Relationships: Talking About Money - as part of the expert series by GeoBeats.
People think that sexual issues are the biggest source of conflict in a relationship, but actually it is money. Money is number one. Each of us come to our relationships with a money history. We have had experiences around money, around the value of money, about whether it is hard to earn money or easy to earn money, whether you need to hold onto money or spend it on frivolous things. There are a huge number of things that we have learned from our families and from the culture that we bring to our relationships.
In fact, when Gay and I first got together, we realized that our money scripts, that is what we had both learned, was almost exactly the same. Our parents had both grown up in the Depression, and my mother and his mother had both been given $5.00 to go to the grocery store, to get the groceries for the week. That will let you know how long ago that was. They had lost the money, and it had been a huge family drama that they still remembered. My mother, for example, had this very stingy money script where she kept track of every, literally every, penny that she spent, and never really felt that money was a source of abundance for her. It was always something that she was scared about.
So, I think it is really important in your primary relationship, whether it is with a friend, or whether it is in your romantic partnership, or even in a business, to let yourself explore what are your money scripts and what did you learn that you are unconsciously repeating now. One of ours was that we noticed that we had enough money at the end of the month when we first got together. We would have just enough at the end of the month, and we realized that that was how it was when we were growing up. There was just enough money. So, examining your money script is a really valuable thing that you can do.
What you can do, also, is to combine your resources. We have worked with a tremendous number of people who have separate accounts. Any kind of secrecy that you have in your money, that you are not communicating about to each other, is really going to influence the amount of abundance that you are able to create together. So, a lot of people will recommend that you have a budget and that you stay within your budget. What we have found is even more valuable than focusing on saving up to have what you want, is to really think about what is it that we want to create together? How is it that we can increase our energy flow? And we have found that money follows energy.
So, for example, if you are rich in appreciation of each other, if you are abundant in the generosity of how you share with each other, and the gifts, even the non-money gifts, that you give to each other, the gifts of appreciation, the gifts of kindness that you give to each other, that increases your money flow, because it is really all the same flow. All of it comes out of the same breath and movement and attention that you have in your primary relationship. So, one thing that we did, that we really want to recommend to you, is that you stop arguing about money with each other, because money is a great place where people get into control struggles and power struggles with each other, about who is going to control the money supply. Who is in charge of the checkbook? You know, how much money can we spend? And it contracts you, rather than letting you be in the flow of money is coming in, money is going out to what you really want.
We have focused on what is it that we can contribute that is going to create and ever-increasing flow of money. So, when Gay and I got together, I just want to let you know where we started. I had a Mustang that was leaking oil, and $327.00 in the bank when I moved to Colorado to join Gay, and Gay had just had one of his credit cards repossessed. So, that was it. That was what we started with. Over the years of putting our attention into, “How can we really generate something of value,” and “How can we increase the flow of money by increasing the flow of abundance and wealth in our appreciations, in our contributions to each other,” it has increased our flow to the extent now that we live in a house that we love, that we have completely paid for. We have no debt. We are now at a place where we can put most of our attention on, “How is it that we want to support others in generating abundance in their own lives?”
So, we share with you the kinds of things that we have learned, and that we continue to use in our relationship everyday. But, the most important thing is to let yourself acknowledge the fears that you have about money, and the mythology that you have about money. People have the strangest ideas about money. I mean, I used to think that if my mother wanted more money she should just write a check, because I thought that was the equivalent of money, we just write another check. I think our economy today, I think a lot of people also believe that. They just write a check and think the money is going to come from someplace. But, flow and money and abundance really comes from you valuing yourself, you are making a contribution, and you really letting yourself create together with your partner the kinds of things that come from your creativity, which is something that you can keep growing all the time.
