MONEY and RELATIONSHIPS (Answering Your Questions)

Did you know money is actually one of the top three things that couples fight or even break up over?

Hey, there we are. Vanessa and Xander Marin. We are married. We've been together since 2007, and our mission is to equip you with the tools that you need to create an extraordinary relationship inside of the bedroom and out.

So in this video, we're going to be answering some of your questions about how to handle money in a relationship. We want you to feel comfortable and confident discussing finances with your partner and empower you to set up a system that works for both of you. So we're going to give you a ton of tangible advice and actionable steps so that you can walk away being able to create a better and less stressful relationship with money.

So money is a really tricky thing to manage on your own, but then with two people together, it gets even trickier when you have two different approaches to spending or saving or both. Is it okay to hide purchases from your partner? What if you want to combine your finances but your partner doesn't? So we're going to be answering all of that in this video.

Yeah, let's get to it. So question one. I don't live with my partner. We split costs 50, 50 when we spend time together. However, I earn a lot more than him. I often want to book tickets for live music or experiences, but he often says no, as he doesn't want to spend his limited money on those outings. What do you do? And there's a discrepancy with disposable income. Good question.

Very good. And it's an important one because pretty much every couple has different incomes. I mean, there are probably very few couples that make the exact same amount of money. So first thing that comes up with this one is that it's important to respect your partner's boundaries. So if your partner is saying, I have limited amounts of money, I can't book these expensive concert tickets or whatever it is, I think it's important to pay attention to that and not push your partner to stretch themselves beyond their means.

Yeah, that's definitely important, especially if you have not merged your finances as a.

Partnership, which it sounds like they haven't. They don't live together.

Yeah. So. But another thing that you can consider is while it's important to respect, you know, their income level and their ability to spend on things, I think it's fine to gift them with experiences within reason. Like, I think you have to be, you know, you can't just be like, every weekend we're going out for a five course meal, we're going out to a concert, but you know, within reason. So it doesn't make them feel like they're not, you know, to contribute. Yeah, that's totally fine and probably would be appreciated.

Yeah. And a way for you to get to do those things that you want to do, even if your partner doesn't feel comfortable financially doing it.

And I think it's especially important if you want to do that, to have a discussion with them about it and make it really clear that it's not that you want to spend more money, it's that it would make you feel really good to be able to provide that experience, to have the experience focus on that.

It's something you want to share together. Because sometimes money is so sensitive that we get really wrapped up around the ins and outs of it when we forget that the major point of money should be to bring us happiness and good experiences. So another thing that you can do is you could talk about you and your partner creating some sort of joint relationship fund, or maybe you just call it an entertainment fund that you contribute to relatively. So maybe it's something like, you know, 1% or 5% of your income. You both put it into this joint pot, and that's what you use to go on these date nights. So that way it doesn't feel like there's an imbalance of you always paying for things you're both contributing, but you're just doing it in a way that's relative to what you're bringing in.

Yeah. And then a final idea is instead of doing 50, 50 when it comes to expenses, especially since you live separately and it sounds like, yeah, like one weekend you're doing something, another weekend you're doing something else. Instead of 50, 50 with the expenses, do 5050 with the date nights. So take turns planning date nights and make it really clear that there's, you know, you can spend more on one and less on another, and it's about the time and not the expense.

And that can actually be nice. A nice break from splitting everything 5050 is that you feel like you get to treat each other to different things, but you' turns with it too. So there's a balance.

Yeah.

Okay, on to question number two. Money is a huge problem for me in my marriage. My husband is a huge spender and cares nothing for a budget. I handle the money and he just wants to spend every penny and run up more bills, leaving me to figure out how to pay for them. I feel like we are so far apart on Money issues that there is no hope. I don't even like talking about money at all with him because it's just going to be a fight. Is there anything that could help us?

All right, so I think the way this question is worded, it sounds like this has become a big enough of an issue, and it sounds like something you've probably talked about already. It hasn't gone very well, and it's turned into a pretty large thing. So the first recommendation I'd have is talk to a financial advisor. There's a lot of financial advisors that specialize in working with couples and really specialize helping set up budgets and kind of give you some straight talk around, like, what are your retirement goals? Where are you at? Are you on track, breaking down your actual spending? And so that's a way to have kind of an independent third party kind of mediate this conversation for you. And a lot of people don't realize financial planners don't just handle your investments. Like, they will also talk with you about, like, what you spend your money on day to day.

Yeah, sometimes money issues can just get so intense that it really helps to have an objective third party come in, take a look at your situation, and give you specific feedback and advice. So that's definitely a great tip. You can also try talking to a couples therapist, too. But another thing that came up for us when we were reading over this question is it may be really useful for the two of you to talk about renegotiating money roles and responsibilities in your relationship. So why are you the one who is solely responsible for handling the bills? Is that a conscious decision that you guys made, or is that just a pattern that you've happened to fall into? But it seems like a bad dynamic where your husband's suspender, but he's also completely hands off about doing all of the financial planning and bill paying. And it actually might make a really big difference if your husband was more involved in that. Actually got to see the numbers coming in and going out. That might change a bit of his approach.

Yeah. And like, I can say, speak to this one from experience, too. For example, when Vanessa went back to grad school and I was working, I just took that responsibility of managing our finances because I thought, well, that's what I'm supposed to do as the guy and as the income earner. And I started finding myself, like, looking at our credit card statements and being like, oh, my God, were spending more money than I would like to. But then I wasn't really talking to Vanessa about that. And Finally, I realized, like, I can't hold all of this inside. We need to share this responsibility. So we started looking at our bank accounts and our credit card statements every month. And that really helped because then we both had a sense of what was coming in and what was going out.

