Financial infidelity and financial intimacy
Thursday, April 18, 2024.
Unveiling the Depths of Financial Intimacy and Infidelity in Relationships
Exploring financial intimacy and infidelity reveals a complex interplay of emotions, values, and behaviors within relationships.
While financial infidelity involves covert actions or deception regarding money matters, financial intimacy transcends mere transparency, encompassing a profound understanding and alignment of financial values and histories between partners.
The Multifaceted Nature of Money Conversations:
Money conversations in relationships often serve as a conduit for deeper discussions about personal values, fears, and aspirations. Couples may shy away from these conversations due to the emotional intensity they can evoke, leading to a lack of true financial intimacy.
Unpacking Financial Backgrounds:
Building financial intimacy requires unpacking and understanding each other's financial backgrounds and attitudes. If these differences are not acknowledged and respected, they can become sources of conflict and misunderstanding in relationships.
The Devastating Impact of Financial Infidelity:
Research indicates that financial infidelity, including hiding purchases or debts, can erode trust and create significant rifts in relationships. Genuine transparency and honesty about financial matters are essential to maintain trust and intimacy.
Cultivating Genuine Financial Intimacy:
Fostering financial intimacy involves more than just sharing financial information; it requires deep, empathetic conversations about financial goals, fears, and values. Couples can strengthen their bond by aligning their financial priorities and communicating openly and authentically about money.
The Role of Professional Guidance:
In cases where financial issues strain relationships, seeking professional help through science-based couples therapy can be transformative. Therapy offers a safe space to explore underlying emotions and beliefs that drive financial behaviors, fostering understanding and growth.
Steve and Tara… a Case Study…
Steve and Tara had been married for nearly 20 years, building what seemed to be a strong relationship despite the challenges of raising two special needs children.
However, beneath the surface, unresolved financial issues were silently eroding their bond.
Steve, a remodeling business owner, faced financial difficulties in 2008 but was unable to secure a bank loan due to the banking crisis. Reluctantly, he turned to his elderly mother for financial assistance, a decision he kept from Tara. While Steve believed he was transparent by sharing the loan details, he failed to communicate the emotional weight and shame he carried from needing help.
Over the following years, Steve's unresolved emotions festered, leading to emotional withdrawal and increasing distance between him and Tara. Steve became critical of Tara's spending habits, creating tension and resentment in their relationship.
Tara’s Experience
In her one-on-one session, Tara told me that over the next 8 years, Steve changed. He bickered with her about her spending, insisting she had to “cut back.”
Her eyes grew wet as she described a pervasive black mood that enveloped her husband. Steve became critical and uncommunicative, and this went on until two years ago, when “all hell broke loose.” The presenting problem in their couples therapy was that Steve was caught sexting with a woman he met online.
Steve “fessed-up” and admitted to Tara that he had been acting-out sexually online in a variety of micro-cheating behaviors over the last 2 years.
Tara, unaware of the underlying issues, noticed a significant change in Steve's behavior. He became increasingly critical, uncommunicative, and distant, culminating in a shocking revelation: Steve had been engaging in online infidelity, sexting with other women.
In therapy, Steve finally opened up about his deep-seated shame and guilt over needing financial help from his mother. He realized that his emotional withdrawal and online behaviors were coping mechanisms for his unresolved feelings. Tara, on the other hand, expressed her hurt and confusion, feeling blindsided by Steve's actions and the underlying issues he had kept hidden.
Final thoughts
Through intensive therapy, Steve and Tara confronted their issues head-on. Steve acknowledged his mistakes and apologized to Tara, expressing his desire to rebuild their relationship. Tara, in turn, learned to empathize with Steve's struggles and appreciate the complexities of his emotions.
Their journey toward financial intimacy involved exploring their personal values, fears, and insecurities about money. They worked on creating a safe space for open and honest communication, which allowed them to understand each other's perspectives and rebuild trust.
Today, Steve and Tara are committed to maintaining financial transparency and intimacy in their relationship. They continue to attend therapy sessions to address any lingering issues and ensure that their financial past does not dictate their future. Their story is a testament to the transformative power of addressing financial issues and fostering genuine intimacy in relationships.
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
Financial infidelity and financial intimacy
What is financial infidelity? And what is financial intimacy? The notion of being open and honest about money is one thing, but financial intimacy is something else entirely.
In previous posts, I’ve touched on the topic of money problems that predict divorce, and best practices for handing love and money. Recently I’ve discussed Kakeibo, the Japanese budgeting as a spiritual practice and psychological discipline in marriage.
But the focus of this blog post is to discuss the bedrock of financial infidelity and financial intimacy, which is the quality of a couple’s communication.
