MoM Podcast: E2 - Love, money, and expectations...

Welcome to Marina on Marriage. Marriage isn't one big decision. It's tiny, small decisions we make along the way about money, about ourselves, about our loved ones. In every episode, we're going to look into one decision that was made and what is it like to live with that decision now. I'm Marina Edelman. I'm a marriage and family therapist in Southern California. I'm a former financial analyst, so I bring financial therapy into our discussions. I'm a founder of True Me Counseling, and let's get into it. Welcome, Chris.

Thank you so much for having me. Excited to be here.

So, um, Chris, I hear you are getting married soon.

I am. I am. We are getting married next May in Austin, Texas area.

Yay. So what prompted this was I'm obsessed with all the different reality TV shows like Married at First Sight. And the latest episode set in Seattle, one of the contestants, people, her name is Michelle, was paired up with Cameron. And one of her musts was somebody who earns more than $150,000. So before we go into it more, I'm just wondering, A, as a therapist, B, as someone who was dating and then got engaged and now is planning a life with your partner, tell me what your thoughts are about having like a specific ask for what your partner should make.

It's fascinating to me. I I personally wouldn't set a number for what my partner needs to make. I would prefer the standard being my partner doing something they love to do. Um, but I also really want to work hard for myself and my money, and I, I think that the the effort you put into whatever you love doing reflects a more healthier and then therefore happier kind of dynamic with your partner. That's my take on it. Anybody that has a set like, my partner needs to make this, is, I don't know, a little yellow flag for me. It's a little yellow flag. I would question a lot as to why. If they were a client of mine, I'd be asking them why that specific amount of money.

Mm-hmm.

And it definitely brings an interesting conversation up of if they are bringing that to the table, what equates that, that you are then bringing to the table within the relationship. What are your thoughts though on that?

So I initially heard it and was a little surprised at the concreteness of it. Usually I hear— and, you know, one of my subspecialties is financial therapy, so I love talking about money, and I think it's A topic that is underdiscussed when people are dating, let alone engaged and so on. I was a little surprised by the concreteness of a number, so I would have loved to know why that number, like what does it symbolize? I think watching the show to completion, um, I think to her it was someone who maybe symbolized ambition, wanted a certain level of lifestyle.

Sure.

And she's in tech, he is a coach. Um, I don't want to be— I don't want to give it away, but they're like— there's a moment throughout their relationship as it kind of goes on that she sort of walks that back. And then they— she loses her job at some point because I watched the reunion as well. And then he's the one that's supporting them. But so I was a little surprised. So I think if I like Pull back the concrete number. I think to me, wanting a certain lifestyle, whether it's a big life or a small life, is something that needs to be discussed. So I, I was happy she at least brought it up. As I watch these shows, people don't bring money up as a topic, and it's one of the top reasons people get divorced. Absolutely.

Well, and, and that Giving a little bit more kind of context to it and her being in tech in general, there is, I think, a dynamic too of I want someone to be able to match my lifestyle that I'm currently living. That is important, right? And so if she has— when she was working in tech at that time, like, that's the level of lifestyle she has. She doesn't necessarily want to have to adjust that because of where she's gotten, which I think is completely fair. In that regard, I think it's a different conversation if it's somebody who maybe isn't in the same— making that same amount of money financially, but they are asking and requesting of that, um, from a partner and then unfairly kind of blocking anybody else who's not making that much money because of this idealized amount that they have.

So in my personal marriage, when my husband and I got together, we were earning about the same amount. But I could very quickly tell, like, what I wanted from life was a lot more than what he wanted. And that has been actually a topic that we revisited throughout our life. We've been together 32 years. And as we've grown together, we both sort of adjusted. But I remember our first home. He— it was only $118,000, which right now seems ridiculous. It was in the suburbs of Philadelphia. And we could both afford it. We could afford it, but it was a little bit of a stretch. Like, we just got together. I think I was earning $35,000 and he was earning $35,000. And, you know, and I was like, let's just do it. Like, we're going to figure it out. Our income is going to grow. And he was a lot more conservative. And so there was like me sort of pushing like that, like space, that financial space. And then we moved to California and we buy our house. And again, he wants to go down and I'm like, no, I think we can do this. And weirdly enough, most people downsize when their kids are about to go out of college. We upsized because I just wanted to have a little bit more greenery around me.

