The Legal Zone (S1:E6): Money Talks – Talking About Money with Your Spouse & Children

Transcript

Introduction

Hi, I'm Regina Campbell, and welcome back to The Legal Zone. Thank you, everyone, for watching our prior podcasts. Today we're doing Episode 6 of Season 1, and we're going to talk money talks: how to talk to your spouse, your partner and your children. This is actually a very important topic. Of course, you can also have these conversations from a business point of view, but normally the children are not involved in those. This is really more geared toward how a family should talk about money. What is normal in discussions between spouses, and possibly partners if you're not married? And of course, how do you talk to the children about money, and what do you not talk to the children about?

Talking to children about money

On many occasions you do not want to involve the children in discussions about money, particularly adult-related ones, which might even be related to a paternity case, child support or anything of that nature, about who pays for this and who pays for that. That puts the child in an awkward spot. Whereas, and we'll talk a little bit more about this on the podcast, I want to encourage everyone to involve children in the conversation about money, so that they understand the value of money. Maybe they have allowances, and clear-cut ideas about money, but healthy ones, not adult-type conversations.

So this is why I included the children. It should be something both parents talk about: how they should formulate and style that conversation about money with their child or children. Healthy conversations: teaching them how to save it, encouraging them to work, maybe for an allowance. Each parent should also make sure they're enforcing the rules, the allowance-earning ability, so to speak, at each parent's house.

And of course, the number one rule with children is never speak badly about the other parent. It's very important to always encourage: "Mom thinks this, and mom says that. That's wonderful, honey. Mom's got a great idea." Same thing with dad. There should not be any conversations in general about "I make the money, and you don't make any money." No one should be belittling anybody in these types of conversations with the child, and honestly, not even between each other. Everyone contributes something to a marriage, a partnership or a relationship. So it's very important to talk about that. That's a little bit about how to talk to children about money.

Talking about money with your spouse or partner

Now we're going to talk a little bit about the importance of how to talk money, so to speak, with your partner or spouse. Often you find a split dynamic between couples. There might be one party who makes more money, and the other party is more of a homemaker, and often the homemaker doesn't have as much experience or information regarding the finances of the household in general. Even if that split in the dynamic remains, let's say one party is just better at handling the money or making sure the bills get paid, that's okay. But I do think it's healthy for partners and spouses to be able to speak about money with each other.

It should not be taboo. It should not be something that's not transparent, unless that is a hallmark of your relationship and everyone keeps everything separate, in which case that is what you do, and that's okay too. My biggest concern is spouses and partners not understanding who pays for this and who pays for that. Potentially there's animosity and misunderstanding about where the money is going, with decisions being made by the person spending the money, or by the one wanting to save it. These are very important communications between spouses and partners, and they help alleviate potential tension and issues later down the road when you discuss how the family money should be spent, or saved for that matter.

Making a plan together

Remember, this is not just about spending money. It's also about saving money, and making specific decisions to make a plan: a short-term plan, a mid-term plan and a long-term plan with money, and trying to follow it. It keeps everyone on track. It may also help the family feel more like a team. The party making the money, whether it's one or both of you, might feel more appreciated, because the money is not just spent as if no one understands how hard it was to make.

You can make decisions: "Okay, honey, let's eat lunch from home on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, for instance, and not order in. That little bit of money we can save over here." Then everyone is involved in the conversation, so to speak, both spouses, about how they're going to deal with money. It honestly alleviates a lot of tension, and potentially overspending on many occasions, which leads to a lot of stress in families and relationships when you don't know how to manage the money or where it's going, or one party is putting more stress on the other. A lot of times you have different styles or perceptions of money, particularly from how you were raised, depending on what you saw.

And some of us, so to speak, have a shopping addiction. That could cause actual problems, right? Because it could lead to a significant debt burden on the family resources, and it requires one or both of the parties to work more. People don't usually think about money in this manner, especially between each other, but to some extent these are choices we make about how to structure the household, how to talk to each other and how to run it.