Keeping secrets is not always financial infidelity
To have independent experiences, some spouses may sock money aside from time to time. Or a partner may be saving for a gift or a vacation. Minor money diversions are often only an expression of independent thinking.
Here’s the problem. Attitudes toward money are deeply intimate. They are so intimate that Gottman says that marital discussions about money aren’t about money.
They are about values and meaning.
Money conversations typically involve baggage from our families of origin, intense, sometimes fearful emotional reactivity, and our sense of personal autonomy and agency.
In other words, it’s a hell of a lot easier to not talk about it because research tells us that it’s not only perhaps the most challenging marital conversation, it’s how we define ourselves.
Financial intimacy is in short supply
The most important thing is to understand your spouse’s family of origin and financial past. Attitudes about money can differ significantly. It seems that many of us are not only dodging the chance for financial intimacy by avoiding conversations…we’re actually lying to our partners about money.
31% of American spouses with blended finances admit to lying about money to their partner at one point or another. A similar number reported to researchers that their partner deceived them.
Because these conversations are complicated and often bring up a painful past, spouses avoid financial intimacy and slide into financial infidelity.
It’s a zero-sum game. Money is one of those hot topics where you’re either HOT ( Honest, Open and Transparent) or COLD ( Controlling, Obsfuscating, Lying, or Deceiving).
Money and power
Money is power. So it follows that control, anxiety, fear, and worry color these marital conversations. Spouses often project a false persona about money. Because to delve into your relationship with money is to engage ghosts from the past.
What kind of financial infidelity are we talking about? Research from ForbesWoman and the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE) and conducted by Harris Interactive, surveyed over 2,000 U.S. spouses.
Most offenses were hiding money, nor disclosing minor purchases, and hiding credit card bills. The research also revealed that many spouses admitted to hiding major purchases, having hidden assets, and even lying about how much they earn, and how much they owe.
I had a client once who made a 3 million dollar real estate investment without disclosing it to his wife. But when the deal went sour, he had to discuss it, and, as expected, she was less than pleased about it.
The marital impact of financial infidelity…money, meaning and marriage
Science-based couples therapy can help you achieve financial intimacy..if you’re motivated to get there.
Explore Your Personal Values Around Money, and Pay Particular Attention to Where They Came From
Most spouses have a reactive, knee-jerk response to money issues. Slow down. Where did you learn that particular attitude about saving, investing, spending, etc.? If you can slow down and ask, “where did I first learn that?” It will help your partner understand your particular beliefs about how money should be used…or not used.
Explore your partner’s values around money, and accept that they are entitled to see things differently
Differentiation around money is useful. Just as you have firm beliefs about money, so does your spouse.
Difficulty in accepting value differences around money is why serious money differences contribute to 27% of all American divorces. Deception and lies by omission are the easy way out of these emotional gridlocks over money.
Power and control are at the heart of financial infidelity. Respect is squandered as deception compounds over time. Research tells us that most partners who engage in financial infidelity hoard cash (58%).
Other less common transgressions involve secret accounts (15%), hiding bills (30%), and lying about debt and how much they earn (11%). But these conflicts don’t have to be avoided.
As long as you accept that in most cases, there is no right or wrong, these differences can be a source of deeper intimacy.
Create 3 money moves to increase relational security
Fear of conflict is also at the heart of financial infidelity. Gottman suggests that money conflicts can be recruited to increase intimacy. Talk about how money can be used to create attachment. For example, “I want to spend on high-quality food because I want our family to be healthy,” or “I will feel loved if you help me plan our next vacation.”
Try to find 3 specific uses of money that will increase the bond between you. Be generous with one another around this exercise. Accept your differences, and don’t try to prevail over your partner. Talk about money through a lens of love and emotion. Gottman advises couple s to see money as an opportunity to accept influence and invest in one another.
A lack of financial intimacy can be the threshold to heartbreaking parital Problems
Last year I worked with a couple, Steve and Tara (not their real names, of course). They ‘ve been married for nearly 2o years and had a great marriage, even while raising 2 special needs kids.
Steve has a remodeling business, but it fell on hard times back in 2008, and he needed an infusion of capital to modernize his showrooms and stay competitive.
Because of the banking crisis at the time, Steve could not get a bank loan.
Reluctantly, he asked his elderly mother for financial help, which she willingly provided. Steve was the oldest of 3 boys, and he was close to his brothers.
Steve told Tara about the loan in a matter of fact way. In couples therapy, Steve emphasized that he was utterly “transparent and open” with Tara about the details for the loan.
I agreed with part of what he was saying.
But Steve was not open and transparent about his feelings about needing a loan from his mother, and the varying degrees of resentment his younger brothers had about this financial arrangement.
As his feelings festered for the next decade, he slid into a more profound depression. He neither acknowledged or discussed this with Tara, as he gradually became more emotionally unavailable and remote.
