June 3, 2024 • 42 mins
Money, money, money…money is an emotional issue and our relationship with money is complicated, complications we bring into our relationships that can be destructive if not resolved or at the minimum examined. Tune in and learn to UNBLEEP your relationship with money from the inside out with host Anita Astley.
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(00:01):
Relationships weather, romantic, platonic,familial, are complicated and can be downright
MESSI bringing out the best and worstin all of us. Here's an opportunity
for you to learn effective, concretestrategies to help you build healthy relationships from
the inside out. It's on BleepYour Life and Relationships with host Anita Aslak,
(00:22):
psychotherapist of over twenty five years.Hey guys, welcome to another episode
of Unbleep Your Life and Relationships.I'm your host, Anita Asley. I
am a licensed individual, couples andfamily therapists. I've been in practice for
my gosh over twenty five years.Last year I published a book called Unbleep
Your Life and Relationships. It's availableon Amazon and Simon and Schuster website.
(00:47):
If you guys want to look forme on social media, it's ask Anita
Asklee on Instagram, YouTube, andTwitter. Today we are going to be
talking about something some of the thingsthat the theme of full of weeks of
being in session with people. Weare going to be talking about money.
Money, money, money, Yeah, money, money, Money's It is
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chapter four in my book, underOur Needs and Expectations. Now, relationships
are complicated in the best of times, but when it comes to money,
it just makes things more complicated.The longer we are with somebody, the
more entangled we get with them,the more we merge our finances together.
(01:32):
Not everybody does that today, butwhen there's a certain amount of tension that
comes from how much one person makesover the other person. I was in
session last week and I'm you know, I'm not going to name anybody,
and this is not unethical, butjust to share some of the stories throughout
the years that are related to money. Now, before I get into that,
(01:53):
it's about needs and expectations. Alot of the challenges people have in
relationships are all about communicated miscommunicated needsand expectations. And I talk about the
major categories in my book. Wetalked about emotional intimacy, we talked about
physical intimacy, and today we're gonnabe talking about finances. I was sitting
(02:16):
through sessions and I'm listening to peopleand I think, oh my gosh,
it seems to me that they havenever talked about money. But they've decided
to have children together, they've decidedto marry, they've decided to live together.
And when I asked the question,Okay, well, how much.
You know, well, how doyou guys handle finances? And they literally
(02:38):
look at me and say, well, we've never really had that conversation.
I don't really know what she orhe makes, and we just kind of
go with it. Well, I'mlike, Okay, no, wonder,
it's bleeped up. You can't justgo with it. I wish we could,
but we bring to our relationships,the relationship we have with money from
our parents and our past. Moneyis a very emotional matter. I know
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people think of it in terms ofit's just black and white, it's just
numbers. Yes, on the onehand, it is is, it's math,
But on the other hand, itis a very emotional subject for us.
I don't know about you, Greg, but I got supercharged up and
when I was younger with money.I grew up in a household where we
talked about it openly, not ina positive way. We had a lot
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of anxiety. My dad, youknow, he worked really hard, but
there was not enough of it everto go around. I never felt that
as a child, but looking back, I think, you know, as
an adult, I'm like, well, why do I feel this way about
money? I have all this anxiety. It's not enough or I have to
work harder. But all of thatcomes from a family of origin. We
learn how to relate to money throughour childhood. Was it talked about,
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was it not talked about? Werethere are secrets going on between your parents?
Were you made to feel stressed outabout money? All these things form
what I call an emotional blueprint.We all have a blueprint around these things
that we've talked about here on thisshow. Physical intimacy, emotional intimacy,
and now money. We all haveone. So don't deny. And I
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tell people that listen, and Iasked them to ask themselves questions about what
it was like growing up in theirfamily and how they felt about money.
It's a very difficult subject to talkabout, even harder than sex. We've
talked about sex on this podcast,and money seems to be a more difficult
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conversation. I will tell you something. If you don't know what your financial
needs and expectations are, and youdon't know your partner's financial needs and expectations,
the relationship is slowly going to deteriorate. There's going to be an erosion
of trust. And you know,the financial situation for people is fluid,
(04:57):
It changes over time. So thoseneeds and exttions that we clarify with each
other within ourselves and our relationship,we need to be a little bit fluid
with them, because, yeah,if you lose your job, then they
needs and expectations we had financially earlierare going to have to be shifted.
And I'm reminded of a conversation Iwas in and I thought, oh my
god, I'm just going to losemy shi TC. I didn't say it
(05:19):
this time. One person was notworking in the relationship they had lost their
job, and the other person wasworking really hard to make ends meet.
They have a family, and wewere talking and she said to me,
it's really difficult because you know,my husband asked me if he could still
(05:42):
go and get a pedicure, andshe thought, what the bleep? And
I thought, what the bleep?And then on top of that, when
the question was asked, she said, what does that mean? You're not
going to do the other thing likethe Starbucks? And listening to this and
I'm thinking, what the fuck bah, Because first of all, it's not
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the question that's problematic. The factthat you're even asking the question is problematic.
It means that you don't grasp thesituation financially, Yeah, if you
have to ask me that question,and you see me working and that our
coupleship, our family is really tryingto survive on one income, and you
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see the stress, you feel thestress. I share my stress with you,
and then you ask me that you'reon a different planet. We are
not compatible. We are on adifferent page when it comes to our finances.
And I find that completely disrespectful.You are disrespecting the time that I'm
spending earning money for the family byasking me if you can go spend money
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frivolously. The Starbucks has to stop. People. If you can relate to
this conversation, the Starbucks is nota need, it is a want.
And when you're financially struggling, thatneeds to go away. The pedicure and
the manicure, that needs to goaway. This to me, I pointed
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out, was a parent child dynamic. We talked about this on the show
before. Let me explain that toyou guys, a parent child dynamic in
a relationship is healthy when we canexchange those roles once in a while.
You know, you can be childlikeone. You know, next three and
I'll be the parent and I canbe childlike and you'll be the parent.
We switch roles, but when weare cemented in these roles, it is
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problematic. I don't want to beyour mother. I don't want you to
be my child. I want youto be my equal partner. And if
you're my equal partner and you we'vehad the conversation about money, then you
should know not to ask that question. And you know, going back a
bit, they never had the conversationabout money. So a problem number one.
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We all need to be able totalk about money in our relationship.
We need to be transparent, butit's difficult to be transparent because people are
afraid. They're afraid to say thenumbers because they might not know the numbers
themselves. But getting back to thisparent child dynamic, I said, well,
in order for there to be achild, there has to be a
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parent, right you can't and inorder for you to be a parent,
there has to be somebody acting likea child. So it is a circular
dynamic that is continued with regards ifwe're talking about money with money that one
person needs to change that and theother will will change their roles. If
I don't act like your mom,you're not gonna act You're gonna be forced
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to act like an adult. Soif we go back to that scenario rather
than negotiating, because at the end, I think she started to negotiate with
him to say, well, maybeget the pedicure but not the Starbucks,
I'm like, no, this isnot your adolescent son. This is something
maybe I do with my kid,not even because I think nan, no,
no, getting all these treats atthat right, I didn't decay a
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partner to an adult relationship. Youshould know not to even ask me that
question. That but I need tonot be the mom so you can be
the adult that I married and bewith. Does that make any sense?
Don't say it to me, justdon't do it. Don't ask me that.
Well, the fact that you haveto ask me is the problem.
So it goes back to we needto have the conversation about money. We
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need to set realistic needs and expectationswith regards to our financial situation. But
some people don't even know their ownfinancial situation. They don't want to confront
themselves, yet they confront their partner. So we need to be able to
know what our financial picture is.We're going to get back to that after
a few words Unleep your Life inRelationships with I need to ask lead everyone
(09:52):
strives for healthier relationships. Here's moreof Unleep your Life and Relationships on News
Talking Wis. Welcome back to Unbleepyour Life and Relationships. I'm your host,
Anita Astley. Today we are talkingabout unbleeping finances. Now, I'm
sure you guys know someone, oryou're in our relationship or even in your
(10:16):
family, you've observed this finances areleading cause of conflict in relationships because we
just don't talk about them. Andwe all have a very complicated relationship with
money. How we earn it,how we save it, how we spend
it, how we share it,how we invest it, how we feel
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about it, how we think aboutit, how we manage it. Can
I go on and on and on. All of this is what I referred
to earlier as a function of ourchildhood and this blueprint that we've internalized,
and we operate as an adult basedon this blueprint with regards to finances.
