How to Deal with a Spouse Who Spends Too Much Money (without Conflict)
If your husband or wife spends too much money, money fights can quickly destroy your marriage. Overspending creates resentment, stress, and fear about the future. If you’re tired of reasoning, complaining, or pleading, I’ll share with you a better approach.
Resolving financial conflict seems like a matter of logic.
But, as with many issues, just presenting the facts is likely to create conflict. You can learn how to stop your spouse’s overspending using a win-win approach. That will mean taking into into account your spouse’s desires and needs as well as your own.
To be effective in reducing and eliminating conflict, you always need to think about how you can create a win for your spouse. If you do that, you will be building your relationship as well as solving problems..
Did you know, that creating positive change in your relationship never requires conflict?
A lot of people think that conflict is the way to create positive change. If you tend to argue, criticize, or blame, then it’s likely you have the same belief. Identify that as a false believe before it severely damages your marriage.
Growth is the process of giving up unproductive behaviors and ways of thinking for productive ones.
The productive substitute for conflict is using a combination of loving behaviors and secure boundaries. If you are trying these two methods without success, it is probably because you are using one or the other. Loving behavior and boundaries need to both be used to be effective.
I have several posts on how to have more effective boundaries in marriage. Check them out. They will help you with more than just money issues.***
It is not possible to criticize, complain or argue your way to a better relationship.
Which came first–money fights or relationship problems?
Real financial problems are about spending too much money on a lower priority expense so that there is not enough for a higher priority expense.
Examples:
- Spending food money on lottery tickets
- Using all income for immediate needs, preventing emergency savings
- Buying a new car while being unable to pay the rent
Disliked spending
If your spouse’s spending is not digging a deeper hold in your finances, or preventing necessary expenditures, then the money conflict is not actually about money.
It may be that you don’t like what your spouse is spending money on. In that case, you need to determine if is a values difference, or a legitimate concern for your marriage. For example, if my wife wants to spend $10,000 on a new purse and we have that to spare, there is no financial problem. I might think it is ridiculous to spend that amount of money on a purse, but it’s only a marriage issue if I make it one.
Damaging spending
However, if my wife is spending money on dating apps, it should be a concern, even if we can easily afford it. Her dating other men would be the real issue, and not what she spends on it. When clients complain about their spouse’s spending, my first question is whether they can afford the cost. If they can, then it’s not really a money issue, regardless of how much their spouse is spending.
Self work, or boundaries work?
If you have enough money for your priorities, but you don’t like your spouse’s spending habits, evaluate whether it is actually your problem. Don’t take your psychological issues out on your spouse.
If your spouse’s spending is really about marriage damaging activities, then you will need to use good boundaries to stop them. Many people get my coaching package for dealing with a difficult spouse for help with good boundaries while staying emotionally connected.
Why do people have money fights?
Success in marriage or anything else always comes from doing the right steps, in the right order, at the right pace. A common reason people fight about money is they are not doing the right steps. In fact, they are trying to do everything in one step. You can’t even make toast in one step. (I challenge you to try). Financial problems are more difficult than making toast.
Why you may be having problems with financial conflict
Going to your spouse and saying that they have to stop overspending is a single step recipe for failure. It might seem like a logical, quick way to solve the problem. But, like trying to remove a headache with a hammer, it will only make your problem worse. This one step approach either makes your spouse feel resentful, controlled, or both.
A dependence on one step approaches is what makes people lose hope and give up. I see it all the time with people who are trying to convince their spouse to reconcile rather than use a step by step approach to gradually re-attract and re-interest their spouse.
Short cuts make long journeys because they create more problems.
Do you or your spouse avoid problems?
If you or your spouse tend to avoid problems, it is likely due to failures to achieve results with single step solutions. People don’t avoid problems when they have good ways to solve them.
I’m an empiricist, which means I am only interested in doing what works regardless of what I wish would work. I encourage you to become one. I will do what works, even if it seems illogical. Those who rely on logic or reasoning, repeatedly do what makes sense–even if it doesn’t work. In my experience, engineers and computer techs fall into such logic traps in their marriages.
Logical, intelligent people, often forget that they need to take into account other people’s feelings, even when solving tangible problems.
Would you like to learn a multi-step solution, which is actually much faster, easier, more successful and more enjoyable than fighting about money? If not, then keep fighting or avoiding until you are ready to learn and then come back here.
Still here? Okay then, let get to…)
Step one: Learn how to make a budget in marriage
The word budget scares many people because it sounds complicated. It is not. Just as you don’t kneed to know a lot of jargon to fix your marriage, you don’t need to understand a lot of jargon to make a budget. I made my first budget when I was a paper boy earning $2 a week at age 11.
A budget is simply a list of expenses and the amount of money that you will spend on each. The total of the amounts should not exceed your average income. Such a list will show you where your money is going, whether you need to make any changes in your spending or earning.
