Relational Money Help with Financial Therapist Ed Coambs #475

the credentials as well. He's earned his master's degree in business counseling and financial planning and is a licensed marriage and family therapist. He's a certified financial planner and certified financial therapist. He leads couples through therapy from financial despair and frustration into financial intimacy and connection by helping them to figure out and understand what is really going on. Uh. And so we're gonna discuss some of the concepts in

his book as well. His book is The Healthy Love and Money Way, and in the book he explains where our attitudes towards money stem from and what it is that we should do about it. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Ed Combs, Welcome to the podcast. Hey, Joel, and Matt, thanks so much for having me on today. I'm super excited to be uh talking with you guys.

Ed We're glad to have you man. And the first question we ask anybody who comes on the podcast is, well, you know, Matt and I we like to drink craft beer and it's something that we splore John while we're saving and investing for the future. But what's that equivalent in your life? What do you splore John in the here and now while you're trying to also be smart with your money. Oh well, yesterday would probably be a great example of this. And it's kind of passing on

to my kid. But biking. So I'm a huge mountain biker and yes, and I live in Charlotte, North Carolina. Took my son skiing up in the Blue Blue Ridge Mountains and we stopped in a great beer town, Boone, North Carolina, nice and I saw the local bike shop and I was like, I gotta go in there. I just want to see what's in there and what do

they have to say about the biking scene here. And of course my son like goes me entering back into the store, starts looking at the bikes and he's like, dat I'm like, what I knew where this was going, and he was like, this BMX bike is awesome, Like I really wanted and you know, he's been on me for who knows how long now, So we're kind of in that store and I'm thinking, oh, okay, now my wife is going to feel one way about this, He's going to feel another way about this. How do I

get through this? And you know, so um he ended up getting the bike. He had some birthday money and Christmas money and gift card money that he was willing to all trade in for for the bikes. So we worked it out and then had a lovely conversation with my wife when we got home, who was quite surprised to see a bike after a ski trip to the mountains. It was like, what were y'all doing? I thought ya went skiing? Well, I feel like Ed fits right in here with with with you and me. Matt was like, yeah,

we're we're at ad bikers ourselves. We talked about it, maybe too much on the show, and our listeners like, start talking about money again, guys, but let's let's mountain bike me though, and more just kind of the practical nature of it, just the money the cost savings that come with it, the just staying healthy, exercise, all of those things. But I'm glad to hear though that your son sounded like he this wasn't just you dropping a bunch of money on a bike that may or may

not have been on sale. I like that he he showed up to the table as well, he had his own money. I like that. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, he's been talking about it for a while and he's eleven, just turn eleven, and so he's at that age where financial socialization really starts to kick in at a whole another level. Um, he's got the math wherewithal to do the addition and subtraction, and you know, different than his younger brothers that are five and four and just aren't

there yet. Well before we we dive into the book, Uh, we're having some of these bigger conversations about mental health in our country these days. Just generally speaking, we're not sweeping things under the rug as much as we used to. And it seems like financial therapy, which is what you do, it seems like that's because being more common as well. Can you tell us about financial therapy and how it

has evolved over time? Yeah, um. So financial therapy has probably been around in some shape or form for quite a long time, but more formally, the Financial Therapy Association started about twelve years ago, and it's really a group of both mental health professionals and UH financial planners working together and saying how do we do this better? And so what we really look at is how do we bring the counseling psychology processes into working with people's money.

And so one of my favorite areas to talk about is this area attachment styles, which we'll be talking a little bit more about. So financial therapy is growing, the recognition is growing, and it certainly has helped me out a lot because the big thing is I was able to anticipate my wife's reaction for the bicycle as well as my son, but it was also having the skills to work through that and manage that conversation that was

probably even more important. Gotcha. So we'd say that's the main difference, because yeah, you you have that CFP certification, but there there's a there's a different UM like tact. There's a different approach that the CFP is going to

take when they're giving you advice. The person is going to see a financial therapist, right, and like, can you kind of like, you know, what is the difference in as like an individual as you go to pick one of these people to go see and talk to and spend time with, what's kind of the different route they're going to take as they're helping you. Yeah, this is a broad paint brush stroke, but the big differences. Cfps are more often going to tell you what to do

and how to do it with your money. Right, So if you need an investment strategy of the retirement plan or how does this impact my taxes, you're gonna they're going to collect the data and then they're gonna say, okay, here's your best options. A financial therapist is more going to look at your thoughts, your feelings, your behaviors, relationship dynamics that are often preventing you from even being able to talk with a financial planner about your investments, taxes, insurance,

estate planning. So we're really looking at any old kind of emotional pain, thought, problematic thoughts around money that may be stopping you from moving to that next step. So you're taking another layer deeper. It's not just the nuts and bolts on the surface, but yeah, kind of more than why some of those deeper issues in your book you also so you talk about the four attachment styles. They're kind of the core message of your of your book.

