You Lie

Valentine’s Day is next Sunday and I’ll be honest and say I’m not a huge fan. When I was young and silly, I always put so much pressure on the holiday to be a grand, romantic event straight out of the movies that my boyfriends always fell short of my expectations. So every year, I continued to grow weary of the holiday that did nothing but let me down.

Then I met my hubby and by the time Valentine’s Day rolled around when we were dating, I was mature enough to realize that you shouldn’t focus your love on one day a year. The celebration of love is something that needs to take place year round if you are going to stay happily married for the long haul.

Financial Infidelity Is On the Rise

I’m using the upcoming Valentine’s holiday, though, to acknowledge the struggles of money in relationships, specifically financial infidelity. This Friday on the podcast, I am talking to Paul Golden from the National Endowment for Financial Education or NEFE for short about the rising problem of financial infidelity.

According to a creditcards.com poll, 1 in 20 people admit to keeping a bank account or credit card hidden from a partner. They extrapolate that based on their results; this means that about 13 million people admit to committing financial infidelity. In NEFE’s own polling, 42% of respondents admit to hiding financial transactions or accounts from their significant others.

I’m not sure if these numbers shock anyone, but they certainly don’t shock me. Over the past four years of working as a financial planner, I’ve seen financial infidelity in all shapes and sizes. It starts as the benign hiding of small purchases here and there like coffee or clothes for the kids and grows to the cancerous hiding of credit cards or liability accounts.

I believe that the root causes of financial lying fall into one of two areas:

Entitlement
Fear of Judgment

Entitlement

I can honestly say that I committed financial infidelity out of entitlement issues. I felt that I worked hard for my money and I shouldn’t have to account for how I spend it. I was adamant around separate bank and credit card accounts so that I didn’t have to share all of my financial lies. The problem was that I was just lying to myself because I believed that my spending had nothing to do with my relationship.

The truth is, every dollar that’s spent in a relationship, impacts the relationship. When you are committed to someone and truly want to have a healthy relationship, you need to throw your financial entitlement out the door; otherwise, you’re just saying that your own spending is more important than the financial health and success of your family.

If you suffer from financial infidelity derived from entitlement, then I suggest that you create spending limits as a couple. Determine acceptable one-time spending amounts, like $50-100 where you don’t have to account to the other person about them, everything else should be discussed.

This may seem tedious initially; however, you will not only build greater trust in your relationship, but you will also build more wealth together as a couple because you’re focusing on spending together.

Fear of Judgment

It always amazes me how much information we share with our significant others, not to mention the fact that we get physically naked with them but we struggle with getting financially naked. We believe that our loved ones would judge our physical appearance less than our financial appearance, and I believe this is unfounded.

If you have large amounts of debt like credit cards or student loan debt, you should share this with someone before you commit to them for the long run. I know you may be afraid that they won’t love you, but if debt is going to prevent them from loving you, then this is not someone you want to spend the rest of your life with in the first place.

If your financial infidelity arises after your commitment, you need to spend some time and determine why you’re doing what you’re doing, and begin by having more money conversations with your significant other. I suggest regular money dates for my clients to get them comfortable talking about money topics. After a few of these, you will likely feel more open to sharing your money challenges.

However, if you think your financial infidelity is too significant to overcome on your own, I suggest bringing in a third party like a therapist, money coach or financial planner to help you work through this situation with your significant other. Sometimes the best way to work through a difficult topic is to bring in another voice that can help you find common ground to move forward.

Overcoming Financial Infidelity

At the end of the day, keeping financial transactions or accounts from the person you love is a form of lying. Some financial lies may seem more like a white lie while others seem more like a complete break in trust. No matter what type of financial infidelity you commit, the first step to overcoming it is to acknowledge that you have a problem and determine why it is that you commit it.

Once you figure out why you do this, start to have more money conversations with your significant other. Money talks are the best way to connect the gaps in your relationship. We share so much of our lives with our partner, yet we seem to share little about money and I see this money divide create big rifts in relationships.

After a few money talks, it will get easier to share more of your struggles; and remember that if the problem seems too big for you to handle alone, ask for professional help because it’s out there. Financial infidelity hurts relationships but with work and honest communication it can be overcome.