You have made a commitment to one another to be with each other and look after one another. What you some don’t realise it also means that you’re now working as a team on everything.
So many couples however don’t choose to work on their money as a team and let it drive a wedge between them.
I’ve seen it where one person in the relationship wants to get all of their money stuff sorted so they go to the effort of looking at all the numbers, setting up budgets, putting a plan in action but the other partner just continues down the wreck less path not caring about their spending and not getting involved.
The other thing I have seen recently is that one partner is choosing not to have money conversations with their partner for fear of potential fights, potential disappointment and thinking that the other partner just doesn’t want to know.
Neither of these situations are healthy…So what do you do if you find yourself if this situation? How do you manage the situation? How do you get a reluctant partner to be on your side? How do you overcome that fear to actually talk to your partner?
It comes down to these five things.
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Cool, Calm, Collected Conversations.
There is no point having a conversation about your money situation’s if you are heated, pissed off or in a bad mood. Same with your partner. It’s not going to result in good communication. Generally speaking, you try to have these conversation’s when your partner isn’t in the right frame of mind and that’s why it’s going to end up the way you dread.
Instead…book in a time to have the conversation. Choose a time when you know you’re both going to be able to be fully present to have the conversations. One great way is to have a ‘money date night’ where you can relax go out for a nice meal and then have the conversation. Or having a walk on the beach in the morning. The point is to choose a time when you are both in a good head space.
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Talk Frequently
Money conversations aren’t something that should happen once a year. We should be having these conversations regularly. If you have one of those partners that really hates these conversations start small by just having a once a month ‘money date’ and choose one aspect of your money to discuss at a time.
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Get them to come up with ideas.
A great way to get your partner on board is ask for help in a certain area, for example doing a budget. If you just give them one task to complete it is giving them ownership of that. Or ask them questions such as ‘Can you come up with a way to save us $50 a month?’.
By giving them ownership of a task it helps you to start working on this as a team rather than you just doing it all. You might find that they are more willing to help!
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Set Goals together
Get your partner to answer some simple questions to get them thinking about how they want to live in the future. Such as…
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How do you see us living in retirement?
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Where do you see us in 10 years?
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What does success mean to you?
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How do you see us getting to be ‘successful’?
This will get them to start to think about ‘what they truly want’, by knowing what they truly want, they might start to see that there are steps that they have to take in order to get there. This is a great way to get someone to naturally come to make a decision for themselves.
Then you work out goals together, whilst it’s also great to have some separate financial goals yourself, work initially getting some common goals, have them written down and that can be something you can discuss regularly about your money, keeping the both of you on track.
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Compromise
It’s not always going to go along swimmingly, you both will need to learn to compromise. Money is one of the biggest causes of relationships to end. Just because you might not always see eye to eye with your partner on the subject doesn’t mean that either of you are right or wrong, some people just see things differently. That is why we have to learn to compromise. Learn to take each other’s perspectives in, it might not always be how you want to do it, but if you can get them to start working on their money and having the conversations isn’t that the biggest hurdle overcome.
If you would like to know more about learning how to get your spending under control and stop that feeling of having never having quite enough then look at the Trust Your Money Program HERE.