Can you give us an overview of those different attachment styles? Yeah, absolutely, So. Attachment styles are secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized. And these attachment styles are broad categories of the way that people will experience bonding in their intimate relationships. And the bonding starts obviously in our childhood, and the research would say in some ways even while you're in your mother's womb.

But this is a well researched area of psychology over the last seven decades, and what they've identified are these four broad patterns. And the secarily attached individual generally feels positive about themselves and positive about other people. They generally are trusting in relationships and can work through both good times and challenging times with another person. A person with an anxious attachment style is more often going to have a negative view of themselves and a more positive view

of others. They're often wanting to bond, trying very hard to bond with with their intimate partner, but never really sure that it's working quite so well, or that they've met their partner's approval. On the other side of the attachment continuum are the avoidant attachment patterns, and those are the people that really like to do relationships on their own right. They're gonna keep people a little bit more at arm's length distance, especially when it comes to emotionally

sensitive topics. More often than not, they have a more positive view of themselves and a more negative view of others. It's they're a little more dismissing. Basically, they've learned through their caregiving experiences. I can't trust other people to meet my own needs, so I have to become self reliant and then disorganized. Is some combination of the anxious and avoidant patterns. And the big thing that I like to remind people is each of these styles or patterns was

very adaptive for your particular caregiving environment. It's not a oh, I should feel bad because I have an anxious attachment style or an avoidant attachment style. It's like, you know, you didn't pick your attachment style. That was a product

of the way that you were raised. As a a maturing adult, you may need to do some healing work around your attachment patterns so that you can move more towards that secure attachment, because that's where the research really helps us see that those are the people that have the higher relationship satisfaction, more effective communication skills, those are

the things that we need in order to be successful financially. Yeah. Well, you you actually wrote in the book you said that discovering your attachment style has and I quote completely changed the way I think about personal finance. And I found that to be fascinating that, like, as you kind of dug in and did some of that deeper work, that it changed to what you thought about money and how you handle it. So can you can you explain how that discovery made such a dramatic shift in in your

life and in how, yeah, how you handle money? Yeah? Absolutely, So, you know, I think it has given me a more formal lens for understanding both myself and my wife and where she's coming from and where I'm coming from and why I'm going to relate the way that I'm going to relate. So, if we go back to my son's bicycle purchase from yesterday, even right, a little bit of

that was anxious attachment also showing up. I knew that I probably should have just given my wife a call and the heads up and said, hey, um, this is where we're at, this is where we're thinking through. That would have been a little more collaborative, right, but I was a little anxious about how she would respond, and so I was like, I'm just gonna push this on aside.

Plus he's using his own money, so not that big of a deal, right, But that didn't feel great for her when we came home, and so that that was a relational missattiptment and I set myself up in that one. The other side of that, though, is as I've been growing and as my wife is growing, the conversation actually further. She was telling me about some of the things that are happening in her practice. She's a dentist. There's an income dip in January. We're not really sure what happened,

but you know it. It had her anxious about the finances, and we're able to sit down and talk and just instead of me becoming overly concerned about what do I need to do to take care of her and make sure everything's gonna be all right and that somehow she's not upset at me, I just listened and helped her think through what does this mean, and then got to more of the practical side of what do we do

from here. It's almost as if, yeah, understanding the other person and making sure that they feel understood it is almost more important than actually solving the problem. Yeah. I know, oftentimes in these conversations with my wife, I immediately jumped to the nuts and bolts, you know, solving the problem, when maybe that's not necessarily what's needed in the moments. I think often reaction sometimes though for us, Oh my gosh.

And I don't want to generalize all men, but I don't know, at least at least for me, default for sure, like let me fix this for you, And she's like, that's that's not what I'm after here. Yeah. Yeah, And she even told me, she's just like, I just want you to say I'm sorry that sucks. And I've I've taken that to heart and I say that often now.

