Welcome back to Modern Financial Wellness. I'm your host Jim Grace and I am joined by Dr. Christine Hargrove is back on the show. Thank you so much for coming back. Last time we, we spoke it was just Christine Hargrove. So now it's, it's Dr. So congratulations on finish finishing that up. It's great to see you again.

It's great to see you too. It's fun.

So last time we got together we were talking about couples and money and ADHD specifically. And real quick, to this day I think that's still the most downloaded listened to shared engaged with episode we've ever put out. So thank you for your expertise and I think it's the work that you do really lands with people out there and the, you know, people in my orbit. So we appreciate that. We're going to stay on the topic of couples and money this time but with a slightly different focus. And you just put out some new research and I was really excited to talk to you about it. It came across like all good things, my radar on LinkedIn these days. I think that's how a lot of us in the professional world are getting access to information.

So the study is titled Breadwinning and Bean Counting Exploring Perceived Couple Financial Stress Allocation in a Clinical Sample. So can you tell us a little bit about the study, what you and your co authors were thinking, hoping to accomplish? Where did this research kind of originate in the beginning?

Yeah. So the research originated, I would say the idea for the research originated just from my an hour clinical experience and professional experience in working directly with couples regarding their money, their financial stress, their relationship, like all of these dynamics. So the, the questions of like what, what is actually going on here came from experience. And we also had a data set that had like a really robust set of data over years at the Aspire Clinic, now known as the Love and Money Center. So it's grown, it's expanded, it's now a center, not just a clinic. So we had this robust data set that actually had some questions in there that lots of people had answered that enabled us to dig into some of the, like, what's really going on from the clinical experience side or the professional experience. We were able to dig into them and actually put some data to the test to see like, no, seriously, what's going on with all of these people. And so there are a few major concepts that are important to understand to then unpack.

So one is the idea of couple financial stress. So a lot of times if you look into the research, people will talk about financial stress, but they really are looking at individual reports of the individual financial stress. But people who are in couple relationships, especially where they're married or something, where they're sharing their finances, so they have these pooled finances. It could be hybrid, like lots of different variations. But you really aren't thinking about my money and my spouse's money in quite that divided away. You're thinking about the financial stress that faces us. So even, I mean, I would say I work, I work with a lot of different couples and even ones that have somewhat separate finances, they're still aware that there's a household level of financial stress. So like, if one partner is really dealing with some, some major financial stress that's really felt by the couple.

Right.

Even if they're not talking about it.

Right.

It's felt within the dynamics of the relationship.

Right.

You can't avoid the vibe in the room.

Right, exactly. And so it's, it's kind of this shared experience of like financial stress is kind of this like shared ownership. So that's one thing. So couple financial stress is something that's important to understand that kind of how that works. It's not just two people, like one plus one equals two. It's really like one plus one equals one.

Right, right.

Which I think is really important to kind of nail down. And real quick, I just want to say I see this in my practice all the time. I was really intrigued to kind of dig into this because in my anecdotal experience in the clients that I work with, this conversation and it comes up regularly. And I'm glad that we kind of define that couple stress dynamic because I think it's very real and I see that in my practice as well. So I'm glad you clarified that.

Yeah, well, I'm glad to hear that. I'm not surprised that you hear it. I'm glad that you catch on, you know, that you're really present with that. So like a secondary thought is that in the. We call, we talk about perceived couple financial stress allocation. And that was only because we couldn't come up with like a snazzier way to say it. But it's.

You have to name it something.

Right.

Gosh, I know. I, I tried and tried and I just ran out of ideas for like how to make this more succinct, but also still academic because it's going in peer reviewed. We're going to submit it to peer reviewed journals, which it made it, you know, made it through. And it's great. Right. But what that really is is so you've got this one plus one equals one in the couple financial stress. And then each partner kind of has a perception of how much of the couple financial stress they take on. So I was talking with Brian Page last week and we were talking about, like, the mental load.

Right. So that's kind of a con, a concept that's been established regarding, you know, maybe childcare, housework, all the, you know, a lot of things like that. And that's kind of what this is. Like, how much does each partner feel that of the. What percentage do they feel like they're responsible for handling it?

And is that. Should we think about that? As in how much the individual partner. It's a perception. It might not be reality.

Right.

It's how they feel about what their level of load, mental load, or financial stress is. It's not necessarily based in the reality of what's going on.

Yes. And that's incredibly important to tease out. So we weren't looking at objective financial burden, like how much that that lands and, and actually, like, honestly, in real life, there's a level at which this is a whole lot more relevant, keeping it subjective, than to try to, you know, follow people around and have this objective measure. Right. Nobody does that anyway. Everybody's.

Yeah.

And I mean, subjective to me, almost feels like that's more reality.

Right.

If that's how you feel, then that's what it is. Right. Whether or not the balance or of the scale is equal, if one person perceives that they're carrying more of the load, that's going to potentially cause some challenges and some issues, right?

