How to Talk to Your Financially Irresponsible Partner
Trent Hamm, Aug 3, 2020 Founder of The Simple Dollar
My wife Sarah and I have a good financial relationship. Sure, there are times when I feel like she spends too much on things like crafting supplies and extra camping gear, and there are times when she feels like I spend too much — usually on Kindle books or tabletop game items. We’re not perfect by any means, but we’ve reached a point where we’re clearly headed toward our shared goals and we recognize that we both are imperfect and make mistakes sometimes.
It wasn’t always this way. There were many times earlier in our relationship, particularly before we started taking our finances seriously, where we both perceived the other person as being financially selfish. I’d see Sarah getting tons of expensive coffees and believe in my head that she was the one being selfish and causing our financial problems, while she’d see me with a new video game or an armload of new books and believe it was me.
The feeling that your partner is being financially selfish and the cause of your shared financial problems is a common one, and it’s a tough issue to tackle. Often, people don’t know how to tackle that sense of a partner’s selfishness, so they either sit on that negative feeling until it festers and grows into an outburst, or they try to immediately address that feeling in a clumsy way and cause a fight. Obviously, neither one of those outcomes is a healthy outcome.
What should you do, then, if you feel like your partner is being financially irresponsible?
6 Things To Consider When You Feel Your Partner Is Financially Irresponsible
Remember your partner probably doesn’t feel irresponsible
This is the single most important thing that you need to realize when you’re feeling frustrated by your partner’s irresponsibleness. It is extremely unlikely that they view their behavior as selfish. They likely view their behavior as living a good life, and it’s very likely that it’s a life they want you to share in.
It’s common for you and your partner to believe that the other one is spending beyond a reasonable, unwritten budget. However, if your partner does not view their behavior as irresponsible, you will get negative backlash if you dive in and accuse your partner.. No one likes to be viewed negatively, especially if they don’t see their behavior or mindset as financially irresponsible. They’re going to get defensive, and when someone gets defensive, the conversation is just going to fall apart. You have to take a completely different approach.
Come up with a meaningful alternative
This is the first step in that process. If you want your partner to step back from behavior that you view as irresponsible, there has to be a meaningful alternative they care about and feel like they’re contributing to in a meaningful way.
More importantly, just because you care about a goal doesn’t mean that they care. Try stepping back and talking about both of your individual goals, financial and otherwise. What are the things you want out of life in the future? Which of those things are things that you share? You might find that the things you think that your partner really should care about, the things that they’re being irresponsible by not contributing to, are simply things that your partner doesn’t value. You might be all about early retirement, for example, but your partner loves their job and doesn’t want to walk away from it.
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