It's a part of my my tool kit. But but as something else that stuck out to me is when you wrote your relationship with money is governed less by what you know about money and how it is that you experience yourself and others. You know, this is kind of going back to what we just talked about, you know, the difference between financial therapist and a CFP. But the thing is like, if that's the case, then is the

solution to our money problems? Is it less about learning to budget or you know, opening a roth ira, and is it more about doing some of this internal work ourselves. Yeah, I think that's the position that I've landed in, and it's been a long journey to get to this point. But there's certainly a place for increasing your financial literacy and knowledge of how money works so that you can

do it well or appropriately. But the challenges that financial planning often ends up looking a lot like dieting, right, It's like people know what to do, but they don't do it, or they do it for a little bit and then they change paths. And so that starts to by the deeper question of what's going on inside of me? How am I responding or reacting to money? How is my sense of self impacting the way that I show

up around money? So do I have a positive view of myself which says I can be resilient through financial struggles and be comfortable with the fact of increasing success and change, or do those things throw me off kilter. Well, and I certainly I'm not. I don't want to discount the value that a financial therapist can bring or the therapist in general can bring. My My wife is actually in school getting her master's degree right now to become

a marriage and family therapist. And I think there's like so much I know, right, I'm kind of like the she's running all our papers about my idiosyncrasies, which she's great. Great, because you're gonna say a different word there. Yeah, I've got a lot of issues that she can diagnose. Um. But but is there any way And I am curious, Um, how would you suggest people start to kind of d I y and start to think through do some of

this internal work UM on their own? Like is yeah, obviously it's great to go see UM an expert in the field, But is there a way that people can kind of begin and start to do some of this dredging up some of this internal work before they even go visit a professional. Yeah? Absolutely, well, And I see you know, Joel, you did your money origin story. It

looks like not too long ago. So reflection in psychology and especially in counseling is a huge part of our growth, right, So becoming a more reflective person is the process of integrating and making sense out of, and sometimes recovering from

those painful experiences in the past. But what you want to do is you can start taking a money history, your own money history, so you can look back and try to remember back to your earliest points and in time and see what are those financial events that happened, and just start laying out kind of a timeline. So you can even get a piece of paper out and write a nice little timeline and put age zero and to age wherever you are now, and just start doing

hash marks, and you can just make little notes. And what we're looking for an activity like this is did you have mostly positive associations and memories of around money, mostly negative, some combination the two, And that very first glance through it, what we wanna make sure is can I see both the good and bad? Right? That's part of secure functioning from an attachment perspective is we're not overly focused on the good, but we're not also overly

focused on on the bad. So if you have a money timeline that starts showing all kinds of painful experiences around money, and that's all that's coming up for you, that's a good sign that you probably do need to go work with a financial therapist. But if you have, you know, a mix of different experiences around money, and when you look back on those more challenging or painful money experiences, if you can be remain reflective and draw out the lessons learned, then it's probably not what I

would call money trauma. But what happens is oftentimes we have money trauma where it's like I don't even want to remember those bad things that happen financially because if I do, all become overwhelmed with the emotions and the associations associated with it, And that's that's where if someone's feeling those feelings, that's where it's it's probably most helpful.

Like if you do find you have the good and the bad, and you have that more secure attachment, you you can probably do some of this work on your own. But if you feel like you're shoving things down underneath the surface and you're like unwilling to deal with them, or if everything is coming up negative, that's when you

probably would be Yeah, an expert would be helpful. An expert would be really helpful, right because a lot of what we talk about is it's not always even about remembering all the bad things that happen, but it's about helping you your mind psychologically recognized that that experience is over and it's in the past, and it's not about forgetting it. It's about being able to make meaning and help really at the physiological level, which is the core

of us, recognize it's safe now that threat has passed. Yes, it's not something that's currently hanging over your head where you feel like you have to be on high alert. Like maybe, yeah, there was a period, say right out of college where you were incredibly low on funds and you were kind of living paycheck to paycheck. That threat of feeling like you're about to get evicted. Uh, you're saying essentially that is something we can carry into our future.

That's affecting us now absolutely, Okay, Yeah, I gotta say to you're right, like and and going back to you mentioned my money origin story. That's one of those things where there were there was there was certainly a combo of good and bad things when it came to money and how I viewed money and even those negative things. I feel like for a while, especially in my early mid twenties, like they kind of influenced how I did

everything when it came to how I handled money. And now I've done some work and I've grown and I feel like those things are memories and they're still impactful, but they don't hold the same weight or sway over me that they did like ten years ago. Yeah, that's exactly right, And Jel, I think you're on on the point there is what that work looks like can be varied for a lot of different people, but it is you became curious at some level about how is my

past shaping my present? What do I need to learn or grow into something different now? And that can help bring resolution to those painful things that happened in the past. And you know the gift of talking with many many money experts in a wide variety of fields, most of them have had some pretty defining, painful experiences around money

that sent them on the transformational journey. Or if your listeners are familiar with a hero's journey, Um, that's another lens that I like to use in my my work with clients, is that doing your money work is very much a hero's journey. Absolutely, Yeah, And so doing that work yourself. That can be one way you arrived to that point, but I think a partner, somebody, a significant other can also be the refiner's fire, as you wrote, and seek to you know, evolving your relationships. So we're

