An incredibly important foundation piece of a successful relationship it to start and continue to have conversations around money.
Understanding and respecting each partner’s journey (money story) and priorities is critical. I’ve witnessed and experienced first-hand relationship breakdowns with money issues at the core. Relationships Australia say that financial stress is one of the main contributors to relationship breakdowns, also stating that 7 out of 10 couples find money causes tension in their relationship.
So many of our emotional needs play out in the way we deal with money. When tension, anger, resentment or blame arises around the ‘money’, the underlying issues are never usually about the money at all, they are about our dreams and our fears.
Depending on the stage of your relationship, entering a new one to married with kids, the money conversation may be different… but one thing is for sure is that you need to be having one (a conversation that is).
I’ve recorded a podcast episode on this very topic and share not only my personal money story, but my top tips on how you can start exploring yours and how you can make the money conversation a really constructive one in your relationship.
Listen to the Savvy Mumma podcast eposide : Money Talk – Money and Relationships
Starting the money conversation in a new relationship:
Some simple tips for starting to explore the meaning of money for your new lover and your new relationship:
DON’T
- Be naïve – have your eyes wide open and take the time to observe your new partners behaviours around money.
- Let the lust stage of ‘everything will be alright’ blindside you…start taking note early on and have the conversations to understand what you are in for!
- If you start to share your finances; don’t hand over entire control and don’t be entirely in control – this goes for the whole way through your relationship.
- Believe you can entirely change someone – you risk becoming the controller and you won’t be on the same page.
DO
- Deep dive into each others belief system about money, the earlier the better!
- Find out what does it mean to have it, to not have it – if money was scarce, what would they feel or do?If they had it in abundance, what would they feel and do?
- Start talking about your money stories, it will give you both great insight into your belief systems.
- What are their goals and how do they see money working in a relationship?
- How do they feel about debt and credit cards?
In our Kick-start course we spend a whole module discovering our money story and you will have a framework on how to explore it and discuss it with your partner so that you can create a united money story moving forward that will help you achieve your goals. Find out about the final Kick-Start course for 2020 https://moneymode.com.au/kickstart/