I define financial intimacy as a couple’s ability to communicate how they will jointly use money to run their daily lives, as well as, meet their short term and long term goals. Even though we crave emotional intimacy and insist on spiritual and sexual intimacy in our marriage, we sometimes fail to see how a lack of financial intimacy impacts all other intimacies.
Think about it: if your marriage is plagued with great financial unrest, it can definitely take a toll on how close you feel to your spouse, how much sex you have, and, even your spiritual synergy.
To ensure that your marriage is both happy and wealthy, here are four tips on how to establish and increase the amount of financial intimacy in your marriage:
Communicate
Set up regular meetings to set, review, and monitor progress toward the goals that you set as a family. In addition to creating these goals, it is important to communicate policies on allowance for children, lending money to friends and family members, or borrowing money from those in your close circle.
Set Personal Boundaries
Financial intimacy does not allow for the economic abuse of one spouse by another, especially if one spouse is the sole breadwinner or the chief provider in the house. Setting personal boundaries ensures that spouses will never embarrass one another on social media, in public, or otherwise about spending, saving, or what each person does with their money.
Be Reflective
Each of us has a money story—a set of beliefs and ideas about money that we internalized from our parents’ experiences with money in addition to our own. Some of our money stories say something like, “ Ain’t nobody ever going to tell me that I can’t buy what I want so I will spend as I please and ain’t nobody going to stop me. I will not be like my mother who always had to beg my father for a little bit of change to do her hair.” On the other hand, some of our money stories will lead us to believe that there is never enough and the thought of spending on even the bare necessities makes us anxious, nervous, and mad, “My parents emigrated from Antigua to America with all eight of us and there was always more month than money. It was always tense. I promised myself that I would never struggle like that again.”
When you reflect on your unique money story, you empower yourself and strengthen the marriage. When you bring your individual financial self-awareness to the relationship, you do not burden your spouse with having to figure out your financial identity or triggers. It also means you are both honest, transparent, and are in a position to brainstorm healthy alternatives to maladaptive financial behaviors because you are aware of them.
Get Help When You Need It
Sometimes you can’t wade through the emotions and feelings about money in a productive way. And that is okay. Invest in the longevity and happiness of your marriage by seeking out the support of financial counselors that will provide you with the tools to set goals, communicate more clearly, and make progress on your mutual goals.
BMWK Family—How are you increasing financial intimacy in your marriage?