Financial Advice For Young Married Couples

Mention unfaithfulness in a marriage and more then likely your thoughts will focus on sexual relationships. Yet over 50% of divorces are not at all related to sexual unfaithfulness but rather financial unfaithfulness. In today’s debt ridden society, the face of unfaithfulness is financial and divorces are happening much more repeatedly as a result of uncovered financial secrets. More often then not, women are financially unfaithful compared to men however financial unfaithfulness is wide ranging and will annihilate a marriage as quickly as sexual unfaithfulness.

Young married couples and debt are common however, they also form a cocktail for marital ruin. Often with a young married couple, one of the partners will hide certain financial things to prevent confrontations and getting help. As soon as the unfaithfulness begins, it usually does not stop until it hits the point of no return. At this point, financial debts become too big to hide and either the partner will reluctantly bring it up or the other partner will discover it on their own, which will bring with it feelings of great frustration, bitterness and often is the beginning of the end for the marriage, especially if professional help is not seeked out immediately.

Men seem to be less apt to handle the financial unfaithfulness then women and when it is discovered that their spouse has been financially unfaithful then a battle will often begin. So what is a young married couple to do to avoid this disaster?

Be accountable to one another and help each other prepare and maintain a budget. When only one spouse has their hand in control of the cookie jar, temptation can often cause for the hand to dip in more then its fair share. This can often start out innocently but quickly grows into a problem while the other partner sits by innocently unaware of the financial burden that is starting.

If a young couple is set on only having one person in control of the budget, that is fine however it is wise to site together once every week and review the income and expenses and allow for open questions and answers. This will provide that additional step of accountability that is often more then enough to keep the temptation of financial unfaithfulness at bay.

Marital problems that are caused from a lack of financial maturity do cause many best friends to become bitter enemies and in any marriage, it can certainly be the brutal destruction of the foundation for which it stands. If you are hiding financial problems from your spouse, come clean with them immediately and seek out financial guidance. If you are not sharing the budget responsibly currently, then start.

Making Marriage Work

It was Joan’s first counseling session with me, but it didn’t take long before the tears began to stream down her cheeks. “I’m married to the man of my dreams, but I’m miserable,” she said, reaching a hand up to wipe away her tears. “We were so in love and now things are falling apart. We are fighting and distant much of the time. I love Justin and I don’t want to lose him, but I don’t know what to do. I don’t know why this is happening. I seem to be getting angrier and angrier and he is getting more and more distant.”

“What are you angry about?” I inquired.

“Justin keeps pulling away from me. He’s working longer and longer hours. But even on the weekends when he is home, he just seems to be distant. He’s either watching TV, playing computer games, or in the garage working in his workshop. When I try to talk with him about it, he shuts down even more. We can’t talk at all anymore.”

Like Joan and Justin, many couples are stuck in a dysfunctional relationship system, wondering what happened to the love and passion they had at the beginning of their relationship.

Two major fears may be undermining your relationship with your partner:

Fear of rejection: the loss of another’s love through anger, judgment, emotional withdrawal, physical withdrawal, or death.

Fear of engulfment: the loss of self through being controlled, consumed, invaded, suffocated, dominated, and swallowed up by another’s demands.

Until these fears are healed, you will likely react defensively whenever they are triggered. Joan reacted by getting angry when her fears of rejection were activated, while Justin withdrew when his fears of engulfment were triggered. You might react in different defensive ways, but the result will be the same – your reactive behavior coming from your fears of rejection or engulfment will trigger your partner’s fears of rejection or engulfment. Now both of you are acting out of fear. Together you have created an unsafe space where love and intimacy will gradually erode.

Most of us have not learned to stay open when our fears of being rejected, abandoned, engulfed, or controlled are triggered. If, when these fears are activated, you focus on who is at fault or who started it, you perpetuate the problems. Blaming your partner for your fears, as well as for your own reactive, unloving behavior, makes the relationship feel unsafe.

