10 Helpful Tips To Arguing About Money

We All Argue Sometimes

Tips on arguing about money? Yes! Arguing in a relationship is inevitable, and as money is deeply personal and emotional, arguing about money in a relationship is also inevitable. Instead of avoiding arguing altogether, you can equip yourself to argue in a way that is more constructive and less harmful. Being able to fight fairly, compassionately, and vulnerably is an important relational skill.

Some of the following tips can be implemented in the moment while others require ongoing work and self-reflection. These tips will not prevent you from arguing, rather they will help you to have more conversations about money that simply feel good.

• Read Fight Right: How Successful Couples Turn Conflict into Connection by Dr. Julie Gottman and Dr. John Gottman

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10 Helpful Tips To Arguing About Money

1. Self-Awareness

When arguing about money, couples often think that they are talking about the numbers or the budget. In actuality, feelings are pouring out - through tone of voice, body language, rising heart rate, dissociation, etc. These feelings actually drive the conversation and the resulting outcome.

Self-awareness can help substantially during financial conflict. Learning and knowing your financial beliefs, fears, needs, and triggers will enable you to be more present, communicative, and vulnerable throughout the conversation. You can always grow in your relationship to money, and exploring your relationship to money will help you to better express your financial shame or financial anxiety to your partner in the moment.

• Read Financial Shame

• Talk with your therapist or a Certified Financial Therapist about your relationship to money

2. Identify The Actual Problem

If you and your partner are arguing about the $7 that your partner spent on coffee this morning, you are not arguing about money. Pause the conversation, and identify, within yourselves, the actual problem. Perhaps you feel betrayed and disappointed that your partner said that they would change their spending habits yet continue to make daily unnecessary expenditures. Or perhaps you feel frustrated and exploited, as your partner is not working and financially contributing to the household. Or perhaps you feel anxious and insecure about your partner spending money, as you grew up with a financially anxious single parent. And these are just your feelings! Consider how your partner may feel - powerless, guilty, ashamed, resentful, or inadequate. Regardless of how each of you feel, ultimately you are not arguing about $7. You are not arguing about coffee.

• When a financial argument arises or escalates, ask to pause the conversation for 10 or 15 minutes. Use that time to consider how you feel.

3. Do Not Fight Emotion With Logic

If your partner expresses feelings of shame, worry, or anxiety about money, all the logic and spreadsheets in the world will not help. In fact, it is most likely that your logic and spreadsheets will have the opposite impact, resulting in your partner feeling misunderstood, helpless, or frustrated.

When your partner expresses their feelings about money, they want to feel heard and understood. It can be difficult to fight the urge to ‘fix’ the ‘problem.’ However, remember that usually, when we want to quickly ‘solve’ our partner’s feelings, it is due to our own feelings of discomfort.

• Regulate your own emotions

• Identify and validate your partner’s feelings

• Ask your partner, “how can I best support you right now?”

4. Do Not Fight Logic With Emotion

If your partner wants to review your net worth or debt pay down approach together, sharing your emotions may be counter-productive at this time. Your feelings of worry, anxiety, fear, and shame are real, and there is a time and place to express them. If every time you and your partner start discussing money, you become emotionally heightened, it will be difficult to have a constructive conversation. Your partner may avoid future financial conversations or feel hurt, annoyed, or frustrated that you are unable to meet them in this discussion.

Of course, shutting off your feelings is not possible. Fortunately, the goal is not to shut off your feelings entirely. Instead, strive to be present to the conversation and task at hand.

• Regulate your own emotions

  • If you need time to regulate your emotions, ask your partner for a 15 minute break from the conversation, so you can reset and refocus. Use the 15 minute break to move your body and drink some water.

• Identify your financial triggers and communicate them to your partner

5. Accept That You Are Both Right

In personal finance, there are no universal truths, no rights and wrongs, no ‘should’s. There is only our unique experiences and identities which have shaped our financial beliefs and feelings and our relationship to money. If your partner wants to pay off student loan debt before investing in a Roth IRA while you want to pay off student loan debt and invest in a Roth IRA at the same time, you are both right - how frustrating! Or, how liberating!

Accepting that you are both right in your own way allows you to be stronger together than separate. You both add value and merit to the conversation and decision making. You both have blind spots that the other person can help you to see.

• Recognize and validate your partner’s perspective

• Express appreciation for your partner’s perspective, although you may not agree with them

6. Me + You, not Me > You

Always remember that you and your partner are on the same team. If you feel like you, individually, have ‘won’ the argument, then as a team you have both lost. If just one of you leaves the conversation feeling hurt or unheard, you have both lost.

Approach financial conversations with a collaborative mindset, with the hope and goal of better understanding one another. Ask your partner questions from a place of curiosity rather than a place of judgment. Give your partner the benefit of the doubt - assume that they are not making accusations, that they have a more complicated relationship with money than you currently know or understand, that they want to work together with you. Hear your partner. Be vulnerable.

7. Blame and Accountability

Blame and accountability go hand in hand. Avoid placing financial blame on your partner. Aside from abusive relationships, financial circumstances and financial conflict are rarely (if ever) entirely one person’s fault. In fact, both people play a part in the dynamic. Oftentimes, people assume that the ‘spender’ in the relationship is entirely the ‘problem’. This is not the case. Sometimes, ‘spenders’ are not in fact spenders at all. Rather their partner underspends - for example, not replacing basic household necessities due to a scarcity mindset or financial hoarding - ultimately resulting in one person spending more to overcompensate.

Avoid blaming altogether. Similarly, take accountability for your actions. Taking accountability for your actions creates a space where both people can be vulnerable, honest, and humble. If both people are able to take accountability, you will make swift progress!

8. Lifelong Relationships

Your relationship with your partner is lifelong as is your relationship to money. Your relationship with your partner impacts your relationship to money. For example, if your partner is money avoidant, you may feel obligated to manage household finances, leaving you feeling incompetent and incapable. Similarly, your relationship to money impacts your relationship with your partner. For example, working towards financial goals together can help you feel more connected and increase emotional intimacy.

Keep all of this in mind during a financial argument. That change takes time. That your words matter. That some arguments are not worth having (pick and choose your battles). That you are in this relationship for the long haul. That sometimes you will not and cannot come to a resolution. That you can always come back to the conversation another day. That you care about one another.

9. Work With A Couples Financial Therapist

If you and your partner continue to argue about money and feel like you are having the same arguments over and over again, you may benefit from working with a financial couples therapist, who can offer unbiased support and new perspectives. A financial therapist is not a financial advisor and cannot legally give you financial advice. However, a financial therapist can help you to better communicate about money, become more aligned, and identify financial goals and a path towards achieving those goals together.

• Search for a Certified Financial Therapist through the Financial Therapy Association

• Google ‘financial therapist near me’

10. Commit to Repair and Connection

Following a financial argument (or any argument for that matter), committing to repair and connection is essential. Their are many ways to repair and connect following an argument. Find the approach that works best for you and your partner. Consider the following ways to commit to repair…

• Apologize

• Listen reflectively

• Validate your partner’s feelings

Consider the following ways to commit to connection…

• Physical touch

• Remove yourselves from the physical space where the argument took place

• Engage a shared activity that you both enjoy

• Go on a walk together