How To Not Fight About Money In Marriage • Money: Part 1 (Episode 41)

Brent and Janis discuss insightful perspectives on managing money in marriage that can help a couple collaborate well and eliminate financial conflict.

The Life & Love Nuggets podcast will help you learn valuable insights into relationships, life, and love. Brent and Janis have been empowering couples through pre-marriage and marriage therapy in their private practice, Life Connection Counseling, since 1982. They recently retired after forty years of pastoral ministry and are continuing to help individuals, marriages, and families in their private practice.

The podcast is produced by ⁠Clayton Creative⁠ in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The content should not be considered or used for counseling but for educational purposes only.

This podcast should not be considered or used for counseling but for educational purposes only.

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Transcript:

Welcome to Life and Love Nuggets, where licensed therapist, Brent and Janice Sharpe.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to Life and Love Nuggets. We're really glad that you're here. We're always glad when somebody's listening. We actually heard from one of our listeners recently who just thanked us and said that, really appreciate what we're doing. In quotes, he said, it's been an amazing blessing to their marriage. So that's always encouraging. That's nice.

So we're always so glad to hear from you. If more of you want to let us know what you're thinking, even if you have other questions, topics that you'd like to hear us cover, that'd be so helpful. This particular listener went on to say that one of the biggest conflicts that they deal with in their life is about money. And he asked, could we talk about that a little bit?

Money in marriage. Money in marriage. And so, first of all, if you're struggling dealing with money in your marriage, welcome to the human experience. In 40 years of working with couples in marriages, it's certainly one of the top things that comes up. So often, there's a study that found that 90% of couples say it's the number one issue that they deal with, which is, that's pretty stout, pretty significant. It's also considered the second leading cause of divorce, next to infidelity. And so, really big deal. So don't be surprised if you are challenged by this. There was another study some years ago that said that 80% of our waking hours are spent making money, spending money, or thinking about how to make or spend money. So, once again, no wonder if this impacts us. As a matter of fact, just to help us all feel a little bit better, if your refrigerator is running at home, or your air conditioning or heater are actually running right now at home, you're actually spending money.

Just sitting. Isn't that encouraging? Just sitting listening to this.

Thank you for that encouragement, Brent. So, once again, no wonder. So today, we're gonna just take a look pretty quickly at some keys that we have found.

How do we do this? How do we deal with money well? How do we manage money? How do we communicate about it? How do we not let this be a harm to our marriages? Well, as we've talked about in all areas, we're going to marry somebody that's different. And we want to be able to value those differences as something that's good, and not something that frustrates us. Though it does frustrate us at times, and we have to work through that. But when you look at how couples really start out, we're drawn to somebody that is very different than we are. We see strengths in them that complement the strengths in us. And so we want that. And the purpose of marriage really is to blend those together so that we can be a stronger whole. The problem is that those differences are also the source of almost all of our conflicts. So if you've got conflicts in any area, you're definitely gonna have conflicts in marriage. But the difference is what's really, really the benefit. So what we're working on is, how do we blend those differences? How do we value each other in our financial area so that we can come to something that's better for both of us? And in most relationships, one person's a saver and one person's a spender. And so those can conflict, and we just have to be careful that we don't turn those into right and wrong.

Yeah.

So for those of you that like to keep track of points, I'm gonna talk about actual steps here. So the first one is to not let the differences frustrate you, but to be fascinated by them. And so we both came from pretty conservative homes, and so we were in agreement on most things when we first started out. But there was certainly one area. Are we still in agreement on most things? You said when we first started out. Okay, I guess we've been mainly, mostly in agreement. But there was one major area in the beginning that we were probably very different in. I was probably the saver and you were the spender, and it was the area of traveling. So even though you were very frugal on the household budget and all that kind of stuff, boy, you were always looking and dreaming about wonderful places to travel. And this isn't just in the beginning of our marriage. This is kind of continued on.