You both end up feeling badly, each believing that your pain is the result of your partner’s behavior. You feel victimized, helpless, stuck, and disconnected from your partner. You desperately want your partner to see what he or she is doing that (you think) is causing your pain. You think that if your partner only understands this, he or she will change – and you exhaust yourself trying to figure out how to MAKE your partner understand.

Over time, passion dries up. Superficiality, boredom, fighting, and apathy take its place.

The dual fears of LOSING THE OTHER through rejection and LOSING YOURSELF through being swallowed up by the other are the underlying cause of unloving, reactive behavior. These fears are deeply rooted. They cannot be healed or overcome by GETTING someone else’s love. On the contrary, you must heal these fears before you can SHARE love – give and receive love – with your partner.

The key to doing this is learning how to create a safe inner space where you can work with and overcome your fears of rejection and engulfment. In this series, I will show you a powerful six-step process you can use to create and maintain the inner safety you need to become strong enough to love.

Only when you have achieved inner safety and inner strength can you create a safe relationship space. Joan gradually learned to stop attacking Justin and take loving care of herself whenever her fears of rejection surfaced. She learned to create inner safety when she felt threatened rather than trying to get Justin to make her feel safe from her fears.

You can do this too. In fact, any two people who are willing to learn to create their own inner sense of safety can also learn to create a safe relationship space where their intimacy and passion will flourish and their love will endure. The rest of the articles in this series will lead you through this six-step healing process.

5 Tips To Keep A Marriage Exciting

The buildup to the wedding is so exciting; making arrangements, laying out a plan for your future lives together. But after the honeymoon ends, life begins. And while you may have the most wonderful marriage, even the most devoted couple is certain to find the married lifestyle to be at times, well let’s say, less than exciting. I mean let’s face it, you love the other person, but spending all day with the same individual makes for a lot of routine activities, that if you are not careful can drag on your relationship and make you both feel unsatisfied with what is otherwise a very loving relationship.

As a result, it is vital that couples not simply sit back in the belief that a marriage will remain exciting merely on its own momentum. Rather, it is important that spouses take some basic steps to infuse their relationships with a bit of excitement.

1. Have Independent Interests

You cannot have anything interesting to say if you spend every waking moment doing and experiencing the same things. Having independent interests is not a sign of a weak marriage, as some newlyweds believe, but rather a sign of its strength. Having independent interests means that you have something unique to bring to conversations, ensuring that you both always have something interesting, and yes exciting, to say to one another.

2. Spontaneous Events

While you were dating, planning the spontaneous event seemed rather innate. But, as we grow comfortable in our relationships and more busy by life’s obligations, we have a tendency to rely upon the strength of our relationships and in so doing fail to keep things spontaneous. So to mix things up; plan an afternoon or evening event that is completely new. Try that show your spouse has been dying to see, or visit that new restaurant that just opened up.

3. Never threaten separation

This is less a rule to keep things exciting, and more one to keep them sound. A relationship can only grow and remain exciting if both parties are confident in their commitment to one another. As a consequence, make it a rule between you and your partner that you never threaten separation or divorce. Establish an understanding that if you threaten separation, you should be heading out the door to back it up. It is a harsh rule, but one that needs imposition if your relationship is to survive the ups and downs which are a part of all marriages.

4. Weekend Trips

One sure-fire way to inject some romance into your marriage is to take a vacation with just the two of you. But with the rigors of life and the costs of a trip, a full-blown vacation can seem hard to justify. So instead opt for a one night local vacation. Plan a dinner and evening out, and cap it off with a night in a hotel. The expense isn’t a lot considering the excitement that a trip, no matter how small, can bring into a relationship.

5. Spice up the bedroom

The final tip to bring excitement into any relationship is to spice things up in the bedroom. Your sex life has a strong correlation with the strength and satisfaction of your relationship. So try exploring a new position or even a sexual fantasy or adult toy with your partner, and in so doing share something intimate and bring some excitement into your marriage.