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. Right now we're in a series where we've been talking about finances. And we talked about how our past experiences with finances can kind of lay the groundwork to how we are responding and how we deal with finances currently.
And that could be childhood influences, how our family handled money, cultural and societal messages that we get about money, as well as past trauma and the lingering effects that happen from that. And today we're going to continue that conversation and go a little bit more into identifying trauma responses in money conflicts. So if you haven't already listened to the last two episodes, go back and start with that and then jump into today's episode.
So we're going to cover the fight, flight, freeze, fawn responses and how they relate to money conflicts. And we have a specific episode about trauma responses that covers them just in general. But today we're going to specifically hone in on how that relates to your finances and how you're dealing with it. So the first one we'll talk about today is the fight response.
So if you feel like you've experienced financial trauma in the past, or you're so worried about it now, and it's just constantly there, and that could be because of all the things I've already named. And we talked about in the last couple episodes, whether it's from your childhood and how your family dealt with it, or just the societal and cultural influences that happen, or if there is some kind of specific financial trauma that you've experienced, whether it's debt, bankruptcy.
Economic instability, or any other financial crisis, one of the ways that you might respond is with the fight trauma response. And so what this looks like is maybe in your relationship, you are just consistently aggressive and you are blaming the other person. Anytime there is money arguments or discussions on money, it turns into this full-blown fight. And even if it doesn't become this gigantic fight, there is still those behaviors of blaming and shaming and you can feel that tension there.
Sometimes it looks like controlling behaviors where you are demanding that you are the one in control and you're micromanaging the budget, the spending, all of that. And this is more of an extreme response. We encourage you to have budgets and to know and look over and have that oversight of spending. But we're talking about where it's above and beyond what's healthy.
And i think when we're talking about these financial conflicts or the fight phase of this that's somebody's way of either trying to correct someone's bad behavior or trying to control but either way a lot of times especially if it comes to money before this has become a problem you really start getting irritated that your partner's not on the same page and well this is just right and you should just know this is how things should go
right this is kind of giving you a little bit of a clue that either you or your partner might be struggling with this trauma response of this fight phase. So an example of this could be you guys are deciding to go on vacation and you're talking about a vacation budget, but maybe you're feeling triggered by past financial crisis and you really become combative. And maybe you have a conversation that turns more into you never understand how stressed I am about money.
It's always your fault that we're overspending. I'm not going to go on vacation with you if you're going to waste our savings like this. And then maybe the person responds with just a defensiveness, feeling like, what do you mean it's all my fault? I'm not wasting anything. You're always blaming me or you're always accusing me of trying to ruin our finances on purpose. And this conversation just continues to escalate from blame and accusations.
And it all kind of fuels the anxiety that you're both feeling in these conversations about money. But it prevents that productive decision making that could happen if you guys were on the same team and you didn't assume wrong motives on the other person. And a lot of times you could know who that person is and you can love them, but your responses from the past are triggering that.
And it could be the past meaning the same relationship, or it could be a totally different relationship, where in a previous relationship you had this experience where you felt like they weren't being wise with their money and they were spending savings. And now this vacation has just kind of triggered all of that. And a way to address that together is really being able to name what that underlying fear is for you and shift from accusations to I statements and what you're feeling.
So instead of all that blaming that happened in the last conversation, being able to say something like, I'm noticing I'm getting really frustrated and upset. And I realize that it's because I'm scared or I'm afraid of repeating financial mistakes that we made last year. And I do want to go on vacation with you, but I'm afraid that we're going to run out of money and we're just going to end up stressed and then we're going to be in the same cycle. But I am sorry that I came off blaming you.
And I think one of the things to think about this is a lot of times when we think about finances, it'd be very frustrating when we're not on the same page. But a lot of times what happens is we might just have different financial goals or different financial comfort levels. And what feels comfortable or normal to us feels like, oh, the other person, it should just be common sense that this is the right way to do it.
But realistically, a lot of times one person might be more, oh, I want to save and I want to save for retirement and I want to save for a house or I want to save for a car. And then the other person might more feel like, oh, well, the money's here. Let's do something fun with it now. And let's not worry so much about the future or any of those other things. And the hard part is trying to get those two different mindsets together and trying to come up with a budgeting plan that works well.
But again, what we're talking about are these knee-jerk emotional responses. And a part of what happens in this fight phase is the person might be thinking like, well, either I'm missing out on my fun now, or the other person might be thinking, well, you're stealing our future from us by doing this stuff now. And so it causes you to want to fight. But unfortunately, what happens when you end up fighting about it is normally you torpedo the conversation and it doesn't really progress anywhere.