Now, you might be wondering,what is this blueprint, Anita? You're
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talking about It is our emotional DNA. It's a configuration of thoughts and feelings
and actions that have been created withinourselves from our family of origin, and
this gets transmitted from one generation toanother. I mean, I can think
of families where one generation with anotherthey have so many financial issues because they've
never learned how to deal with money. They have a very faulty internalized blueprint.
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And Guys, if you can relateto this and it sounds very familiar,
you can tweak that. This doesn'tmean you're going to be like this
for the rest of your life,but you have to first of all,
be aware of it. It's aproblem for you and you need to work
on fixing it. And if yousee it as a problem in your relationship
and you see your partner engaging insome very unhealthy dynamics around money, we
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need to be able to have aconversation with it because eventually that's going to
impact you in the relationship. Andanytime there's financial issues, you're going to
have a fight. And like Isaid before, avoid the fight by being
proactive and saying, hey, justlike I was talking about that couple with
the Starbucks and the pedicure a metica, can we talk because I'm not comfortable
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with the way money is being spentin this relationship and I'm not feeling very
secure. What does money represent?It represents security, it represents safety.
We get love entangled in all ofthat. Again, going back to our
blueprint, what do we think andwhat do we feel about money? It
is an emotional It's an emotional subject. Now, think about some of the
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things that your parents did with regardsto money. Can you think of any
greg paying seventeen percent interest rates ona new building? Yeah, it was
tough bag. It was tough forus back in the early seventies. Yeah.
And if you and I just wantpeople out there to think about it's
not just as a conscious stuff likeyou're saying the numbers, but it's the
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unconscious messages we have within ourselves.People who often say to me, well,
Anita, if they're unconscious, howam I going to make them consciously
so I can change them? Becausewe have to be conscious of that that
we want to change. You needto examine your patterns, You need to
examine your behavior, You need toexamine your emotions. Like I say on
this show all the time, everythingstarts from the inside out. Work on
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yourself, and once you're able toidentify those things, then establish some needs
and expectations around money, but don'tkeep them within yourself. Share them with
your partner. Before you marry somebody, before you move in with somebody,
before you have children together, makesure you know what their needs and expectations
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are financially, but also your own. And then, of course you're not
a mere image of the other aslong as they are fundamentally compatible. And
you know, today we live ina world of dual incomes, right,
everybody's working so not like when Iwas, you know, originally married,
where we pulled everything together and weworked from this one bank account. Today,
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because of high divorce rate, dualincomes, everybody's got their own.
And that's fine and dandy, youknow, because divorce rate is so high,
you want to protect yourself. Iget that, But people don't talk
about what is expected. And especiallyif you're making more money than me,
Are you really expecting me to payfor this massive house that we bought when
you're making more, I make less, but I'm paying fifty percent. That
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doesn't work either, because it createsa power differential. Nobody wants to feel
powerless in a relationship, and moneyis power. Money is control in that
situation. We need to sit downand have a conversation to say, you
know, you make so much morethan I do, and I feel it's
a little unfair that I should haveto pay half. People don't have those
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conversations. They have the conversation withthemselves, and of course that creates problem.
We need to have them with theother person, and that isn't fair.
I'll tell you something. If youare making so much more than your
partner and you're expecting them to payfifty percent, that's going to come out
in resentment in a different form.It doesn't seem to be fair to do
that. And if you love theperson and you want an equal relationship,
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and of course we can get intothis concept of equality, nothing is really
equal. That situation is not equal. Your partner may be giving to you
in a different way, but notin the monetary way. But we need
to identify that. We need totalk about it before the resentment and anger
gets in there. Because I've seenthat, I've seen that happen. I
was just thinking about, you know, I'm thinking about a couple that I
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worked with a couple of years ago, and this is common, but they
were particularly interesting because he made somuch more than her and she didn't make
that much and still made her payfifty percent of everything lay that you all,
she agreed to it. You know, I've got to tell you,
nobody can make you do anything.If you're uncomfortable with it, then you
got to speak up and say something. But yeah, they came into it.
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I mean, it's a make orbreak deal for people. Finances can
destroy your relationship if you don't talkabout that. And I'm established some clear
rules and expectations. I'm repeating thisbecause people don't do that. They just
kind of go into relationships thinking andguessing and assuming, and that all falls
apart when something happens. You know, It's funny because my wife and I
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we've had a joint account for sincewe've been married. Yeah, but we've
decided that, Okay, I'm goingto take the mortgage out of my check
this week, and then we're gonnatake to pay the taxes out of your
check. You know that kind ofyes, But you talk about it,
right and then she'll agree or disagree, and you'll come to some kind of
middle ground. Again. You bringto the table your blueprint related to money.
She brings into the relationship her blueprintrelated to money and along the way,
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because you're still you tweak that.You know, healthy relationships, that's
what happens, we tweak it alongthe way. If I lost my job,
I'm expecting you to cover for meand us without you making me feel
bad and vice versa. But peopledon't have those conversations. And again,
guys, I say this repeatedly throughoutthis show and episodes. Everything starts with
a conversation and let's get let meget to the red flags before give you
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some tips on how not to bleepup things in your relationship and let money
contaminate things, because it does redflag to look out for your relationship where
your partner doesn't want to talk aboutmoney at all. Now, this is
very different to feeling uncomfortable. Yes, we might feel uncomfortable talking about money,
but not wanting to talk about itat all. Basically saying it's not
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your business what I make, it'snot your business what I spend. Red
flag. You need to have aconversation to say no, it is.
If we are going to be inthis relationship, it is my business.
I need to know what comes in. I will share what I bring to
the table and I need to knowwhat goes out. It is a red
flag if somebody doesn't want to talkabout it. If your partner uses money
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as a form of manipulation and control. People do this all the time.
As I said before, money ispower, money is control. If they
buy you something or pay you know, like you're saying, you pay half
the mortgage, but they have tothrow it in your face. How you're
not keeping you know, your shareof the bargain. You're not meeting expectations.
But sometimes those expectations are never setbecause hey, if you're making all
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that money and I'm never going toagree to that, I'm gonna say,
wait a minute, that doesn't seemfair. How is this fair? Can
we talk about this manipulation? Donot let your partner manipulate you. And
if you see that's going on,that's a red flag. And if you're
just early days in the relationship,run run run. You also have to
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talk about goals. Now, financially, we have individual goals and we have
couple goals. What are we goingto work towards as a couple. Are
we compatible that way? Are wesaving up for a house? Well,
if I'm saving up and doing allthe work and I see you frivolously spending
money. We are incompatible and theguys, I gotta tell you this,
love is not enough. I don'tcare how much you love that other person
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or how much they love you.If you can't have a healthy relationship around
money, you can't establish common goals, and within the common goals, have
some individual goals. It's not gonnawork. You're gonna be miserable together.
We have to be able to betalking about money and sex openly with some
security. Another red flag if yousee your partner spending money irresponsibly. I'm
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thinking about you know. Some peopleI've worked with are like, I don't
know. I be living together forfour years in needed with this guy,
and all of a sudden he drivesup with a brand new car, and
I'm like, well, did younot talk about this? No, what
do you know about his financial situation? Nothing? I'm like, four years
living together and you know nothing.He drives up with a brand new car.
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Red flag. Problem should have beendealt with earlier, because four years
into it, guess what now you'rereally entangled. Oh the other thing,
uh, financial infidelity. We talkabout infidelity in other ways. By financial
infidelity, not being transparent, havingdebts, gambling, secret things that you
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do that all of a sudden,you have no money at the end of
the week. Where did it go? Where did it go? We don't
know what are you doing with allthat money? You're definitely not paying the
bills with it. It's problematic,but people don't say anything. They think
it's going to get better. Theyengage in what I call magical thinking.
Guys, Magical thinking doesn't work.I wish it did, because I have
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a lot of things I think magicallyabout they never transpired. When we are
not aligned with financially with our partner, we're going to have stress, We're
gonna have anxiety, the relationship mightcome to an end, divorce and on
the you know, other extreme suicide, there are people who have That's a
various serious subject. People who havesuch financial stress, they keep it a
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secret, nobody knows about it,and then they attempt something like suicide.
And we all know that that's problematicon so many different levels. And it
just all of these things create terminalrelational cancer, and we need to talk
about I'm getting the message here fromGreg to go to a break. We'll
be right back and talk about morefinancial issues. But I'm going to give
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you some solutions on how to avoidthose pitfalls in your relationships. Anita Ashley
has more advice on how to onBleep your Life and Relationships on news Talk
eleven thirty wys. Hey, guys, welcome back to Unbleep your Life and
Relationships. Today we are talking aboutfinances and how they impact your relationship and
(21:26):
the importance of talking about them.I just shared with you some of the
red flags we need to be awareof before we get more and more entangled
with somebody emotionally. We got todetangle some of that financial stuff that comes
from our emotional blueprint before I giveyou some tips. We have a collar.
