Money as a Substitute for Love and Closeness |
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When couples fight about money, it's almost never about the money itself.
Anxiously attached individuals tend to adopt materialistic values as a way to cope with loneliness.
If couples lack shared values, clear roles, or a common vision for the future, money moves in to fill the gap.
Have you ever wondered what the role of money is, not in the material, but in the psycho-emotional side of your relationship?
There are myriad subjects about which couples argue when it comes to finances: who spends too much, who earns not enough, what are the priorities—long-term investments or spending now, who secretly helps their parents or children from a previous marriage, who feels controlled, who feels dismissed, and the list goes on. However, when couples fight about money, it's almost never about the money itself.
Money has multiple meanings, and these meanings are very personal, subjective, and linked to the perception of the self, especially within a relationship. Multiple research studies cited in this post demonstrate that for people, money serves as:
an interpersonal boundaries regulator
a substitute for love that was absent in childhood
status and power over others
confirmation of achievement
validation of self-worth
So, by extension, when a couple argues about money, they argue about these very things.
We turn to conflicts about money when we are anxious about something else
Norris et al. published an interesting study in 2012 in which they found that anxiously attached individuals—those who are unsure and worry about the security of their personal connections—tend to adopt materialistic values as a way to cope with loneliness, essentially substituting material possessions for people.(2) Materialism fills a communicational and social void but fails to provide what only human relationships can: warmth, closeness, and reciprocity.
Why is it relevant to couples' communication about money? It is because not only anxiously attached people tend to get anxious. If we believe existential psychology, anxiety is a very basic human condition that gets aggravated at times of stress. Therefore, when either you or your partner gets anxious about non-material things, such as not getting enough attention or feeling sexually rejected in your relationship, not being valued at work, the aging parents, or the life choices of your teenager, you may automatically and without paying attention bring your discussions and arguments to money........