So the New Zealand conversation, that might be one of those things recently. Might be one of those things. Might be one of those things, yeah. So when we first started out, I probably, the way I think I was, is well, you just squirrel all your money away. You stick it all away. And then once we have a chance to retire and get the kids through college and all that kind of stuff, then we'll think about traveling. And yet, you were looking for new adventures now. And so how do we stop and smell the roses and enjoy life? And I am so glad that we found a blend, even though this created some conflict for us in the beginning. And we certainly could have slipped into right and wrong thinking there, or not being fascinated by it. Being very frustrated by this difference. But I'm so glad.

I think back on all the amazing moments that we have had and are still planning to have. Cultures and people that we've explored. It's added such a richness to our life. And I think if I'd locked into what is wrong with you? Why would you think that? We've got all this planning and preparation for our future and all this kind of stuff. It could have kept us from really being able to enjoy life. Yeah, but one of the things we had to do is we had to cut back on other things. In order for us to travel, we didn't have as nice of cars or furniture or clothes because travel was a priority for us.

Now, not completely. We didn't live on nothing.

But we had to scale back. And when we recognize that we do have difference in how we spend and we value that, we still have to remember that there's only a limited amount of money. So it would be great to be able to travel that much and furnish our house exactly like we want to, but there's a limited amount. So most of us growing up probably heard, and I think we did good at not saying this to our kids, but most of us- Thought it, but we didn't say it.

Yeah. We probably heard this saying of, money doesn't grow on trees. But we do have to recognize that there's a limited amount of money. And we're gonna talk some more about how we spend that in a way that is positive for both of us. I'm really glad that you were so good at saving. I mean, I came from a family that saved a lot, but you were the one that actually followed through in going, this is how much we're gonna save.

This is how much we're gonna invest. And you were consistent with that from the very beginning of our relationship. And then as you know, as real estate things have come along our way, there were some things that I'm like, yeah, that's a great idea, but I'm really nervous. I don't know whether we should do that or not. And you were like, nope, I really feel like this is the right thing. And when I heard that, it was like, okay. And they've ended up being a blessing to us. It's been a very positive thing. But I think you were a little more risk-taker, not risky, in investments or in property than I was. But I appreciate that. I appreciate the fact that we were different in that particular way. So whether it's on one main area that people have disagreements on finances or whether it's on a whole lot of them, the important thing is that we both bring good into the relationship and that we both have valid perspectives. We just need to work on blending those together so we can get the best whole. Yeah, which leads to our second one. So instead of getting into right and wrong thinking, which, oh my gosh, we've talked about this before in previous podcasts, it's so easy for us to do because the way we see the world, we think, again, is the right way. And so instead of getting into right and wrong conversations, always think blend. We encourage people to always think common ground. Where's the place?

Okay, you see it this way, you see it this way. Instead of just fussing over who's right and who's wrong, they're both valid. Let's figure out a blend. Which is why we have the conflict resolution podcast.

Yes, exactly.

Now this is hard when you're just both so passionate about your perspectives, whether it's saving so much or whether it's spending so much. We're both so passionate about that. And so we encourage people to just simply try to lay out their desires honestly and openly. We don't think it's helpful for one person just to, so that we can keep the peace, just bite their tongue and won't say what they think we ought to be doing. Need to be able to openly and honestly share those things so that they can find common ground. It's all about common ground.

And so one listener wrote in and said that they were having conflict about whether to tithe, giving 10% to their church. And so he had really felt like this was really, really important. He had really been convicted about this. And it just, I mean, this is right. This is what we're supposed to do. Well, his wife had been raised in a church system that was pretty manipulative about money. And she had been burnt really badly about this. And just did not wanna do this at all. And so they're in conflict about that. And so again, instead of who's right and who's wrong, or well, let's even fight over it over the scripture. Right, I can find a scripture to justify that. Just recognize, okay, both of these experiences are real and legitimate. And so how do we think common ground? How do we both be open and honest? And the key is to listen gracefully. Listen in a way where I'm trying to put myself in your shoes. You know, one of the ideas of grace or mercy is to get inside the skin of another person and see what they see, feel what they feel, experience what they've experienced.

And recognizing it's valid, it's legitimate. And I mean, I have to agree with it, but it's just okay, I understand this is your perspective. And think common ground.

