Alternative Conversations to Have with a Reluctant Spouse
For the 3rd article in the series of how to deal with a spouse who is reluctant to discuss finances, I will look at how we can have a more productive conversation. There are a million ways to have a conversation and everyone touts their way as the best. I won’t go that far, so view these ideas as alternatives and figure out what works best for you.
Drop the struggle
When two fighters go toe to toe, each one wants to win. Thus, they are trying to find the best strategy to get their point across while defending against the counter blow thus have less time if any to try understand the other’s point of view. So instead of finding common ground, they are concentrating on their next response while their defensive barriers become stronger and stronger.
The key is to drop this struggle because it is getting you nowhere. So, when you are in a conversation with your spouse, take a breath before speaking and understand if your next response is out anger, frustration or fear trying to defend yourself or is the thought out of love and compassion trying to find the middle ground. If it is out of anger, frustration or fear, you should consider changing your next response to one of how you feel about what your spouse just said. Describing how you feel is less threatening because there is nothing your spouse can refute. This is how you feel which only you can decide. It is a place to start building understanding. Your spouse may be mad because you took what he said the wrong way or because he is in a defensive mood himself, yet that is how he feels. So see it as an opportunity to come together to understand each other instead of staying apart.
Drop the need to fix the situation right then
One strategy that works for me is to get my point across as food for thought and then take a step back. If the other person wants to be right in that moment, there is nothing you can do to change his mind right away. Thus, I tend to leave my comments as clear concise ideas to think about and then drop the conversation. Given time, the idea may sink in where the other person may discover in the meantime what I said was actually useful. Remember the more we try to convince someone we are right, the stronger their defenses can become. Thus, I see a seed of thought as something that is none threatening that may actually take root and grow in the person I was talking to, given time.
Be clear with your boundaries
I found with boundaries that people love to set boundaries in one of four manners:
• Strong boundaries that are inflexible where people become afraid to approach the other person because they realize the answer will be no use to the strong convictions. These barriers are good in physically or mentally abusive situations. We need good boundaries to hold our ground. However, in other situations, the barriers may get in the way of having healthy discussions if the other person does not see the use in making suggestions if they are just shot down.
• No boundaries where the person is walked over all the time. This sometimes happens at work where we are afraid to stand up for ourselves out of fear of losing our jobs.
• Collapsible boundaries where boundaries are set yet have no teeth to them. Parents get into these situations where they say “no” and the child does it anyways without any consequences. Thus, the child learns that “no” may not really be “no” and will test their parents boundaries.
• Flexible boundaries where if a person comes close to the boundary, there is a warning shot (a watch out, do not cross this line). Then there is room to negotiate a win-win so that each person can get their needs met. Yet, if the boundary is clearly crossed with the warning disregarded, there are consequences.
Having clear flexible boundaries are good because many times a person does not clearly know where your boundaries are. Thus, as they get close to crossing them, be clear on what you want and what is not acceptable. Let them know there are consequences, so they know what you say is what you really mean. They will also know that you are willing to work them so that you both can get what you want.
Thus if you feel you are being treated unfairly at work or at home, see how clearly you have defined your boundaries and if they other person knows what they are consequences of breaking them are.
If needed, get help
As with any intense sporting event, it is good to have a referee (in this case a family/marriage counselor) who can mediate differences and point out when someone has crossed the line (committed a foul). For friendly conversations, a referee is not needed because each party is flexible and willing to give in to keep the game friendly. Yet, when it gets too intense which happens with money conversations at times, it is best to have a 3rd party present to give a clearer perspective to the both of you of what is going on.
Be curious
I was surprised one day listening to Kathlyn and Gay Hendricks who have a radio show about relationships. They pointed out that research is showing that the old way of improving conversations (such as using “I feel …. When you …. What I want is …..” method or repeating back what the other is saying method), does not really help out as much as we once thought it did. They say that the key attribute to a successful marriage is having curiosity. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this made a lot of sense. In a marriage if we change the form of the conversation it does not really fix the root of the problem per se just fixes the outward hostility (symptoms) of how two people argue. However, having curiosity is about each partner really looking at themselves and their spouse wondering why each person is acting they way that they are. It is important for both spouses do this because if one spouse is having a bad day and is not really listening, the other spouse can step in to find the root of the problem (by being curious) to find out what is really going on.
So next time you have a conversation with your spouse become curious about what is going on and see the conversation from the other person’s point of view. By taking this approach and finding that it works, your spouse may be willing to become curious themselves (seeing it works).
Belief
If you do not go into a conversation believing that it will not work, you will be more likely to give up at the first sign that it doesn’t work. Thus, your spouse learns that by holding their ground you tend to give up. This makes future conversations more difficult to have because you will need to teach an old dog some new tricks (the appropriate way to treat you) first before getting what you want in that situation.
Rotate Agenda
If one spouse is controlling the conversations, the other spouse will tend to lose interest easily. Thus, each person should bring at least one topic to the table to discuss. This keeps each party interested in the conversation which will increase the likelihood of have both parties engaged in dialogue versus one feeling being beaten up. And, if the meeting time is too limited to get to both of the issues, then rotate which spouse’s agenda item gets discussed on a particular night.
Set time, place and length of meeting
Some friends of mine are having differences in how to do a budget (one wants to be more detailed than the other). Thus, they decided that the spouse who is more eager to do a budget will handle it and the other spouse will give ½ hour or 1 hour on occasions to sit down and discuss it. The reluctant spouse was more willing to meet when there are set time limits versus being dragged into a 2 hour discussion over something that he wanted an easier process set up to deal with the budget.
Having a set time and place also helps in making sure that each party agrees to show up as a willing participant when there are no other distractions such as children or a favorite television show. Both parties should agree that the time is a good time for them and not a time when one is usually winding down for the evening or just getting home and wants to end it as quickly as possible to unwind. Thus, with hectic schedules, a conversation may have to wait until the weekend for both spouses to be fully engaged and undistracted.
Have consequences to agreements
Similar to having no boundaries, an agreement with no consequences will be violated frequently. Having punishments as consequences though can be viewed as a form of control (a parent/child relationship) where the other spouse will then tend to rebel against it. A friend of mine, Dr. Tim Jordan, uses a method in his home where if someone violates an agreement (child or adult) that they need to determine their own “make-up plan” as a way of saying “I am sorry” to the other person. The plan should be focused on the issue that was violated. In one example, because one of his children forgot to take the dog for a walk as promised, the child decided to pay to get the rug cleaned out of their allowance. Around finances if a spouse spent money that was not budgeted for and that was not in their discretionary fund, the payback may be to handle the budget duties for an extra month in addition to forgoing their next month’s discretionary fund. If a spouse missed a scheduled meeting about the budget, they may decide to cook dinner or give a massage to say I am sorry. This method works because the person who violated the agreement needs to first see how their violation affected the other person to create an appropriate “make-up” plan. This is not viewed as a punishment because it is a way for the party who broke the agreement to repay the person where it is proactive (I am sorry) rather than reactive (punishment).
There are million different approaches for getting through a difficult conversation about money. The key is to notice what is working and what is not working and adjust your approach accordingly. Lastly, it is important to understand what works for one person may not work for another.
For further information see Couples and Money, Why Money Conversations Are So Volatile and Our Part in Money Conversations with a Reluctant Spouse
