Music. Welcome to Mr. and Mrs. Therapy, the podcast that empowers you to transform life's challenges into opportunities for personal growth and healthier relationships. We're your hosts, Tim and Ruth Olson, licensed marriage and family therapists and trauma experts. As experienced therapists with backgrounds in addressing trauma and mental health disorders, we believe there is hope and there certainly is healing.
We've spent our lives supporting people through the ups and downs, and we want to share these insights with you. Together, we'll unravel the layers of personal and building healthy relationships. Each week, we'll bring you engaging conversations, expert insights, and practical strategies to help you heal from the past, foster healthy communication, and develop enduring love.
This podcast is your guide to transforming adversity into triumph, healing wounds and past trauma, gaining wisdom and insight, and creating meaningful, fulfilling connections. So if you're here to heal, to better understand yourself or your relationships, you're in the right place. So sit back, get comfortable, bring your trauma and your drama, and let's start healing. Welcome to Mr. and Mrs. Therapy. Music. Hey everyone, welcome back to Mr. and Mrs. Therapy podcast.
We're so glad that you're here with us today. And we are especially glad that you decided to jump in and join us as the last episode we introduced that we would be talking about finances. And so we know this isn't everyone's favorite topic. Sometimes it can be really difficult. In the last episode, we introduced why it's so important to talk about finances, why it's so important to take a look at it.
We talked briefly about how financial trauma that's unresolved could be affecting your relationships, could be affecting you and what you're experiencing. And we really wanted to just normalize financial conflict, that it is a part of life. And if you're experiencing it, although it can be uncomfortable, it's also an opportunity to grow in this area. It's an opportunity to have deeper discussions and to set goals that could actually be really exciting.
And so if you haven't already listened to the last episode, definitely go back and listen to that. And today we're going to just jump back in as we talk about the root causes of financial conflict and how it can continue to impact you today. So the first thing that we're going to be talking about is how does your childhood influences affect your beliefs about money? And one of the things that is important to know is that how you grew up is going to affect a lot about how you feel about money.
Now, if your family is fairly well off, and then now you as an adult, you're struggling more, you may struggle with restriction if you didn't have a lot of that when you were young. And so then now, if you're not able to purchase all the things that your parents were, you might not stop yourself from doing it. But also, if maybe on the opposite end of the spectrum, you grew up more meager means, then you may worry a lot more about finances, and you may struggle a lot more with that.
Or also it could even go the opposite way where it's like I didn't have so now I want to provide all these things that I didn't have as a child I want to be able to provide those to my kids or I want to be able to have the freedom to do that even if my finances don't really allow for that and so what those experiences can cause you to do is feel that hey spending money this way is the right thing even if it doesn't agree with your account and so when you stop and you think about how
you view finances you definitely want to take a little bit of time and view it through the lens of what were finances like when I was young and then think how is that translating am I trying to compensate for the lack when I was younger or do I feel like I should have more freedom because I did have that when I was younger and understanding what is a potential emotional motivator that might be pressing some of the behaviors that you're having today.
And at the end of the last episode, we talked about before we jump into all of this financial talk to take a minute to journal and write down and really process through what are some of the emotions that come up for you. If you were able to do that, there might have been some childhood experiences that popped up. And so this is a great time to be able to make that connection and figure out, did my parents have that scarcity mindset?
Was there maybe some overspending habits? Or did you observe your parents fighting all the time about money? Or was money not even talked about? Was it something that was kind of a secret and it was a taboo topic that you weren't supposed to even know about and your parents never really discussed it? And on top of that, didn't teach you about finances and how to handle your own money as you grew up?
Actually, I think that's a great point. I think that's, I think a lot of the younger generation complains that they don't understand money or how money really works. And they kind of can be upset at the older generation, hey, you didn't teach me this. But I also say, I don't think the older generation was necessarily taught this stuff either. But I think also finances become much more complex. And so there is a lot more that needs to be learned. But that's also not something
that maybe your parents could have taught you. But I think that's really interesting what you said there. I think that's an important point. If your parents never really talked about finances, and then now you as an adult, you feel like, oh, we shouldn't have to talk about finances. This is just something that should be okay.
Then that can set you up to feel like having a discussion with your partner about finances, or even sitting down and just looking at your own finances might feel like an odd or strange or out of place thing. But it is a very necessary, normal part of relationships. So as you look at your own family of origin and how money was experienced in your household, it helps to understand that these can be consciously or unconsciously carried into your adult life, right?
And so sometimes it is a very conscious decision that we struggled financially and I'm going to do everything I can to not struggle now. And you kind of mentioned that if you weren't able to have things as kids, now you're like, oh, I'm going to make sure that my kids have everything.
