If you find that financial stress is killing your marriage, you are not alone. Financial stress is one of the top reasons for divorce. In our modern economy money is THE resource, which makes talking about money more than just about goals and prioritizing, it can feel unsafe, polarizing, and fruaght with failure and rejection.
Approximate read time: 8 minutes
Approximate worksheet time: 10-30 minutes
Skip to the worksheet
I’m sure you’ve heard the age-old advice that all you and your partner need to do is comprimise, or find common ground. And it seems like good advice, but is it, really? (no, it’s not)
Modern couple therapists know something the rest of us may not, and that is that communication can only happen when a couple is deeply connected. When you and your partner are connected through all the intimacy domains, communication is a foregone conclusion… almost a guarantee.
Think about the last time you and your partner had a “money talk”. Did you both feel heard, seen, and safe? If you didn’t, you are not alone. Not by a long shot. Even if you feel connected, respected, and heard in all other domains of your lives together, money holds a unique sway over us.
Our financial stress goes beyond status or comfort. Money, the lack of money, or even the potential lack of money triggers the same kind of scarcity in our survival-obsessed brains as a lack of food. This anxiety, while traumatic and all-consuming, is our animal brains trying desperately to keep us alive.
When we are overwhelmed, our stressed-out brains can only solve for one thing, and whatever we land on as the ONE THING will look like the only logical, safe choice. And anything or anyone that challenges that one correct choice will be treated like a threat.
And our connections to our partners suffer for it.
Let’s look inside a conflict between Sam and Mo (a fictional married couple).
Sam:
“You seriously put a down payment on a vacation for the summer without asking me. @*!%#! We literally just had a talk last week about making use of the money from the bonus. We should be saving that money, or at least killing the credit card balance with it. Not going on a (*&)! vacation.”
“We don’t know when we’re going to have this money again, we should be saving it.”
Mo:
“Well, that’s what I get for trying to do something nice.
I suppose now you’re going to stop talking to me like all those other times. The deposit on the vacation is nonrefundable. It’s not like we don’t have it just sitting around. We’ve both been stressed and a vacation would be great for us to restart and reconnect.”
“We don’t know when we’re going to have this money again, we should be using it while we have it.”
Coach’s Notes:
Both partners are stuck in desperation, crisis, and scarcity. “We just need to find common ground” I hear my clients say, and that’s fine if you’re negotiating, but we are not negotiating. You can’t negotiate, or even communicate with two fired-up nervous systems.
And nervous systems get fired up when they feel a threat. Our brains/nervous systems are flat-out obsessed with looking for threats. When your brain is looking for a threat, guess what it’s going to find. It’s going to find threats.
Let’s go back to the conversation.
Sam:
“You’re getting really aggressive… You’re just saying the same things over and over again…. ‘You always do this, I was trying to do something nice, you should be thanking me, I’m trying to save this marriage’.”
“If you really wanted to save this marriage you’d understand that it isn’t just about the money, it’s about not even bringing it up, much less asking, and I’m the one who has to keep the peace once you starts yelling… no wonder I stop talking, and then I’m the bad guy. I can’t do anything right.”
Mo:
“Of course, you just shut down. OF COURSE. That’s your way out of everything. This is still something we need to talk about. You clearly don’t care about this. I‘m sick of you shutting me down.”
“You clearly isn’t taking this seriously, the vacation thing or the marriage. How long does you think I can tolerate being ignored and shut out?”
Coach’s Note:
Most of us can easily identify more with Mo or Sam, but truly most of us will see ourselves in both Mo and Sam, depending on the situation.
These two are stuck in what the couple’s therapists call the threat/protection cycle (or dance).
All living organisms are expected to protect or defend themselves against a perceived threat. It would be weird if Mo and Sam weren’t also protecting themselves.
Unfortunately, the things we do to protect ourselves can be perceived by our partners as a threat.
Sam is concerned with being a failure and feels threatened when she accuses him and yells. So he shuts down to protect himself.
Mo is concerned with rejection and feels threatened when he shuts down. So she gets assertive/aggressive to protect herself from that rejection.
And there we have it, two all-the-way fired-up nervous systems. Each partner feeling threatened by their partner’s respective attempts to protect theirself. No one feels safe.
So let’s talk about actionable steps you can take to feel safe in your money talks with your partner again.
