GROW Counseling
GROW Counseling
Tips for talking with your partner about financial stress!
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Dr. Wendy Dickinson, founder and psychologist at GROW Counseling, speaks with Jackie Dunagan about how couples can have productive and healthy conversations around financial stress.
Hi, everybody. Wendy Dickinson here at Grow Counseling. I'm a licensed psychologist and the founder of Grow Counseling. We're a counseling practice in Metro, Atlanta. And we have offices throughout the city. Today I am sitting down distantly, socially distant, sitting down with Jackie Dunegan, who's one of our marriage and family therapists who works out of our Alpharetta and our SWANE offices. And she sees a lot of couples. And one of the things I wanted to really uh chat through and pick our brain about today is couples that are dealing with financial stress. So Jackie, thanks for being here. Thanks for making the time to come on today. Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Absolutely. Why don't you give our listeners just a quick overview of what kinds of clients you see, what your specializations are, so they know uh what perspective you're working from.
SPEAKER_00Sure. So um I work with both couples and individuals. About 60 to 70 percent of my uh work is with couples, and then the other is with adult individuals, and I'm always looking from a relational lens. I will say I do also kind of have a niche specialty with uh step couples and um blended families. I have a blended family myself, and so it's it's something that um I really have a passion for and do a lot of work in that area as well.
SPEAKER_01That's fantastic. I know that from my work with couples, financial stress is something that's always at the top of the list with couples when you hit the hot button issues, like you know, communication, kids, sex, and and finances are kind of all up there. Um, and so right now in this time of stress in general, I think we're just seeing people who, if you think about a green, yellow, red scale, people are at the top of yellow or in red because of the worldwide pandemic and the insecurity in the stock market. And we know that things that are unpredictable and unknown and don't have a timeline increase stress. So that basically describes exactly the time that we're living in right now. Unpredictable, unknown with an unclear timeline. Um, so obviously stress is gonna be higher in general. Financial stress specifically, people are looking at, you know, their uh 401ks or their checking accounts. Maybe they've been laid off, maybe they have some, maybe they're currently working, but they don't have a sense of how consistent that's gonna be. Um so we're seeing a lot of financial, really, really real financial stressors that people are facing. Um talk to me about how that impacts couples.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it it impacts them for sure, because you are absolutely right that finances are one of the top stressors for couples in general. And you know, right now you mentioned it, like everything is just kind of what are we doing today? And there's there's a lot of there's a lack of structure, everything keeps changing, and so there's this feeling of a lot of uncertainty around finances, and certainly the stock market has really created havoc. And you know, a lot of people their work is just pulled way back in a lot of different industries, so they really uh end up with a lot of discord around this topic, and uh there's usually this feeling like they really need to make sure the other person gets it, you know, that their partner is feeling what they're feeling.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. How do you see that people get off track with with regard to the specific topic?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, this is a tough one, so there's a lot of different pieces to it. But you know, usually, as I just mentioned, usually there's it's a bigger stressor for one person in the couple than it is for the other person. And oftentimes when one person brings up the stress that they're really worried about the finances to their partner, their partner with the best of intentions will try to immediately fix it or say it's going to be okay, we don't need to be worrying about that. But as a result, they tend to feel minimized. And we also tend to think that you know our partner is going to see the world just the way we do. So the otherness of the other person is astonishing when our partner doesn't see the world the way we do, right?
SPEAKER_01It it is every single time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I love the phrase of the otherness of the other person. That's what gets in the way, you know, with with a lot of couples is if you just saw it my way, we would we would be fine. And and that's that's really um, yeah, that's really a challenge. And and then being transparent, because some usually there's one partner who's kind of got their pulse on the finances, and the other partner kind of knows usually things about it, sometimes not. And so there needs to be some transparency, and that can certainly get in the way.
SPEAKER_01I think that's a great point. It makes me think about a conversation I had earlier this week about how people handle stress differently. Some people move towards it and other people move away, and especially when you add this dynamic in of one person probably has more information or more knowledge than the other person does. If you're the person moving towards or away, you want more information or you don't want more information, but you're the person who's kind of typically in charge, quote unquote, of the finances, or maybe you're the person who's kind of following when it comes to finances, that dynamic can be really dicey to try to sort out and make sure that each person is getting what they need. Because if if you're with a partner that wants to move away from the stressor and maybe stick their head in the sand in some way, and you want to move towards and understand and have some measure of kind of management or control over it, those are really different ways of dealing with stress and different ways of operating. So that there's a challenge there in terms of just personality difference. Yeah, there is. How do we get past these things? What do we do?