Oh, for sure. Yeah. And we fight from the subjective. So the subjective matters. The objective matters too, but the subjective is really important. So we have this perceived couple financial stress allocation, and that's really what that question gets at. And then the. The third concept is financial roles.

So that's not really anything new, I think, you know, Christy Archuleta talked about it a lot in about a decade, a little over a decade ago. I mean, it was a wonderful work on these different financial roles that people can take within a couple. And so we pulled two of them. So one of them was the breadwinner. There's literature about breadwinner pressure. This kind of internal feeling of like, man, this stuff lands on me. I've got to make the money, I've got to bring in the income. I've got to make sure that my job is stable.

Like, there's. There's some stress associated with that. Right. There's a sense of responsibility. And there's also, we went with bean counting rather than the, there is some literature talking about like a household cfo.

And that's how I most commonly refer to it with clients. And so tell me more about beancounter and why you picked that specifically.

Well, honestly, it was because the question specifically asked about the percentage or the proportion of day to day financial management responsibilities, your risk that you have to handle.

Okay.

So it wasn't about long term financial planning, it wasn't about making sure that you've got like appropriate levels of life and disability coverage. It wasn't about any of that. It was just the day to day stuff. And so just like, you know, an accountant is different from a bookkeeper is different from a cfo. Like we wanted to make it clear this is not necessarily the person who is responsible for or maybe even has the sort of delegated authority to make these big huge long term financial decisions. This is just the day to day financial management. So it could be the same person that also looks at the investment, but it's not always. And I did look into the literature about how often do these roles converge about the day to day versus the long term.

And like they're not always the same. So we kept it really specifically about the bean counting.

Yeah, yeah.

So would that role be the equivalent of the bookkeeper in the household? Somebody managing the day to day, paying the bills, doing the budget, writing the checks? Yeah, got it. Okay.

Exactly, exactly. So the question was looking at the perceived couple financial stress allocation. So how much of the sort of stress do you feel like it's your job to handle or that you bear on behalf of the couple relationship? Is that more associated with a breadwinner role or a bean counting role? And there were definitely people who both did more of the breadwinning and more of the bean counting. So the questions were sort of you versus your partner on a line, you and your partner, how much, how much do you bear versus your, your partner? And it, and we, we tested it every which way. We controlled for any significant demographic characteristics. Then we added in financial like perceived financial well being, which doesn't quite get at. It's more of an overall subjective view of like we're doing okay financially.

Right, right.

And what we found was that no matter which way we tested it, the bean counting role was significantly associated with that perceived couple financial stress allocation. So. But not the breadwinning. So if you were the bean counter, if you feel like I'm the bean counter in the relationship, you're probably pretty likely to feel like you shoulder more of the financial stress burden on behalf of both yourself and your partner.

Got it.

But if you're the breadwinner, that's a flip of a coin. Like it's not really necessarily associated with.

Not to say that there isn't any perceived stress. As you mentioned in literature, it's been looked at and there is stress and responsibility felt by the breadwinner to earn the money. Right. So it's not that it's non existent, it's just that the person in that role perceives that the level of stress, they have a greater allocation of stress, given their role as the bean counter than the breadwinner.

Well, the breadwinner may be feeling individual financial stress, they may be feeling individual financial pressure, but that like on behalf of the couple, the bean counting role, that association was so strong. And the breadwinner role, we were controlling for income, we were controlling for all these other things that might have also informed that. And the breadwinner role, it wasn't connected to you feeling like you're the umbrella for your partner in terms of like shield. We're gonna, I'm gonna shield us from this financial stress. This is my thing that I gotta handle. It just wasn't quite there. But the bean counter role was.

And why do you think that is?

I think that for many people, I will say setting aside the entrepreneurial couples that I work with, because I feel like that's a whole other thing. And I did not, I was not like we weren't able to control for that. And I, I would love to do a study on, on entrepreneurial couples as a, that's a whole other thing because I work with so many of them. But I think for many breadwinners the salary is something that you interact with less. So there might be something that you're thinking about being the breadwinner if there's a problem. But you know, on a day to day basis, you may earn more than your partner, you may earn two or three times as much as your partner, but you're not necessarily interacting with that salary. It's not always top of mind. And you're not necessarily thinking like I'm going to work and doing this work to protect my partner from the stress that we face.

But when you're paying those bills and you are timing your, timing your bill payment, you're thinking like, okay, when can I move money? Can I move money now? Okay, I can't move money now. I gotta wait until this next paycheck hits. And Then I've got this other thing coming up and the car insurance is gonna be due and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna have to renegotiate it. There's so many touch points and there are so many threats to it that feel like if I mess this up, we will both feel it like you're, you're thinking more of an us. Because if the car insurance isn't paid, it's going to be a problem for all of the drivers in the household.

Right.

Whereas if you miss out on, I don't know, like a slight commission bump, you may be thinking of your partner as well. You may be thinking of the household, but you also may just be thinking of like, ah, shooting.