How could we blend these? And so for this couple, maybe some options. Now there's a gazillion options, okay? When you start thinking common ground, before that, it's right and wrong, and there's only two options. It's either we do this or we do this. There's really all kind of options, and we've had the benefit of being counselors, sitting with couples, working on trying to find common ground. And I don't know about you, but I sit there going, I come up with like a dozen ideas because I'm not emotionally invested, I'm not defensive. That's where, in our issue resolution strategy, the idea is how do we get to where our language is not accusatory, so the person doesn't get on the defensive, where it's more like problem solving and brainstorming, and so some brainstorming for a couple like this. Absolutely, and it's important to remember that blending doesn't mean 50-50 all the time. So it doesn't mean in this particular couple, he wants to tithe 10%, she doesn't want to, so they tithe 5%. I mean, there's so many other creative options that are there, it's not necessarily meeting in the middle.

Although it could be. Sure, I mean, that could be a good option for them. And so, but it might be ideas of let's just do some research and some study on the idea of giving. Outside of tithing, you know, outside of the 10%, why is it good for us to give? Let's think about that, let's think about are there other ways to give? Are there other even outlets or outreaches? This person, you know, I've seen people that really are passionate about just going to a soup kitchen and volunteering their time. That's part of their giving, and so we think about what are different ways that we could give where we could find common ground? Or it might be, let's do something for a season. Let's go ahead and give 2%. Which, you know, the national average of all people is 2% that they give to charities.

Really?

And among Christians is 3%.

Wow.

So Christians are like 1% more than just the average of all people. Yeah, wow, that's interesting. And so, but we start there. We tell people just start there and start giving with a good heart, and so maybe they start with 2% or they do the 5%, and they do it for a year. And just see what that feels like, and they can reevaluate it at the end of the year. The key is making sure that we are committed to being together. Yes.

And that we talk about it and work on a strategy, in this case, of giving, whatever that would be, time, energy, resources, money, and to whomever, you know, we feel like we're supposed to do that with. But have that discussion until we're both at peace and we both can say, I can do this with a good heart. And make sure that we're committed to being together.

Yeah. You know, my family weren't tithers, and so when we first got married, you know, you came from a family that had a great history of always tithing and always giving to the church and giving to other organizations. You came from a very, very giving family. And so when we first got married, and you would sit down on Sunday morning and start writing a check for at least 10% of our income, and I knew you were gonna be giving more on top of that, it was a little freaky for me, because it was like, we worked hard for that, and we're like poor, you know? We're right out of college going through grad school. We don't have much money, and we're giving 10% away? But you know, there is something over the years that has been so good for me to see. It changed my attitude. I really learned, and I'm not saying everybody should be this way, but I really learned that it helped me focus on this is not all my money. This is not, you know, I don't get to keep everything. God wants me to be a giver, and we're supposed to be generous, even as humans, aside from being Christians, even as humans. We wanna be giving and loving to the people around us, and that involves giving money sometimes. In order for programs to happen or churches to be sustained, we need to do some of that. So to me, it was more than just the money. The lesson I learned from that I thought was really valuable, and I saw that generous spirit that you and your family have that I think was a really positive thing. So I think it's good in how it forms us. I don't want anybody to hear that as, you know, give your 10% and nothing bad will ever happen to you, or we have so many church filters that are in there that we have some fear over that or condemnation, but I think it's just the idea of having a giving and loving and generous heart and realizing it's not all our money. We can give it to others and bring a lot of good in the world. I've told you the story about when I worked at my dad's office, we had a truck driver named Charlie, and I think he was in his late 70s, maybe even getting close to 80, and he was still driving the truck. And I worked there in the summers, and he would come down and he would bring me his pouch with all his receipts and his money. And I'd go, thank you, Charlie. And he'd go, well, just thank the good Lord that I'm able. And one point he stopped and he talked to me and he goes, you know what, it's God's money, and I'm only able to earn money because of what he's doing for me. So it's by his grace that I'm able to work. And I thought, what a wonderful perspective. Yeah, so giving gives us that. And yet we also realize this has been abused. Oh, yes.

And people have been manipulated and felt like, well, if you don't do that. If you don't do that, then bad stuff's gonna happen to you, and you're gonna be cursed.

Or give to get.

