What to Do When You Experience Money Conflicts In Your Marriage – Podcast
“I can’t begin to tell you how frustrating it’s been having a partner who says, "yes, yes, yes" and then doesn’t show up! My husband won’t get motivated to really follow through on his financial homework until I get mad, sad or silent. I’ve loved and encouraged him when he chooses positive financial behaviors but some how it’s still too scary or hard for him to own his part.
No matter how much I encourage, cheerlead, or try to convince him other wise. He says he’ll work on his finances but then he doesn’t follow through. WHAT DO I DO WITH THIS?”
A client sent this email to me. I completely understood her frustration and overwhelm. Unfortunately her situation isn’t unique. This is a common complaint that I hear from couples….
Click below to listen to the podcast.
What to Do When You Experience Money Conflicts In Your Marriage [6:58m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadWhat to Do When You Experience Money Conflicts In Your Marriage
“I can’t begin to tell you how frustrating it’s been having a partner who says, "yes, yes, yes" and then doesn’t show up! My husband won’t get motivated to really follow through on his financial homework until I get mad, sad or silent. I’ve loved and encouraged him when he chooses positive financial behaviors but some how it’s still too scary or hard for him to own his part.
No matter how much I encourage, cheerlead, or try to convince him other wise. He says he’ll work on his finances but then he doesn’t follow through. WHAT DO I DO WITH THIS?”
A client sent this email to me. I completely understood her frustration and overwhelm. Unfortunately her situation isn’t unique. This is a common complaint that I hear from couples.
Get curious about your reactivity
“NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” This is usually our first reaction we experience when our partner does something that we don’t agree with. And when it’s in the financial arena it can drive us absolutely bonkers. Because it’s so directly tied to our “survival fears.”
Our reactive reptilian brain kicks in producing fearful thoughts like, “I feel resentful that I have to handle the financial details on my own.” “How am I suppose to make it if my partner isn’t motivated to get a job?” “I hate that I’m always the one who has to initiate our Financial Dates and that he doesn’t seem interested or motivated.”
So we defer to our “control tactics.” We resort to our learned behaviors that supported us in getting what we wanted in the past. We cheerlead, “Come on honey – I know you can do it. I sincerely believe in you. You’ve got what it takes.”
Or we get angry and rationalize. “I’ve had it. It’s time for you to start showing up with our finances because I’m sick and tired of handling it all on my own. It’s time you begin contributing more. I mean you’d have to handle your finances on your own if we weren’t together!”
In the area of finances the greatest challenge is that it’s all too easy to point our fingers at our partners and miss the opportunity to do our own personal work.
Stress equals opportunity
In the book, “Loving What Is,” Byron Katie says: “Every stressful moment you experience is a gift that points you to your own freedom.”
If you feel reactive – this is a sure sign that you’re being given the opportunity to look inward, investigate, grow and learn something new about yourself. This is actually the secret to transforming yourself and your situation. It actually isn’t about getting your partner or situation to change.
As long as we believe that it is about our partner we will continue to stay stuck. And yet ironically when we focus on our inner healing our relationships and challenging life situations “miraculously” transform with little or no effort on our part.
Most of our reactivity comes from our inner resistance to having a relationship with “what is.” In a split second our minds spin out of control and add stories that we instantly and mistakenly take on as being “the truth.” Most of us have gotten so good at telling stories that we’re no longer able to separate fact from fiction.
My mentor, Jim Bergquist shared a situation about a boss that he had worked with in the past. Several times a week his boss would go into an emotional tirade after reading the daily paper.
His boss would stomp into the office and yell his frustrations at one of the employees – usually Jim. “This guy is a lunatic!” “What is wrong with him?” How come he doesn’t like me?” Jim would think.
After many painful episodes with his boss, Jim made the decision to stay completely present the next time his boss yelled at him. Jim also made the commitment to drop his internal story and judgments about his boss.
After a few days the opportunity presented itself again. However this time as his boss was yelling -Jim stayed completely present to the experience. He noticed that his boss had a gold crown on one of his back teeth. He saw a vein with a bluish tint popping out on the right side of his forehead.