And then you just have more hurt feelings. And then when it comes time to try to have this conversation again about finances, both parties are wounded and then both parties come into it more emotional. Right. And so a good response to your partner maybe acknowledging their fears would just be appreciating that and thanking them for telling you that or being aware of that and acknowledging like, I know that you're worried and I hear that you're worried about repeating the past.
And even though I want to go on this vacation, I do want to make sure that we spend money responsibly. So maybe we can sit down and look at the numbers together and then pick a trip that won't leave us feeling anxious later. And this is best case scenario, right? The other person is insightful and can notice what it's causing and what feelings. But maybe your partner isn't noticing that.
So as you guys are fighting, instead of being defensive, you can kind of step in there and say, hey, I wonder if you're afraid that we're going to repeat what happened in the past.
Or you can just ask questions like that to help bring that to mind and acknowledge the concerns and the fear and validate that it's okay because as combative as that fight response is if you can empathize and really focus on shared goals and let them know that you're on their team you guys can really work through this together. The next one we're going to talk about is the flight response, or you could call it the avoidance or withdrawal response.
So in this response, what you're going to have a tendency to do is to avoid the discussion at all. I don't want to talk about it when somebody wants to talk about, hey, can we do this later? I'm not in the mood right now. Or even just saying like, I don't care about the money or I'm not worried, just do whatever you want, kind of a thing.
And so when you get into that position, it's because you're fearful of how that discussion is going to go, or you're fearful of getting in and looking at the finances and seeing what's actually been done and the position that you're actually already in. And so whether it comes to paying bills or doing the taxes or talking about financial planning, somebody who is in the flight mode, they don't want to do any of that.
They don't want to look at any of it. They just kind of want to stick their head in the sand. And a part of it is because they might have a good idea already of where it might be, or they might have their own damage in that area. And so then they're going to expect maybe this could be much worse than what it is. But even the idea of getting in and looking at it feels very scary. And so they just want to avoid it altogether.
And when you have this flight response, the impact of that on your relationship is that the issue just remains unresolved, which causes tension to grow, especially for the person that really wants to get it dialed in and figure it out. And so for that person, they may feel abandoned and frustrated with you because as you're leaving or as you're avoiding and being evasive, that financial stress continues to accumulate.
And so it's very similar in being able to acknowledge and validate what is going on and just kind of calling it out for what it is. You know, I feel like every time we're about to talk about this, there seems to be something more urgent on your plate. And, you know, I understand that it's scary. I understand that it can feel overwhelming, but it is important to me that we sit down and talk about it? And then setting up a time saying, hey, can we set up a time tonight to talk through this?
And maybe a good solution is if you're the person that isn't in this flight response, you can kind of take it on and say, hey, I'm going to look at the budget. I'll prepare something. And then you could just sit down and we'll just go over it together. And maybe scaling down or scaling back that task might remove some of the pressure from them.
But it is important should just acknowledge what's happening and that this flight response is happening and that you feel like they're being evasive or procrastinating on this and validating that's understandable that they want to do that. The next response is the freeze response. And this is when you're feeling overwhelmed and you have all these decisions that need to be made, but you've shut down instead. You kind of just freeze when financial topics arise.
And it just has this feeling like there's an inability to make decisions or you're constantly second guessing. And so maybe it's something like you guys need to choose your insurance plan. And one of the partners becomes paralyzed and unable to choose. And part of that might be the fear of making the wrong financial move or not understanding it altogether, just not really wanting to take the time to sit down and research it.
And maybe they'll say something like, I don't know, I just can't think about this. It's just too much. Let's just pick one randomly. Which then for the other partner, they might feel unsupported or even more frustrated because they feel like, well, that just stalls the process even more. And by doing that, you get stuck in that perpetuating anxiety and uncertainty because nothing has been decided on and it's still there.
So being able to just that same idea of acknowledging and naming the feeling. I'm feeling really stuck right now. I don't know the differences between all these choices and I'm afraid I'm going to pick the wrong one and it'll cost us money or I'll make the wrong move. And when you see that happening, being able to jump in and just offer to look at the plans together. And I think also on top of that, acknowledging that we're making a choice is a good option, not making a choice is the bad option.
And so if you get stuck on that idea of I'm afraid I'm going to make a wrong choice. Well, in a lot of scenarios, not making a choice does make a choice for you, but oftentimes it's not the choice you want. And then you remove a lot of your own control when you do that. Oh, for sure. And then just reminding the other person that you're both sitting down and making this choice together.
It doesn't just weigh on that person and you're not going to sit and blame them if they make the wrong decision. And I think when you think about the freeze response in general, that is a safety mechanism is you're freezing to stop and wait and observe more and wait for more information to come before you make a decision. But in this type of scenario that we're talking about, there's no additional information that's going to come.