(21:48):
Welcome to and Bleep your Life andRelationships. I'm Annita Askley. What
can I help you with today?And how can you share some of the
issues maybe you've had financially in yourrelationship? Hey Anita, Hey, I
just I'm just so happy that Igot the opportunity to call you. I
read your book and really enjoyed itthan you. But in terms of uh,
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you know, finances, I couldI could use a little advice.
I think I have some spill overI'm recently single, uh divorced, uh,
and I think some of my financialissues of are kind of carrying over.
So just a little background, I'mI'm I'm dating a woman who's another
(22:30):
professional, and we're dating and andyou know, I pay for everything,
which is okay, but you know, I feel like it's a little bit
awkward. Once in a while Iwould appreciate just an offer to you know,
maybe buy a coffee or or door do something. And then it
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makes me kind of reflect back onon my marriage where they were also a
whole different slew of issues financially,and so I guess, just do you
have any tips on how to kindof break the ice on a on a
subject like that, or well,what does that? What would it mean
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to you if she did that toyou? So if she did that for
you, you feel like you're alwayspaying. This is a new new area
now because you know, traditionally we'veexpected the man to pay. But yeah,
she's a professional, you're a professional. Also, I'm assuming you because
you said you pay for everything forsomebody. Okay, It's just it's not
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I consider myself a gentleman and Ilike to to pay for things on dates.
But I guess it's just the theconsideration of, you know, saying,
well, I respect that you're payingfor this, And I think that
it would be nice for her tomake that effort moving forward, because it
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just makes like it would be difficultto in the future if things were to
get, you know, more seriouswith this person in terms of planning for
the future and what the expectations wouldbe. And I don't know, yeah,
I think it would just be moreof a sign of respecting courtesy more
(24:19):
than and then I don't really needa lot of things, you know,
paid for by any means. It'sjust more of a sign of respecting courtesy.
I guess. Yeah. So Iwould encourage you to ask yourself what
money in this context means to you. And I think you just kind of
opened that door in terms of it'snot really about her buying you the coffee,
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it's about her sharing that she caresfor you. Because I think anytime
we spend money on someone, thatmoney is usually from a lot of hard
work, and by spending it onsomeone, we're saying, you know,
I'm willing to do this, I'mwanting to do this because I care about
you. Investing in the relationship.So maybe it's a little bit about that
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with you. How long have youbeen dating her? Just about a couple
of months, so a couple ofmonths. And how old are you?
Okay, so you're hopefully pretty wellestablished and I'm thinking of fifty five.
If you're dating and guys listening outthere, this is you. There's no
(25:27):
time like the present to establish someneeds and expectations earlier on. I mean,
when you're twenty five, it's adifferent story when you're fifty five,
and I'm assuming she's around your age. Yes, yes, I would have
that conversation, but not in termsof the money, but in terms of
what money means to you, andI would want to know what it means
(25:48):
to her. I would want toknow a little bit more about her emotional
blueprint around money. And as Iwas talking earlier, I don't know if
you were listening, but it emotionalblueprint is really what we have internalized with
regards to what we have learned inour childhood about money and money as you're
as you know you're sharing, isan emotional matter. We want to know
(26:11):
what the other one needs and whatthe other one expects. And it sounds
like you're needing and expecting a littlebit of reciprocity, and of course reciprocity
is important in relationships. And itsounds like it's really not about the money,
would I be correct? Correct,Yeah, it's not. It's not
about the money. I mean,I can, I can, you can
afford it? Right, It's likethe quote unquote thought that counts yes,
(26:37):
But you know, ask I wouldalso challenge you to ask yourself if she's
reciprocating in a different way and maybeyou're just focused on the money part.
I don't know, that's something youneed to think about. And I would
also ask you because you talked aboutbeing married, your stuff flooding into this
relationship from your marriage, and Iwould say, do you want maybe you
(26:57):
need to examine some of what thatstuff was and does it belong in the
relationship that you're in today or isit just residual stuff from the past.
We all have residual stuff from thepast, but we don't What we don't
want to do is contaminate bring thatstuff into the current situation and contaminated what
could be a good relationship. Andmoney is always something that comes in and
(27:22):
can do that. If we don'tresolve some of our emotional issues with money.
And also I challenge you to lookat your emotional blueprint when it comes
to money. What was it likein your family of origin? Was there
a scarcity, were you scared thatthere wouldn't be enough money to go around?
And how it was spent, howyour parents talked to you about money
(27:42):
and what they showed you with regardsto money. And at fifty five,
I mean, I'm fifty five andI'm thinking I had a long history and
a long relationship with money, someof it good, some of it bad
that I've had to tweak along theway. And when I start to feel
uncomfortable about it, I asked myself, off, what is triggering inside of
me? So I would also encourageyou to look at what is this triggering
(28:06):
inside of you? Beyond her buyingyou a cup of coffee? All right?
Yeah? So so when I wasyeah, when I was growing up,
things were a little bit rough ofmoney. But I grew up with
my single mom yea, and moneywas a little bit scarce. But at
(28:26):
the same time, we always madewe always made things happen. I guess,
I guess my if I had tosay, my emotional attachment to it
would be to try and bring Iguess to try and bring joy because I
(28:48):
remember it being such a potentially sadissue with my mom. Yeah, yeah,
I'm sorry to hear that. Andthat's your emotional blueprint round money that
you're operating on. But was moneya problem in your marriage? You're you're
assuming you're divorced with your ex wife. So yeah, so at times money
(29:08):
was an issue, and I alwaysI didn't want my kids to be to
suffer through the economic turmoil that Idid. Yeah, it led to there
being some you know, credit andtax issues and may have had something to
do with the divorce. In theend, I guess that is part of
(29:32):
my blueprint that could be revised.I could probably be looking at things in
spend thrift ways, I suppose.So we all bring our past into the
present. It's when we allow itto contaminate the present then it becomes a
problem. So again, thank youfor joining me today and with your phone
call, and again I encourage youto go. You know, I always
(29:56):
say inward first, working from theinside out, think about your blueprint that
you have, and think about someof the things that need to be changed
and tweaked, and think about someof the stuff that belongs in the past
that you need to work on todaywith this woman that you're dating. And
it sounds like it's not really aboutthe money or the coffee. It's really
(30:17):
about what that represents. And moneyand stuff like that always represents something inside
of us that triggers something inside ofus that we need to kind of tweak
and work on. But anyway,thank you for sharing that with us.
I appreciate it. But at leastyou're talking about it, and it's maybe
time to have a conversation with yournew girlfriend and talk about money. Thank
you. Okay, thank you,thanks well, thank you to that caller.
(30:38):
We're going to take a break andI will send you on your way
with a couple of tips to unbleepyour life and relationships with regards to money.
Back to Unbleep your Life and Relationshipson News Talk eleven thirty WYSAD.
Hey guys, welcome back to UnbleepYour Life and Relationships. I'm your host
(31:00):
Anita Asklee. Today we are talkingabout unbleeping finances and I got to tell
you, talking and fighting about moneyis not something that's new. It's been
going around forever. But today thelandscape is very different because we live in
a society where we have dual incomesituation, which complicates it even further.
If we don't talk about the rules, the expectations, the needs we have.
(31:25):
People are operating on different assumptions andwhen those are incompatible, there's lots
of problems, lots of issues thatend up in my office, which is
a good thing because I recognize theyneed some help. But I'll tell you
one of the first things you guyslistening out there, if you can relate
to this need to do, ishave an open and honest conversation about how
(31:47):
much money you're making, how muchmoney the other person is bringing in,
and also about what is going out. Sometimes we don't know what's going out,
and sometimes I'm listening to couples andpeople are thinking, how do you
not know what is coming in?And how do you not know what's going
out? We got to start fromthe beginning. It's a math game,
right. The math part of iseasy. It's the talking about it that
(32:09):
is so uncomfortable because people don't wantto be transparent. They're afraid, and
I get it. In an erawe have like what six out of ten
marriages, and in divorce. Everybody'sgot to have their bank accounts, which
is good, It's okay, it'srealistic. I'm not judging that. That's
the reality that we live in,which is very different to you know,
what you and I grew up withwhen we were younger, when we pulled
(32:30):
everything together. Should they talk aboutit before they get married. Absolutely,
as I said, like like thisbefore we live together, before we get
married, before we have children.As I previously said on the show,
we need to have an open andhonest conversation about how you think about money,
(32:52):
how you feel about money. Whatis your blueprint? And I'm as
I mentioned before, your blueprint iswhat you're bringing into the relationship from your
past, from your childhood. Weall have a childhood. Okay, most
of us didn't have a perfect onebecause it doesn't exist. But the one
around money, we need to ownit and then we need to share that
(33:14):
with our partner if the relationship isgoing to be a healthy one. Especially
today, everybody's working, but howdo we divide that income up where somebody
is not feeling like, wait aminute, I'm paying all the bills,
You're not paying all of this powerdifferential. The need to have equality,
And like I said previously, nosuch thing. Nothing is equal, guys,
And so stop trying to make thingsequal because you might be earning more
(33:37):
money, but I'm taking care ofthe kids. You know that still happens
today where some women men are stayinghome to raise the family. That's a
whole. Don't even get me started. Somebody's got to raise the kids.