That's a bummer.

Right?

But I still have a job. There's always next quarter.

Right.

You just kind of move along in that scenario. Yeah. I often think about it because as a CFP in a couple, I've defaulted into the bean counter and the CFO of the household and both. And that's. And I've talked about this on the podcast early on in our relationship, that actually caused a lot of problems because we stopped talking about money, which is a whole other podcast episode that I don't want to rehash. But one of the things that I always am struck by is when I take a look at our budget apps and I, I use a handful of them because we recommend a couple different ones to clients, and I'm kind of a nerd like that. But just the sheer volume of financial transactions that happen in our household on a week to week, month to month basis is always really shocking to me. And one of the goals that I regularly have for myself is just to eliminate the number of transactions that are happening.

It's just a wave of constant tracking and categorizing. Amazon purchases, subscriptions, bills that are regularly due. It's just a lot to manage. And it's always really surprising to me how big that role is. And it seems to be kind of coming up here in our conversation that it's just, it's just a lot to manage as the bean counter. It's a big job.

Yeah, it is, it is. And I think, you know, you, you asked earlier about how to extend that into meaningful information for couples who are dealing with, I mean, everybody's dealing with money on some level. And I think that that awareness and appreciation for what a big role it can feel like it is. And also that for so many bean counters, you know, like when you are categorizing those Transactions. It doesn't necessarily feel to you like I'm doing this for me. It feels like I'm doing this for us. And having being able to acknowledge how much effort that is for your partner. And not just that you're doing it for you, like, hey, I'm watching you do something for you.

It's like I'm watching you do something for us, right? And whether or not I could do it too, whether, you know, the chips fall where they may, that you are, you are contributing to our relationship, you are contributing to our lifestyle in a way that benefits me and that you're thinking of me, you know, even just kind of your assumptions about like, this is our money, I'm categorizing our transactions. You're not just categorizing only yours all the time. I think that that awareness of it goes a long way.

Right.

And I also, when I don't know what it was exactly like in the beginning, I can think of, like, conversations my husband and me, husband and me, when we were getting started, you know, kind of remember on this. But often what I see with couples is that. So when you're looking at the bean counter, what we know now about how bean counters tend to feel almost like naturally feel like, okay, I handle more of the financial stress. Like, I take more arrows than you. It doesn't mean you don't take any. It just means that, like, I kind of take more just because of the role. Right. Often what will happen is one partner who is more of the bean counter will come into the conversation feeling that sense of, I kind of take more arrows than you and I, and I'm willing to do it.

I may be the best person for it, but like, I'm coming into it feeling like I'm doing more, I'm responsible for more. And the other partner who's maybe not seeing that or is thinking about all of the things that they are doing, they're thinking it's 50, 50. So now you've got these two base level assumptions that are honest and make perfect sense. But what that when one person comes in thinking 50, 50, and the other person is coming in thinking like 70, 30, that immediately feels like being taken for granted. Ingratitude, lack of investment, you don't care and you want me to be grateful for what? What? I don't even know what I'm supposed. Like, you're so mad at me and I don't understand why.

Right?

And this, I mean, this is mental accounting or scorekeeping that's kind of happening. And oftentimes I'm sure, not necessarily being talked about. And that's how couplers are. Are coming to the table to talk about money.

Right.

That is in the background at the beginning of the conversation, spoken or unspoken, it doesn't really make for the ground for a really good, healthy conversation about money, if that's where we're coming from. Is it in your perspective?

I think that it is a more. It doesn't make for. It makes for, like, fertile ground for a fight is what it does.

Right, Right.

But I also think that what I see is that couples, Individuals will personalize this of, you know, maybe the bean counter is feeling like, okay, I. I definitely do, like, 70, 30. And honestly, like, I don't know, they might. Like, I'm not objective. Kind of doesn't matter. They. They feel like they're doing 70, 30, and the other person feels like, we do 50, 50, and now they get into an argument about objective facts. Well, you don't see, I do this, this, and this.

Well, you don't see, I do this, this, and this. And what we're missing here is that there are some broader Trends of that 70, 30 sort of bias and how you perceive, like, the arrows that you take and how hard, you know, how much they hurt and how frequently you take them. It's not because your partner is doing something wrong. It's not because maybe you have, you know, your partner's making too many transactions or whatever it is. You people kind of fixate on something that they feel like, here's evidence.

Keep going out for coffee every day. And yeah, yeah, like.

And so we start taking it personally because it feels like, I know that this, like, 70, 30, or maybe 60, 40 feels so true. And it must be something that you're doing or our, you know, our life. We take it personally. And it's actually, like, it's probably just because you're the bean counter. It doesn't mean that those things aren't true. But, like, this is. I mean, I'm more likely to get sunburned. I mean, yeah, my behavior is part of it.

Like, there's. Right. But, like, there's a level at which, like, I'm just fair and freckled and like, yeah, it's because this is the skin I got.

