The Money Dump is a turning point for a lot of couples. For many of them, it’s the first time they’ve gotten all these feelings about their Money Relationship out. It’s the first time they’ve taken an honest look at what’s working. And that feels really good.
There’s something cathartic about getting all that crud out of your system, but if you stop there, you’re missing out on the best part of rebuilding your Money Relationship. That happens in the Money Huddle.
A Money Huddle is a time you and your spouse set aside to talk about your Money Relationship. In the next chapter we’ll give you an easy outline to guide you through your Money Huddle. But before we do that, we want to help you understand what this little sit-down is really about.
The vast majority of the couples we meet are consumed by worry. They are worried about their debt. They are worried about their savings. They’re worried about the future. And that worry is a big reason why their Money Relationships are a mess. They are so stressed out that even those little decisions about where to eat dinner or what kind of coffee to buy turn into major fights.
They think all that worry and stress is about their budget. But it’s not. It’s about their Money Relationships. No matter how much debt you have or how little money you have saved up, you can have a strong, healthy Money Relationship. But you have to know how to separate the details of your budget from the details of your Money Relationship.
By now you’ve read enough that you know the difference between your finances and your Money Relationship. Remember Jonell and Kai? We told you all about their income and expenses and debt. That was their financial situation. It was not their Money Relationship. Now you’re going to be intentional about separating your financial situation from your Money Relationship. And you’re going to do that by using the Money Huddle.
The Money Huddle is not the time to balance your checkbook or pay your bills. It’s not the time to gripe at your spouse about how much he spent getting the car detailed or blame your spouse for not keeping all of her receipts. It’s not the time to look over your retirement plans or talk through potential investments. In other words, the Money Huddle is not the time to deal with your financial situation.
Instead, the Money Huddle is a time to reconnect, to build trust, to work together to assess the present and dream about the future.
It would be great if conversations like this just happened spontaneously. But for most of us, there just isn’t time to focus on the emotional side of our Money Relationships. So instead we yell or blame or get irritated and stew. And that’s how our Money Relationships get off track.
You’ve done a lot of hard work to get this far. Now it’s time to take advantage of how far you’ve come and keep moving forward. When you set aside time each month to talk through the realities of your financial situation, to tell your spouse what you need in your Money Relationship, and to dream about the future together, you can put an end to fights, stop blaming each other, and grow closer than you’ve been in a long time.
The Money Huddle Defined
When we talk with couples about the Money Huddle, they assume it’s a time to do their family bookkeeping together. It’s not. We’re going to repeat ourselves here to make sure there’s no confusion. There’s a practical side to your Money Relationship—managing your money, balancing the books, paying the bills. But for so many couples, their understanding of the Money Relationship stops there. They don’t realize that the Money Relationship is really about the emotional side of your money decisions. But your budget and your Money Relationship are not the same thing. So we’ve pulled the practical side and the emotional side apart to make that distinction clear and to help you really focus on the emotional aspect of your Money Relationship.
There are four reasons why we want you to keep the practical side and the emotional side of your Money Relationship separate.
1. IT KEEPS IT FROM FEELING LIKE A MEETING. In most relationships, there is a “money person,” the one who balances the checkbook and pays the bills. If your Money Huddle is all about the practical side of your Money Relationship, it’s a fairly one-sided affair. It just isn’t feasible or enjoyable for most couples to pay their bills together. So let the money person take care of that. Your Money Huddle will be a major failure if it boils down to one person holding a meeting while the other one just listens. Instead, this is a time for compromise, mutual respect, and joint decision making. It’s a time to look ahead together.
2. IT DEFUSES THE TENSION. Most of us get a little anxious when we’re paying bills and looking over our accounts. So it’s not the best time to bring up plans or needs or ideas about how you can strengthen your communication. Having a separate Money Huddle gives you a little emotional distance from the immediate demands of your finances.
3. IT PUTS THE FOCUS ON YOUR RELATIONSHIP. If the only time you talk about your Money Relationship is when you’re paying bills, it’s easy to think your budget is the defining factor in your relationship. But it’s not. What matters are your Money Personalities, the impact of the Opposite Dynamic, and the financial infidelity that threatens to creep into your relationship. What matters is how you work together to make those never-ending decisions that involve money. Having a separate Money Huddle gives you the time and mental space you need to deal with those issues well.
4. IT KEEPS YOU CLOSE AND CONNECTED. It might be hard to imagine right now, but we promise that if you stay committed to a monthly Money Huddle and use that time to talk through your Money Relationship, you will reclaim the intimacy you want in your marriage. You will find ways to keep money from tearing you apart and instead allow your Money Relationship to draw you together in ways you’ve only dreamed about.
Not long ago, we had a couple come into our office. They arrived in separate cars and hardly looked at each other while we talked with them. We asked them to commit to a Money Dump and at least one Money Huddle. They agreed and left the office looking as miserable as they had when they’d come in.
But a month later, they came back. They held hands while they sat in the waiting room. They laughed together when they told us how they’d stumbled through their first Money Huddle. They finished each other’s sentences as they told us about the dreams they came up with during their Money Huddle. They walked out of the office smiling at each other and exchanged a kiss or two before getting in the car together and heading home. You might have a slightly longer road to smooching it up in front of your financial planner, but we’re confident that if you commit to these regular, focused, honest times of conversation, you’re going to grow closer.
We know that, for a lot of couples, the idea of adding one more commitment to an already overloaded life feels like too much to ask. So we’ve kept the Money Huddle simple. It’s forty-five minutes, once a month. In the next chapter, we’ll lay out exactly how you’ll use that forty-five minutes. If you think of this as an investment in your relationship, a chance to reclaim the life you used to dream about, then that seems like a pretty reasonable price to pay.
MAKE IT HAPPEN
Take some time to discuss together what you are looking forward to and what fears you have about doing a Money Huddle together.