I'm just saying. But then thatperson is making financial sacrifices. They're putting
their career on the bookshelf for maybethe next ten, fifteen, twenty years.
(33:58):
And what I've seen happen is thatwhen the kids are going to college
or they're more independent, the husbandof the wife will say, well,
wait a minute, get back towork now, and you should be bringing
it. Wait a minute, ifI interrupted your career for twenty years,
are you going to be making thesame amount and now you have same expectations
of me? Do you see howit gets complicated? But as long as
we're able to talk about it honestlyand openly, then we can tweak some
(34:21):
of those things. We need tobe compatible in terms of our financial expectations.
If we're not, it's not goingto work. We're not going to
be the same, but at leastwe'll be in the same book. So
the first thing we got to do, as I always say, have a
conversation. Examine your own relationship withmoney. When you have that understanding,
(34:42):
ask your partner to do the same. Have that open dialogue so we can
have a joint vision of what wewant financially. Now, within that joint
joint goals, we also need tohave an individual goal. We all do.
We want to do things and spendmoney on things that our partner may
not like. I agree with.All I gotta say to that you don't
have to like it. All youhave to do is respect that your partner
(35:05):
is different to you and wants tospend money on something different as long as
it's in the budget. And whatI call that is have a slash account.
You'll get like whatever your numbers are, I can't tell you what they
are, whatever you're comfortable with,Greg, You're gonna get two hundred bucks
a month. I'm gonna get twohundred bucks a month. You're gonna do
whatever you like with yours. I'lldo whatever with life with me with mine
guilt free. You're not gonna makeme feel bad about it. Because people
(35:28):
do that all the time. AsI talked about before, it's the manipulation
behind money. It's like, I'mgonna make you feel bad. I'm gonna
make you feel guilty. No,we're adults. I work, and if
you're working, or if one ofus is working, we're gonna agree that.
It's certain at the end of themonth, you get this much.
I get this much, and Ican do whatever I want. If I
want to suspend it all on Starbucks, I'm gonna do that. If I
(35:50):
want to get a pedicure, I'mgonna do that. But guess what if
there's no room and the budget forthat, and your partner is doing that,
stop it. Do you want topartner or do you want a child?
And you might already have Children'm like, I don't want a third one.
I already got two, right,unhealthy unhealthy, unhealthy questions to consider?
(36:12):
How did your parents dance around finances? How did it make you feel
as a child, How does itmake you feel today? Did you grow
up feeling financially secure or financially insecure? The answers to those questions are going
to help you discover, explore,and understand your financial relationship. Today,
(36:34):
and then I would want you toknow. I want to know that about
my partner too, like how didyou grow up? Did you grow up
with a lot of money or wasit a scarcity. Our caller Christian was
bringing that up too, that thatwas a big, big problem with his
divorce, big well, a bigproblem in he grew up with a single
parent. And then of course youcarry some of that stress into your marriage
and who knows what happened? Imean, money is always a problem.
(36:55):
If we don't talk about it,sure there's never enough of it, or
we're spending too much? Is thereever too much? I don't know if
this is ever too much. Theother thing I kind of touched upon before
is full transparency, be naked financially, show the numbers, see your partner's
numbers. I want to see thatw NI. Maybe I don't trust it.
(37:15):
There's all kinds of issues with trustand mistrust. And if you're working
and all of a sudden, youknow, all of a sudden, there's
no money. What happened to it? Where is it? You have the
right to ask that question. Whyare people so uncomfortable to ask those questions?
There's such important questions because we wantto avoid We think somehow these things
are going to go away. Guys, these things are not going to go
(37:37):
away. Finances. We need totalk about them openly and honestly. Avoiding
them is just going to make theproblem bigger and bigger and bigger. Anything
else. Assess compatibility why not?Yeah, you got to make sure that
the person you're going to be livingwith, marrying, having children with,
(37:57):
that you're compatible on a financial level. Now, what does that mean?
That we share similar vision? Doesn'tmean you have to work and I have
to work that both of us agreeon how we're going to run the household
financially. We have to agree onthat and we have to talk about it.
And I encourage couples write it down. I don't need to write it.
I'll remember. No, write itdown so everybody, when it doesn't
(38:19):
work out, you can say,well, we talked about it. This
is what we agree to. Nowwe got to tweak it. It's okay,
it's not written in stone, butwrite it down. And I said
before, love is not enough,it's not money matters. Money counts.
Money is a very emotional thing,and like I just said, have regular
conversations about it because it's fluid.It could change today I'm making this much.
Tomorrow I might lose my job andhow do we adjust? Just like
(38:43):
that? You know story I sharedearlier. If you lose your job,
I'm the only when working, butyou're still buying Starbucks. Starbucks is gonna
hate me over present. If you'restill buying Starbucks, you're disrespecting me.
You're disrespecting my time and my workand our financial agreement. That's a no
no. But if I just continuewith it, I'm enabling it. So
(39:04):
I need to tell you to stopit. Because of how it's never my
marriage. It's never too late tohave that discussion. I mean years and
then you know we should talk aboutthis absolutely. I work with couples all
the time who've been married over ten, fifteen, twenty years. They've never
had a discussion about money. Theytalk about it, bitch about it within
themselves, but they never get itout until they end up in my office
(39:28):
and I ask that question where Icontact. Everybody looks down, So what's
the financial situation like? And theylook at me like I don't know.
Ask him, ask her. Weall in the relationship need to know what's
going on financially. It is anemotional situation. The other thing you need
to do is establish some couple goalsfinancially, then within the couple goals,
(39:52):
like I said before, establish someindividual goals. We're allowed to have individual
goals in a relationship. Financially.I might want to do something. I
might want to go back to school, and that's my individual goal, and
it's going to affect our coupleship becausethat might come out of you know,
joined funds. We need to beable to talk about it and in a
healthy relationship. I'm going to supportyou individually also also within the couple ship,
(40:15):
and I'm hoping that you will supportme. Address the power differential that
exists in most relationships financially, veryfew cases where two people are making the
same amount of money, and ifyou're making less and your partner's making more,
that needs to be addressed, especiallyif you're asked you or somehow are
paying half, but you've never eventalked about it. I'm thinking about a
(40:38):
couple that I know who are strugglingwith this situation right now. He makes
so much more money than her.It's a second marriage, she has,
you know, a couple of kids. She it's her first marriage. She
doesn't have any children yet they buythis house because he's got to have room
for all his kids. But she'spaying fifty percent and she's like, wait
a minute. H but this islike ten years later. She's like,
(41:00):
wait a minute, I'm making fiftypercent. I don't need this big house.
You need the big And now it'sa huge issue in their relationship.
She has kept it inside of herfor ten years. She hasn't talked about
it, and that's turned into somuch issues in their relationship where she's very
resentful and angry about it. Wehave to have a talk. We have
to be open and honest about whatyou feel. So guys, before we
(41:22):
end the show, Yes, youshould know how much your money your partner
makes. Yes, you should knowabout their spending habits. Yes you should
know about their debt. Yes youshould know about their investments. Yes,
you need to talk about how muchmoney each person has and how you're going
to manage it within the coupleship.And you have to know your own blueprint
(41:45):
and your partners and tweak it alongthe way if it needs to be tweaked.
Anita Ashley, how do we geta hold of you? Oh,
you can Find me on Instagram orwhere I'm mostly active. Ask Anita Asley
and you guys interested learning more aboutthis. There's a whole chapter dedicated in
my book to this, Unbleep YourLife in Relationships. It's available on Amazon
(42:07):
and Simon and Schuster. The unbleepingprocess never stop, so many things to
unbleep. Join me next time aswe continue to unbleep your life and relationships.
