Healing From the Past; Communicating About Money

As most of us know, conflict is a destructive force in any relationship. Money is often a source of conflict. Money is an immense issue in our everyday lives; how we manage and communicate about it sets the tone for our relationships. Is that tone potentially explosive, argumentative, deceiving or open and honest?
I wrote Romance & Money – 12 Conversations Every Couple Should Have, because of the painful and caustic communication, or lack of that I saw in the couples I worked with as a mortgage banker and credit counselor. Often I worked with divorcing couples and became convinced that with better money communication skills they would not have been divorcing.
Whether couples have a $20,000.00 a year income and a taut budget or make a cozy six figures, the communication skills are the same, only the numbers and the faces change. Developing financial integrity will save many of the arguments that plague and often destroy marriages.
I once heard a wealthy wife confess she hid the purchase of a new blouse for fear her husband wouldn’t think she deserved it. In our meeting that husband said he didn’t care one iota what she bought, as long as she was happy. The wife broke down in tears and told us how her father beat her mother when she bought anything he hadn’t sanctioned. And he sanctioned very little. Her issues had nothing to do with her current situation, but her wounded past was poisoning her present and threatening her future with a generous man who wanted only for her to be happy. Money issues and how we communicate about them have deep roots. We can’t change the past, but we can and must acknowledge it and observe how it impacts our current behavior. And then we need to be honest with our spouse which will ultimately create a deeper bond.
I often suggest that people get counseling if they struggle to address issues that may have deep psychological causes such as; destructive spending profiles; shop-a-holic, which can be a fear based – lacking self worth or a feeling of entitlement issue. A Credit-bandit, which can be a fear and or ego based issue of needing to please or be popular. A miser, which is generally fear based. A hoarder which is often trauma and fear based. Inability to budget and always broke, is often a learned pattern that can be changed. A sense of entitlement has many relationship damaging issues. And so on. Counseling cracks the issue open and then learning the skills to prevent further damage aids in the healing process.
The best way to find a counselor is through a referral. If you don’t have a referral check out the list, by state, at Psychology Today or go to the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, or go to your church; many have ongoing programs to help their congregations through difficult financial times. The only way to find help is to ask for it. Consumer Credit Counseling Services that can be found in most U.S. cities or on-line at www.cccs.org or www.nfcc.org.
In this economy especially, people don’t need just another self-help book, they need solutions, skills and answers. They need the skills to engage in critical conversations like; what questions to ask before you say ‘I Do’, budgeting, spending, saving, children, college expense, life insurance, death and more. All of these topics can have deep emotional roots that manifest in thorny, often dishonest communication that harms the relationship; the family and ultimately the person who cannot heal from their past and so drags it into their future.
Learning to openly and honestly discuss romance and money won’t heal the world, but it will heal one relationship at a time.