He observed the spit as it came flying out of his boss’s mouth. Then all of a sudden his boss stopped in mid-sentence, looked at Jim, turned around and walked back into his office – he never yelled at Jim or anyone else again.
Having a relationship with “What is”
When Jim was able to be completely present with “what is” without resistance to his situation and without adding any additional stories, assessments or judgments – Jim experienced an internal transformation that allowed him to stay present while his boss was yelling.
This in turn supported his boss in being present – which gave his boss sudden access and insight into how ridiculous he was being.
My client who emailed me was able to notice her internal story, or “shoulds” about the way she felt her husband “should be showing up with finances.”
She also knew that what she wanted most was for her husband to speak his truth. The two of them engaged in a conversation where they shared openly and honestly with each other.
Her husband shared the ways in which he genuinely wanted to involved with the family finances – and the ways in which he did not.
And together they created a new way to work on the family finances that resonated for both of them.
Whenever we experience reactivity to the people or situations in our lives we are being given the golden opportunity to look inward – instead of outward. It is through our own personal exploration and transformation that our life situations and relationships magically transform as well.
How to Manage Your Time Effectively So You Get More Done in Less Time, Make More Money and Have a Life! Podcast
As self-employed professionals and entrepreneurs there are three things we can do with our time:
We can waste it.
We can sell it.
We can invest it.
We waste time in countless ways ranging from spending inordinate amounts of time on the phone or computer and bouncing back and forth from one activity to the other due to a lack of clear direction….
Click below to listen to the podcast.
How to Manage Your Time Effectively So You Get More Done in Less Time, Make More Money and Have a Life! [4:41m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadHow to Manage Your Time Effectively So You Get More Done in Less Time, Make More Money and Have a Life!
As self-employed professionals and entrepreneurs there are three things we can do with our time:
We can waste it.
We can sell it.
We can invest it.
We waste time in countless ways ranging from spending inordinate amounts of time on the phone or computer and bouncing back and forth from one activity to the other due to a lack of clear direction.
When we say we can “sell our time”, this is what the majority of us set out to do. We sell our time when we offer a service in exchange for money.
How to Invest & Leverage Your Time
In order to invest your time you want to have a strategy in place that will allow you to wisely use your time so that you can spend less time making more money. Think of this in terms of leveraging your time and productivity.
According to Dan Kennedy, direct-sales entrepreneur, “Leveraging is the difference between the base cost for your hour and the amount of money you get for it or from it.”
Step 1: Get a Clear Sense of Direction
Investing your time wisely begins with having a clear sense of direction. Many people write daily to do lists. While this is a good first step it does not necessarily encourage you to invest your time wisely.
You can create lists and still get caught up in activities that are urgent but not necessarily important.
The goal is to start living your life in a sane, more productive manner by focusing on activities that are important and give you a high return on your investment of time – so that you’re planning ahead and not living in an extended state of adrenaline rush.
Step 2: Work to Live
Self-employed professionals often have little difficulty accomplishing work-related tasks. Instead, their big struggle lies within neglecting their personal lives. To balance your personal life with your work, start by learning more about your values. “What are your top 5 values that you hold?” Values consist of the things that matter most to you
They are what inspires and drives you. Examples of values are things like: Marriage, Family, Health, Security, Freedom, Community, etc. Write down your top 5 values on a piece of paper.
Step 3: Begin With the End in Mind
Many of us have heard Steven Covey’s catch-phrase, “Begin with the end in mind.” This is fantastic advice to follow.
To get a better sense of this, think about where you would like your business to be in: 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years and even during your golden years (whatever age that is for you). Don’t hesitate to visualize details.
Think about what kind of lifestyle you would like your business to offer you. Many people build their lives around their businesses, but if you were to build your business to support your lifestyle ask yourself what that would look like for you.
Once you know where you want to go, you can work backwards and determine the steps you need to take to get to your desired end result.
The marketing term for this is reverse engineering; start with the end product in mind and then determine the components (steps) it takes to create the end product.