Yeah.

And as a bean counter, you've got a tough job.

Right.

It's a. It's a challenging, important role within the household.

Right.

How, I guess, would it be helpful to. For folks, if we talked a little bit about how would couples go about defining these roles and in the very beginning, just trying to get an understanding of who's doing what.

Right.

So it sounds like. Or maybe there is a first step that I'm missing, but it sounds like trying to get an understanding of these roles within your household would be a good starting point for couples to think about. And do you have any ideas on how they might go about doing that?

Yeah, you're absolutely on track. So there's even research and later I can send you some of the articles. So there's research that shows that. So financial roles are not necessarily a problem. They actually can be really good. And so there are a lot of. There are a lot of couples that do it kind of every which way. The main thing is if couples are clear on what their financial roles are and if they're both satisfied with the roles.

Because if you like being the bean counter and you feel like I'm good at it, I like it. Kind of like I get to scratch that itch. Like I'm going to go back and check everything anyway. That doesn't mean it's a burden. It probably still means that you're going to be perceiving that you're, you know, taking more arrows. And that's like, it just is what it is.

But you might be able to balance that out with the idea that you're making a contribution. I have the expertise and can contribute to the household in this way and therefore kind of balance out that perspective. Perceive stress of the role itself.

Yeah. And when you, when you define these roles, particularly then you let a little bit of research inform. You know, your wife can be like, oh, right, so he's the bean counter. So he's probably going to naturally feel like he's taking on more of the financial stress burden. Regardless of what other amazing things I do, it actually doesn't have anything to do with whether or not I'm financially responsible. It's just because that's like, this is kind of a side effect of the job.

Right.

That's gonna, you know, that's always gonna be there. And if we switched roles, I would feel that way too. It's just the way that, that sort of seems to work. Defining the roles and then being aware of like, not just what it, what is the role, but any of the kind of associated side effects of the role. So there's, there's stress associated with being breadwinner. Being the breadwinner. It actually tends to be more like a tendency to depression like that. So it's, there are some negative things.

There's some positive Things, too. But, you know, when you define those roles, there are some inherent kind of biases or risks that come with those roles. And it's not personal to you, anything you did right or wrong. It's just kind of a little bit of how it comes and so defining those roles. So for couples, what do you, like, what are you good at? And I think that it is really helpful. And I actually think I'm going to say this thing. And it's also one of those easier said than done issues by a factor of like a thousand. So it is advice, but, like, it's hard.

So when you set the role, be able to share with your partner or even come together and have a little bit of a decision tree, if things aren't going well in that role, what are the things that you think could go wrong? And then having, like a bit of a threat assessment, and this is like, it's better done ahead of time than in the moment because nobody thinks clearly when they're super stressed out. So what I mean is, you know, in the breadwinner role, let's say you're in the breadwinner role. You know, here are the things that could go wrong. I could lose my job. I could, you know, be on a performance improvement plan. I could find out that the company was embezzling money and quit on the spot and have no unemployment. Like there are. And so.

And then categorizing each one of those things, like yellow means, like, if this happens a lot, I need to start, you know, making some other plans. Orange, maybe like one, two, no more than three strikes, and we're gonna, we're gonna cut bait on that one. And red is immediate. Right. Like coming home and being like, I quit my job today because I don't want to end up in jail and my bosses are crooks.

Right, Right.

And so categorizing those types of threats to your role and having different ideas ahead of time for how both you and your partner could contribute to coping. Right. Because if you feel, if you're the breadwinner, I'm just picking on the bread. The breadwinner now. So we're not only picking on the bean counter.

Yeah.

If you feel like if anything goes wrong with this job, we're going to lose the house, we're going to lose our 401ks, we're going to be on the street. Like, if that's where. If you have no actual concept other than it's terrible and I'm the only person who can do anything about it, then anytime there's a threat, you're going to feel farther away from your partner and you're going to not want to talk about it with your partner. If you do, you're just going to try to scare them because you're so scared. But if you've worked on that, like, tree, you can bring it to your partner and say, hey, there's some things going on at work. We've already got an idea of how to talk about these things. I want to bring it to you so that we can start to cope.

Yeah, yeah.

As I'm listening, listening to you describe that situation too. It sounds like a great opportunity for couples to work together and bring their particular role or expertise to the table. So if you're in a situation where your job just isn't untenable, is untenable for whatever reason, you're not happy, doesn't bring you meaning or joy. They're embezzling money. There's a whole spectrum of things that could be going on at work, but you feel like you're sitting there stuck because you're the breadwinner. And if you leave your job for some reason, then the house goes away or 401ks are gone. As you described, we're out on the street. I find a lot of times that that's not the case for a lot of people.

And because couples are not communicating and going through an ex like this together to really understand the situation they're in both emotionally and financially, then people just kind of sit in that situation because they feel like they need to. To continue to take on this role. So as I'm listening to you describe this, this exercise, it sounds like a really good way for both partners to come to the table and bring their expertise as either a bread winner or a bean counter or CFO to kind of support one another through those things and have a plan ahead of time together. I think where a lot of couples get into trouble is like they're having these conversations in their head by themselves and they just sit there forever.