That can be a very conscious decision. But I think what happens most of the time is this unconscious mindset that gets carried into your life and your relationships because we don't always think about how the impact of our childhood is affecting us today. But because how you're raised just seems normal to you, it does get carried into your relationships with how you deal with finances.
And so as you have discussions with your spouse or your partner or even how you deal with it as a single person, it's going to affect your future because your planning or lack of planning will affect your future. But whether it's conscious or unconscious, you have to recognize that it is affecting you and it is affecting your relationship and it's playing a role in how you're handling your finances.
And I think one thing to be aware of if you are having more of an unconscious response to it is if you have a big emotional reaction to it, but then when you stop and you think, okay, why am I so emotionally upset about it? You're having a hard time kind of pinpointing why that is. A lot of times what that boils down to is that there's these unconscious beliefs that are operating that are causing more of that emotional reaction now.
And it's drawing on your negative past experiences about finances from your childhood or from earlier adulthood. Now, I think another thing that can definitely affect your views on money and how you feel about money are cultural and societal messages about money. And so an example of that might be gender roles. Well, okay, the husband, he just takes care of the money and I don't have to worry about that and I'm not going to be involved or participate in that.
Or it might be something like cultural expectations like, Some cultures look down on people who are making a decent amount of money, or some cultures look down on people who are more on the poor side. And depending on which cultural background you come from can affect a lot about how you feel about making money. Sometimes people feel guilty. Oh, I'm making a decent amount. Something's wrong, or I'm a bad person because of that. Or I'm a loser,
or I'm not good enough because I'm not making enough money. Oh, definitely. These can absolutely affect your relationship with money, but also your relationship, right? Because if you go into a relationship and in your mind, you're like, well, my mom never worked. I'm not going to work. And you haven't talked about that with the person you're dating or your spouse.
That could be a huge conflict. because maybe it's just an assumption you've made in your mind that once we have kids, I'm not going to work, but you haven't ever shared that with your spouse. And if that is a huge desire of yours to be a stay-at-home mom, and then that time come and you do have kids. These unexpressed desires can cause conflict because now maybe your spouse had no idea that's what you wanted.
And their expectation is that you're going to be a two-income family and now it puts a heavy strain on the relationship and I think no matter what the situation that happens whether that was your expectation or that was not the whole point of this is to have a conversation and to be able to communicate and express where am I at what are my expectations what am I hoping for what are we as a couple now that we know this information gonna
decide And so we're hoping that this opens up some dialogue for you guys to talk through some of these issues and talk through how these cultural and societal messages affect the decisions that you're making. And I think I want to comment and go back to what you're saying there. I think also it's important. Maybe you are even on the same page of one parent staying home and the other parent working, but then the finances just aren't there to accomplish that.
And then that can bring up bitterness and resentment kind of on both sides one partner being like hey i just don't make enough for you to stay home and the other partner saying hey this is kind of our agreement and that's another part of finances is if finances were super easy predictable and we could say like oh we can do this and like this shouldn't be a big deal and at one point it wasn't but then all of a sudden your financial situation changes or the economy around you changes
then all of a sudden that can make it a very difficult position for both parties Oh, yeah. And when I expressed it, I expressed it as just the wife wanting to stay home. But I've also seen in several times in couples counseling and even among our friends where... It's the husband that has this view of my wife's going to stay home and raise her kids. And the wife had no idea of that. And she has this promising career that she wants to go back to work and she wants to do all these things.
And so there's a disparity there in communication. But I think what you're seeing is true. Even if that's their goal and they're on the same page about that, if the finances aren't there, that's an opportunity to now maybe set some goals for that. Or maybe that's not even your goal at all. That's an opportunity to sit down and kind of create a plan so that you guys can reach whatever goals you guys have set, whether it's a two-income household or a one-income household.
But it's really important that you guys are on the same page regardless of what you guys decide. And also one of the things I think is important to know is that you may have desired goals and outcomes and you may not be able to attain them right now, but then trying to set up a plan of how can we try to make this actionable? What can we do to make steps towards fulfilling our current desires with our finances?
But one thing that will warn you is that as you take a step back and you look at how these cultural expectations are affecting you or even how your childhood influences and how you witnessed your parents handle finances. That it's not a good or bad thing. It doesn't have to be a moral judgment on someone else.
And I think that's what happens a lot in relationships, is that we're so used to handling a certain way, or we find such comfortability in how it was handled for us, or we view a certain way of life as the right way, and that's the one right thing. And then it could cause you to turn against the other person because we no longer see it as figuring it out and these are our expectations and this is my goal and my hope.
