Why are you and I (not) talking about money?

There are many couples in which they don’t talk about money, and if they do, it all ends in a quarrel. Why is this happening? Because the conversation about money often hides deeper problems. This does not mean that there are no real difficulties with money.

Sometimes there really is not enough money or partners do not agree on what to spend it on.

Sometimes there is so much money that their very amount also turns into a family problem.

But real problems with money are discussed and solved. And do not cause strong feelings. If, over and over again, partners discuss family income and expenses in a raised voice and cannot agree (or do not even know what they actually want to agree on), then the money is masking some other, not domestic, but psychological problem. The same conclusion can be drawn if partners avoid discussing this topic.

At the workshop “Money in relations between a man and a woman”¹ we, along with the participants, identified several main reasons that make it difficult to openly discuss money issues.

1. Social, family, gender myths and attitudes. That is, a set of ideas of members of one family or society about themselves and what unites them, as well as important statements about the structure of the world). For example, such: “It’s shameful, immodest to talk about money …”, “Money is dirt”, “Decent people don’t talk about money”, “A man should be generous”. These myths have historical roots: an attempt to build a socialist society in which money will “gradually wither away”, the post-revolutionary struggle against the bourgeoisie, and even the Christian thought: “You need to instill in your children contempt for money, wealth, fame, high position in society. It is necessary to instill in them a love for purity, holiness, piety.
2. Lack of money speaking skills. Here comments are superfluous.
3. Unwillingness to offend a partner. This kind of caution is often found in couples where the partners’ incomes are markedly different. “My husband earns less than me. If I start a conversation about money, perhaps he will take it as a reproach for insolvency, including male.” It may be part of such a myth as “A man must support a family.”
4. Unwillingness to know the unpleasant truth. “He does not want to take care of me”, “She is interested in my money, not in myself.”
5. Unclear status of partners. Behind this is something like this: “If we start discussing money, will we have to find out who we are to each other: lovers, friends, casual acquaintances?” In women, this motive is more common than in men: “I thought we had love and we were moving towards a joint future, but for him this is just a continuation of a holiday romance.”
6. Avoidance of responsibility. “I don’t want to find out anything, agree, take on obligations. Let everything go as it goes. If my mood changes, my conscience will be clear, because I do not promise anything.

If there is some difficulty behind the topic of “money” and in doing so we manage to solve the financial issue, the problem will manifest itself in something else. We’ll start arguing about renovations, vacations, raising kids… Then why exactly is money so often emotionally charged? I’ll offer my hypothesis:

firstly, money is with us all the time, we come into contact with them every day;

secondly, they are a “conditionally objective” factor. If “you looked at me wrong” is a subjective feeling (it’s hard to describe what “wrong” means, why I think it’s “wrong”), you can always say something very specific about money: “You spent everything on a new processor, and I have nothing to wear”;

thirdly, talking about money, despite its tension or even thanks to it, allows you to quickly reset the accumulated irritation and not move on to a more dangerous topic: “What is happening with our feelings for each other?”.

Talking about money is necessary at every stage of a couple’s life. I can imagine a couple deciding on their first date, “Who pays, me or you or both? As it suits you best?” This is a sign of a calm attitude towards the topic of money.

And in the future, any clarity is better than ambiguity, even if, as a result of a conversation about financial matters, it suddenly turns out that one is striving for marriage, while for the other this is a short romance. Clarity allows the relationship to develop – or gives the opportunity to end it with a full understanding of what and why we are doing.

It is not necessary to set a goal to reach a common opinion or agreement. Even just discussing family myths related to money helps each of the partners to better understand each other. At the workshop, it was found that the participants were relieved even by simply describing their beliefs about money. After all, myths are often inherited by us unconsciously. By pronouncing them, we give ourselves the opportunity to consciously overestimate them: are they useful for us, are they realistic?

A significant part of the myths and the difficulties associated with them in men and women coincide, for example: “I’m afraid to seem mean” and “I’m afraid to seem mercantile.” And when we talk about them to each other, there is a hope that we are not so different, that our partners will be able to understand us.

At the workshop, we also talked about what would happen if the couple still did not discuss money problems. The responses from the participants were:

“A lot of irritation, negativity will accumulate.”

“The tension will erupt in an unpleasant form, when there is no longer the strength to hold back.”

“At the beginning, you can still ask each other: why do you do this, and not otherwise? But if this is not done, then in two months it will not do without a cry. ”

“The money will be spent in an unwise way.”

A conversation about money, like any topic that involves difficult feelings, only makes sense if it is done in a friendly, safe environment.

That is, they spoke only from themselves, only about the current situation and avoided generalizations. They are easy to recognize by the words “everything”, “always”, “every time”.

The usual form for an “I-message” is:

“When you do (describe your partner’s actions without mentioning your assumptions about the causes and motives that caused them), I feel (reporting my feelings). Please do (description of desired action).”

Much has been written about I-messages, and they really help in building relationships.

It is important that both partners are ready to hear the other, to understand what reasons he has for acting the way he does. Perhaps there is a logic behind his behavior that we haven’t caught. Discussion is useful in that it removes illusions and conclusions that we sometimes jump too hastily without checking the premises. When we are silent, we begin to guess, think, imagine. And then we react to our own ideas and get offended, upset, angry.

For example: “He does not give me flowers, which means he has stopped loving me.” Think about it, maybe he thinks it would be better for the family to spend money on something more practical. Perhaps, in his parental family, thrift was valued, and his behavior is a manifestation of care. It is also possible that after the explanation (“I like flowers, they symbolize tenderness for me”), he will want to change his habits.

The workshop “Money in relations between a man and a woman” was held during the Moscow Psychodrama Conference in 2016. It was conducted by psychologists Stanislav Efremov and Nadezhda Danilova. Their new workshop is called “The figure of power in relations between a man and a woman.”