actually going to talk more about that. We're gonna talk about couples, uh, and finance. We're gonna get to all of that right after this break. We're back from break. We're still talking with financial therapist Ed Combs. And sometimes it's helpful to know that the struggles you're facing aren't unique. And I think sometimes we're like, nobody knows what I've gone through, nobody else can identify, and you feel you feel alone in what you've gone through, and that makes

it even more difficult. Um, and that maybe even makes the negative things you've experienced feel bigger than they actually were. So yeah, well, what are maybe some of the most common issues that you find yourself helping folks with at your practice, So that maybe, um, how money listeners can realize, Oh wait, that's not completely abnormal. Yeah, absolutely, So one

of the biggest dynamics is around spending and saving. And you know, on the surface, it looks like we're having a fight about spending and saving, but often times where it's a fight over power and control and influence and mutual respect and so um. When I meet with the my couples around these issues, certainly I'm trying to understand their attachment styles because that's their relationship blueprint about how

they're going to experience relationships. I want to know about their money history, and I want to know what they've done in the past to try to resolve this right because I want them to get more and more creative about being responsible for solving the problems. In the long run, they're going to live with each other and not be seeing me, and so I want them to be empowered around being able to find their own resolutions. My job

is to help facilitate them in that direction. So common things are are certainly some degree of poverty or financial scarcity, and childhood is often a backdrop to the present day problems.

I've had quite a handful of clients that grew up with affluent or wealthy parents that really mismanaged the finances, and so while there was this income and wealth, there's also high degrees of financial stress and anxiety, and so that mismatched often continues forward for a lot of clients problems around financial transparency and being honest about how much money has been spent. There's another big issue that comes up. And I think all those issues probably sound familiar to

a lot of folks in one way or another. These just different dynamics that we are faced with. And so let's let's kind of dive into two dating before there's marriage. We've got dating. Uh, and then you know, first of all, how important is it to discuss finances with someone who you are building a relationship with? And uh and specifically, you know, I want to know how how soon should a couple actually have this conversation? As soon as you have your first kiss, it's time to have the first

money conversation. Okay, Right, so right after that hot and heavy, sweet makeout session, you dive into your financial stuff. So tell me about your you know, your balance sheet, right out and heavy makeout session. There you go. You can

leave that for the second date. No, But what I would would encourage people listening to think about is in that dating sequence, right, you're over time getting to know whether you like being in their company in general, whether there's a sense of emotional compatibility, whether there's a sense of sexual intimacy and compatibility and whatever that pacing or

framework is for you. And so in the same sense, money becomes another natural point in that dating sequence where you want to start to get to know this person financially, and it's about what are their preferences, what are the things that they don't like? Can they be reflective on uh, lessons learned on money? Are they able to talk about

goals and ambitions? What's their family history around money? Like those are all really important starter points to engauging the other person's readiness to engage in a healthy and productive financial relationship with you, Because if your relationship is going to progress forward, your life will be intertwined financially. There's just not a way around it. How do you create that open place, because yeah, you don't want to just be like, all right, it's it now, let me see

your credit score. You know you probably do want to cover stuff like that, But how do you do it in a way that's gonna like foster healthy communication and where it feels like a safe place where you can kind of talk about those things as opposed to feeling like you're just pestering someone to get their financial details out In the open. Yeah, and so I think you

really the word safe place right. So, if you're in that newly dating or early stages relationship, it may feel a little awkward to tentative to lead into the conversation. And I think the other big framing is it's not a one time conversation. This is an ongoing conversation where we're gonna open up these questions and sometimes it will be casual, maybe it's over a beer or a glass of wine. If you're moving further into that relationship, maybe it becomes more structured what we do sit down and

look at each other's patterns of spending. What does that feel like to become more financially transparent with this other person? So it's you know, at some point you want to get financially naked with the person. Know it's not on the first day, probably not in the first month, but over time, if the relationship is maturing and headed in that direction where you see a longer term together, you really do want to work on that. And this is

assuming you're in the position of being proactive. There might be some people listening thinking, holy crap, what is this guy talking about. I don't want to do that. That sounds terrifying to me. And if that's where you're at, completely understandable, no problem. But as we're talking about earlier, that maybe is a signal that it is time for you to start doing some of your own money work. And there's plenty of great books. You guys mentioned my book.

I really appreciate that there's plenty of other great money books out there that look more at your personal relationship with money than at the numbers and spreadsheets and strategy side, as important as that is. Yeah, well, so specifically, I mean you said get getting financially naked, Like what exactly does that look like? Like, let's let's get specific with details, like what kind of information should should we be sharing?