Separate accounts and hidden money

So I think it's very important, from the beginning, to just start having frank conversations. If you are going to have separate accounts, be very clear: "Honey, I'm going to have this account with my mother. She funds it. This is for me, for these types of expenses." Or, "I'm going to keep this money separately, because you have your own separate savings account. This is the way I was taught." But at least there's no issue of who's hiding what.

Now, I'm a family attorney. Do I know that people do this intentionally to hide money, potentially for divorce purposes, or for planning purposes? Of course I do. But therein lies the other problem. If you're having those types of issues happening with money, with the hiding and the divorce planning, or even if they're not planning on getting divorced but want to make sure that if they ever get a divorce one day, the other spouse is going to be left on the street or can't find the money, that is something the other spouse needs to be very keenly aware of. It means there's a control factor going on there. That's something you should be looking at: "Okay, he's putting this money away," or "she's putting this money away. I'm not going to have access to this. Is this really, truly a partnership in that manner?"

Are you having difficulties in the marriage that show signs it could potentially break apart? Distrust could also be an indication that you need to go to therapy and potentially work things out. If you have a different dynamic going on, it looks like someone's waiting to leave, which is unfortunate, but it does happen.

Being prepared for divorce or death

It's important to actually know what kind of money the other person makes, what bills there are, what needs to be paid, and how much money you need to survive if something should happen. Often people just think of divorce, but I know a lot of families who were happily married, and one of them dies, and the other spouse has no idea where the money is, how to pay the bills, what it costs to live, what kind of money they're going to need in the future, or what the children may need.

So money overall is a really important topic, and it's very important to maybe even talk to financial advisors about it, and to your accountant. It's something to be actively managed and discussed in a family. So rather than being specifically about divorce or family law and what to do there, although there are some elements of that I think someone should be aware of, this is really more about the importance of money in a family unit, whether it's partners or spouses, and of course with children.

Remember, whatever you do as parents, the children are going to learn from it. They're going to absorb it. So it's very important to have these basic, foundational conversations that will live with your children from when they're very young, and of course you need to set that model. You need to set that example for your children and for each other. I think it will alleviate quite a bit of tension.

Money as a source of family conflict

It's usually what I see, particularly in family law, in divorce and paternity cases: often a lot of the stress comes from money. Who spends money, who needs what money, whether something is really necessary or not necessary. Expectations are high. So if you're able to get that topic under control, in and of itself it might even be able to save your marriage, or your family unit if you're not married. And if there are other tensions or other issues leading to the difficulty, well, at least you have some understanding of what's expected if you do end up in a divorce, or in the event of death. That way you can plan, potentially, life insurance and other alternatives, estate planning and so forth.

So again, it's really important to have these conversations. They're healthy. I know that sometimes they're taboo. There are potential control factors, which you also need to consider. If there are severe control factors with money, there may be an abusive relationship dynamic going on as well. You may want to look at that hard and honestly with yourself, to see what can be done, and maybe talk to someone about it. But in general, as you can see, money is the overarching topic over many different issues within a family unit. So it was very important to have this discussion.

Closing

Hopefully it's been very helpful. If you have any particular questions, let me know. I'd love to do a podcast about something specific if someone wants to say something or wants a specific question answered. I want to thank everyone for continuing to tune in. Hopefully this has been helpful. Please follow us on our social media accounts. And by the way, we're new to TikTok. I hope you enjoy the videos; we'll have a little bit of fun with that. Also, become a subscriber to our podcast. We would greatly appreciate it.

And stay tuned for our newest podcast, The Campbell Corner, which is going to talk to prominent figures, business and family professionals and so forth, about their dealings with the law, and also about their favorite charities, what they do in general and what's important to them. I hope you're going to enjoy it. It's called The Campbell Corner. You'll see it soon. Thank you.