Yeah. Another thing that might be helpful in this situation is to have a conversation with each other about what are the ways that you guys can spend money that genuinely feel good to you, and what are other areas where you don't really necessarily care about those things, so they might be better areas to save on. A lot of times couples don't take the time to do this to figure out, yeah. What ways of spending money actually are going to feel good to us. And so that could be a great conversation to have with your husband. Maybe. It feels like a totally different conversation than just yelling at each other about finances, but actually trying to understand each other. Like, what would make you feel really good to spend money on? Be a very different approach.

Yeah. All right, question number three. Recently, my partner and I have gotten serious about the possibility of marriage in the near future. Congrats. We know we want to spend the rest of our lives together, but when it comes to finances, she would rather keep them separate, while I would rather combine them. What do you do when each partner wants something different?

Okay, so my first thought on this one was that it could really help to first try to get clear on why you guys each want these separate approaches. So why does your partner want to keep them separate and why do you want to combine them? What is the need, the desire, the goal behind each of those approaches? So first, just trying to start with understanding each other a little bit better, rather than just immediately feeling like you're on different sides of the fence.

Yeah. And then once you have that understanding, it can again be really helpful to speak with a financial planner or financial advisor and just get a better sense of what, depending on where you live in the world or in what state, there's different laws around what happens to your finances in a worst case scenario and stuff like that. And a lot of people aren't aware of those differences state by state, country by country. And so it can be really helpful just to talk to someone objective and they can give you the straight talk on, like, hey, where you live, this makes a lot of sense, or where you live, this makes no sense. Mm.

Another idea is that you can do a little bit of both. So you can have a joint account that you combine some of your finances, maybe pay for things like your rent or your mortgage, groceries. But then you can also each maintain separate accounts. And you can do this in a lot of different ways. But the basic idea would be that there's some money that you're each keeping separate, you're doing your own things with it. So it's a little bit of each. You know, you both get a little bit of what you want. It doesn't have to be just one way or just the other way. Yeah. All right, question number four. My partner and I combined finances when we got married, but sometimes I make purchases strategically so that he doesn't see the charge coming through. Is that wrong?

Okay, so I don't know exactly what strategically means, but yeah, we're not here to be the morality police. But I would say in general, it's a best practice not to hide things from your partner, or at least not a lot of things, unless you're doing a ton of surprises, like, all the time.

But I don't think this question is about her surprising him with a bunch of presents for him. I think it's probably more about your own self consciousness about your purchases. So I would encourage you to kind of think a little bit about what is it that you're afraid of happening. Do you think your partner would get upset about your purchases, that they would be judgmental about you? Try to get a sense of what's your reason for hiding this from your partner. And it also may be very likely that you are projecting your own judgments about your purchases onto your partner and thinking that your partner would judge you for knowing what you're spending money on. So I would encourage you to think about how do you feel about your purchases? Do you feel comfortable with them? Or is there some part of you that's saying, actually, maybe I shouldn't be spending money on this. This isn't really worth it. So take an opportunity to really dig into your own feelings about your purchases.

Yeah. All right, so final question number five. My partner doesn't approve of the way I like to spend money. I don't give her a hard time for the things she likes to spend money on. So why does she crack the whip on my spending? How do I handle this situation?

Okay, so I think it makes sense. Reading this question, we kind of think like, why is the partner being such a jerk? But I would try to first approach her with a little bit of curiosity and openness and ask her questions like, what do my spending habits trigger in you? So we kind of just want to get to know her a little bit better. Why does she get Upset or judgmental or worried or anxious. What is it that's coming up for her? So I think if you approach her in that way, it will make it feel like a much softer, gentler conversation rather than launching immediately into an argument.

Yeah. And another thing is, have that conversation that Vanessa just mentioned on the last question about what do you like spending money on and why? What does it really bring you joy to spend money on? Because that can be a way for each of you to get a better understanding and appreciation for each other's spending habits. Because it's really easy to, you know, if you're not into a certain type of thing that your partner is into, to just kind of make a snap judgment on, like, oh, you shouldn't be spending money on that. But if you really knew, like, oh, this brings me so much joy, I think you might both think differently.

Yeah, we've heard about this from a lot of couples. Like, one partner loves buying video games, and they just love video games. And the other partner thinks, your crazy video games are the stupidest thing ever. Why would you waste your money on it? It comes up a lot with clothes and with jewelry as well. So if you just are able to frame it as this is something that brings me a lot of joy, a lot of excitement. Excitement. It makes me feel abundant rather than just, you know. Yeah, it's just this video game that I picked up, then that can be a lot easier to talk about in your relationship.

Yeah. And, you know, if it's one of those things where it just feels like you're not on the same page or you can't help but judge each other on it, what you could do is give yourselves each kind of your own allowance to spend on what you like, and you don't get to check on how each other is spending that money. That's one way to just kind of nip it in the bud and. Yeah. And then you can't spend over that amount on, you know, your hobby of choice, your video games, whatever it is.

And one final point that we want to make here as well is don't get on your partner's case about her purchases just to prove a point. So sometimes this happens with couples where they get upset that their partner is doing something that they're not, and they try to turn around and do the same thing. It's just not worth it. Instead, make sure your approach this with your partner, telling her, you don't want money to be a source of stress in your relationship. You want to be on the same page. You want it to be something that brings you guys a lot of joy instead of tension.

Yeah. So that wraps up our answers to your questions about money and relationships. So if you like this video, please give it a like. Or better yet, give us a comment. Let us know what you related with most, what approach you use, what works for you, what doesn't work for you. And then, of course, subscribe to our channel if you want more free resources like this.

See you next time.

Bye.