The Taboo of Talking About Money
getting real about my fear and how I married someone to avoid it
As I unpack in therapy why I was drawn to marry the person I ultimately divorced, I realize that some of his appeal was I knew I could avoid dealing with money if I married him. He was a much higher earner than I was when we met, and then began to manage people’s money for his job. Of course he would manage ours. I knew he would handle the bills, the mortgage, taxes, investments. I could just plop all our money concerns in his lap and walk away.
Which did not really serve me as much I thought it did.
So when we got divorced, I had to look at everything I’d been avoiding for fourteen years. I had to do a deep dive to understand our assets, how he paid himself (he owned his own business), what we used our HELOC for, where we held investments. I had to figure out my budget. Get a credit card in my own name and ensure I had enough money to cover what I charged. Which I did for a time, until we stopped pulling and sharing. Then, I didn’t always have enough. This was because I was spending thousands on lawyers fees. So I started to carry a balance.
I have been lucky enough to avoid accruing credit card debt for most of my adult life. I always paid my bills in full, even when I was single and making a measly salary in publishing. I came from a family that did not spend what they did not have. Which meant we did not buy much and we didn’t do much. But we paid our bills.
It took me several days to stomach that I would not be able to pay off my credit card each month. It helped that when I called my credit card company, I learned that because I had just opened this card several months before (when I stopped using our joint card), they charged zero fees on the balance until October. I had never even paid attention to fees because I didn’t need to. I was never going to carry a balance. I heard about people accruing credit card debt, but I never thought it would happen to me.
This was in April of last year. So I had a few months where I could accumulate credit card debt with no real penalty (this still feels like a miracle). I paid down the bill when I could, or when I got close to my limit, and then finally, as September approached, took on a collaboration project so I could pay off the rest of the balance before October.
I met my ex-husband was I was twenty three, living in San Francisco where 60% of my paycheck went to rent. I didn’t have much to fall back on. During my childhood, my father was an academic and my mother a part-time musician. We grew up middle class in the Midwest. We had enough, but not plenty. Then my father, the primary breadwinner, died of cancer during my sophomore year of college. I have an identical twin and we were both attending expensive liberal arts colleges. We applied for more financial aid. They didn’t grant it.
This is all to say that I grew up feeling financially precarious.
In addition, I knew I was never going to go into an industry that paid well. I was a religion major in college, and then worked in publishing, one of the lowest paying industries around. I think I loved the idea of not having the worry about money when I saw what my life would be with my ex husband. Which was one of the reasons my ex was such a draw.
I was listening to the We Can Do Hard Things podcast a few months ago and they were discussing generational trauma in an episode called The Cycles We’re Breaking. How we can inherit beliefs and fears and triggers from our parents. And not just our parents. Also our grandparents.
Amanda mentions this study done on mice. The mice are placed in a cage. They smell a scent and then get shocked. This happens several times. Eventually, the mice don’t even need the shock to panic. If they smell the scent, they act as if they have been shocked.
They then tested the next generation of mice. Sure enough, they panicked upon encountering this scent. Their genes had been coded to fear this smell. But it wasn’t just the next generation. It was also the one that came after that. So the grandchildren of the original test subjects were also triggered by this particular scent.
I mention this fact because my grandparents were children during the depression. So it seems no surprise that I might have fear around money. On my mother’s side of the family, there is a phrase that almost all the women in the family use. “If I had money.” “If I had money,” we will say and then share something we wish we could do.
It was my sister’s therapist who she was seeing in her mid-twenties after her own divorce who pointed out the insanity of this phrase. “Wait,” he said. “Did you not have money?”
“Well, no, I mean, we did. But not enough to do everything.”
“But you didn’t live in poverty.”
“Well, no,” she admits.
The thing is, we all HAVE money. Maybe not millions, maybe not even enough, but we have money. What a strange thing to say. And yet I’ve heard every single one of us use this phrase.
What this means is even if we have money (and we do), we don’t FEEL like we have money, or nearly enough. This is the scarcity mindset that can be very hard to break.
So to avoid feeling that fear, I found someone who provided financial security and stuck with him.
It is only now, upon living as a divorced woman, that I realize that avoiding conversations around money and putting him in control of all aspects of our finances was disempowering. And that understanding how much money you have, where your money goes, and discussing all that with your spouse is one of the most solidifying things you can do for your partnership. I’m learning now that handling things myself is actually incredibly empowering. I wrote here about negotiating my very first car lease. This year is my first year doing my own taxes. It feels so much better understanding the ins and outs of my own financial situation than ceding that knowledge to others.
And to fully break the cycle, to no longer be afraid of money and avoid talking about it, look at what I’m doing! I’m a speaker at next week’s Love & Money Summit: Conversations for Women About Money and Relationships. While I’ll be in LA attending AWP, you can listen to me chat with Tracey Coenen, creator of the Divorce Money Guide and a forensic accountant. I still get her emails even though my divorce is seemingly over (I say seemingly. More on that in another post). This is a free three day event that grants you access to 30+ experts who help you take control of your money story.
My session is on Thursday, March 27 and is called A Feminist Guide to Money in Marriage. In it, I talk about the mistakes I made in my own marriage around money that left me in a disempowered state. You can claim your free ticket here and it grants you access to each day's sessions.
The Summit is March 25-27 and includes sessions with divorce lawyer Aaron Thomas, who I interviewed last week,
whose Instagrams are so on point and Kate Anthony, host of The Divorce Survival Guide Podcast, and many more.I’m also excited to be featured in yesterday’s Group Chat post in The Purse by
I highly recommend her Substack. My favorite series of hers is Division of Labor, where, you guessed it, she interviews couples about how they split up the work of managing a family. Obviously, this would be right up my alley. She also publishes Home Economics where she interviews people anonymously about what they make and how they spend. It is such a fascinating window and much needed.
Money is one of the taboo topics we don’t discuss, along with sex and divorce. This space exists to push back against that. What other writers do you know who are wading into these waters? Share in the comments below.
Did you know that liking this post or leaving a comment helps it find more readers? If you are reading this as an email, there is a heart button at the top and bottom of this email. Click on it and it will take you to the Substack website where you can also leave a comment. If you are reading it online, again, just click the heart button at the top or bottom of this post. I appreciate your support so much!
I believe women are taught the wrong lessons about money or no lessons at all. Building money confidence takes time. We've only had our own access to credit for around 50 years, that's not enough time for generational fears to ebb. I applaud every woman who is willing to talk openly about money. When we do that we make it easier for others and we take the stigma away from the mistakes we all make.
OMG Cindy I was just like you too, I dreaded doing anything with money in my 20s, so when my husband came along (electrical engineer) and I thought I could offload the financial component in our marriage to him, I was so relieved. Little did I know that he would end up starting several very expensive hobbies, started spending money on things I didn't agree with, and racking up debt for so many years that I was just paralyzed. I recently separated from him and made sure he didn't have access to my bank account and credit cards. And I started learning to manage my own money. I started listening to money podcasts, but still hiring accountants to do some stuff for me because I'm still healing from the divorce itself. But man I feel you!!