Sure.

And so we've had a lot of like push, and it's mostly coming from me. And if I was a therapist, I would be like, what is going on? Like, why is she pushing him out of his comfort zone repeatedly? And so I'm wondering like, how comfortable you feel in sharing, or just talking about what have some of those conversations been like with your partner? Like, how open have you guys been about expectations? What is affordable? What isn't affordable? Do we live for today? Do we save for tomorrow?

Yeah, no, I, I think this relationship is different for me in that it reached the point where Talking about finances became something important. Obviously, like, I had never lived with a partner previously before. Obviously, then now we're engaged. So, there's a lot of conversations that take place that are now different, right? Operating from a me plus my partner to now it is operating in this new guise of a we. And that's an interesting kind of new dynamic that kind of gets brought up in different kind of conflicts and conversations really arise from that, which has been— Really interesting. I think financially, we've kind of laid out what our assets and financials kind of look at this moment in time. I remember when we were moving into the place we're at now, we kind of did something similar of, this is a really nice place. It has like most of the things that we're looking for in a place. We might have to downsize a little bit smaller to— of like a space itself to get what we want. But It has a lot of what we have or what we wanted. And it's the financial piece of it was it was one of the more pricier places for us to go. And we both kind of said like, all right, we can make it work if doomsday scenario. So, we started talking about like, okay, what's the doomsday scenario if I get laid off from my job or if a really tight window of clients happens? What are my savings like if you don't have a job? And you get laid off, like, what does that look like for you? And we kind of just talked through it. And similarly to you, figured out we should just go for it. Like, let's send it. This is the right place. It feels like the right, you know, opportunity. But, you know, and we'd like to live in a house someday. I don't know how, if I'm honest, in the current climate of things in—

Yeah.

Like Los Angeles County. So, it'd probably have to be somewhere else. But we are both on the same page, at least in kind of, okay, eventually we'd like to save up some money towards a house. But that seems, seems a little far away at this point.

I think a lot of couples— not I think, I know— a lot of couples that I talk to, that American dream of owning a house is now almost being replaced with what Europeans have always done. In Europe, most people live in apartments, and your leisure time becomes more valuable, and the focus is more there. And, and 2 interesting studies I read just recently. One is a lot of young couples are buying vacation homes as investments, for example, in Kansas. using them as Airbnb or some sort of a short-term rental or as a rental property because they can't afford— they can't career-wise move there or family-wise, whatever the circumstances are. So they're trying to get in the real estate market in a way that they can. So I thought that was really interesting and a unique approach to owning property. And then the other interesting thing I heard is Some, you know, dating is so difficult to begin with right now that a lot of people are actually pulling away from dating because it's so expensive just to go on a date, just to get, I don't know, a slice of pizza and soda, like very low key, is at least $30 per person. And if you're going, you know, if between taxes and tip, and if you're going to pay for the other person, now we're like at $40, $50, which is expensive. So I'm hearing so much of like money kind of getting in the way a little bit, and yet like these creative options. So I'm— there's, there's a topic I wanted to bring up that I'm wondering if you've seen with your couples.

Sure.

Or personally, uh, several couples who decided to have children started off as a dual-income household. They get married, everything's It's fine. They both agree that the other person— that both will work. They figure it out. And then the baby comes and they're like, can't do it. I'm going to say most— more often, like, the mom, um, whoever gives birth, not even like the, the birther, says like, I can't do it, I need to stay home, which really throws the other person for a loop because the mental load of being financially a sole provider, it just becomes so overwhelming. And so much so, I quoted this statistic a while ago: in a cisgender heterosexual couple, 10% of men will start to cheat when their partners are pregnant, which is significant.

Wow.