Because we you know, we joke about sharing a credit score, or you know, we might joke about student lows or something like that. But but like, I guess what what what is some practical advice for folks as to you know, what they should consider sharing with their partner? Right, So, on the objective side, it's your budget or spending patterns, a net worth statement, and credit score. And this is not to judge them, but to just have a sense of starting mutuality because you're not going to bring the

same thing to the table financially. But this is part of this bigger picture that I'm I'm really encouraging more and more couples towards, which is financial intimacy, right. And when you have financial intimacy in the relationship, nothing is off limits and you can talk about anything safely, openly, candidly with each other. So this is where that attachment

framework really helps people understand. If you're struggling to think about doing this, we may need to look at your attachment history and your patterns of really and ship bonding and safety and security and transparency. So do do you think maybe that's part of it then too, So we're telling you said you mentioned the credit score, sharing, spending patterns. Those are some of those objective things that we do need to share with the person that we're growing closer to.

Do you think there's an important thing that we're like to those two people should also work towards knowing each other's attachment style so they can understand each other in a deeper way. And is they're like, is there a way that they can they can do that kind of find that that that out about themselves and so that they can then maybe have more of a common language to be able to in an understanding of kind of

where where they're you know, significant others coming from. Yeah. Absolutely, So I have an attachment style quiz on my website, Healthy, Love and Money dot com. You can also google attachment style quizzes. There's several different resources out plenty of resources out there to start to become familiar with it. And you're right, attachment styles can become a language or relationship framework for you to understand both who am I now and where do I want to go in the future.

And that's been one of the most rewarding things um as I talked to people that are taking the attachment stock, was is like, oh, oh, I can see how I used to be and now after some time in therapy, I can see that I'm more much more secure. Right, So it gives a framework for relational growth as well, and as you dive deeper into understanding your attachment styles, it just creates more and more clarity about why am I the way I am, Where are my triggers or

sore spots around relationship connection? And then what do I need to do to start getting some healing and relief? Around that, and it often then the other partner can also recognize, Oh, this isn't just about me not being responsive to them or the way that I'm responsive. It's about their attachment history and the unmet emotional and relational

needs that they had. As you are explaining this, and I mean, I realized, I've had a lot of conversations with my wife about money, and I don't know if maybe it's just because we have similar attachment styles, we've been able to work forward, and I guess neither of us have really been all that frustrated with how the other handles money, and so I guess in that way

we've got lucky. But because of that, this isn't something we've ever addressed head on, you know, we haven't gotten down, uh and really picked apart some of these attachment styles and what that means to us. Makes me wonder if there's a fifth attachment style of nerdy, because that's Matt's attachment for money. That is that one? Did I just come up with a new one? Is this ground members?

I don't know, Yeah, Excel is that one? Just? But so attachments is really about your interpersonal bonding, right, like how you experienced interpersonal relationships, and then the way you approach money can be different than your attachment style psychologically speaking.

But if you're anxious, then you're more likely to feel rejected or uncertain in the relationship about how to navigate these difficult money conversations with your partner, whereas if you're more on that avoiding continuous like I'm not going to include you in what's going on here financially, like I can't really trust you to understand me, so why would

I let you in? Yeah? Well, and Ed, you know, when we were talking about some of the specifics to share, you share that there are some different objective you know, pieces of data that we need to share, like your credit score, things like that. Are there is there a set of subjective details or I guess goals that we need to talk about with our partners. Yeah, that's where

we started getting into. Um, both the positive side of things and the challenging or dash negative side of things is like your fears, your anxieties, maybe even places of shame around money, like maybe I know what I should be doing with money, but I'm not doing it, or you know, I spend money in this way or that way that I feel embarrassed about maybe I feel controlled by my parents and the way that they manage the money between me and them. Maybe I've felt financially responsible

for other family members that I feel resentful for. So those are the challenging inside of money dynamics and relationships. But then it's also about sharing your hopes, your dreams, your aspirations, and surprisingly a lot of people really struggle in this area to actually adequately articulate hopes, dreams, um values.

And so that's an area to dig into as a couple and to start exploring and cultivating and um you know, for some in a very simple way, I'm a big dreamer and my wife is much more practical, And so that's a dynamic that gets challenging. Is it's no problem for me, like, oh, I'm dreaming about a lake house and a boat and I wanted a vacation, and and her head's like just registering dollar signals for all of this instead of just tracking with me and be like, wow,

that's really interesting. Tell me more about why that's important to you, right, Because there is meaning for me around those and and this is that other side of mutuality is being able to draw my wife into that place of hopes, dreams, and aspiration ends, but also in staying balanced with the practical and holding both ends of those things together. So that's those are much more of the subjective elements of managing money life together. Yeah, good stuff.