SPEAKER_00So, you know, no surprise, communication is the key to it. We have to really communicate and not only communicate, but communicate well. And one of the things, you know, John Gottman, he's a marriage researcher, has done so much uh research on marriage, but you know, he found that the arguments 95% of the time, if they don't go well, it in the end of I think it's three seconds, no, three minutes, not seconds, three minutes. That determines how the the arguments, how the discussion's going to go, whether it's going to kind of fall apart um into an argument or if it's going to end well.
SPEAKER_01And the key is really we're talking a lot these days about arcs and curves and flattening things, and it makes me think that, you know, it's sort of that same chart that if you're not headed in a positive direction after three minutes, your your curve isn't going in the right way. So you need to probably regroup and start again at a different time when you can you can set the course for the conversation.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yeah, great visual there with the curve, because you're absolutely right. And you know, the thing is the the number one key is simply be gentle. So, you know, I've got a few ways that you can do this, but if you can just, if couples can just remember that, that we want to approach things really, really gently when they're really delicate topics, and it it opens it up, it goes a long way into being gentle.
SPEAKER_01It's funny because it's such a basic, kind of obvious concept, but I think it's so hard when we've especially rehearsed something in our minds for a while, or we've been sitting on something that we want to bring up, and maybe we have some anticipation that it's gonna be a hard conversation, and so we're driven by a lot of those feelings that we're having, and maybe the startup isn't as kind or as gentle or soft as it could be, which then, like we were saying before, sets the conversation on the wrong path.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01What are you said you had some specifics? What are what are some of the tips you have for for being gentle?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so that so some of the tips, and I'm gonna say they generally require you giving it a little thought before it comes out of your mouth, and that is to name the feelings that you're feeling, just label them and be careful because feelings don't they they don't usually start with the word like I feel like you is usually not leading to a feeling. So I feel scared, I feel nervous, is a feeling, and then uh be super specific about the situation. You know, I'm I haven't had much work, I haven't had many hours, I'm concerned about the stock market. So you're just being really concrete with the information you're putting out there, and it doesn't have any blame in it either. So it's just really concrete with everything. That's great.
SPEAKER_01So labeling your own feelings and then keeping it content specific about the situation rather than focused on your partner, what they did wrong or what they could do differently. Right.
SPEAKER_00And it's really important to really try to see what's going on through your partner's eyes. You know, if your partner is the one who's been responsible for the finances and they've been the one kind of doing everything, and they're the one more in the know, there also can be a lot of maybe like a lot of feelings of maybe they didn't do it well enough when things are are going poorly, a lot of sensitivities around that. So really try to tune into what might be going on with them and try to put aside your own stuff around it to be try to understand your partner before you really seek to be understood.
SPEAKER_01So they may feel you may imagine that they feel responsible or they feel guilty or they feel stressed about some of the decisions. And so that may inform how you approach the conversation differently than if you don't think through how they're feeling about it.
SPEAKER_00The the last thing I want to put out there is don't move to solution too soon. This is probably one of the biggest mistakes I see couples make. There, and it's such a well-intentioned mistake. But we hear a problem, and when our partner puts a problem out there, for some reason we just naturally think, Well, you're putting a problem out there, you must want me to fix it for you. I have some ideas, and that's what happens, and then that feels minimizing to the to the person who's putting it out there, and you we have to make the assumption that you know you married this person, you're or you're partnered with this person for a reason, and they are an adult, and they're a competent adult who also has answers, they're just needing to vent. So really pull back and don't move to that solution too early, or they're going to feel minimized and dismissed.
SPEAKER_01That's great. I even love the idea of kind of asking for permission. Like, is it would it be helpful now that I understand what you're dealing with, to talk about some solutions, or does that not feel helpful right now? Because usually people will tell you if you ask them that. Yes. Not feel helpful to me right now. Thank you very much for asking. So great. So the the three elements we talked about, be gentle, we talked about expressing your own feelings and but staying kind of focused on the content, trying to see the situation through your partner's eyes. You know, they may have some feelings about a situation that may inform how you approach something differently. And then really staying focused on understanding, not moving so quickly to try to figure out how to solve or fix a problem.
SPEAKER_00They're tricky to do, they're simple, but they can be a little hard. So just kind of being intentional, and that's the key.
SPEAKER_01They take practice. This is great. When um people want more information about this, we have some resources on our website, www.growcounseling.com. Uh, Jackie, does the Gottman website also have resources available?
SPEAKER_00The um Gottman website does have resources available, and they also have some apps available as well that you can download to kind of help you kind of connect and get through things.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. So check out our website. We'll add some links to the Gottman site. Um, we have some blogs and things that are available as well. We want to equip you guys to have healthy, flourishing, vulnerable, connected, wonderful relationships. So thanks for tuning in, Jackie. Thanks for your time today. This was super helpful. Um, and we look forward to the next podcast and you guys tuning in with us for that. Take care.