Step one: Tackle money issues in the right order
The biggest trap for most couples is trying to tackle technical money issues without knowing how to talk about money first, without defensiveness, awkwardness or a desire to avoid needed conversations. There are so many resources to help us with the technical financial stuff—books on budgeting, podcasts on getting out of debt, videos on how to invest, advisors who will help you plan your finances. Yet for the vast majority of couples, they don’t truly use those tools together (or even seek out those tools to begin with) because they are dealing with varying degrees of discomfort with those conversations!
In our nationally-representative surveys for our book Thriving in Love & Money, we discovered that just 23% of couples can talk about money well. The rest of us (77%!) struggle with anything from avoiding money conversations and “coping” around the topic (which is definitely where Jeff and I were!) all the way to full-on conflict and resentment.
There’s nothing wrong with starting out with sincere efforts to put together and follow a budget—that is actually extremely important! But if you see that one or both of you are tempted to get defensive, engage in shame or blame, get frustrated, argue, or simply avoid the whole thing, that is a sign that you should first build the ability to talk about money well&emdash;even enjoy it!&emdash;and then move forward with the technical financial conversations.
Walking you through how to do this—how to build a great relationship around money—is unpacked in our book. But start with these next few steps!
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