Exactly right. And, you know, it's, it's the, the other. So that that kind of allows you to work together on the solutions, but it also allows your partner to fact check some of your assumptions. Because a lot of times when we're afraid, we have put our partner in a. We've given them a script. And that script may not actually be the lines that they would want to say in real life or that they would say in real life. So, for example, like, if I lose my job, my spouse is going to hate me. They're going to be disappointed in me.

They're no longer going to be attracted to me. It's going to, if they have to go and like switch jobs so that our kids can stay in the school that they're in, they're going to hate their jobs, they're going to become depressed, they're going to turn into a shell of themselves. Like we can really spin stories about how our partner will react and how much they will resent us for not keeping into the role that we think we're supposed to stay in. And when you can have those conversations, it can give couples, especially if you have them before it happens.

Ideally. Right?

Yeah. I mean, you know, better late than never. But you know, it first gives, that, gives that partner an opportunity to say like, well, here's what I would think. Here's what I think I would say I might struggle with this, but here's, here's where I would land. And I wouldn't necessarily hate changing jobs. I can't say that it would be my number one. But like, I would do it. And I think the other part is when you're in this kind of, especially like a long term household, you're running a, you know, coupleship Inc.

Right. Like you're running your own kind of family business. In a way we forget and we, we fear that our partner loves their life more than they love us.

Can you say more about that?

We're afraid that if we break the mold, our partner will reject and discard us. And so when we have this opportunity to say, so let's say, you know, one of your clients is in a just an untenable work situation. It's miserable. They're, you know, dealing with verbal abuse every day. They're turning into a shallow themselves. But they're like, I'm the breadwinner, I've got to do this. If they actually were able to talk about it with their spouse, particularly ahead of time, of like, you know, if my work, if I'm crying every day on the way home from work or something, you know, that gives the partner an opportunity to say, I love you so much. I would never want that for you.

I would happily work an extra job. I would happily uber if it meant that you could live your life and be a whole person. Like, there, there is no job or no amount of money that is worth losing the person that I'm living my life with.

Yeah.

And those are things that when we feel afraid when we're in that situation, we don't say those Things to ourselves. It really needs to be the partner who comes in and says, like, I don't know what script you're reading from what you think I care about, but I think I need to correct it. You matter more than the money you make.

I've actually seen that in my practice. I had a client that was involved in a startup, and he invested a lot of money into it and just. It didn't work. And at the end, we were trying to figure out, all right, what money needs to be moved around. Do we need to sell the house? And I was always really pleasantly, just really surprised and in awe of the relationship that he had with his wife, to the point that they were like, well, we'll sell the house. We're nearing retirement. We always wanted to travel the country. Maybe we'll sell the house and get a camper van and just do that.

And they were both on board, and that was okay.

Right?

And I thought to myself, man, if I lost my job in the house, I don't know that I'd be able to talk to my wife about this. And here's this woman that is more than willing to, like, I don't. Whatever. As long as we're together and healthy and the kids are good, who cares? It's just a house. And it was like a beautiful example, I think, of what you're describing here, of being more in love with the person than the lifestyle that they're currently living.

That's a great way to put it. That is a great way to put it. I love that.

Yeah. Yeah.

So we're having these conversations. We're defining these roles, thinking about what could go wrong.

Right?

So if it's the breadwinner, I could lose a job. What does that look like? If it's the bean counter, maybe we're missing a payment here or there. I mean, what's the end of the world? If we're late on a credit card, we pay an extra fee.

Right.

Or maybe we have to go out and get new insurance if we miss that premium.

Right.

Again, having that conversation up front about the role, what the threats are, where do we. Where do we maybe go from there? Are there additional resources that we should help people introduce to people here that they can think about when they're thinking about these roles as breadwinners and bean.

Counters, I think the next step, you need to have some plans for what you're going to do when things go well. It is so easy to focus only on avoiding threats and. And not about, you know, to lose sight of Celebrating the wins and celebrating, you know, expressing gratitude, expressing appreciation, but not just expressing it of like, yeah, thanks very much for making money. Or, you know, but like, this is an us. Like, we celebrate the wins, we cope with the losses. Like, this is a. Just like the couple experiences financial stress, the couple can experience financial success or even just emotional success for what we've done for one another, how we live our life together. So definitely making time for celebration.

And I would say the third thing that I think is really important, it's again, hard to do, but that's why folks like you do, what you do is create transparency. Not just about the outcome, but about the work that was done to achieve it. So I love the apps. Like, I really, I like Monarch, I like a lot of other ones, but especially if they can have, where both people can see, see and see the level of effort. And the same thing is true for engaging in long term financial planning, engaging in career development. Where do I want to go? What do I want to do? What? Like these are things that even if your partner isn't telling you what to do, talking with them and sharing transparently, like, here's what I'm thinking, here's where I want to go and here's where I think it'll take us, having that transparency. So both partners feel like they're invested in each other's lives and both partners can appreciate the work that's gone into it.

