how little they know of their own story, that is, their family story—how they came to be, what values they stood for, and what direction the family is headed. Sure they can tell me a few details, the highlights, but the deep knowledge of family story is not there.

Yet more often than not, it’s the deep family story that continues to carry forward strong convictions and beliefs about how the world works and should work. People with all levels of educational achievement will often refer back to something their mother or father did, and how that has shaped the way they do something now. While they may gain new knowledge that advances the direction of the family, there is still a pull by the family back into what they’ve been told.

So as you face looking at your finances, what is your story? Here are 10 questions to help you start to open up and look at your own family’s story of money.

1. What financial successes did your family have?

2. Who made the money (did one member make much more that than the other)?

3. When where you left wanting for something but could not have it?

4. Who controlled the money and why?

5. Who spent the money and why?

6. What arguments over money existed?

7. How does your spouse view money?

8. How do you view money?

9. What did your family say about rich, middle class, and poor people?

10. What did you learn about money from watching your parents?

These are just ten questions to help you start to examine your own story around money. As we become more familiar with our family story around money, and how we want things to either stay the same or change, we then gain new insight into the directions that we can head.

In the stories we create, we want to look for places of consistency, and when there are exceptions to the rule. We want to start to look at how we want to rewrite the story so that it goes forward. While it is important to understand the story up until this point, we also want to start to look to the future to determine how we would like the story to look going forward. What would the script of your financial future include? How can you start to write into your new script?

In my next blog post see how your story may have led you to fall in love with a profession and not a person.

Written By: Ed Coambs

Edited By: Joey Glass

What Is Financial Wholeness?

This is neither about making more or less money. It’s not about the right investment strategy, insurance products or even estate plan. Rather, it is about the way that you relate with these key elements of financial planning.

Financial wholeness is focused on understanding who you and your spouse are as people, and what financial plans are appropriate for both of you. If you are a small-business person, nurse, corporate or government employee, your definition of financial security and then life objectives will be defined differently. 

Personal financial planning is only coming into prominence over the last 40+ years. As people have entered into mass affluence and lost the sense of security that came from an agrarian society of the early 1900’s, or pension based retirements of the mid to late 1900’s, a shift in thinking about how to give meaning to live and manage the resources to accomplish that meaning is underway. As we live in this new millennium, what it means to create financial security is evolving, and certainly there is not one definition that will work for every individual.

While financial planning is focused on what to do with your money, financial wholeness has little to do with the actual money that you have. Rather, it’s a concept that speaks to our relationship with money and the way that we approach using money in our lives.  All of us live with conflicting and often unexplored beliefs and thoughts about money, which drive the way that we use money in our lives. Some of these beliefs and thoughts are helpful, while others can have disastrous implications for the way that we live our lives and engage in relationships with our significant others.

So then financial wholeness becomes about finding congruency between what we say we believe and think about money and what we actually do with it. To get to financial wholeness, we start with openness to personal exploration and a willingness to look at ourselves in ways we have not yet considered.

Over the next year I will release twenty four blog posts that will take you deeper into understanding what financial wholeness can mean for you and your family.

The Next Post Will Be – What Is Your Financial Story?

Written By: Ed Coambs

Edited By: Joey Glass