And, and a lot of it is related to this future Pressure, whether pressure of fatherhood or financial pressure. So I guess I'm wondering, how would you navigate those conversations? Both agree, and then something happens. You just can't leave this baby, and you just have this dream, and you want to stay home with the baby, and the other partner is like, I, I don't know if I can do this. Like, how would you help a couple navigate those conversations?

I think an important factor is recognizing that people change throughout a relationship, and there are various shifts that happen, whether it be birth of a child or loss of a parent or, you know, loss of a job, gain of a job, you know, that, that happens where people change. You're not the same person 12 20, 30, 50, 80 years into a relationship or marriage that you were when you first met. And I think trying to continually re-identify what and, you know, who you are, what is important to you, and how to try to make things work between both members of the couple. And so, okay, there's acknowledging the pressures that both parties feel about this and getting the other person to have some empathy and compassion. And then trying to move into a space of how can this be some sort of— I hate using the word compromise, but where's a middle ground that we can really start to kind of look into that can allow both of you to feel, I think, seen and supported in this brand new way, you know, in the relationship? I know the studies about the first 2 years especially, of childhood are so hard on the parents because the dynamic shifts so hard into, you know, more roommate-esque to a degree in a lot of ways, because there's just so little time, if not paid attention to and taken care of and properly nourished, that romantic partner element of it. But I'd love to hear your take on it as well, especially as somebody who has kids and has gone through that and has plenty of, I'm sure, couples that have had these experiences?

So I would maybe sort of go back a little bit when I'm working with this couple. And I would, using the Gottman method, I would figure out like, what were their dreams going into this versus reality? Some, when I've talked to couples, both had this dream of, again, we're just focusing on cisgender heterosexual couples for a minute. But both had this dream of the guy being a provider, being able to afford to be that caregiver, or to allow his partner to be this— a caregiver, to stay at home with the kids, maybe mimicking what was shown to him or both of them in their family of origin. And then there's the reality of life. So what I try to do is help them connect on a dream and maybe find that like that they're not so far off. And then I put it a little bit in perspective. This— so sometimes the person feels— the one who's going to be working will feel like, well, this isn't fair. And when will this end? And what if we have a second child? So you're going to stay home the first 2 years and then conveniently you're going to get pregnant the second, and then you'll stay home with that child for 2 years. And then maybe you would have been out of the market for 4 to 5 years. And then what, like, all of this anxiety, this financial anxiety kicks in. So I try to address that and figure out this doesn't have to be a permanent state. There, it could be just temporary. The person who's saying, I just want to stay at home, sometimes they just want the option to know that their partner will support them, not that they necessarily want to do it. having babble baby talk is not the most stimulating conversation. And sometimes stay-at-home moms who had that as a dream really just be like, okay, I'm done. Give me a human adult to talk to. So I look at it from that perspective, but I have had couples that couldn't navigate it and it becomes a huge point of resentment from, let's say, the mom who's like, you robbed me of something I can never go back and redo. There's no going back and being a stay-at-home mom ever. And from like the, let's say the dad in this, just for ease of conversation, being like, because I felt all this pressure, it permanently affected my career because I couldn't perform under pressure. I didn't have enough time to be with friends. And so my friendships, and for men, friendships are difficult to come by already. So A lot of the things that I hear from new dads are like, how do I find time to meet with a friend and come home to relieve my partner and go to work being able to think clearly? And, you know, like, just becomes so overwhelming. So if I'm doing premarital counseling, I'll ask people like, what are things that you can never go back and redo? And if you can never go back and redo them, Give yourselves an opportunity to at least try them so that there's zero regrets. So that's sort of the model that I suggest for them.

I think that's brilliant. Some— while you were talking, something was— I don't know, something sort of bubbling in my brain, and I'm wondering if there's a difference in how the different generations have moved within parenthood. And I don't know if this is just my personal experience versus others, but like my parents, it's like they stopped living their lives when me and my sister were kids and living. And only once we kind of left the nest did they really start to, I think, retry and reintegrate more meaningfully. I almost feel like there is this desire with younger generations, my own included, of I don't want to just— this mentality, I'm not throwing this, so this is an addition, and I also want to continue to live my life. And I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with either approach, but I'm wondering if you see that difference between generational couples as well.