You just have to look at the plan, see what's there and then try to make a decision. So in this instance, that freeze response, right, there's no benefit of freezing in the scenario. In other scenarios, there might be a little bit of benefit to freeze and wait and hold on for a little bit of time. But understanding, too, like, OK, this is not a helpful response right now. There's not any new information that's going to come that's not already presented
to us. We just need to sit down and look and try to make the best choice that we can. And so sometimes that freeze response is really out of fear and you just feel stuck and frozen. And maybe you are waiting for more information, but maybe you just are so afraid. So being able to sit down, talk about the pros and cons together, and acknowledging that once we make this decision, we're going to go with it.
And that way you don't feel like, oh, we have to second guess it and we're going to go back and look at it again. But just making this decision together might help that person not feel so alone like it's all on them. Now, the last trauma response that we're going to talk about is the fawn response. Now the farm response looks like this. It looks like people pleasing or trying to only agree with the other person's perspective.
And this is an attempt to avoid a fight, but in a different way than flight. So instead of just trying to get away from it, you lean into it and whatever your partner wants. Oh, that sounds great. Oh, that sounds wonderful. Oh, whatever you think is best. And this comes, again, it's similar to fight where it's like I'm afraid of what's going to happen or I'm fearful that I'm going to make the wrong decision.
I'd rather the burden be on the other person or fearful of your partner's response if you have any level of dissent from them. And so when you're in this fawn phase, you're really prioritizing the other person's comfort over trying to make the best decision. Right, and this is a dangerous one because this fond response is kind of catering to other people's needs and what you think they want. Even though you may have a leaning or a feeling of what you want to do.
You're kind of just fawning and you're going with whatever they want. But that could grow into resentment. But your partner might be totally unaware of that because you haven't shared your true feelings or thoughts. And then it might not reflect your shared values or what you guys are working on together because maybe you have a different idea or a different plan that you wanted.
And then down the road this can come up as frustration for both people because maybe you start to get resentful and the other person can start to feel that and they ask you why and you say you know well because of this decision and they could get so frustrated because they're like you said it was fine you agreed to it you said it was okay I wish you would have told me your thoughts about it and so really understanding what is your relationship dynamic is there someone
in your relationship that kind of tends to have this people-pleasing response. And then really addressing that and making sure that you guys are both on the same page, both have a voice, and that really that you're both being honest. Because sometimes this fond response, although it seems so loving and agreeable, it's not the most loving thing to do because you're not being honest. And that could really affect your relationship down the road.
Well, and I think if you think about this logically, too, you just think about, OK, if my goal is I want to make my partner feel comfortable, then what you're doing is you're kind of placating them now. But you have insight or a different way of thinking and you could see a problem that maybe they couldn't see or you might see a different solution that they may not have been able to see.
But in the face of trying to make them comfortable now, you might make them more uncomfortable later by not helping lead them to a better decision. So as you look at these trauma responses, what is the one that you tend to do? What is the one that maybe your partner tends to do? Really have a conversation and address it. And kind of like we've gone through with each one, name what you're feeling. What's the emotion? What's the fear that you have or the anxiety? Are you afraid of hurting someone?
Are you afraid of making the same past bad decisions? Are you ashamed over not knowing something and the lack of financial knowledge on something? And once you're able to identify that, being able to share that with the other person using I statements, you know, I'm starting to feel a little anxious or I'm a little confused on this.
And then together, being able to reassure each other and validate each other's feelings through it, break it into smaller tasks together, and then begin to make decisions from there as a team. So as we look at each of these trauma responses, the key shifts that we want to see are moving from blame and aggression in the fight response to honesty and vulnerability instead.
Transforming that avoidance in the flight response into gradual engagement, even if it's just small steps along the way, turning paralysis, which is a freeze response, into decision making in a lower pressure, maybe that same idea of small steps, but you're not just freezing. You're beginning to make progress and taking steps in the right direction. And then replacing that people pleasing or the fond response with assertive, honest communication.
And so as you recognize your own trauma responses, even in the area of finances, you can gradually learn to engage in these financial conversations with each other. And that'll promote healing and trust and growth together. And if you just feel stuck and you feel like, man, this past experience, I just cannot let go of. Like I know on paper and in my mind what it should be, but I just can't get past this feeling or I just can't get past what happened.
And if that's the case for you, Tim and I would love to help you through that and to walk through that. And we would love for you to contact us. And through our coaching program, we can walk you through the EMDR process to be able to overcome some of these traumas that you've experienced. So that as a couple, you can really begin to move forward. All right, you guys have a great day. 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.