Yeah, that's such a great point. One of the things I've tried to do recently is start to document how clients are feeling about their financial situation, especially if they're a couple, when they come into the practice as a prospect or a potential client, and then how much better they feel when we just load them into our financial planning software or get them aggregated in Monarch before we do any long term planning, before we do any analysis or making recommendations. Because I wish I had data on that. But I would say the vast majority of clients that come to me with some financial stress, particularly in a couple, or they're not on the same page, or they're having trouble communicating about money, which could be a different thing. But the vast majority of those clients just don't have transparency, shared transparency of what the actual situation is.

Right.

I can't stress that point enough, how far that goes, just to be on the same page with real information and just be aware of what's going on. And then if you couple that, you know to your point, as you start to do the work with some gratitude and shared appreciation, it can go a long way. But I'm always shocked how much better if people feel. In the very. The second meeting, we've got them aggregated into the software, and it's like, oh, okay, all right. Everybody's shoulders go down, they start to breathe a little bit easier, and then we move forward into the rest of the planning process. But it goes so far.

I love that. I love that. I think that's absolutely true. And, you know, having someone who can walk with you, especially if that person really knows what they're doing, like, that's just. That's absolutely invaluable. And I think that part of what happens. And I see this. I see this in couples between partners, and I think maybe it's a little bit easier when they're working with somebody like you who knows what he's doing.

And, you know, like, you do this all the time. You're really neutral. So often we're afraid to look at the numbers or we're afraid to look at the data because. And we're afraid to share that with somebody else because we assume that the intention for wanting to know or needing to know the data is to judge. So, like, you're. You're trying to figure out some way to put me on the hot seat. Like, that. That's the assumption.

And so, like, in a couple. And that's not actually what you're trying to do. That's. That's not what's happening. But a lot of times in a couple, there will be one partner who maybe. Whether they're talking about their own, especially at the beginning, where you've got, like, a couple trying to merge finances. And so, yeah, you're like, let's do some financial transparency. If they're working with another person, then it's, like, easier.

But if they're trying to talk about it between them, themselves.

Right.

Hey, I need you to. Oh, God.

Yeah. No, that. Yeah, like, I need you to, like, show me. I don't know, show me your credit card statements or something. And it's like, why do you want to know?

Right?

Like, you. You don't. Trust me. You don't. There's this assumption of negative intent, and often the other person honestly just wants to know. Like, I just want to understand. Like, I want to have some visibility. I'm not even trying to make decisions.

I just. It feels uncomfortable that I have no idea what's going on. And so. Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, I was just gonna say. And I feel myself saying that very regularly in conversations with clients that this is a nonjudgmental exercise. We're not even trying to budget yet. We're just trying to see what is right, what is going on in your financial situation. Because I think the more transparency that people have over time, we don't even have to necessarily be the ones as a financial planner or advisor to make the recommendations. The more that they are aware of their situation, the recommendations and the ideas and the solutions start to present themselves.

Right.

They start to find their own way through their financial plan just by coming together and having that visibility. So again, we're spending a lot of time here, but I think it's so important that coming to the table and having shared transparency of what's happening and not judging as you're describing, just being open to sharing the information so that you're both on the same page of what the entirety of the situation looks like is so impactful. I just, you just can't stress it enough.

I love that. I love that. I completely agree. It's. It's. Particularly if you're not working with somebody who is really familiar with how to set up financial transparency, it is incredibly difficult to do. And I noticed that, you know, whether. Sometimes I work with individuals, especially with adhd, but I also work with couples and I will catch that they, they'll do a little bit of discovery of, you know, trying to hook up Monarch and kind of like letting stuff populate.

And then they're immediately switching into judging and, and trying to figure out like, oh, I'll be better, I'll be better.

Oh, it's just an immediate qualification, right? So as soon as we look at the data, it's like, well, this was kind of unique. And my parents came into town, so we went out to dinner and it's like they're immediately have qualifications for all their behavior and all their transaction. And it's just another opportunity to say, again, it's not up to me to suggest how you spend your money and in any way, shape or form, form. We're just trying to understand what is going on and what the overall situation looks like. But yeah, I see that switch immediately.

And it's evidence that they're working from a script of I've done something wrong and this process is calling, like trying to call me out and that underlying script of assuming judgment and trying to switch into fix it mode really fast. What that does is it really shuts down the ability of people to just understand. And so creating those really like you're doing, creating those really clear boundaries of like, right now we're not Talking about solutions. We're not even defining problems. We are just trying to get everything in all in one place. And that's as far as I'm going to let this conversation go today. And, you know, pacing like that, so separating the conversations out into kind of discovery and then what are the trends and then maybe what are some of the potential problems or issues that we might need to talk about and then potential ways to handle those.