Definitely. So my kids are 27 and 28, so they're like Generation Z or Zillennials, and you're a millennial, and I'm the forgotten generation of X. Um, I do think there's a little bit of— I do, in terms of prioritizing your relationship, but really prioritizing self, which I think for your generation and Generation Z, friendships and like a an ability to, like, I don't know, take a yoga class or go on a vacation is just as important as achieving in your career and as building a family. So I feel like there's a little bit more, I don't know, equal importance being placed on other relationships. Whereas I think also my parents were immigrants. So it's really hard for me to say because Immigrant mentality is like so different. It's like, we're here to survive. We need to do everything to earn money. Like, that becomes so important. My generation was more of like, oh yeah, I have to do everything to earn money. Oh, but wait, I think I, I need to go on a date with my spouse. And oh, my kids need hugs. And for me to show up as a room mom, but like, My— and all of my friends, by the way, growing up, all of us were immigrants. So we all had the same thing. Nobody was— nobody's mom was a room mom. That was like the weirdest thing. Like, what are these moms doing? Why are they in our room even? Like, I remember talking about it. So, um, I do see a difference in generations. And I am hoping the divorce rate is actually going down a little bit. As people are doing premarital counseling and are maybe more intentional in who they're finding, and they're getting married later. Like, it used— when I got married, I got married at 24, and 25 was the average age. And right now, I think for women— and I think I looked up— and right now the average age is like 34, something like that. So something happens, like, within those 10 years. Your frontal lobe is formed. And so you're Needs from your partners, I think, almost get bigger and the need for a connection becomes more important also.

Absolutely. I remember I asked my dad when I was a kid, like, well, when did you get married, Dad? And he was like, 27. And I was like, that was ancient. And then I hit 27. I was like, pretty young, pretty young to think about settling down. Yeah, that's a pretty young age to do that. And, you know, I mean, again, on average, male brain frontal lobe forms fully 26. So only a year of full brain capacity and functioning. Yeah.

That's—

I don't know if that's enough time, you know? But it's also the— I think where you are, like geographically speaking as well. What I've noticed from— I grew up in Connecticut, suburbs of Connecticut, which is very much white picket fence, family dream, kind of American dream type of mentality. You go to college, get a job, you work that job, raise a family, you know, with your house, you know, and it's, it's very oriented in that, which is— there's no issue with that. What I've noticed coming out here is there's— it's everything's fine. Everybody's following kind of a dream, a passion, an ideology, especially in like the LA area, um, where our Culver offices are. It's like that's— everybody is ingrained or in tune with following some sort of dream, and that dream does take precedence over you know, the relationship or over the other kind of ideologies that other places don't necessarily have or have less of.

Yeah, that's true. I'm wondering if you can look back at a micro decision that you maybe made as it sort of intersects with finances and relationships And now I don't mean necessarily like a person, but more of, okay, I can't afford to date, or I can't afford to get engaged, or, um, I can, or just like any kind of a small decision that you feel like, kind of like the movie Closing Doors, like one small decision can make a big change.

Big difference. Yeah.

And make a big difference. So I'm wondering if there were like any sort of finance and love, um, crossroads decisions that you can think of that you made, reflecting back on it now, was a significant decision, whether good or bad, but significant?

I think one thing for me I wanted to ensure, which again, it's funny that I wanted to ensure, and then I veered off the road of what actually happened. But in my mind, it was while I was accruing my 3,000 hours as an associate, it was okay, I'm gonna get these hours. And then when I finish these hours, I'll propose to my fiancée. I just wanted to kind of have that done. But again, there's pay increase and there's more things that come with financial stability when you get fully licensed. So I wanted that more stable kind of element to it. And so I started working towards that. But as time passed, I didn't want to be necessarily influenced by it as much. And it then just became, okay, no, no, I want to make this choice because it— It feels right. Regardless though, I started saving money more so I could, you know, buy the ring and I could prepare for wedding stuff and I could look for future stuff, right? So, but once I started engaging mentally into this, all right, I'm now going to make this choice. We've had a conversation of we want to both marry each other. Great. So this won't be a shock surprise and she'll say no. And then that's a whole different bag of worms.