Relationships weather, romantic, platonic,familial, are complicated and can be downright
MESSI bringing out the best and worstin all of us. Here's an opportunity
for you to learn effective, concretestrategies to help you build healthy relationships from
the inside out. It's on BleepYour Life and Relationships with host Anita Aslak,
(00:22):
psychotherapist of over twenty five years.Hey guys, welcome to another episode
of Unbleep Your Life and Relationships.I'm your host, Anita Asley. I
am a licensed individual, couples andfamily therapists. I've been in practice for
my gosh over twenty five years.Last year I published a book called Unbleep
Your Life and Relationships. It's availableon Amazon and Simon and Schuster website.
(00:47):
If you guys want to look forme on social media, it's ask Anita
Asklee on Instagram, YouTube, andTwitter. Today we are going to be
talking about something some of the thingsthat the theme of full of weeks of
being in session with people. Weare going to be talking about money.
Money, money, money, Yeah, money, money, Money's It is
(01:11):
chapter four in my book, underOur Needs and Expectations. Now, relationships
are complicated in the best of times, but when it comes to money,
it just makes things more complicated.The longer we are with somebody, the
more entangled we get with them,the more we merge our finances together.
(01:32):
Not everybody does that today, butwhen there's a certain amount of tension that
comes from how much one person makesover the other person. I was in
session last week and I'm you know, I'm not going to name anybody,
and this is not unethical, butjust to share some of the stories throughout
the years that are related to money. Now, before I get into that,
(01:53):
it's about needs and expectations. Alot of the challenges people have in
relationships are all about communicated miscommunicated needsand expectations. And I talk about the
major categories in my book. Wetalked about emotional intimacy, we talked about
physical intimacy, and today we're gonnabe talking about finances. I was sitting
(02:16):
through sessions and I'm listening to peopleand I think, oh my gosh,
it seems to me that they havenever talked about money. But they've decided
to have children together, they've decidedto marry, they've decided to live together.
And when I asked the question,Okay, well, how much.
You know, well, how doyou guys handle finances? And they literally
(02:38):
look at me and say, well, we've never really had that conversation.
I don't really know what she orhe makes, and we just kind of
go with it. Well, I'mlike, Okay, no, wonder,
it's bleeped up. You can't justgo with it. I wish we could,
but we bring to our relationships,the relationship we have with money from
our parents and our past. Moneyis a very emotional matter. I know
(03:02):
people think of it in terms ofit's just black and white, it's just
numbers. Yes, on the onehand, it is is, it's math,
But on the other hand, itis a very emotional subject for us.
I don't know about you, Greg, but I got supercharged up and
when I was younger with money.I grew up in a household where we
talked about it openly, not ina positive way. We had a lot
(03:25):
of anxiety. My dad, youknow, he worked really hard, but
there was not enough of it everto go around. I never felt that
as a child, but looking back, I think, you know, as
an adult, I'm like, well, why do I feel this way about
money? I have all this anxiety. It's not enough or I have to
work harder. But all of thatcomes from a family of origin. We
learn how to relate to money throughour childhood. Was it talked about,
(03:51):
was it not talked about? Werethere are secrets going on between your parents?
Were you made to feel stressed outabout money? All these things form
what I call an emotional blueprint.We all have a blueprint around these things
that we've talked about here on thisshow. Physical intimacy, emotional intimacy,
and now money. We all haveone. So don't deny. And I
(04:15):
tell people that listen, and Iasked them to ask themselves questions about what
it was like growing up in theirfamily and how they felt about money.
It's a very difficult subject to talkabout, even harder than sex. We've
talked about sex on this podcast,and money seems to be a more difficult
(04:35):
conversation. I will tell you something. If you don't know what your financial
needs and expectations are, and youdon't know your partner's financial needs and expectations,
the relationship is slowly going to deteriorate. There's going to be an erosion
of trust. And you know,the financial situation for people is fluid,
(04:57):
It changes over time. So thoseneeds and exttions that we clarify with each
other within ourselves and our relationship,we need to be a little bit fluid
with them, because, yeah,if you lose your job, then they
needs and expectations we had financially earlierare going to have to be shifted.
And I'm reminded of a conversation Iwas in and I thought, oh my
god, I'm just going to losemy shi TC. I didn't say it
(05:19):
this time. One person was notworking in the relationship they had lost their
job, and the other person wasworking really hard to make ends meet.
They have a family, and wewere talking and she said to me,
it's really difficult because you know,my husband asked me if he could still
(05:42):
go and get a pedicure, andshe thought, what the bleep? And
I thought, what the bleep?And then on top of that, when
the question was asked, she said, what does that mean? You're not
going to do the other thing likethe Starbucks? And listening to this and
I'm thinking, what the fuck bah, Because first of all, it's not
(06:05):
the question that's problematic. The factthat you're even asking the question is problematic.
It means that you don't grasp thesituation financially, Yeah, if you
have to ask me that question,and you see me working and that our
coupleship, our family is really tryingto survive on one income, and you
(06:28):
see the stress, you feel thestress. I share my stress with you,
and then you ask me that you'reon a different planet. We are
not compatible. We are on adifferent page when it comes to our finances.
And I find that completely disrespectful.You are disrespecting the time that I'm
spending earning money for the family byasking me if you can go spend money
(06:51):
frivolously. The Starbucks has to stop. People. If you can relate to
this conversation, the Starbucks is nota need, it is a want.
And when you're financially struggling, thatneeds to go away. The pedicure and
the manicure, that needs to goaway. This to me, I pointed
(07:12):
out, was a parent child dynamic. We talked about this on the show
before. Let me explain that toyou guys, a parent child dynamic in
a relationship is healthy when we canexchange those roles once in a while.
You know, you can be childlikeone. You know, next three and
I'll be the parent and I canbe childlike and you'll be the parent.
We switch roles, but when weare cemented in these roles, it is
(07:36):
problematic. I don't want to beyour mother. I don't want you to
be my child. I want youto be my equal partner. And if
you're my equal partner and you we'vehad the conversation about money, then you
should know not to ask that question. And you know, going back a
bit, they never had the conversationabout money. So a problem number one.
(07:58):
We all need to be able totalk about money in our relationship.
We need to be transparent, butit's difficult to be transparent because people are
afraid. They're afraid to say thenumbers because they might not know the numbers
themselves. But getting back to thisparent child dynamic, I said, well,
in order for there to be achild, there has to be a
(08:20):
parent, right you can't and inorder for you to be a parent,
there has to be somebody acting likea child. So it is a circular
dynamic that is continued with regards ifwe're talking about money with money that one
person needs to change that and theother will will change their roles. If
I don't act like your mom,you're not gonna act You're gonna be forced
(08:41):
to act like an adult. Soif we go back to that scenario rather
than negotiating, because at the end, I think she started to negotiate with
him to say, well, maybeget the pedicure but not the Starbucks,
I'm like, no, this isnot your adolescent son. This is something
maybe I do with my kid,not even because I think nan, no,
no, getting all these treats atthat right, I didn't decay a
(09:05):
partner to an adult relationship. Youshould know not to even ask me that
question. That but I need tonot be the mom so you can be
the adult that I married and bewith. Does that make any sense?
Don't say it to me, justdon't do it. Don't ask me that.
Well, the fact that you haveto ask me is the problem.
So it goes back to we needto have the conversation about money. We
(09:28):
need to set realistic needs and expectationswith regards to our financial situation. But
some people don't even know their ownfinancial situation. They don't want to confront
themselves, yet they confront their partner. So we need to be able to
know what our financial picture is.We're going to get back to that after
a few words Unleep your Life inRelationships with I need to ask lead everyone
(09:52):
strives for healthier relationships. Here's moreof Unleep your Life and Relationships on News
Talking Wis. Welcome back to Unbleepyour Life and Relationships. I'm your host,
Anita Astley. Today we are talkingabout unbleeping finances. Now, I'm
sure you guys know someone, oryou're in our relationship or even in your
(10:16):
family, you've observed this finances areleading cause of conflict in relationships because we
just don't talk about them. Andwe all have a very complicated relationship with
money. How we earn it,how we save it, how we spend
it, how we share it,how we invest it, how we feel
(10:37):
about it, how we think aboutit, how we manage it. Can
I go on and on and on. All of this is what I referred
to earlier as a function of ourchildhood and this blueprint that we've internalized,
and we operate as an adult basedon this blueprint with regards to finances.
Now, you might be wondering,what is this blueprint, Anita? You're
(10:58):
talking about It is our emotional DNA. It's a configuration of thoughts and feelings
and actions that have been created withinourselves from our family of origin, and
this gets transmitted from one generation toanother. I mean, I can think
of families where one generation with anotherthey have so many financial issues because they've
never learned how to deal with money. They have a very faulty internalized blueprint.