Right, right.

I can go down all kinds of rabbit holes with you because I'm super fascinated in a lot of this work to bring it back to breadwinning and bean counting. So we've kind of acknowledge those roles. We've started to bring some transparency to the table. Are there any resources you reference? A few in the study. So Love and Money comes up. There's another Together program. Are there resources out there that people can access, look for frameworks? Is there anything that we can introduce to folks that might help them along in this process?

Yeah, I like. I. So in addition to the ones we noted in the article, there are. There are definitely some things in popular press remit. Sethi's money for couples is pretty good. And what I like about that one, he's got some good couple archetypes that of, you know, you can kind of recognize like, oh, here's the pattern. So if you have already, you know, if you're already part of a couple and you're kind of like, we need to break some kind of our habits because we're not talking about this, well, that's good. And he also has a really good flowchart of how he recommends that couples set up their money.

And he allows for couples that need or choose to have a hybrid structure where maybe. Maybe they're not married or they have. They have a reason to have their money somewhat separate. And so he allows for that and talks through how people can discuss what feels fair when there's a major discrepancy in income. So I really like that one as well. I love sending people to your podcast, so.

Oh, thank you.

Everybody who's listening to that already knows that one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm happy to send you some. Send you some resources, I think. Of course, Financial Therapy association has a lot of great that We've got a really good professional directory of people who. People who do this every day, all day. So I know that they're. It's not everybody. Some people just want to read books and that's great. There are definitely folks who are like, no, we really need somebody structured and Particularly if you want to just work through the relational dynamics, you don't actually need, you know, more financial planning help.

There are people who really focus in on just the money dynamics, more on the distinctly financial therapy side. So you can do kind of a short course of sessions with a lot of the people in FTA and they'll walk you through like just how to get to the transparency, how to talk together. And then it definitely happens that folks will then say, okay, so I really want somebody to walk with me more long term financially. And then they'll kind of do a warm handoff to somebody who does that for a living.

Yeah, that's great.

I skipped over something that I thought was interesting. I think I'd be remiss if I didn't bring it up, but it seems like women in bean counting roles are especially likely to feel more perceived stress. Did I pull that out of the study correctly?

Yes, yes. And there's, there's definitely other research to support that in general that, that women who particularly are in bean counting roles, wherein they are not also like the cfo, it's a bit like being a really underpaid middle manager where you don't necessarily have the power, but you have all the responsibility of getting all of this day to day stuff. Right. And I think that what that gets to is the difficulty in the bean counting role when a couple doesn't decide together their priorities and their goals, both in the short term and the long term. And that includes, but is not limited to lifestyle decisions. So I think it can be, it can be a real, you know, it's a, it's a bit of a straight jacket where it's like we don't bring in the income and maybe I or my spouse wants to have a truck and wants to have a, you know, a boat and go to the lake. So like we want to have a cake and eat it too. And somehow instead of facing that and acknowledging that as a couple, I'm just supposed to squeeze water from a stone.

And so, and I think that sometimes that's where the gender come. The gender can be a really influential part of it is feeling like you do or don't have equal decision making power in regarding finances. If you're in a different sex couple, there is a tendency of women to be socialized into kind of deferring a little. Well, he really needs a truck.

Well, well, he's the breadwinner, right.

And even if I make more, I should be embarrassed or ashamed. I don't want to emasculate him, So I really make sure that he has a lot of decision making power. So it's a bit of a broad brush, but I definitely, I see that tendency to kind of defer some of the big decisions, particularly like big lifestyle purchases. But if those don't match the income, if they don't actually work, then that bean counting pressure can be extreme and it can feel like, well, the bills relate. So I am really feeling it. I'm, you know, bean counters tend to feel like, also have some depression, anxiety. There's a tendency there. But like, maybe the bills are late because they don't match the income.

Right.

Like, you can only juggle glass balls for so long before, like something's gonna happen. And if it shatters, is it because nobody else was there juggling? It's because you had too many glass balls. Like, it may not be because you just can't juggle. It's just a matter of time. And so looking at the broader structure, talking with your partner, and I think you probably do this with your, with your couples, but making sure that you've got a healthy margin or buffer, and that's the, if this, then that kind of, you know, making sure you've got a plan, what that can do is it can relieve some of the, like, household management stress because you have, you have a, you know, a trampoline under you instead of a concrete pad.

Yeah, yeah.

I love the straight jacket example. And I've worked with women that seem like they feel particularly stuck in this role where they're the bean counter, they're the one feeling the pressure of having to make the decisions. And when there's not enough money to make everything work, they felt kind of stuck in that role. So I think it just stresses again, the importance of acknowledging what those roles are and being super transparent with one another about, you know, what the income and the financial situation will allow and being on the same page and kind of coming together to create shared goals and responsibilities. It's again, I thought I'd be remiss without maybe calling that out in particular, because I do see that fairly frequently in my practice where these gender roles seem to have a play a role in the dynamics of the relationship and what's going on.