So I give so that I'm just automatically gonna get back. And we've seen people in counseling that they're giving so much to the church, they're not able to take care of their family. And so we've had to work with them even in that and say, it's okay if you don't do that right now. So the key is, what we're saying by this, this is not a sales pitch for giving or tithing. It's simply, we believe that what a couple can come to agreement on, that they can feel like this is right for us for right now. And if we can be open then to maybe our heart will think differently in the future. So where can we find common ground?

Let's start there. And let something happen in that. I think there's something that happens when a couple comes into agreement. There's a powerful thing that takes place there. And that's that when you're able to walk for the next month, the next six months, the next year in agreement, then you may adjust that after that, you may, either one of you may have a different perspective at some point that can lead you in a little different direction. But trust that that's the healthiest place to live. So the third, if you're keeping track here. Which I don't, but I'm glad you do. Is to have the mindset that the money is our money, not yours or mine. Even though we realize that none of it's ours, which was the last point.

It's all God's in essence. I mean, he's given us the ability to earn an income. So we don't really own anything. We just manage it. But in a sense, in a marriage, it's not yours and my money.

It's our money.

We're seeing a bit of a concerning trend today. Part of this is natural because in most couples, both of them work. But we've seen that because talking about money is so difficult, that many couples just opt out. Okay, let's just manage our own money. Each of us keep track of our own and we'll try to maybe share some of the family expenses or you take that payment, I'll take this payment or whatever. Each of them have their own accounts. They just manage everything themselves. And so we kind of split it up, split the family expenses, then whatever's left over, I get to do whatever I want to do with that. Boy, we found that what is oftentimes best is not easiest. This can keep a couple from arguing.

But is that best? We found this to be a sure path to developing a roommate marriage. This isn't much different than if you were just sharing expenses with a roommate. It's pretty much exactly like that. And so it can turn that direction very easily. And what we found is there's very little emotional connection there. Very little emotional intimacy develops because we just keep it all on the surface.

Yeah.

We've both seen couples in counseling that they go into the marriage and they go, well, let's not blend it. You pay for this, I pay for that. And we really see it with cars. They'll go into the marriage and it'll be like, well, I'll pay for my car payment and you pay for yours. And then time goes on and oftentimes a husband may earn more money than the wife, so he has a nicer car or gets a car more often. And hers is not quite as nice, or it can be vice versa, but then a car breaks down. And so oftentimes I will see a woman that has a car, it breaks down and she goes to her husband and says, I need a new transmission and it's $3,000, whatever, and I just don't have that. And the response is, well, that's your responsibility.

That's your car.

You should be paying those payments. And it causes such a division. It's so hard to have that kind of conflict. And again, what you say, it's roommate marriages. It's like a tough, you're on your own. I take care of my stuff, so you should take care of your stuff. You shouldn't have spent so much money on that or whatever.

Right.

Then you'd have money for that.

Right.

But that's what roommates do. That's not what you do in a relationship. And we also see this when one of them makes a lot more money than the other one. I see this, I just saw this fairly recently with a physician and she was the one that happened to make the most money. And so there's kind of this idea of, well, whoever makes the most money controls the money and that's not healthy in any kind of relationship, but it's the idea of because I make the most money, you just have to do what I say or you have to go along with it. It's not blending and molding and that's not going to lead to a good marriage or what we like to say, a boyfriend-girlfriend marriage. We want there to be closeness and holding the money over somebody else is not going to bring that closeness. Now we realize this means we have to have difficult conversations.

Very difficult.

Right.

And that's where we encourage couples to wrestle this out until you can get to a place of finding common ground. The idea is how do we, wherever the source of the income comes from, it all comes into a common pot and we then decide together what we do with that. And so, because it's our money and so it doesn't mean that you can't have more than one checking account if that is practical for management purposes, okay, or different credit cards for this or that or whatever. But the idea is it all comes into a common pot initially. And I've even encouraged couples over the years to have separate hobby accounts. You know, if one of them is a hunter and the other one is something else, then they have their own hobby accounts and then there's a certain amount of money in that and they just use that to pay for their hobbies. Yeah.

And so, but it comes in, that comes out of, that's an agreed upon strategy.

