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Most couples who argue about money are arguing from different money scripts – the deeply held beliefs about money that each partner formed long before the relationship began. Uncovering and understanding those scripts, individually and together, may be one of the more useful things a couple can do.
That is a central premise of the work being developed by Prudence Zhu, a financial planner and therapist in Arizona and author of A Couples Guide to Money.
Understanding Money Scripts
Zhu describes three tiers of money scripts in a relationship.
- Internal: What does each partner believe about money?
- Between us: What do we share, and where do we diverge?
- Beyond us: The cultural backgrounds, gender dynamics, family expectations, and lived experiences each partner brings to the coupleship.
She believes that resolving money conflicts requires working through all three tiers.
Managing Perpetual Conflicts
Other research on couples and conflict gives this idea some weight. Couple therapists Drs. John and Julie Gottman have found that roughly 69% of disagreements in relationships are never fully resolved – they are perpetual, rooted in real differences in personality or values. Money disagreements tend to fall into that category. The goal is not to eliminate the difference but to build enough shared language and common ground that the difference stops being a source of damage.
Perhaps the hardest version of this is the pairing of a money-avoidant partner and a money-vigilant one. From the inside, that pairing feels like constant conflict – one person who would rather not think about finances, and one who thinks about them constantly. From the outside, the couple has everything they need: One partner supplies the caution and the planning discipline, the other the willingness to spend and enjoy. The problem is that they are using their strengths as opposing forces instead of combining them.
Balancing Financial Strengths
I have watched couples move from fighting over spending versus saving to recognizing that both impulses, held in balance, are what a sound financial life requires. The caution that once looked like nagging becomes a contribution. The spending that once looked reckless becomes permission to enjoy what the planning makes possible.
Two money-avoidant partners, by contrast, may never fight about money. Instead, they may drift into financial difficulty together because neither is watching.
Changing Scripts Through Action
It is also helpful for couples to understand that money scripts can be changed. Zhu has tested this directly. In a three-to-four-month group coaching program for couples, she measured money-script patterns before and after. Participants’ clarity about their long-term financial goals rose by 36%. The stress they felt about retirement savings dropped by 30%. She also found that the money scripts most tied to childhood and lived experience – avoidance and status – were more inflexible. Those linked to money vigilance and money focus (her term for money worship) were more readily modified with new information and new skills.
For couples wanting to delve into their money scripts, I start where Zhu does, with the internal tier. I ask each partner to write down, separately, the money beliefs they absorbed growing up, from both spoken messages and those that never needed to be spoken because they were simply in the air.
Then they compare notes. The goal is never to resolve every difference. It is to replace the assumption that the other person is being irrational with the recognition that both partners are working, with good intentions, from different scripts.
That recognition is crucial. It is where two people stop guarding opposite ends of the same financial field and start playing for the same team. Then they can learn to use their contrasting money beliefs as joint assets and build a winning financial strategy.
Read more by Rick Kahler:
Rick Kahler, MS, CFP®, CFT™, CeFT®, is the founder of Kahler Financial Group, a Rapid City, SD-based fee-only Registered Investment Advisor.
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Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.