"I hate the fact my partner can see every little spend." Photo / 123RF
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My partner and I had our first child a year ago and at the end of my maternity leave we decided it made financial sense for me to give up my job and be the stay-at-home parent.
We have a shared bank account and I hate the fact that my partner can see every little spend. I’m probably at the supermarket or mall every second day and sometimes while I’m there, I will meet another mum for lunch or a coffee.
We don’t have a lot of money and we have a mortgage to pay so I don’t go overboard but I feel it is necessary for my mental health to get out of the house and meet people.
Despite him buying coffee every day at the cafe near his work, and lunches sometimes, he’ll make little comments like “another coffee”. He hasn’t outright said I shouldn’t be spending his money on myself but I fear there might be growing resentment.
I’ve asked him if I should be working to a specific amount each week or if it’s better he transfers a certain amount into my account each week, sort of like an allowance, but he’s really non-committal. How should we handle this? And how do we avoid the tension? - Claris
Dear Claris,
A big part of your problem is implicit in your last question. The painful reality is that no couple can avoid tension about differences. We will always have differences in our approaches, priorities, preferences, wants and needs. When we can’t both have what we want (e.g. you can’t spend and save the same dollar), then that creates a necessary tension that will sit there until the difference is resolved. Your choice is between dealing with those tensions together and resolving the differences mindfully and intimately, using them as an opportunity to learn and grow, or dealing with them through avoidance and indirect communication, leading to resentment and frustration.
It gets confusing because, for many of us, in the early phase of our relationship (the “honeymoon” or bonding stage), we don’t feel those tensions; our differences don’t matter. In part, our differences don’t seem significant because we are all “loved up” (which involves changes to our brain chemistry similar to being high on drugs). It’s easy to be accommodating and generous and resolve things without much tension.
However, despite what the movies tell us, we can’t stay in that honeymoon stage forever. After a few months or even a couple of years, the “love drugs” wear off and we need to get on with the business of exploring and negotiating our differences as we establish the culture of our relationship – who does what, what’s okay for us and what’s not etc. Sadly our society doesn’t educate us about the necessity of this. Instead, it feeds us the negative fantasy that “real love” always feels great. This fantasy implies that experiencing tension, frustration or hurt means there’s something wrong with your relationship.
When you’re starting a new family, tension over finances is a very common place for difficulties to arise. Both the demands and responsibilities have hugely increased, just at the same time as your financial resources have reduced. That means both your stress levels will have gone up. Meeting this challenge is a great place to start to develop new depths to your relationship and expand your understanding of what it means to be intimate. Intimacy means sharing yourself, including the bits that your partner may have difficulty with, those parts that will bring you into conflict with your partner.
You tried to eliminate the tension by making offers around financial management to your partner but had a non-committal response. That suggests that there’s more going on than just the pragmatics. When you can’t agree on a simple, practical solution, that’s an excellent cue to explore more deeply into what’s going on.
Typical examples would be:
Obviously, we can’t know precisely what is going on for each of you, and it may be something different. But these are the kinds of issues that you need to talk about. Often they will have a component that derives from your upbringing. If you grew up in a family where money was tight and your parents often fought over spending, that will influence your approach to your finances. You might be very anxious anytime there’s spending that isn’t under your immediate control. It might unconsciously feel like life is spiralling into the chaos of your childhood anytime your spouse spends any money.
Likewise, suppose you grew up in a family where you never had to think about money because there was always enough for anything you needed. You may be relaxed about minor spending, confident that things will always work out financially, and see an attempt by your partner to negotiate tight financial discipline as invasive and controlling.
Again, these are simply examples of the depths you frequently need to explore before you try and negotiate a solution that works for you both. And that is the key. To approach differences with an attitude that says, “We are on the same team”, and “I want you to be happy with what we decide on as much as me” (but not more than me – that’s appeasement, and it never works well in the long run).
So we suggest you let your partner know you want to discuss money and choose a time that suits you both. Name the tension and your desire to resolve it in a way that is fair and makes sense to you both. But don’t rush to a solution. Use the opportunity to have an intimate conversation where each of you shares what’s going on for you at all levels. Try and look deeply at what is under the tension – the emotions, anxieties, concerns, past experiences, hopes and dreams.
We notice a sense of feeling less financially entitled since you shifted from paid to unpaid work. You don’t talk about you both deciding on a set amount for both of your discretionary spending (including his work lunches and coffees). It doesn’t sound like you considered both having a set amount transferred to your accounts. In a shared enterprise where you are both working incredibly hard, we think it is essential that the money is regarded as “ours”. Who gets paid for their work should not dictate how decisions about spending and saving are made.
We recommend having several slow and spacious conversations with space to go away and both mull things over if this would be helpful. Only move to explore solutions once you both feel like you have a clear sense of all the practical and emotional factors impacting your attitudes to discretionary spending and how you choose to manage your finances. Practical solutions often become very straightforward if you have given enough space to the deep issues. You are aiming to arrive at a new approach that you are both entirely on board with, “our approach”.
Nic Beets’ new book Make Love Work - A Practical Guide to Relationship Success (Allen & Unwin) is out now.
• Verity & Nic are psychologists and family therapists who have specialised in relationship and sex therapy for more than 25 years. They have been working on their own relationship for more than 40 years and have two adult children.
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