99: Money Isn’t Ruining Your Marriage (Here’s What Is)

Money isn’t ruining your marriage...but the way you’re approaching it might be.

If conversations about finances with your spouse feel tense, frustrating, or like you’re speaking two different languages, you are not alone. Nearly 50% of divorces involve money issues, but it’s rarely about the numbers.

In this episode, I share how Brad and I shifted from subtle tension and scarcity thinking to feeling truly aligned and at peace around money. And it didn’t happen because we made more income... it happened because we changed our mindset.

You’ll learn:
 • Why you and your spouse see money differently
 • How to get curious instead of defensive
 • 3 practical steps to get on the same page
 • How to build a money plan together, without power struggles

If you’re ready to stop letting money create distance in your marriage and start feeling like a team again, this episode is for you.

xoxo,
Rachel

Where to find me:
Instagram: @heyrachelcoons

Join me for my free training to cut your grocery bill by $600 every month: Register HERE

Transcript

Why Couples Clash Over Money

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If money conversations with your spouse feel like you are speaking two different languages to each other, you are not alone. This is one of the biggest sources of tension in marriages across the board. In fact, 50% of divorces happen because of money problems. And here's what I want you to know it's not because you're bad with money or because your spouse is bad with money. It's because you probably are approaching your money situation with different values, different backgrounds, and different stories when it comes to money. Today I want to share with you a personal story of how Brad and I got on the same page with our finances and then how you can too. So stay tuned. Hello and welcome back to the Money Mom podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Coons, and today I want to tell you a little story about my own marriage, about my own relationship. Brad and I have known each other for over 20 years. We met in high school and were really good friends in high school and then got married in our early 20s. And we have now been married almost 15 years. And our marriage has had lots of ups and downs, lots of learning experiences. But one of the most pivotal things that we have learned together, which I'm so proud of in the past five years, is how to handle money together and how we can use each other to create safety around money. I would say that we've never been huge arguers when it came to money. We've kind of always dealt with money the same way. Like one of us isn't really a spender or a saver. We both have been able to live under our means. We are focused on improving our financial situation and we believe in long-term investments and wealth building. And so we've never really struggled with that. But we have struggled with the fact that money has affected our own personal identity and experiences in life. Brad went to dental school to become a dentist. Because of that, we went into so much debt. In fact, we're still in student debt from professional school. And once we got out of dental school and Brad started working as a dentist, he started making pretty good money. And we thought that once the money that was coming in was enough money to take care of everything, we thought that then we would finally feel peace around money. Well, that actually the opposite was true. That the more money that we had coming in, the more we felt the lack that we didn't have. The more we focused on the negative number in our net worth, the more we focused on just feeling like we were just getting by. Even though the numbers weren't necessarily telling us we had deeper beliefs in scarcity and feelings like we would never get ahead financially. And it wasn't until I started my own business and I hired a business coach when I started to work on my own money mindset. As an entrepreneur, as someone who sells online courses and memberships and things like that, I have to ask people for money, right? I have to engage in transactions with people. And whether you understand this or not, there is some deep, it can be really, really hard to present yourself to the public and talk about money and then also ask people to spend money on you. It brings up a lot of crap. It brings up a lot of stories, a lot about worthiness and things like that. And so, as part of my online business program that I was in, my coach coached us through money mindset. And there was like an audio course that I there was a deep dive that I took right early in my entrepreneur journey about my own problems with scarcity and feeling like there was never enough, and really trying to change those limiting beliefs and changing how I showed up for money so that I could then go out and be okay asking other people for money as well. And throughout this process, as I was going through this, I could see obviously our spouses are sometimes the best reflection of our own issues and the own things that we're dealing with. But I could see some of the things that I was working through. I could see it in Brad and the struggles that he was having with money. And so very delicately, I think probably sharing my own experiences first. I mentioned to him, hey, I'm going through this course. It's changing my life, it's changing how I view money and my perspective on money, making me feel so much more abundant and that more opportunity is here. And I just feel like we could probably reset how we approach money. So I delicately asked him to go through the same course that I was going through. And I honestly didn't think he would say yes, but he did. And he started listening on his own and starting doing the work on his own. And within 30 days, there was a massive shift that happened within him, within me, and how we then talked about money and how we then talked about money with our children and how we thought of our future and how our money situation would look. It created so much peace within our marriage, and we finally got on the same page. Now, we weren't ever in like different books when it came to money, but we weren't necessarily on the same page. And so through that process, I realized this is a huge issue that so many people don't realize. You know, I talk a lot about saving money on groceries. That's something that a lot of people realize is hurting their bank account, right? They're watching that money flow out of their bank account every month. When it comes to your relationship with money and how you feel, think, believe about money, we don't actually notice those things. There's a lot of it is subconscious. And so this type of work sometimes isn't sexy. It doesn't feel like it's something that somebody, it's not something that someone would come to you and say, like, I think I have a bad relationship with money. Let me fix that relationship. But when we start to do that work, we can see how it is affecting everything. And one of the things that my members say so much to me is I'm doing the work, you know, I'm I'm trying to heal my relationship. I'm showing up differently for our money. I'm saving the money where I can, I'm making the money where I can, but my partner isn't on the same page with me. My partner is in a different universe than I am. And how do we mold these two together? Now, here's the thing. In the month of March, we are doing Money Mindset March inside the Money Mom Club. I have my own course now that I put out on Money Mindset. We're gonna take our members through that audio course this month. And we're also doing coaching calls every single week to break through some of these struggles that our members are having. Our call next week is on marriage and money. So if you're a member of the Money Mom Club, you better freaking be at that call. I'm gonna give you all of the coaching that you need to work through some of these issues. In the month of March, we are doing Money Mindset March inside the Money Mom Club, where we're gonna go through a 