Step 4: Evaluate & Track
Before you create your plan for the coming week, take a few minutes to evaluate the effectiveness of the previous week. Was your schedule realistic?
Did you generate results from your activities? Did you over burden yourself with too much to do? Evaluate so that you can make changes and adjustments for the week to come.
And remember… be realistic with your schedule. You don’t have to cram eight hours worth of activities into your schedule every day.
Most important of all, remember to have fun. This can be a very empowering process. When I began using this planning technique, my stress level was reduced significantly, my productivity increased dramatically and I started getting an overwhelming response from potential clients.
The same can happen for you, just give yourself permission to experiment and make improvements.
Turn Your Time into Memorable Experiences That Cost Next to Nothing
As a young girl growing up, I loved throwing parties for my family and friends. These gatherings cost very little. All that was required was a little time and creativity.
I remember at age 15 throwing a summer tea party with my two best girlfriends. We spent over a month making plans . We went to second-hand stores to find dresses, and spent weeks adding extra lace and ruffles and discussing and fine-tuning our menu.
When our long awaited day had arrived, we filled our picnic baskets with fresh baked goods and headed for the cool forest and open fields of Southwest Missouri. We laughed as we pretended to have "grown up conversations." Then our thoughts turned to more serious conversations about how we would make a difference in the world and what we would do if we were granted three wishes.
Our futures stretched out before us like the first day of summer vacation – endless and filled with possibility. I still have the invitations we sent out, in my photo album : "You are cordially invited to attend a picnic at Apple of Amber Willow Waves, hosted by the Lovely Miss Leslie Dana."
I also remember getting on my bike early in the morning to meet a close friend of mine to go for walks along the country roads before it got too hot and humid. Many mornings the sky would be filled with long, trailing clouds. As the sun rose in the East the clouds would begin to fill with color.
As we walked along the dusty road we would make up stories about the clouds. "You see those clouds up there Angie?" I would say, "Those clouds are the path of the angels. That’s where the angels passed overhead at night while we were sleeping!" And then we would laugh and our minds would drift onto the next topic of interest–school, boys or what we would do with the rest of our summer day.
You can’t really put a price on memories like these – they’re invaluable. It’s so easy for us to forget the importance of quality-time and instead spend our income-earning years focusing on working harder so we can acquire costly furniture and remodels to make our houses look "just right," take expensive vacations, and buy the latest shoes, clothing, gear and equipment, thinking this is what will bring us happiness.
But it’s the moments rich with creativity and connection that feed our sense of happiness. Understanding this helps me reconsider how I spend both my money and my time.
Money helps us acquire the things we want. But time is really the most priceless commodity of all. Once time is gone we can never get it back.
There was a time in my life when my husband and I were working too hard, spending too much money and carrying way too much debt. We consciously decided to spend less money and create more time for having memorable moments that would feed us for a lifetime.
We were in the perfect position to feel enough " stress" that motivated us to make a change. We made a list of things that we loved to do that were affordable or free.
One friend emailed me:
"I think back on all the cheap things we did when I was younger: go to parks, rent movies, buy in bulk, cook for a month of meals, eat ‘dog food and cheese sandwiches’ (my husband’s description of the potted meat sandwiches we ate as grad students), drive instead of fly, wash our own cars, paint our own house, and rearrange our old furniture instead of buying new stuff.
I don’t regret a bit of it. In fact, it was fun much of the time. I guess you don’t have to be a millionaire to have ‘made it’; you just have to reach your own goals and feel that your own way of being is correct for you. My husband and I are not millionaires; we are debt-free, retirement-, disaster- and college-funded, and that feels like a million bucks to me!"
Live Richly Action Step
Take out a piece of paper, set your timer for one minute (or longer), and brainstorm a list of all the things you enjoy doing, that make your heart sing and that are free or very affordable. Maybe these are things you haven’t done in years. When you’re done, look at your list and pick one thing you’ll do this week.
And remember, "living richly" isn’t about the kind of car we drive, the house we live in or even the clothes we wear. It’s about authentically living our values – it’s about the lives we’ve touched and the memories we leave behind.