(11:24):
And Guys, if you can relateto this and it sounds very familiar,
you can tweak that. This doesn'tmean you're going to be like this
for the rest of your life,but you have to first of all,
be aware of it. It's aproblem for you and you need to work
on fixing it. And if yousee it as a problem in your relationship
and you see your partner engaging insome very unhealthy dynamics around money, we
(11:48):
need to be able to have aconversation with it because eventually that's going to
impact you in the relationship. Andanytime there's financial issues, you're going to
have a fight. And like Isaid before, avoid the fight by being
proactive and saying, hey, justlike I was talking about that couple with
the Starbucks and the pedicure a metica, can we talk because I'm not comfortable
(12:11):
with the way money is being spentin this relationship and I'm not feeling very
secure. What does money represent?It represents security, it represents safety.
We get love entangled in all ofthat. Again, going back to our
blueprint, what do we think andwhat do we feel about money? It
is an emotional It's an emotional subject. Now, think about some of the
(12:35):
things that your parents did with regardsto money. Can you think of any
greg paying seventeen percent interest rates ona new building? Yeah, it was
tough bag. It was tough forus back in the early seventies. Yeah.
And if you and I just wantpeople out there to think about it's
not just as a conscious stuff likeyou're saying the numbers, but it's the
(12:56):
unconscious messages we have within ourselves.People who often say to me, well,
Anita, if they're unconscious, howam I going to make them consciously
so I can change them? Becausewe have to be conscious of that that
we want to change. You needto examine your patterns, You need to
examine your behavior, You need toexamine your emotions. Like I say on
this show all the time, everythingstarts from the inside out. Work on
(13:20):
yourself, and once you're able toidentify those things, then establish some needs
and expectations around money, but don'tkeep them within yourself. Share them with
your partner. Before you marry somebody, before you move in with somebody,
before you have children together, makesure you know what their needs and expectations
(13:41):
are financially, but also your own. And then, of course you're not
a mere image of the other aslong as they are fundamentally compatible. And
you know, today we live ina world of dual incomes, right,
everybody's working so not like when Iwas, you know, originally married,
where we pulled everything together and weworked from this one bank account. Today,
(14:05):
because of high divorce rate, dualincomes, everybody's got their own.
And that's fine and dandy, youknow, because divorce rate is so high,
you want to protect yourself. Iget that, But people don't talk
about what is expected. And especiallyif you're making more money than me,
Are you really expecting me to payfor this massive house that we bought when
you're making more, I make less, but I'm paying fifty percent. That
(14:26):
doesn't work either, because it createsa power differential. Nobody wants to feel
powerless in a relationship, and moneyis power. Money is control in that
situation. We need to sit downand have a conversation to say, you
know, you make so much morethan I do, and I feel it's
a little unfair that I should haveto pay half. People don't have those
(14:46):
conversations. They have the conversation withthemselves, and of course that creates problem.
We need to have them with theother person, and that isn't fair.
I'll tell you something. If youare making so much more than your
partner and you're expecting them to payfifty percent, that's going to come out
in resentment in a different form.It doesn't seem to be fair to do
that. And if you love theperson and you want an equal relationship,
(15:09):
and of course we can get intothis concept of equality, nothing is really
equal. That situation is not equal. Your partner may be giving to you
in a different way, but notin the monetary way. But we need
to identify that. We need totalk about it before the resentment and anger
gets in there. Because I've seenthat, I've seen that happen. I
was just thinking about, you know, I'm thinking about a couple that I
(15:31):
worked with a couple of years ago, and this is common, but they
were particularly interesting because he made somuch more than her and she didn't make
that much and still made her payfifty percent of everything lay that you all,
she agreed to it. You know, I've got to tell you,
nobody can make you do anything.If you're uncomfortable with it, then you
got to speak up and say something. But yeah, they came into it.
(15:52):
I mean, it's a make orbreak deal for people. Finances can
destroy your relationship if you don't talkabout that. And I'm established some clear
rules and expectations. I'm repeating thisbecause people don't do that. They just
kind of go into relationships thinking andguessing and assuming, and that all falls
apart when something happens. You know, It's funny because my wife and I
(16:14):
we've had a joint account for sincewe've been married. Yeah, but we've
decided that, Okay, I'm goingto take the mortgage out of my check
this week, and then we're gonnatake to pay the taxes out of your
check. You know that kind ofyes, But you talk about it,
right and then she'll agree or disagree, and you'll come to some kind of
middle ground. Again. You bringto the table your blueprint related to money.
She brings into the relationship her blueprintrelated to money and along the way,
(16:37):
because you're still you tweak that.You know, healthy relationships, that's
what happens, we tweak it alongthe way. If I lost my job,
I'm expecting you to cover for meand us without you making me feel
bad and vice versa. But peopledon't have those conversations. And again,
guys, I say this repeatedly throughoutthis show and episodes. Everything starts with
a conversation and let's get let meget to the red flags before give you
(17:00):
some tips on how not to bleepup things in your relationship and let money
contaminate things, because it does redflag to look out for your relationship where
your partner doesn't want to talk aboutmoney at all. Now, this is
very different to feeling uncomfortable. Yes, we might feel uncomfortable talking about money,
but not wanting to talk about itat all. Basically saying it's not
(17:21):
your business what I make, it'snot your business what I spend. Red
flag. You need to have aconversation to say no, it is.
If we are going to be inthis relationship, it is my business.
I need to know what comes in. I will share what I bring to
the table and I need to knowwhat goes out. It is a red
flag if somebody doesn't want to talkabout it. If your partner uses money
(17:44):
as a form of manipulation and control. People do this all the time.
As I said before, money ispower, money is control. If they
buy you something or pay you know, like you're saying, you pay half
the mortgage, but they have tothrow it in your face. How you're
not keeping you know, your shareof the bargain. You're not meeting expectations.
But sometimes those expectations are never setbecause hey, if you're making all
(18:06):
that money and I'm never going toagree to that, I'm gonna say,
wait a minute, that doesn't seemfair. How is this fair? Can
we talk about this manipulation? Donot let your partner manipulate you. And
if you see that's going on,that's a red flag. And if you're
just early days in the relationship,run run run. You also have to
(18:27):
talk about goals. Now, financially, we have individual goals and we have
couple goals. What are we goingto work towards as a couple. Are
we compatible that way? Are wesaving up for a house? Well,
if I'm saving up and doing allthe work and I see you frivolously spending
money. We are incompatible and theguys, I gotta tell you this,
love is not enough. I don'tcare how much you love that other person
(18:48):
or how much they love you.If you can't have a healthy relationship around
money, you can't establish common goals, and within the common goals, have
some individual goals. It's not gonnawork. You're gonna be miserable together.
We have to be able to betalking about money and sex openly with some
security. Another red flag if yousee your partner spending money irresponsibly. I'm
(19:15):
thinking about you know. Some peopleI've worked with are like, I don't
know. I be living together forfour years in needed with this guy,
and all of a sudden he drivesup with a brand new car, and
I'm like, well, did younot talk about this? No, what
do you know about his financial situation? Nothing? I'm like, four years
living together and you know nothing.He drives up with a brand new car.
(19:36):
Red flag. Problem should have beendealt with earlier, because four years
into it, guess what now you'rereally entangled. Oh the other thing,
uh, financial infidelity. We talkabout infidelity in other ways. By financial
infidelity, not being transparent, havingdebts, gambling, secret things that you
(19:56):
do that all of a sudden,you have no money at the end of
the week. Where did it go? Where did it go? We don't
know what are you doing with allthat money? You're definitely not paying the
bills with it. It's problematic,but people don't say anything. They think
it's going to get better. Theyengage in what I call magical thinking.
Guys, Magical thinking doesn't work.I wish it did, because I have
(20:18):
a lot of things I think magicallyabout they never transpired. When we are
not aligned with financially with our partner, we're going to have stress, We're
gonna have anxiety, the relationship mightcome to an end, divorce and on
the you know, other extreme suicide, there are people who have That's a
various serious subject. People who havesuch financial stress, they keep it a
(20:41):
secret, nobody knows about it,and then they attempt something like suicide.
And we all know that that's problematicon so many different levels. And it
just all of these things create terminalrelational cancer, and we need to talk
about I'm getting the message here fromGreg to go to a break. We'll
be right back and talk about morefinancial issues. But I'm going to give
(21:02):
you some solutions on how to avoidthose pitfalls in your relationships. Anita Ashley
has more advice on how to onBleep your Life and Relationships on news Talk
eleven thirty wys. Hey, guys, welcome back to Unbleep your Life and
Relationships. Today we are talking aboutfinances and how they impact your relationship and
(21:26):
the importance of talking about them.I just shared with you some of the
red flags we need to be awareof before we get more and more entangled
with somebody emotionally. We got todetangle some of that financial stuff that comes
from our emotional blueprint before I giveyou some tips. We have a collar.