So I'm curious if you ever call, like, do you call that out if you see it, do you like, does that something that you bring up or do you just kind of try to.

Yeah, I mean, I think more and more these days I feel an obligation and responsibility to call it out. So we have. This is More of a commercial for our practice. But, you know, Ashley Kwame is now our chief Behavioral officer, our outsourced chief Behavioral officer. So we've started to bring Ashley in to have these conversations that kind of support the planning work that we're doing. And oftentimes what it starts with is just identifying who's feeling what, seeing what the roles are and who's feeling the stress in the relationship and trying to get at, you know, where that might be coming from. So. So yeah, I think, I think it's, it's really important that we explore these things because at the end of the day, in my opinion, I'm sure you probably feel similar.

Similarly, I could create the best financial plan in the world. And that's kind of the easy part. So two plus two equals four in our objective world. But if we're not addressing some of the things that we've talked about today in a meaningful way, recommendations aren't going to go implemented or at the end of the day like this, relationship dynamics are going to become a problem.

Right.

And it's just kind of a big waste of time and money if we're not at least acknowledging and trying to support our clients to address some of these things that are going on. So, yeah, long winded way of saying yes, we're trying to identify these things and bring support and resources to our clients wherever we can.

I love that. I love that. And I feel like it, you know, that approach, it really gives dignity to both partners. And I know I'm assuming in the case where it would be like a mixed gender couple, just like, you know, many, many women don't want to be feeling stuck. I actually don't think that they're, that their male partners want them to be feeling stuck and not at all. Yeah. So like, yeah, if once you have an idea of what the problem is, then you can come together to try to change. But if you're.

Yeah, anytime. I've worked with mixed gendered couples in this situation that we're talking about, I don't have the impression that the guy wants his wife in that situation or even is aware that she's feeling the stress. It's kind of like news to him when we get to this point and we really kind of identify how his wife might be feeling with this, this stress of, of managing the money. And it comes up pretty frequently. And, and yeah, I don't want to give the impression that there's a lot of men out there that are purposely kind of putting their wives in this situation that's not the experience that I have. Again, I think it comes from not having a shared understanding of what's going on and how people are feeling and just not getting to the table to have those conversations. And a lot of the stress or the issues just kind of naturally go away when we just kind of get them to have good, open conversations with a transparent understanding of what the finances look like.

I love that. My husband likes to say, and I think it was from our cloth diapering days when our kids were little, but sunshine is a great disinfectant.

Yeah, it sure is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

If you're fumbling around in a dark room, the first step, one, just turn. Turn the lights on.

Right? Yeah, I love that.

Yeah. And I. You know what? I forgot also a resource which is the Love and Money center, which I'm at now. So the University of Georgia, we have the Love and Money center, and we are hitting the ground running. It awesome. Officially expanded last year and we're going to be doing more and more. So this research came out of there. We've got more in the works like we're.

We're doing. So we do individual couple family therapy stuff. So both direct client services and also, you know, engagement, outreach, research a lot. And then also on the financial planning and financial therapy, behavioral finance side. So it's an interdisciplinary center at the University of Georgia with both departments. And. And then there's. Then there's us who work there full time, and we are making resources, doing outreach and hopefully trying to be of service to professionals in the industry for consultations.

So we're a resource, too. We do the clinical services, but we're also here for professional connections and try to serve and make the field better.

Yeah, well, you certainly are. And again, I want to say a big thank you to you and everybody at the Love and Money center and the great work that you guys are creating there and the effort that's going into that. It is absolutely 100% impactful in the work that we do as practitioners in the field, in the engagements we have with our clients. It's. It's an amazing resource for not only individuals, but us as professionals. So I guess that's probably a good way to. To wrap up and say thank you again. Real quick.

Where should people reach out to find you? Is there anywhere in particular you want to send them or is it just love and money?

Probably mostly go to the Love and Money Center. We've got a website. We got a Facebook page, a LinkedIn page. I'm pretty active on LinkedIn on the individual level as well. So, I mean, I have, I have some websites. I have a private practice here in Georgia. I do financial therapy as well. So I have a couple of private practices.

But probably the easiest way to find me is my direct profile on LinkedIn that's I'm the most responsive on LinkedIn as anywhere else.

Cool.

Awesome. So thank you again, Dr. Christine Hargrove. It's invaluable to have you here to share your expertise. We really appreciate it. If you liked what you heard today, please hit subscribe and check out modernfinancialwellness.com we'll put this up. We'll link to all the resources, we'll try to put in, catalog all of the amazing references that Go Christine brought to us today, and we'll look forward to seeing you next time. Thanks for listening.

Take care. Thanks again for listening to this episode. A quick note, although I do hope that the information that we talked about was helpful. In no way is anything discussed on the podcast to be taken as specific financial advice. Please consult your own advisors and do your own research when you're making important financial decisions.