You’re welcome to work through these exercises here or download the worksheet here:
Exercise 1: Understanding why you engage in your protective strategies
When my partner and I are in conflict, my protective strategies are:
(circle the best options)
| Anger/ Yelling | Blame | Withdrawal |
| Not able to talk | Criticism | Appeasement |
| Walking away | Not giving in | Bringing up the past |
| Removing choice/Restriction | Proving/ giving evidence | Avoidance |
| Caving/ giving in | Silent treatment | Punishing myself or my partner |
| Shutting down |
My intention in using these strategies is:
(circle the best options)
| To get my partner to engage | To take this seriously |
| To keep the peace | To have a productive conversation |
| To fix things/ figure things out | To connect with my partner |
| To feel safe | So my partner understands why this is important |
| To be understood/heard |
Note from coach:
Your intention is important. As you’ve probably noticed, all of the intentions above are good. And when you work through this exercise again below taking the perspective of your partner you’ll notice that the available intentions of your partner are good too. But often we assume that because our intentions of our protective strategies are good there can’t (or shouldn’t) be any negative impacts from our protective strategies.
Intent and impact are separate things. So now that you understand the intent of your protective strategies, let’s look at the possible impacts of your protective strategies (above) on your partner.
If you feel comfortable doing so, ask your partner to pick from this list, or of course you’re welcome to offer your best guesses.
The possible impacts of my protective strategies on my partner are:
(circle the best options)
| They feel disconnected from me | They feel attacked | They feel unsafe |
| They feel disrespected | They feel unimportant | They feel small/useless |
| They feel like a failure | They feel rejected by me | They feel misunderstood |
| They feel hopeless | They feel rebellious | They feel resentful |
| They feel dependent | They shut down | They run away/withdraw |
| They lose autonomy |
Exercise 2: Understanding why your partner engages in their protective strategies
When my partner and I are in conflict, my partner’s protective strategies are:
(circle the best options)
| Anger/ Yelling | Blame | Withdrawal |
| Not able to talk | Criticism | Appeasement |
| Walking away | Not giving in | Bringing up the past |
| Removing choice/Restriction | Proving/ giving evidence | Avoidance |
| Caving/ giving in | Silent treatment | Punishing themselves or me |
| Shutting down |
Note from coach:
Your partner’s intentions are just as important as yours.
As you consider your partner’s possible intentions below you’ll notice that there is no option for “they want to control me” or “they don’t want me to be happy.” While that may absolutely be the impact on you, that may not be their intent.
Just as you’d want your partner to accept and respect your intent (above), accepting and respecting your partner’s intent is important. Acceptance and agreement are not the same thing, however. You can disagree with your partner while still accepting them.
If you feel comfortable doing so, ask your partner to pick from this list of intentions or you’re welcome to offer your best guesses.
My partner’s likely intention in using these strategies is:
(circle the best options)
| For me to engage | For me to take things seriously |
| To keep the peace | To have a productive conversation |
| To fix things/ figure things out | To connect with me |
| To feel safe | So I understand why this is important to them |
| To be understood/heard |
The impacts of my partner’s protective strategies on me are:
(circle the best options)
| I feel disconnected from them | I feel attacked | I feel unsafe |
| I feel disrespected | I feel unimportant | I feel small/useless |
| I feel like a failure | I feel rejected | I feel misunderstood |
| I feel hopeless | I feel rebellious | I feel resentful |
| I feel dependent | I shut down | I run away/withdraw |
| I lose autonomy |
Exercise 3: Giving Yourself Permission
It’s easy to see our own, and/or our partner’s protective strategies as a problem or a personality defect and want to shut down those strategies or fight them. Calling ourselves or each other out, punishment, or accountability will not help. If those strategies worked, you and your partner would have figured this out by now.
This seems simplistic, but your protective strategies are TRYING TO PROTECT YOU. If you try to remove your own or your partner’s protective strategies that leaves us feeling less protected, not more.
Counterintuitively, once you recognize you and your partner’s respective protective strategies, the goal is to give yourself permission to use those protective strategies. In the next exercise you’ll also be giving your partner permission to use their protective strategies. More on this below.
Ironically, once you both feel safe enough to use your protective strategies, you’re likely safe enough with each other to not need them.
Giving yourself permission to use your protective strategies:
Truly see the good in your protective strategies.
Take responsibility for your intention when you are using your protective strategies as well as some responsibility for the impact of your protective strategies.
Certainly in the fog of a conflict we may not be able to spot ourselves using a protective strategy, but if you can, you can call it to the fore without any speculation about your partners intentions:
“I’m choosing to use a protective strategy now.”
-not-
“I need to protect myself from you.” or “You’re being unreasonable so I am going to go to another room to protect myself from you.”
If you cannot observe the protective strategy in the moment (this takes practice), you can lean back in with your partner once you’re both back to your chill state. You can use what you circled above.
“Earlier when we were talking I noticed that I used ______ as a protective strategy. My intention was ______________. Would you be willing to share with me what the impact of this was on you?”
You are responsible for your intention, but you are also responsible to ask for what the impact of your actions were.
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