Next podcast.

Yeah. But once that kind of happened in my mind, I shifted to, okay, I need to start being a little bit more, not accountable, but intentional with my finances and how I'm going to spend and making sure that if there's a way I can even save a little bit, because it's hard, then I'm going to do that. Or like the big trip or the fun trip or You know, when I go home to see family, it's like, can I take the flight that's connecting instead of just taking a direct flight? Like little things like that I would try to look into just to give myself a little bit more breathing room. So that's a small little micro decision in general.

Yeah, it's interesting how like you're right. You said you started off with one plan and then living in that decision, you're like, oh, maybe I need to make a different decision. And knowing that it was a conscious, intentional decision as opposed to just like, oh, it just so happens. Not that those are not valid decisions or a valid way to make decisions, but I do— when I was thinking of doing this podcast, because there's so many podcasts, I really love this interface between choices about money, people we love, our love life, what we want from our life, and the little decisions that we just make. We make so many decisions along the way. That create this mosaic painting of our life. If I had to look back, I feel like there were so many decisions. One, for example, my husband got a job offer to work in Germany. We were both working. We just had our daughter. We had a live-in nanny. And he got this job offer for us to move to Germany. And that meant I had to stop working. And I actually really liked my job and I really liked being both. I was working working part-time, had a— like, I felt like it was a great fit for me. And so for his career, we made this decision to move to Germany, and I stopped working. And subsequently, we had our second child, and we lived there for 4 years. But then moving back, I think if we never— my life would have been completely different because we moved back. We moved to California. I grew up— we met in Philadelphia, New Jersey area. And I wanted to become a psychiatrist. My parents are like, no way, you're good in math, go be an accountant. And I was like, okay, I'll be an accountant. And that's what I did. And then moving back here, I got— we moved back, I applied for a job, got a job offer, and accepted. And then like sitting thinking, I need to go and work at a company from 8 to 5. I'm like, cannot do it. And so didn't. Decided to go back to school, hence like this is where I am. But if I didn't make— if we didn't make that decision together to pursue his career by moving, I think I would've just stayed in finance. We probably would've just stayed in Philadelphia, New Jersey area. So it's like, it felt at that time like a big decision. Looking back at it, I think it was big. And I know my question to you was, was there like a small decision? But it was also like every moment was like, okay, so how long do we move to Germany for? And do we have our second child while I'm there not working anyway? Like, it was like all these other, like, almost like a domino effect of what happened from that decision. Looking back, I think it was a great decision.

Yeah, absolutely. But so fascinating in how that choice can really just change the trajectory of so many things. I think back to when I was growing up, my mom worked for Ernst Young and she worked there her whole career. It's one of the big accounting firms. And she'd gotten plenty of job offers to work different places around the country a couple of times, I think London as well, but always wanted to just stay put. We ended up living in the same town that she kind of moved to after when she was a kid. And so she just liked that, that dynamic, but didn't want to, um, kind of change our environments either. And so what it taught me growing up was this concept of like family is important and money is not the end-all be-all, which is something that when I was growing up I did not understand.

I don't—

Like a lot of like this dream of making all the money in the world and wanting to do all these different things. But, it's so fascinating thinking back to those moments of asking my mom, like, why didn't you take these jobs? It was a better position, more money, whatever. It was never on her mind of, that's not why you take the job. It's, do I want to do it? Is it best for family? And so, I do think that that has kind of shaped my ideology around Going into anything when money's involved. How does this shape myself? And that's because it was just me for a while, and now it's become this— how does this shape the little family that I've created and, and really merging into? Which I think just adds a nice little kind of just a little touch on just my uniqueness and my experience. And again, my fiancée's experience, and she has her own stuff that she brings in, which—

So when you were talking about your mom and the decisions, are you seeing either in your practice or in your family or friends, is there a shift between if a woman out-earns her husband's perception? Like, is there anything— because I'm noticing a big shift in perception between women and men. change in that, like more women are graduating colleges from younger generations. The earning gap is still there, but more women are not necessarily in a job, they're still earning less, but globally are starting to earn more. And so I'm wondering if you had any experiences or thoughts about your partner or your mom or clients, the woman out-earning the husband.

