We’ve all been there. The plane ticket for your weekend getaway costs more than you expected and you dread having to tell your spouse because of their potential reaction. Or your spouse makes a “frivolous” purchase for the THIRD time this month and you feel your anger reach the boiling point. And then there are those “extra” fees for your daughter’s volleyball team that drive you nuts.
These scenarios probably sound familiar. Although everyone reacts in different ways, at some point we all have a negative response to something around money—especially what our spouse does with money! In doing research for our book Thriving in Love and Money, my husband Jeff and I found that these knee-jerk reactions often trace back to a few faulty patterns of thought. But if we can learn to recognize and catch those wrong assumptions, we can retrain our thinking and dramatically change our interactions with our spouse.
So what are some of these problematic assumptions that lurk under our “over-the-top” reactions? Let’s look at four common ones—and be honest about whether we recognize any of these in ourselves.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In