Why Working On Your Net Worth As A Couple Creates Financial Intimacy

As a couple, each of you likely has different comfort levels about looking at your net worth. This is an understandable starting place, but it’s not where you want to stay. 

Net worth is the difference between your assets (like cash savings, the value of your home, and retirement accounts) and your liabilities (such as credit card balances, medical debt, or student loans). Net worth is a helpful barometer to measure your financial progress over time.

An essential part of developing financial intimacy is monitoring your long-term financial progress together. Over the course of your relationship, you have the opportunity to strengthen this financial intimacy with each other. 

Your Net Worth Impacts Both Of You

Your net worth impacts you, your spouse, and so many outcomes in your life, such as:

• When you retire (or move to work because you want to, not because you need the money)
• How you will fund your children’s education
• Your ability to take meaningful vacations
• In the event of divorce, your financial stability post-divorce

When I start meeting with couples in Therapy-Informed Financial Planning, it is not uncommon for one or both partners to be unaware of their household net worth. 

Just thinking of the family's net worth can evoke substantial financial anxiety, which can shut the conversation down. A trend of financial discussions (like the family net worth) being shut down due to financial anxiety leads many couples into financial trouble. This can also create a wedge or a disconnect between partners, as they are not looking at their financial life together.

Knowing Your Net Worth Informs Today's Spending

There is money constantly flowing in and out of your family. Income and expenses are not always fully predictable and subject to change from month to month and year to year. These realities sometimes leave couples feeling powerless to navigate their financial lives. 

One of the biggest challenges I see when working with couples is when the partner responsible for day-to-day spending is not aware of the household's net worth. This often means they don’t worry about overspending. Rather, they live in denial and with rationalizations that often sink the family further into financial problems. Denying or rationalizing today’s spending problems comes at the cost of the financial health of the family tomorrow. It can potentially affect your partner’s mental health as well. 

Often, one spouse is aware of the long-term impacts of family spending but can’t find a way to communicate this reality to their partner. To change the pattern of how they navigate spending together, there must be meaningful, open communication about financial matters. Otherwise, the couple spins further and further out of control relationally and financially. 

Financial Intimacy Changes The Way Couples Approach Net Worth 

Looking at your relationship through the lens of financial intimacy can change the way the two of you approach your financial life. 

Financial intimacy provides a safe container for both of you to get your psychological and relational needs met. It opens you up to change the way you approach money as a couple. 

Many partners get stuck in patterns of emotional invalidation that undermine their ability to talk openly and honestly with each other about their shared financial life. 

Working on your net worth starts with a mindset shift toward financial intimacy. Financial intimacy stems from curiosity and compassion. It includes loving physical touch and making safe eye contact with your partner. 

At a deeper level, financial intimacy challenges us to remember that our partners may have financial trauma in their background that makes it difficult to look at money matters from a reflective, integrative perspective. Providing experiences of financial intimacy over time can reduce anxious responses during discussions on things like net worth and spending. 

When It’s Time To Get Professional Help

You have made your best efforts to get your partner to look at your net worth with you, but they are still unwilling or unable to. 

This is not a failure on either of your parts; this is an acknowledgment that you both need help. 

What we know from financial therapy is that there are things both partners can do to improve the way they approach their financial life, including reviewing their net worth together. 

Healthy Love and Money is founded on the intersection of financial planning and therapy. Each team member is focused on helping couples and individuals learn, heal, and grow in their financial lives. 

Schedule a free 30-minute Therapy-Informed Financial Planning Consultation Today. 

Ed Coambs

MBA, MA, MS, CFP®, CFT-I™, LMFT