Out of the general pot. Out of the common pot.

Yes. Yes. Number four is don't spend in secret. That doesn't go well. A very startling study said that one in three couples, one in three, 33%, confess that they have hidden purchases from their spouse. Now we did an entire series on betrayal from infidelity, but there's actual financial infidelity that where people have secret savings accounts or secret checking account or they've opened up a credit card without the knowledge of the other person. It's a really fast way to break trust in a relationship and the couple's going to struggle with the same kind of trust issues as they would if there was other kinds of infidelity. And so, so basically don't do it. We have seen that secret credit card over and over and over again.

No.

So whatever it takes to get on the same page, do it. This doesn't mean you will agree on everything, obviously, but work on areas of conflict until you can find common ground. It can make all the difference in the world. It can really eliminate, you bought what? So many couples go through, what? That just creates ongoing conflicts. And if there's not kind of a plan, if there's not agreed upon kind of parameters and so forth, which is the next one we're going to talk about here, then it leaves us, we've got to talk about almost every purchase then. Everything that comes up, we're always have to talk about it. And then we argue about it because we don't see it the same way. And so you can eliminate that stuff if you back up and work on a plan together and get into agreement, then pretty much it's just two adults following the plan, which is what we're going to talk about.

Yeah.

So the next one is set expectations together. We go into our relationship, we go into life in general, having so many expectations of this is how I want things to be, this is how things should be. So of course, we're going to have that in finances. We're going to have the idea of this is what I want to spend my money on. So we do have to work together to decide what are our expectations and how can we work on meeting both of those. And that can be our general budget. It can be things like we're paying for our kids going to college. I mean, there's couples that are like, we're getting close to college. My husband just told me that he doesn't believe in paying for kids going to college. She's like, my parents paid for my college. I just assumed that's what we would do. So we have expectations like that. How much traveling we're going to do, what kind of clothes we buy, what kind of cars we drive, what kind of house do we have, what kind of furniture do we have? We have those expectations. So we have to talk about our expectations in our financial world because we're going to have differences in that.

We have different dreams. We have different ideas.

So we have to talk about what those expectations are so we can eliminate conflict as we set down our pattern of spending like you talked about and you will talk about. But if we don't work on really sharing our expectations, if we keep those hidden or we just go, well, they'll make fun of me if I say I want that. If you continue to just ignore your expectations year after year after year and go, well, they got a new car so we don't get to go on the trip that I want to go on to, but you don't share that, then resentment builds and there becomes a division in the relationship because that person has unfulfilled expectations. So we have to work on sharing those and coming up with a plan. So all of that in this setting expectations obviously is our money, so let's figure out what we can both agree on. It's all about finding common ground, not whether it's right or wrong, get into is it right or wrong to pay for your kid's college. Couples could talk about that forever and never see it the same way. So it's what could be common ground. Do maybe we pay for their first year or we pay this percentage or as long as they have a job paying for this, then we're willing to do this. Or as long as they get a GPA out of their semester at college. And so again, getting those expectations generally laid out. Now the next time, our next podcast, we're going to talk about once you get those general expectations laid out, how do you actually manage this? What's the practical way to actually live day-to-day in a way that helps you fulfill those expectations? So number six, which we'll start with next time, is to develop a plan so your expectations and dreams can become a reality. There's one thing to say, yes, we'd like to do this. We'd like to pay for our kid's college or we'd like to have a lake house one of these days, or we'd like to do this or that. But if there's no plan that is actually being executed, those things are not going to happen. And so we'll talk about that next. And so once again, if you're struggling and having some money issues in marriage, welcome to the human experience, everybody, your neighbors are having the same stuff, but there is a way through this. So we've talked about some mindsets and some ways of thinking and some attitudes to have that can help set the stage for this. And next time we'll talk about and give you some practical tools for how to walk this out. So for now, go in peace, blessings as you go. The Life and Love Nuggets podcast is a 501c3 nonprofit and is supported by gifts from people like you. To donate, go to lifeandlovenuggets.com slash donate. This podcast is produced by Clayton Creative in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The content should not be considered or used for counseling, but for educational purposes only.