Eight Dates Challenge – Week 4 – Work & Money

Welcome to week four of our progress in the Gottman’s Eight Week Challenge!

In case you were keeping track or read our previous blogs, you might be wondering to yourself “wasn’t week three of the challenge in April ?” Clearly we have not been able to keep up with the eight week challenge as it was laid out. Life presented us many personal and professional obstacles for us to overcome. So just as we teach our clients, it is always ok to come back to things. Let’s dive in!

WEEK FOUR

This chapter on work and money felt like a lot to cram in one chapter since work and money are such large parts of our lives. The chapter broke the subject into a couple of sub-themes such as time management and gender roles which helped. As evidenced in the book, there is a lot of research that when couples talk about money it isn’t just numbers, it is also topics like family of origin, values, and the distribution of household duties that are no longer absorbed by women. I appreciate that they included all these layers.

REFLECTIONS

I appreciated the vignettes the authors provide. Couples some times get so bogged down in the content of their discussion (in the chapter’s example whether or not to save or travel) that they miss the important root of the discussion. Each of us comes to a relationship with values and ideas about money, none of which are stagnant. Our individual interactions with money and meanings about money change with development, maturity, health, children, work, etc. It is no wonder it is one of the top reasons for divorce… we can hardly track our own meanings let alone someone else!

The book suggests that budgeting is one of the top ways to begin to find clarity with one another, along with discussions about family of origin and how time is spent. As a therapist, I can’t agree more. Having one of these pieces without the other seems to create imbalance. It really is all of it together. I hear myself suggesting (to individuals too!) to budget and keep track of your time. These objective measures can tell us a lot about ourselves and our relationships.

The questionnaires provided in the book, the research to back it up and the wide variety of meaning about money outlined in the examples make this an excellent guide for any couple to discuss meaning. When couples shift their focus from the numbers to meanings and experiences, it becomes much easier to set goals and work together as a team.

Let us know if you have done this date and what you thought in the comments below or in an email on our Contact Us page!