All right, We've got some more questions to get to about how couples can handle money well together and including we're gonna talk about how to handle conflicts, because that's kind of inevitable when you're in love with someone else and you've got to talk about money. So we'll get to some questions on that right after this break. Alright, we're back from the break and we are speaking with

a financial therapist, Ed Combs. Uh, Ed, how do you help couples who are on completely different pages when it comes to how it is that they handle money if they're just not in and yang? Seriously, I mean, in some ways I feel like it can be helpful because it can help couples to balance out, but oftentimes I think it can keep you from being able to, you know, progress forward at all. How would you help out in that situation? Yeah, so absolutely true. Those are big dynamics

to draw out. When I talk with couples, I normalize the reality that you're going to be similar and different around money, and it's more often where we're different around money that the conflict starts to show up. But this is where I like to take them a step deeper

before we try to get together on the topic. We've been talking throughout this show about money histories, and a lot of times couples know bits and pieces of each other's money history, but they don't really they haven't really ever heard it in kind of a full story format, and maybe you you haven't. They haven't done it for themselves, right, So if you're fighting about these differences, the big starting point is getting curious about where do these differences come from?

Where my history and life did this outlook on money come from? What does that mean or represent to me? I am I doing it that way? And then why for the same for the other person, Because the reality is there are like there are reasons and motivations for

why we were doing what we're doing with money. They may not always be immediately conscious or aware, but if we go back into our money history and can start to dig into what different emotional emotions got attached with different money experiences, we can usually start to fare it out So as a more practical example, UM, I had a couple where the wife was would do a lot more of the shopping. She would get secretive about it, and the husband would be kind of controlling of her

about about her spending. And so they came to me to get help around this because she would promise I'm gonna I'm not gonna spend any more, and then six months to a year later she would be back to the shopping and spending. And so that was a really frustrating cycle for for the couple. And you know, I think some people would hear this and be, oh, well, there's abuse in the relationship. Well, no, it wasn't really

about abuse. It was about their own painful past experiences around money and in very short form, trying to protect their confidentiality. Uh. She had lost her mother in childhood and one of those ways that her family kind of if you will, took care of her as she aged is they would take her shopping to make her feel better. Right, And so as she was now an adult married woman, anytime that she started to feel stressed, her brain associated

stress not feeling good, go shopping. Well. This was in perfect contrast to her husband, who had grown up in an environment where he was very sensitive to his mother and the financial challenges that they were experiencing. And when he would go, he would call going shopping, and his older brothers would not think twice about getting a bunch

of clothes at the department store. Meanwhile, he's watching his mom's face kind of like drop and sorrow and overwhelmed, and he would restrict what he would buy to try to lessen the blow to mom. So it's where you're doing that deeper work. It helps you realize, oh wait, this person, the love of my life, is not doing this to sabotage me or to ruin our financial goals or plans. It comes from this deeper place and you can like sympathize and empathize more with with your sement

bic another. Then right, that's exactly right, And that's the exact goal of that type of exercise. Is for most couples, that's where they land in that type of exercise. If they're not able to step into that empathy and sympathy for each other's past stories, that just means that there's often even more emotional pain and hurt um for them that they need to be able to work through before they can really see each other's U side of the

story and how that's shape them. Yeah. Yeah, there were some recent stats that came out about financial infidelity and that if I think credit cards dot Com did a survey and it certainly seems like it's on the rise where couples are hiding spending from one another, or they have maybe a credit card that they haven't that they

haven't revealed to their partner. Um. And and and you actually you actually detail in the book about UM some financial infidelity that happened inside of your marriage, and it's a very personal story. UM. But since you shared in your book, would you mind sharing it with us here? Yeah? Absolutely So. Financial infidelity is a breach in relational trust, both implicit and explicit expectations around money. Right. And so for me,

my wife had launched her dental practice. This has been a much part of larger part of our ongoing marital dynamic. And part of why I got here is out of values of why I was. I have no problem with women making more money than men, but at a lived experience, it's played on some of my own insecurities. And so after my I went back to school to become a therapist, you know, wasn't uh I left the working world, wasn't

making money. It had been a stay at home dad, and was trying to get back into getting my counseling practice up and going. And by this time I thought, you know, oh, I'll figure it out. I help my wife grow her dental practice. And how hard it can it be to grow counseling practice. And let me just say, it was nothing like growing a gental practice. Harder, much harder, because you know, we would go to parties and people would find out my wife as a dentist and they

would say, oh, can I have your card? And I would say I'm a therapist, and they would kind of walk away from me, like everybody knows that, hey, guys, they need a cleaning. But most people like think that they're pretty good internally, you know, like they think that even though that's probably not necessarily true. Well, and in therapist, we don't work with people that we know like that, we don't have we don't we have regular engagement with.

