How to Diffuse Money Fights

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Getting on the same page with finances can be tricky. Learn how you can diffuse money fights and start working as a team!

Why We Fight About Money

No one wants to have money be this source of stress in their lives, not in a strictly financial sense where you’re worried about the bills and definitely not in your marriage. 

And yet, it is usually listed as one of the top reasons spouses have fights. 

And if you have debt? It’s even more of an issue. In one study, with couples who carried debt, they found that 48% of those with over $50,000 of debt listed money as stress point compared to 23% of those with less than $10,000.

It makes sense, right – if you have the more debt you have, the more your current income is tied up to pay it. 

So then couples usually want to come up with some plan to pay off their debt, but they hit a wall when it comes to making and executing that plan. There’s too much tension and blame to get things rolling. 

But if you’ve listened to this for a while, you’ve heard stories of couples who have overcome some huge issues like massive amounts of debt, being hit with financial infidelity, or being on the brink of bankruptcy yet they managed to come out stronger paying off massive amounts of debt.

How do you get there though? 

Through better conversations about money and more. It’s not easy to get started so today Traci Philips is going to share how we can better communicate. 

Into this episode, we get into:

• Better Understanding Where Our Spouse is Coming from with Money
• Common mistakes couples make when talking about money
• How to work through disagreements to diffuse a potential money fight

Let’s get started! 

Resources on Marriage Fights & Finances

Want to learn more and become more productive with your money dates? Here are some resources to check out:

• 10 Agreements BEFORE You Get Into An Argument With Your Partner
• Use The Power Of Community To Improve Your Marriage 
• Three Toxic Habits to Stop When Talking About Money
• Love, Money, and Secrets: How to Be Open with Your Marriage and Finances
• Common Pitfalls Couples Make with Money Chats
• Admitting to Your Spouse That You’re in Debt

Thank You to Our Sponsor Coastal!

Support for this podcast comes from Coastal Credit Union. If you’re living in the Raleigh Durham area and looking to bank better, come check out Coastal today!

We’ve been Coastal members for a few years have been happy with their services.

They also have competitive rates on their checking and savings accounts!

Meet Traci Phillips

As a Leadership & Performance Strategist, Traci assists her clients in identifying core challenges with her unique strengths in translating both verbal and non-verbal language. 

If you want to find out more and work with her, please check out The Innate Coach!

Understanding Where Our Spouse is Coming From

Money can be a hot topic in relationships, even if you two have similar dreams and goals. We’re coming at finances, kids, life with different perspectives and histories.

And the difference can be huge.

But for most of us, it’s something we don’t acknowledge until we have a problem.

The budget was broken, again.

And talking about money then is harder because we’re focused on the immediate problem which in turn can make communicating harder because we’re locked into a mode of fixing the symptom instead of addressing the bigger issue not having a financial system that reflects our priorities and values as a couple. 

In fact, we tend to skip that first step – understanding where our spouse is coming from. 

Traci Phillips: The first thing I find is where we struggle oftentimes is that when we're communicating at all, we usually are only thinking about the lens through which we're looking out into the world or where we're thinking about the particular topic. So this is, you know, finances. You know, it's oh, how are we? How are we identified? What is our relationship with the concept of money?

Elle Martinez: So start off there. How does your spouse view money? How do you view money?

Traci Phillips: And then talk about why it's an operational pattern based on what they experienced in their home growing up right around their parents, maybe their parents' relationship with money and how their parents communicated around money are the choices each parent made around money.

I mean, half this stuff isn't even ours and we're still operating from this place. And because we aren't curious about trying to figure out why we operate this way.

We never figure out where those you know, those points where we're going. We become blocked in our communication, where they even come from and help what we can do about them.

Elle Martinez: And another point to keep in the back of your mind as you're talking about this is just to make sure that you're coming in this with genuine intentions of listening.

What I mean is you're not in a rush to correct the problem or try to offer solutions immediately, but that you're just listening to what they're saying and mentally making notes about their opinions, their ideas, and their viewpoints.

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Music Credit

Like the music in this episode? Our theme song is by Gentle Regime. Additional music by Lee Rosevere.