But the funny thing, my mom was the breadwinner from when I was born. So, my family dynamic that I walked into was completely normalized of mom makes a ton of money, dad makes a good living as well. But, my dad really took on, as he likes to describe it, a Mr. Mom type role in the '90s. And, something that I think was beautiful about my father was it never was a piece of emasculation for him, it was always a point of pride. And he still was able to work full-time while also kind of taking up some of the responsibilities while my mom was kind of around and traveling. And my mom also never missed a game, never missed a play, never missed an event. I don't know how she did it. Hence the you just kind of stop living your life and live for your kids kind of mentality that she really engaged in. So the concept, back to your question, of like the gender norms and that being kind of flipped and reversed, I think it's harder for me to see it sometimes because it That was just the norm for me. Like, I grew up with my mom making more money and I didn't think there was anything— I thought that's just— that was— that's what a possibility could be. I didn't realize how rare that was at the time. Um, there are definitely clients that I've seen and, and couples that I've seen that have that dynamic. Um, again, maybe I'm more blinded to if there is, uh, tenseness from the, the men. of like potential masculinity things or, you know, fears of not being enough or what that looks like. So I think I have this very interesting and different kind of perspective on it. And again, maybe a little blind spot to it because of my own lived experience.

Do you and your fiancée talk about it? Like, is that an active conversation of How do you feel if I earn more? How do you feel if you earn more? Like, is that something you guys actively talk about, or is that because that was your norm, like it's not even a conversation?

I definitely— it's something we've talked about before, and I really don't care. I— part of me though wants to earn more, not from a male perspective, because I, I really— my mom is a great role model of mine, just like my dad's a great role model of mine, and I want to behave like my father in a lot of ways. But my mother being a provider, I grew up, I wanted to be a provider. So it's very funny because, yes, I'm a man and that is a very like gender norm traditional kind of value for a man to have. But the value is because of my mom, not because of my dad and our family.

Yeah.

So it's a very interesting dynamic. But we've had that conversation and, you know, she doesn't care. I personally don't care. I've listened to— she, she makes millions. Great. That sounds ideal for me. Like, I'm happy to do it.

So my husband was working for a startup and he was laid off just recently. And so he's kind of toying with this idea of, do I just take an early retirement? Do I go back to work? Like, do I look for a job? And so he's kind of like trying a lot of different things. He's actually working on a really exciting project for True Me Counseling Center and for my practice that I'll be rolling out later. So now that he has time and he's in tech, I'm using free labor.

I love that.

Um, so he like jokingly has been calling me like sugar mama. And, uh, we have this deal. I said, I am totally fine because I don't plan to retire. I love this. I don't want to stop working. But if you do, I'm cool. But there has to be like a couple of things. And one of the top things, he has to wake up in the morning with me. Something about me getting up, going to work, and him Lounging in bed with our dog just does not work for me at all. I'm like, absolutely not. So yesterday was Labor Day and I was working. He's like, oh, so we have the day off. And I'm like, no, I'm working. You're working. Get up. So that was kind of— that's like one of our non-negotiables for this shift.

I respect that though. My dad retired early himself. And I don't think my mom and him had that conversation at all. But, you know, they ended up kind of moving to Florida. And for them, I didn't think they were going to stay. My dad, he's socially anxious and he's uncomfortable about things. But once he gets into a groove, he's great. But, you know, I'd gotten a call from them like 2 weeks after they like were just testing it out. And she— my mom was like, yeah, we put an offer for a house. Like, the account— the conservative accountant, like conservative with your money accountant, is putting an offer on a house 2 weeks after you. Like, wow, that's fantastic. And they figured out this way. But my mom was working that entire time while they were first there and trying to just kind of make that work. Mom was working for a couple of years after my dad had retired, several years. Um, and, and just kind of Making it work.

I want to thank Chris for being on my second podcast of Marina on Marriage. I love this conversation. Thank you, Chris.