21-day experience to kind of break down our own subconscious beliefs and how we can show up differently for money. We're gonna do coaching calls every single week. In fact, our first coaching call is today, um, this morning. And so if you've been thinking about joining the Money Mom Club and this is something that you wanna work on, you gotta do it. Gotta join us. Make sure you get in as soon as possible so you can join us on this journey. So here's what Brad and I learned through this process, and here's what I want you to learn. Here's what I want you to do in order to get on the same page with in finances with your spouse. First, get curious about each of your experiences. When it comes to marriage, two people who grow up in two completely separate situations, completely separate families, cons completely separate money stories, then marry each other. And they expect to be able to figure out money together, but what you're bringing into the marriage is completely different beliefs and completely different values. So when you can start to get curious about your partner's experience, how they view money, what their background is about money, like what did their parents say about money? How did they experience money growing up and learn about it? Nothing is right or wrong in this situation. You're just different from each other. So ask your partner, what was money like in your family growing up? What did your parents teach you about it? And just listen, you're not there to change their experiences, you're not ch there to change their beliefs. Don't try to convince that what they've experienced is right or wrong. Give it an opportunity to open up for each other. Step two, and this is where so many people go wrong in money situations, is we get defensive. We get defensive about how they want to handle the money, we get defensive about our own behaviors around the money. When we can really break down those walls and not assume what the other person is doing. Don't assume that they're acting from a place of irresponsibility. When you want to save and he wants to spend, don't just assume you're controlling your money better. Instead, get curious, ask why is this important to you? Why are you spending on this one area? And try to listen to understand, not to convince them. That's the biggest thing. Nobody wants to be told what to do, especially a partner. You are supposed to be even together, not one over the other, not one looking down on the other. So when you can really get curious and not get defensive, you're going to approach problems because you're gonna have problems. You're gonna have money situations that you have to figure out. But when you can start on an even playing field, both parties will be able to show up with less defensiveness and more excitement about getting the problem solved. Now, step number three is to identify your shared values. You probably do agree on some things, and you just have to figure out what those things are. I'm I'm willing to bet that you probably agree that family is important. You probably agree that security is important. You probably agree that you want financial freedom. You may just have different ways of going about doing that. And money is just a tool to get you closer to those values. So together, focus on what you agree about and write down three values that you both deeply care about. Then you ask each other, and this is like, you know, go out on a date, do this at the dinner table, do this after the kids have gone to bed and you're laying in bed together and have this conversation. And then you can ask each other, how can money help us live out the values that we do have? Because when you focus on these shared values, the money decisions will then become easier because you're working from a value-based system. And then once we've done that, once we've created the values, once we've come together and gotten curious, you need to create a money plan together. Now, this is where things can go really wrong because you may have the same end goal, but you have different paths to get to that end goal. But you need to create a plan that both of you create together. You're not forcing him to follow your plan. He's not forcing you to follow his plan. When you can create it together, this means compromise. You get to spend X on what you want to spend, and he gets to spend Y on what he wants to spend, and you can both agree on the end point. Once you've done that, then you need to check in regularly. And these are don't have to be like really high-intensity situations where you have money check-ins, but once a week, once every other week, you sit down, you focus, you go back to what's important to you, you make sure that both of you are approaching the situation with a clear head, battery full, so your nervous system isn't drained, where you can show up together and you can talk about how it's going. Make it a safe place. If you are someone who tends to blow up or your spouse is someone who tends to blow up, table the topic. Don't try to fix a problem when you're fired up. I promise you, it's just gonna make it worse. So be able to leave money conversations that are high intensity or high energy for a time when you can approach it both with calm, clear head and try and do it without judgment, where you're not judging your other per the other person and you're not judging yourself. Now, I know what you might be thinking to yourself. You might be thinking, my spouse is the one that sucks at money. It's their fault, right? They're the one that's overspending and they're irresponsible. But here's the thing isn't it more important to understand why he spends the way he does rather than judge him for it. Because when you judge someone else, you're creating defensiveness in the other person. You're not opening them up to change. Chances are your partner's not irresponsible. He just has different values than you. Or you may be thinking to yourself, we're never gonna be on the same page. But isn't it more important to focus on what you do agree on, maybe where you overlap rather than where you don't? This is a really important concept called the gap and the gain. I want you to focus on the gain. Focus on the on the togetherness, not on the gap. Don't focus on where you don't even up on things because every couple has some alignment. You just have to find it. Here's the biggest one money isn't ruining your marriage. You are allowing, as an equal partner, money to get in the way of your marriage. Isn't it more important for you to focus on the fact that you're both trying to take care of your family? You may just be doing it in different ways. Because that's that's actually a really beautiful approach. Don't make money the problem. Understand that lack of understanding is the problem. So when we get on the same page, it isn't about winning. So when we get on the same page with money, it isn't about winning. It's not about convincing the other person that they need to do something. It's about realizing you are on the same team. That you both want to take care of your family. You both want security. You both want to feel good about money. And when you understand that, everything can change. So if you're ready to do the work, I'm gonna invite you to join us inside Money Mom Club. We have live coaching calls all this month where we're gonna bring you real money situations and you're gonna get real guidance on this exact thing that we're talking about today. You're gonna be surrounded by women who get it and they understand what you're struggling with. So you can join us at any time, hey rachelkoons.com forward slash money mom club. I hope this episode was helpful to you. If it was and you want to share it with your spouse or partner and they can go through it as well, send it to them and have a conversation about the podcast and about what how you can approach your money situation differently. I hope it will help and I hope it's gonna get you started on that next chapter, which means money isn't getting in the way of your marriage. I'll see you in the next episode.