(21:48):
Welcome to and Bleep your Life andRelationships. I'm Annita Askley. What
can I help you with today?And how can you share some of the
issues maybe you've had financially in yourrelationship? Hey Anita, Hey, I
just I'm just so happy that Igot the opportunity to call you. I
read your book and really enjoyed itthan you. But in terms of uh,
(22:10):
you know, finances, I couldI could use a little advice.
I think I have some spill overI'm recently single, uh divorced, uh,
and I think some of my financialissues of are kind of carrying over.
So just a little background, I'mI'm I'm dating a woman who's another
(22:30):
professional, and we're dating and andyou know, I pay for everything,
which is okay, but you know, I feel like it's a little bit
awkward. Once in a while Iwould appreciate just an offer to you know,
maybe buy a coffee or or door do something. And then it
(22:52):
makes me kind of reflect back onon my marriage where they were also a
whole different slew of issues financially,and so I guess, just do you
have any tips on how to kindof break the ice on a on a
subject like that, or well,what does that? What would it mean
(23:12):
to you if she did that toyou? So if she did that for
you, you feel like you're alwayspaying. This is a new new area
now because you know, traditionally we'veexpected the man to pay. But yeah,
she's a professional, you're a professional. Also, I'm assuming you because
you said you pay for everything forsomebody. Okay, It's just it's not
(23:36):
I consider myself a gentleman and Ilike to to pay for things on dates.
But I guess it's just the theconsideration of, you know, saying,
well, I respect that you're payingfor this, And I think that
it would be nice for her tomake that effort moving forward, because it
(23:57):
just makes like it would be difficultto in the future if things were to
get, you know, more seriouswith this person in terms of planning for
the future and what the expectations wouldbe. And I don't know, yeah,
I think it would just be moreof a sign of respecting courtesy more
(24:19):
than and then I don't really needa lot of things, you know,
paid for by any means. It'sjust more of a sign of respecting courtesy.
I guess. Yeah. So Iwould encourage you to ask yourself what
money in this context means to you. And I think you just kind of
opened that door in terms of it'snot really about her buying you the coffee,
(24:44):
it's about her sharing that she caresfor you. Because I think anytime
we spend money on someone, thatmoney is usually from a lot of hard
work, and by spending it onsomeone, we're saying, you know,
I'm willing to do this, I'mwanting to do this because I care about
you. Investing in the relationship.So maybe it's a little bit about that
(25:06):
with you. How long have youbeen dating her? Just about a couple
of months, so a couple ofmonths. And how old are you?
Okay, so you're hopefully pretty wellestablished and I'm thinking of fifty five.
If you're dating and guys listening outthere, this is you. There's no
(25:27):
time like the present to establish someneeds and expectations earlier on. I mean,
when you're twenty five, it's adifferent story when you're fifty five,
and I'm assuming she's around your age. Yes, yes, I would have
that conversation, but not in termsof the money, but in terms of
what money means to you, andI would want to know what it means
(25:48):
to her. I would want toknow a little bit more about her emotional
blueprint around money. And as Iwas talking earlier, I don't know if
you were listening, but it emotionalblueprint is really what we have internalized with
regards to what we have learned inour childhood about money and money as you're
as you know you're sharing, isan emotional matter. We want to know
(26:11):
what the other one needs and whatthe other one expects. And it sounds
like you're needing and expecting a littlebit of reciprocity, and of course reciprocity
is important in relationships. And itsounds like it's really not about the money,
would I be correct? Correct,Yeah, it's not. It's not
about the money. I mean,I can, I can, you can
afford it? Right, It's likethe quote unquote thought that counts yes,
(26:37):
But you know, ask I wouldalso challenge you to ask yourself if she's
reciprocating in a different way and maybeyou're just focused on the money part.
I don't know, that's something youneed to think about. And I would
also ask you because you talked aboutbeing married, your stuff flooding into this
relationship from your marriage, and Iwould say, do you want maybe you
(26:57):
need to examine some of what thatstuff was and does it belong in the
relationship that you're in today or isit just residual stuff from the past.
We all have residual stuff from thepast, but we don't What we don't
want to do is contaminate bring thatstuff into the current situation and contaminated what
could be a good relationship. Andmoney is always something that comes in and
(27:22):
can do that. If we don'tresolve some of our emotional issues with money.
And also I challenge you to lookat your emotional blueprint when it comes
to money. What was it likein your family of origin? Was there
a scarcity, were you scared thatthere wouldn't be enough money to go around?
And how it was spent, howyour parents talked to you about money
(27:42):
and what they showed you with regardsto money. And at fifty five,
I mean, I'm fifty five andI'm thinking I had a long history and
a long relationship with money, someof it good, some of it bad
that I've had to tweak along theway. And when I start to feel
uncomfortable about it, I asked myself, off, what is triggering inside of
me? So I would also encourageyou to look at what is this triggering
(28:06):
inside of you? Beyond her buyingyou a cup of coffee? All right?
Yeah? So so when I wasyeah, when I was growing up,
things were a little bit rough ofmoney. But I grew up with
my single mom yea, and moneywas a little bit scarce. But at
(28:26):
the same time, we always madewe always made things happen. I guess,
I guess my if I had tosay, my emotional attachment to it
would be to try and bring Iguess to try and bring joy because I
(28:48):
remember it being such a potentially sadissue with my mom. Yeah, yeah,
I'm sorry to hear that. Andthat's your emotional blueprint round money that
you're operating on. But was moneya problem in your marriage? You're you're
assuming you're divorced with your ex wife. So yeah, so at times money
(29:08):
was an issue, and I alwaysI didn't want my kids to be to
suffer through the economic turmoil that Idid. Yeah, it led to there
being some you know, credit andtax issues and may have had something to
do with the divorce. In theend, I guess that is part of
(29:32):
my blueprint that could be revised.I could probably be looking at things in
spend thrift ways, I suppose.So we all bring our past into the
present. It's when we allow itto contaminate the present then it becomes a
problem. So again, thank youfor joining me today and with your phone
call, and again I encourage youto go. You know, I always
(29:56):
say inward first, working from theinside out, think about your blueprint that
you have, and think about someof the things that need to be changed
and tweaked, and think about someof the stuff that belongs in the past
that you need to work on todaywith this woman that you're dating. And
it sounds like it's not really aboutthe money or the coffee. It's really
(30:17):
about what that represents. And moneyand stuff like that always represents something inside
of us that triggers something inside ofus that we need to kind of tweak
and work on. But anyway,thank you for sharing that with us.
I appreciate it. But at leastyou're talking about it, and it's maybe
time to have a conversation with yournew girlfriend and talk about money. Thank
you. Okay, thank you,thanks well, thank you to that caller.
(30:38):
We're going to take a break andI will send you on your way
with a couple of tips to unbleepyour life and relationships with regards to money.
Back to Unbleep your Life and Relationshipson News Talk eleven thirty WYSAD.
Hey guys, welcome back to UnbleepYour Life and Relationships. I'm your host
(31:00):
Anita Asklee. Today we are talkingabout unbleeping finances and I got to tell
you, talking and fighting about moneyis not something that's new. It's been
going around forever. But today thelandscape is very different because we live in
a society where we have dual incomesituation, which complicates it even further.
If we don't talk about the rules, the expectations, the needs we have.
(31:25):
People are operating on different assumptions andwhen those are incompatible, there's lots
of problems, lots of issues thatend up in my office, which is
a good thing because I recognize theyneed some help. But I'll tell you
one of the first things you guyslistening out there, if you can relate
to this need to do, ishave an open and honest conversation about how
(31:47):
much money you're making, how muchmoney the other person is bringing in,
and also about what is going out. Sometimes we don't know what's going out,
and sometimes I'm listening to couples andpeople are thinking, how do you
not know what is coming in?And how do you not know what's going
out? We got to start fromthe beginning. It's a math game,
right. The math part of iseasy. It's the talking about it that
(32:09):
is so uncomfortable because people don't wantto be transparent. They're afraid, and
I get it. In an erawe have like what six out of ten
marriages, and in divorce. Everybody'sgot to have their bank accounts, which
is good, It's okay, it'srealistic. I'm not judging that. That's
the reality that we live in,which is very different to you know,
what you and I grew up withwhen we were younger, when we pulled
(32:30):
everything together. Should they talk aboutit before they get married. Absolutely,
as I said, like like thisbefore we live together, before we get
married, before we have children.As I previously said on the show,
we need to have an open andhonest conversation about how you think about money,
(32:52):
how you feel about money. Whatis your blueprint? And I'm as
I mentioned before, your blueprint iswhat you're bringing into the relationship from your
past, from your childhood. Weall have a childhood. Okay, most
of us didn't have a perfect onebecause it doesn't exist. But the one
around money, we need to ownit and then we need to share that
(33:14):
with our partner if the relationship isgoing to be a healthy one. Especially
today, everybody's working, but howdo we divide that income up where somebody
is not feeling like, wait aminute, I'm paying all the bills,
You're not paying all of this powerdifferential. The need to have equality,
And like I said previously, nosuch thing. Nothing is equal, guys,
And so stop trying to make thingsequal because you might be earning more
(33:37):
money, but I'm taking care ofthe kids. You know that still happens
today where some women men are stayinghome to raise the family. That's a
whole. Don't even get me started. Somebody's got to raise the kids.
