How to Deal with Financial Stress as a couple

When it comes to financial planning, even the best laid plans can come disastrously unstuck. We might consider every eventuality and then something entirely unexpected might occur without prior warning. Such as an unprecedented global pandemic, for example! Even the most careful and frugal of savers can fall into economic crisis, despite their best efforts.

Financial calamity is intrinsically stressful. Regardless of the exact circumstances, worrying about money is exhausting and extremely depleting both short and long term. Sleepless nights and generalised anxiety are common symptoms of money troubles. These symptoms can rapidly escalate into far greater wellbeing concerns in the short and long term if left unchecked.

When this kind of crisis hits a couple, the impact can be significant. In some cases, it can lead to relationship breakdown and even separation. If continually attempting to juggle money problems wasn’t stressful enough in itself, break-up concerns can amplify the anxiety factor hugely. So, how can we ‘safety proof’ our relationships from the personal effects of financial strain?

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels

Step 1: Find the Cause

Let’s begin by taking a long and decidedly uncomfortable look at what has caused the crisis in the first place. Did you have a hand in the problem that has occurred? Is there anything you could have done to overcome the issues earlier on? It’s never comfortable to feel at fault. But sometimes we need to take a clear and refreshingly honest look at the situation in order to ensure we don’t return to it in future.

Step 2: Face the issue head on

Next up—what can you do today together to tackle the issues you are avoiding facing? Stuffing invoices and bill payment information into your hallway drawer isn’t going to help. Take a deep breath (and make yourself some strong coffee) and sit down together to take a good clear look at your situation in all it’s naked glory. It may not be anywhere near as bad as you think. Plus, the sooner you do this the sooner you can start to improve the situation you’re in.

Step 3: work together

The key to overcoming crisis of any kind with a partner is to unify as much as possible. Talk about how the circumstances are making you feel. Check in with one another regularly to see if any feelings have changed. Sometimes it takes for one partner to directly ask wellbeing questions for the truth to come out. Learn to allow your partner in, and the same in return. You are a couple, which is just another word for a team - don’t forget that!

Step 4: Consider working with a financial professional

Finances can be a little complex. We might have learned about mathematics during our schooling, but few of us every studied personal money management. It’s okay to not have all the answers you need immediately, or to feel overwhelmed with the enormity of what’s happening right now. Speak to a trained, qualified professional who will be able to help you. Not only will this lessen stress levels, it will also reduce the amount of pressure you are facing together as a couple.

step 5: Take a break

When financial crisis strikes, it can be hard to think or talk of anything else. Every conversation ends up going back to it. Your thoughts are full of considerations of how to move forward. It can colour every experience you have together. Although it’s hard to let the worry go, it’s vital to the health and wellbeing of your relationship to bring other elements of life back into your focus. Talk about the weather, your favorite television show, or even have a silly dance together in the kitchen. Whatever it takes to shift your mind from number crunching!

Set aside allotted periods of time throughout the day or week where you agree not to discuss money worries. You could start with agreeing not to talk about finance during meals, or for the first and last hour of you day together.

Don’t let money be the last thing you speak of together as you lie down together to sleep at night.

No matter how large the problem, your relationship deserves (and needs) to be sufficiently nourished and cared for throughout this crisis and far beyond it also.

Step 6: Self care

Stress can be extremely depleting. It can affect impact our health negatively and cause a variety of physical ailments as a result. Ensure that you are both getting enough sleep, nutritious foods, and rest throughout your ordeal together. Take care of the basics to equip yourselves to deal with the issue that you are facing. Encourage one another to attend to fundamental self-care practices plus anything else that might help you individually, such as meditation or a regular daily exercise routine. Keep yourselves healthy to maximise your coping and mutual support abilities.

Most of us have to deal with financial crisis at one point or another in our lives. Some of us have to do so a number of times, whether it is of our own doing or otherwise. It can feel at the time as if we are the only humans on the planet that are having to deal with such a situation, because money worries are rarely publicly discussed. Please know that you are not alone, and that you are not the first nor the last person to be where you are right now.

Hold on to one another as each unsettling wave arrives. Support each other in the moments you might lose your balance. Focus on the what lies beyond this situation, as a team. This too, shall pass. And when it does, you’ll want to walk out the other side hand in hand. Do what you need to do to make that happen, each and every day of your ongoing relationship together.

True love is invaluable - the rest is just checking accounts!