So that was so there was so those dynamics. There was so many different layers to this this cake, so to speak. But from a financial infidelity standpoint is I, you know, had made my projections about how quickly a practice would get going, use some money, credit card money to get things going, and got stuck in this rationalization like, well, she makes money of money. If this doesn't work out, she'll be able to cut it. And so I just

didn't tell her about how bad things were getting. And I've had some other mental health things that we're really starting to spiral out of control, for me falling into a pretty significant, major depression. And so it's this complex constellation of experiences that led me to not be transparent with my wife about where we're at financially. Eventually it did break through, and we had to work through that and make meaning makes sense out of how do we

get here. Fortunately, we had had quite a number of years of financial transparency and trust prior to that, and so she could see kind of contextually how I got there. It didn't mean that it didn't doesn't sting or didn't sting at that time, And you know, we worked very

hard now to maintain financial transparency. And this is a really challenging place for a lot of couples where one or both people are in business because income variability is part of the journey, and so you're trying to make projections and some level of commitment to this is what I can bring into the family. But then reality hits and it's not always pretty. What if someone is actually in an unhealthy or even an abusive relationship? You know, like money can oftentimes I think it can be used

as a tool. It can maybe even be used as a weapon. Uh, And so what are maybe some signs that this is going on in a relationship? And then what should someone do about it if they realize that they are in an abusive or toxic relationship? Yeah, so straightaway get to a couple of therapists as fast as you can, even if you have that sense or your

question in it. I mean, do your Google research if you need to, but it's better just go ahead and get into a couple of therapists, because it's like it's better to have the chest pain and go to the doctor and have the doctors say, oh, this is uh something you know, mild, not not a big deal, or no,

you're about to have a heart attack. Right, you want to get in front of professional eyes that work with abusive relationships regularly so that they can help you differentiate because it's very hard people when they're in the abusive relationship to come to terms and work through that. And so my encouragement even if you think that you're in an abusive relationship, just go ahead and get into a couple's therapy or go find find a therapist and start

asking your questions and sharing your story. You're so miird in it that you're not gonna be able to see it clearly. Yeah. Well yeah, And if someone has been listening and and they're like, yeah, okay, it sounds like I need to see a financial therapist or yeah, where should they go? Is there is there a resource where you tell people to turn to find someone close to them that can help them out in this area. Yeah. Absolutely.

So if you're thinking my issue is more kind of around how I interact with money, the Financial Therapy Association is a wonderful starting place. They have a find a therapist tool there, So that's for the financial therapy side of things, and then for a couples therapists. Psychology Today has a great therapist directory in listening there and you can search by all kinds of different criteria for therapist

in your local area. Uh. And and I wanted to say ed, like, I know some people might say that's an odd choice of an episode to do on Valentine's Day, to to to talk of all these things, But I think, like, um, I think sometimes maybe we misunderstand what love is in our culture, and I think truly loving somebody else is, and truly loving yourself is doing some of these this hard work and growing together over time in ways that

aren't necessarily easy. And so well, Matt and I, we really appreciate you coming on and talking about some of the harder things that we have to deal with, particularly like getting on the same page about money and and doing some of that. Yeah, those deeper dives into kind of our money history. So um, yeah, thank you so much for coming on the show. And where can our listeners find out more about you and what you're up to? Yeah? Absolutely, Uh my website, Healthy Love and Money dot com is

probably the best place to get started from there. Um have blogs, social media links, my book that you guys mentioned. I'm very excited about a new course that I'm watching, The Couple's Guide to Financial Intimacy. It's if you're thinking you want to do the deep dive, Um, that's gonna be a year long program that you can check out and see if that's a good fit for you. That's awesome. We'll make sure to link to all of that and uh and specifically to the links where folks can learn

more about that course. Ed. Thank you for joining us on the podcast today, Joelo Matt has been quite a pleasure talking with you. Keep up the great work, and I look forward to being a guest in the future. Yeah, Joe, hopefully we will be able to have ed back on because these topics are so important for us to talk about, and I'm glad that we were able to dive into them today. Uh. Specifically, what was your big takeaway from

this episode? All right, that's a good question in this conversation, Well, I think the biggest, the biggest teguway I had was that one the common issues he mentioned are ones that plague all of us, even even people that are good with money still have money arguments or still have money disagreements.

And and I think what he pointed at was the fact that there is almost always something deeper going on there, or maybe even always right where it is more about like power or dynamics, or or you want respect from your partner or um you know, there's a lack of

transparency going on and that you feel uncomfortable with. And so I think, you know, when when you are having, you know, money fights or disagreements, it's important to kind of like go another level deeper in order to kind of assess, well, why is it that I'm reacting this way or why is it that I'm so upset right now because my partner spent money in that way, which

I would never spend money in that way. And I know that over the years, like I've had to come to grips with some of those things in my own life where it's like, oh, that's that's my insecurity coming out. That's not that's not Emily's fault, that's my fault. Um. And so yeah, digging that next layer deeper into what's happening beneath the surface is so crucial to actually being able to talk about money in a more productive way with the person that you love, with your significant other.