If you don’t have enough income for all of your expenses, you can do a combination of reducing expenses and earning more money. If one of your expenses is putting money into an investment account, you can gradually become financially independent.
Help with budgeting
There a many places online that you can get more help making a budget (such as Ramsey) and I won’t use this time to teach you.
Don’t budget like you and your spouse are roommates
I will say that when you are married, you and your spouse own everything together. What’s mine is yours, what’s yours is mine. It is different than living with a friend or a roommate.
God said it first: That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh (Genesis 2:24, NIV).
Regardless of who earns what, the combined income belongs equally to both of you. All expenses come out of that combined income. Any spending money is shared equally. If you don’t like this concept, it will get hammered home to you during your divorce proceedings.
Take the first step without your spouse
It will be easier if you make the budget on your own, without involving your spouse. Collaboration is overrated in relationships. Cooperation is much more important. Your spouse will have a chance to modify the budget after you have made a draft.
Make sure that you list an allowance for you and an allowance for your spouse as items on the budget. The amount will be exactly the same for both of you and will be the money left over after you have subtracted all other expenses.
For example, I earn more money than my wife but we both have the same amount of allowance. It is money that each of us can use, as we please, without needing to check with the other person. Some months it is more, some months it is less, but is always the same for both of us.
The freedom to spend some money of one’s own, without have to ask permission from a spouse, is a marriage saver. Many people divorce in order to have more freedom and autonomy.
Step two: Share your draft budget with your spouse
Do not go to your spouse with any complaints about their spending. Instead, just say something like this:
I made a draft of a budget so that we can both get what we want while still being able to pay for necessities. It’s just a draft and I would like you to look it over and make any changes to it that you like. Then, I will take another look at it.
Hopefully, your spouse will get a pleasant surprise by your budget. This draft may need to go back and forth several times before you have a working budget.
Step 3: Use the budget with your spouse
Whether your spouse makes changes to your draft or not, start using the budget. Invite your spouse to suggest changes at any time. The budget can always be reevaluated.
If your spouse wants to spend more than is allotted, that is okay, but you and your spouse need to determine where to take the money from. A budget will make that much easier to see.
For example, if your spouse wants to spend more money on home furnishings, then you and your spouse can take a look at where you going to take the money from. Does it come out of retirement savings, the clothing budget, vacation savings, or some combination of these? This process is not argumentative and spouses can easily see that spending more in one area means taking it from another area. This makes spending a practical issue rather than a personal one.
The envelope system for budgeting in marriage
Using the envelope system of budgeting is an excellent way to create this kind of flexibility and discipline. You can search for envelope system of budgeting to learn more about it. My wife and I have been using a form of this system since we first got married. It has prevented us from having to have any kind of authoritarian system of managing money. That helps our marriage. You don’t have to use a cash system. My wife and I substitute index cards with the amount of money written on them. No spreadsheet entries are required and it takes very little time.
Case example: How a budget ended financial conflict in marriage
Leon and his wife made enough money to pay all of their expenses, but had created a system that would have ended their marriage if it weren’t changed. While they both worked, Leon used his income for bills whereas his wife used her income for herself. It might not have been a problem if Leon had as much spending money as his wife. He did not. As his wife spent more on herself, Leon became more resentful as he was working hard, but had little to spend on his own. Leon had taken to criticizing his wife for what she spent her money on, which only made things worse and their marriage was rapidly degrading.
My first step was to help Leon set the financial issue aside while he treated his wife more nicely. I had him take a positive interest in her career and her expenses. Budgets and equal sharing don’t go over well in bad relationships. We worked to get the both of them to enjoying other each day and a good sexual relationship.
When that step was complete, Leon and I worked on a budget proposal for combining their incomes and including enjoyable dates and allowances for both. Leon did not actually have to have any boundaries with this approach. Total coaching time was two months.
I want to say that this approach does not always work. We always need to have a Plan B.
The Plan B for Leon would include using boundaries to have her pay her own expenses. Had Leon approached with boundaries before rebuilding his relationship, they could have ended up divorced.
If your spouse won’t cooperate
If you don’t control the money and your spouse will not cooperate with either the budget or principles of equality, then it is not a financial issue. It is a relationship issue called financial abuse.
Financial abuse occurs either when you don’t have enough money to pay for necessities due to your spouse’s spending money on other things, or your spouse will not allow you to have equal spending money.
Dealing with financial abuse
Financial abuse is not dealt with by budgeting, discussion, or reasoning. Just like other forms of abuse, it requires the use of boundaries to protect you and your relationship. Boundaries are combined with loving behavior to create a loving relationship. Relationship boundaries do not use harsh language and are necessary whenever not using them would lead to a worse relationship. Boundaries never include arguing or debate.
Whether you are experiencing financial abuse, having financial conflict, or need to use boundaries to stop your spouse’s inappropriate spending, I can help. We will work to restore fairness while preserving love. I will put a link to my Difficult Partner coaching package in the description. We will work one on one and step by step to restore your marriage to a happy one for both you and your spouse.
