Relationships and Money: Promises We Make and Break

I used to work with a couple, the wife of whom habitually overspent. Considering their lines of work—an attorney and a CEO—they had plenty of money. However, they had an agreement that she would not overspend, and each month, she did. With some observation, it came to light that the wife liked the way it felt to spend beyond her agreement. She didn’t like the feeling of being told what to do, so each month she would overspend in defiance of that feeling.

For the husband, he discovered his upset was less about the money spent, and more about her breaking a promise. Again and again, she was out of integrity with what they had agreed upon, making for an argument every time.

Their solution was to make a new agreement that each of them could honor. They did what many couples do and budgeted a fixed amount per month that the wife would spend whichever ways she wanted. The new agreement was, for her, about establishing freedom, and for him, about maintaining the integrity between them. It worked.

The value of reshaping agreements
The moral of this story is not perfection, or rigidity in upholding a promise. The idea is that we can always make new agreements, by cleaning up any incomplete or broken agreements and reframing them to suit both sides involved.

If you break an agreement, whether it is with yourself or someone else, get back up on the horse. Do what it takes to keep it. If something about the agreement feels funny or oppressive, reassess and make a new agreement that you can and will keep.

When the agreements are in a financial setting—bills, family expenses, personal budget, debt repayment—consider the commitments in your life that are easy to keep, and treat your financial commitments in the same way: If you always show up on time for a lunch date with your girlfriends, then always be on time with your financial agreements.

Relationships are a female enterprise
Relationships and the way we value them can teach us a lot about how to be successful with personal finance. As women, life is about connectedness and community, relating together and upholding those relationships. When you apply that human standard to the financial world, you can see financial success is not so far off.

Try it this week. Consider your relationships and your agreements. How would they differ if each supported and informed the other?