That's so true. And you know, you kind of talked about transparency and how there might need to be more of that when it comes to some of the disagreements we have. I left how when he talked about what he called financial infidelity on his part. It doesn't have to be this giant, massive thing. It can just literally be a lack of transparency where you're not sharing information.

I think sometimes when you say financial infidelity, it sounds like this massive, big, you know, breach of trust, when in reality it can start, you know, and it is, but it likely started very innocently, you know, like at a very small scale where maybe you weren't quite as transparent with your spending. Uh. And so that's a little

piggyback onto unto years. But my big takeaway I wanted to focus on how he talked about digging into your own history with money, and he explained how simply what you can do is just you know, draw a line, put some hash marks on there, and create a timeline.

And for a culture who probably doesn't reflect as much as we need to, that to me was just a great tool, a great way to think back on your history to see if you can isolate, see if you can find and identify some of the different events that occurred in your past that might be worth sharing with

your partner. Right as you start to build up that relationship, as you start having some more of these important conversations that you might be able to identify some of these things that you might want to share with them, and that might allow them to get a feel for who you are, why it is that you do spend the way you do, or why it is that you don't spend money at all, and and help you come to groups of that yourself you might call milestones or you know,

markers in your life that you've forgotten about. You're like, wow, that really had a pretty big impact. Yeah, it's about that self discovery, but then being able to then take that hopefully whole self to a relationship. Because you know, you combine two different people who have not you know, reflected and who haven't really dealt with their past, then

it's kind of a recipe for disaster. Right You take two broken people bring them together as opposed to two folks who have an awareness of what they've been through and what they're looking to grow together. I think that's really important. Yeah, for sure, I like that. All right, Well, yeah, that was a fun conversation and hopefully more conversations like that in the future on how to mind and hopefully it was I mean, ultimately I like what you said

there at the end too. It seems like a kind of a weird topic day, Yeah, and ultimately it is. But man, love it's hard work. It's not just like, Okay, how can you afford to buy chocolate for your partner that's cheap? Like where we want to. I want to get him the cheap chocolate that doesn't say I love you. Get the good stuff from all the germ, the German chocolate, like William Brown told us about. But we wanted to take it a level deeper to really get at the

root of what makes relationships and love successful. And so that is why we wanted to have this conversation today, even though at times it kind of got a little more heavy, a little a little more serious. All right, Well, uh, I agree, And for you and I, what makes our relationship successful is drinking good beer together and talking about money and so on today's I said, while we talked with Ed, we were drinking a grim Lilt grim as

this brewery out of Brooklyn, New York. I believe they make some awesome beers and this is a golden sour aged noe barrels with tart cherries. Matt, what was your what your thoughts on this beer? Dude? This is a fantastic beer when it comes to sours, fruited sours that are barrel aged. This has everything that I'm looking for. It's got that tartness, it's got the acidity so it feels bright and crisp in your mouth. It's got the

right amount of fruit. But then it's got that funkiness, some of those those woody knows, some of those at going on for sure. Oh, it is so good. It's got I mean, it checks all the boxes for what I'm looking for in a sour. You know. One of the things we we talked about when we're talking about barrel aged towers is how those barrels add a level of complexity to the flavor compared to a kettle sour, which in my opinion oftentimes can taste a little not flat,

but just kind of like one note. Uh. And I love that with a barrel aged tower, oftentimes you get that true depth. Uh. And that's definitely what we've got going on here. But yeah, what what your thoughts? No, I think you're right, Like you dig the cherries like a single note versus a chord, right, and yeah, and so this this beer was like a beautifully played chord um and yeah, I dug the cherries. I love cherries

in a beer. But then also yeah, just that strong oat presence combined with the like very tartness, a little bit of funkiness and grim makes some really good beers. Sadly, we've never been to the brewery hopefully one of these days, but this beer makes me want to go even more because it was delicious. What if we started taking like brewery trips, Like we talked about going to visit certain breweries in certain cities, and some cities have a lot

of good breweries. Uh, maybe that's something new that I can prioritize in the in the coming years of money road trip. Let's do it all right? Well, Happy Valentine's to Day to everyone out there. I hope. Um, yeah, you've got some motivation to attend to your relationship even more in this coming year. After listening to this episode, we wish you the best of luck. And that's gonna do it for this episode, Matt. Until next time, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out.