I'm just saying. But then thatperson is making financial sacrifices. They're putting
their career on the bookshelf for maybethe next ten, fifteen, twenty years.
(33:58):
And what I've seen happen is thatwhen the kids are going to college
or they're more independent, the husbandof the wife will say, well,
wait a minute, get back towork now, and you should be bringing
it. Wait a minute, ifI interrupted your career for twenty years,
are you going to be making thesame amount and now you have same expectations
of me? Do you see howit gets complicated? But as long as
we're able to talk about it honestlyand openly, then we can tweak some
(34:21):
of those things. We need tobe compatible in terms of our financial expectations.
If we're not, it's not goingto work. We're not going to
be the same, but at leastwe'll be in the same book. So
the first thing we got to do, as I always say, have a
conversation. Examine your own relationship withmoney. When you have that understanding,
(34:42):
ask your partner to do the same. Have that open dialogue so we can
have a joint vision of what wewant financially. Now, within that joint
joint goals, we also need tohave an individual goal. We all do.
We want to do things and spendmoney on things that our partner may
not like. I agree with.All I gotta say to that you don't
have to like it. All youhave to do is respect that your partner
(35:05):
is different to you and wants tospend money on something different as long as
it's in the budget. And whatI call that is have a slash account.
You'll get like whatever your numbers are, I can't tell you what they
are, whatever you're comfortable with,Greg, You're gonna get two hundred bucks
a month. I'm gonna get twohundred bucks a month. You're gonna do
whatever you like with yours. I'lldo whatever with life with me with mine
guilt free. You're not gonna makeme feel bad about it. Because people
(35:28):
do that all the time. AsI talked about before, it's the manipulation
behind money. It's like, I'mgonna make you feel bad. I'm gonna
make you feel guilty. No,we're adults. I work, and if
you're working, or if one ofus is working, we're gonna agree that.
It's certain at the end of themonth, you get this much.
I get this much, and Ican do whatever I want. If I
want to suspend it all on Starbucks, I'm gonna do that. If I
(35:50):
want to get a pedicure, I'mgonna do that. But guess what if
there's no room and the budget forthat, and your partner is doing that,
stop it. Do you want topartner or do you want a child?
And you might already have Children'm like, I don't want a third one.
I already got two, right,unhealthy unhealthy, unhealthy questions to consider?
(36:12):
How did your parents dance around finances? How did it make you feel
as a child, How does itmake you feel today? Did you grow
up feeling financially secure or financially insecure? The answers to those questions are going
to help you discover, explore,and understand your financial relationship. Today,
(36:34):
and then I would want you toknow. I want to know that about
my partner too, like how didyou grow up? Did you grow up
with a lot of money or wasit a scarcity. Our caller Christian was
bringing that up too, that thatwas a big, big problem with his
divorce, big well, a bigproblem in he grew up with a single
parent. And then of course youcarry some of that stress into your marriage
and who knows what happened? Imean, money is always a problem.
(36:55):
If we don't talk about it,sure there's never enough of it, or
we're spending too much? Is thereever too much? I don't know if
this is ever too much. Theother thing I kind of touched upon before
is full transparency, be naked financially, show the numbers, see your partner's
numbers. I want to see thatw NI. Maybe I don't trust it.
(37:15):
There's all kinds of issues with trustand mistrust. And if you're working
and all of a sudden, youknow, all of a sudden, there's
no money. What happened to it? Where is it? You have the
right to ask that question. Whyare people so uncomfortable to ask those questions?
There's such important questions because we wantto avoid We think somehow these things
are going to go away. Guys, these things are not going to go
(37:37):
away. Finances. We need totalk about them openly and honestly. Avoiding
them is just going to make theproblem bigger and bigger and bigger. Anything
else. Assess compatibility why not?Yeah, you got to make sure that
the person you're going to be livingwith, marrying, having children with,
(37:57):
that you're compatible on a financial level. Now, what does that mean?
That we share similar vision? Doesn'tmean you have to work and I have
to work that both of us agreeon how we're going to run the household
financially. We have to agree onthat and we have to talk about it.
And I encourage couples write it down. I don't need to write it.
I'll remember. No, write itdown so everybody, when it doesn't
(38:19):
work out, you can say,well, we talked about it. This
is what we agree to. Nowwe got to tweak it. It's okay,
it's not written in stone, butwrite it down. And I said
before, love is not enough,it's not money matters. Money counts.
Money is a very emotional thing,and like I just said, have regular
conversations about it because it's fluid.It could change today I'm making this much.
Tomorrow I might lose my job andhow do we adjust? Just like
(38:43):
that? You know story I sharedearlier. If you lose your job,
I'm the only when working, butyou're still buying Starbucks. Starbucks is gonna
hate me over present. If you'restill buying Starbucks, you're disrespecting me.
You're disrespecting my time and my workand our financial agreement. That's a no
no. But if I just continuewith it, I'm enabling it. So
(39:04):
I need to tell you to stopit. Because of how it's never my
marriage. It's never too late tohave that discussion. I mean years and
then you know we should talk aboutthis absolutely. I work with couples all
the time who've been married over ten, fifteen, twenty years. They've never
had a discussion about money. Theytalk about it, bitch about it within
themselves, but they never get itout until they end up in my office
(39:28):
and I ask that question where Icontact. Everybody looks down, So what's
the financial situation like? And theylook at me like I don't know.
Ask him, ask her. Weall in the relationship need to know what's
going on financially. It is anemotional situation. The other thing you need
to do is establish some couple goalsfinancially, then within the couple goals,
(39:52):
like I said before, establish someindividual goals. We're allowed to have individual
goals in a relationship. Financially.I might want to do something. I
might want to go back to school, and that's my individual goal, and
it's going to affect our coupleship becausethat might come out of you know,
joined funds. We need to beable to talk about it and in a
healthy relationship. I'm going to supportyou individually also also within the couple ship,
(40:15):
and I'm hoping that you will supportme. Address the power differential that
exists in most relationships financially, veryfew cases where two people are making the
same amount of money, and ifyou're making less and your partner's making more,
that needs to be addressed, especiallyif you're asked you or somehow are
paying half, but you've never eventalked about it. I'm thinking about a
(40:38):
couple that I know who are strugglingwith this situation right now. He makes
so much more money than her.It's a second marriage, she has,
you know, a couple of kids. She it's her first marriage. She
doesn't have any children yet they buythis house because he's got to have room
for all his kids. But she'spaying fifty percent and she's like, wait
a minute. H but this islike ten years later. She's like,
(41:00):
wait a minute, I'm making fiftypercent. I don't need this big house.
You need the big And now it'sa huge issue in their relationship.
She has kept it inside of herfor ten years. She hasn't talked about
it, and that's turned into somuch issues in their relationship where she's very
resentful and angry about it. Wehave to have a talk. We have
to be open and honest about whatyou feel. So guys, before we
(41:22):
end the show, Yes, youshould know how much your money your partner
makes. Yes, you should knowabout their spending habits. Yes you should
know about their debt. Yes youshould know about their investments. Yes,
you need to talk about how muchmoney each person has and how you're going
to manage it within the coupleship.And you have to know your own blueprint
(41:45):
and your partners and tweak it alongthe way if it needs to be tweaked.
Anita Ashley, how do we geta hold of you? Oh,
you can Find me on Instagram orwhere I'm mostly active. Ask Anita Asley
and you guys interested learning more aboutthis. There's a whole chapter dedicated in
my book to this, Unbleep YourLife in Relationships. It's available on Amazon
(42:07):
and Simon and Schuster. The unbleepingprocess never stop, so many things to
unbleep. Join me next time aswe continue to unbleep your life and relationships.
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