But we see it now as a moral decision and they're a bad person because it doesn't align with how you've always viewed it. And I think that's a good point. And going back to what I was saying earlier, you can have this ideal of where you want to be, but a lot of times you have to start where you don't want to be.
And then you might have to work towards that. But then if you put it on, this is a moral right or moral wrong, then a lot of times what that will cause is for you to make an irrational and unhealthy decision for you guys in the relationship. So we've talked a lot about childhood influences, learned belief. Cultural, societal roles about money and just the messages that get sent.
But another area that we want to address, too, is just past traumas, maybe past debt and bankruptcy and financial crises that happened, maybe not as children, but in your adulthood. That when we experience massive debt, and maybe it was to no fault of your own, but it was some medical crisis you had, but now there's a huge financial strain and debt that happens. There's a lot of emotional aftermath that comes with that.
There's a lot of shame and guilt and fear, but maybe there was some bankruptcy or due to the economy or some other financial crisis that happened. There is a lot of emotional aftermath that happens because of that debt and because of the experiences that you've gone through, even in adulthood. And with that comes shame and guilt and fear. And all of that influences your current financial situation and it influences how you're going to handle finances in the future.
And sometimes what happens is there's so much of a fear that that's going to happen again, that you overly try to control money. And when you do that, it causes a lot of anxiety and a lot of conflict in the relationship when maybe the other person has a different perspective on what happened. And I think a lot of these things, the shame, the guilt, and fear that go along with it, these are major influencers that can cause you to do these irrational actions with money.
And especially with shame, you're worried about people seeing your financial positions or trying to hide it. You might buy a new car or you might buy new clothes. And you're trying to put on this presence like, I'm doing fine financially. But then you're actually making it worse and worse and worse, trying to prove to everybody that you're doing okay. And so in that first episode when we talked about, it's definitely more than just numbers on a paper.
Our finances have so much emotion that go into it. And the more trauma that you have connected with finances, again, the more and more likely you are to do these irrational and knee-jerk reactions with finances that are going to put you further and further away from what your end goals are. And so also sometimes we're not in a financially bad spot because we've made bad decisions.
Sometimes it could be unexpected job loss, or I've worked with plenty of people who have been stolen from, or they had a partnership go south, or they had a business venture that was going good. And then all of a sudden, the economic tides turned against them. And now all of a sudden, they were making a ton of money. And now all of a sudden, they kind of lose everything. And now they're in this mountain of debt.
And those types of fears and traumas can set you up in a position where in the future, you're going to be much more fearful about finances, and you're going to want something more stable, or you're going to struggle with trusting people more when it comes to finances. And so all those things really play a big role into when you're trying to have this discussion with your partner, or even just sitting down again, looking at your own finances, trying to understand what's going on.
Those experiences are weaving into your thought processes. And if you're not fully aware of those traumas and how they are affecting you, then that leaves you open to being blindside a lot more or not understanding your own motivations and then getting stuck in this rut or stuck in this thought process of it should be this way. But if the numbers on the paper aren't telling you it can be that way, you're making your life harder and harder and harder trying to just make it work that way.
And so one of the things we definitely want to let you guys know about is that if you are struggling and you have these financial traumas, either from your childhood or through adulthood experiences that you've gone through, there is a way to correct those traumas.
Ruth and I, we started a program, Coaching with Truth, where if you'd like to work with us on those traumas, we can sit down with you and we can really help you process through and remove those traumas as a factor that are affecting your decision-making processes today. If that's something that you're interested in, we have a link in our description down below that you can click on.
You can set up either an exploratory session where we talk a little bit about what we do and how we'd help you, or you can just book an appointment and then we can get started right away. But if this sounds at all like you, we'd really encourage you to make sure that you take note and understand that trauma might be playing a major role in your finances. All right, guys, thank you so much for listening. And remember, your mind is a powerful thing.
Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Mr. and Mrs. Therapy. We hope that you enjoyed today's episode and found it helpful. If so, would you take 30 seconds and share it with a friend? Also, we'd love for you to leave us a review on Apple Podcast. It lights us up to know that this podcast is helping you. If you have any questions or a topic you'd like discussed in future episodes, visit our Facebook group.
Just click the link in the description below. Although we are mental health providers, this podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide diagnosis or treatment. If you are struggling with persistent mental health issues, chronic marital issues, or feeling hopeless or suicidal, you are not alone. Help is available. Please seek professional help or call the National Suicide Hotline at 988.
Thank you again for joining us on Mr. and Mrs. Therapy. Remember, there's always hope and there's always help. Music.