Hardly anything is as much the dispute in couples as love money. It is regularly an issue in about every third relationship. And almost every fourth partnership fails. The money is not always the actual trigger for a separation, but the everyday dispute can ignite and thus the frustration of relationships.
It is often about who brings more into the relationship – financially and emotionally. It’s about performance, power and recognition. The topic often rocks up because two partners maintain a “sloping” handling of the money, as a couple consultant Michael Mary calls it. The observation comes from him that both money and love basically work on three levels: there is the passionate (unconditional gift) level, the friendly level, where you want to support and share the other (and you can basically expect to get support yourself), and negotiate the partnership level, at the partner, to deal with everyday life in order to cope with everyday life. If one partner does not fulfill his share, the other can demand it and insist on a fair compensation.
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That sounds blown, but explains well why a dispute arises: Because the levels often mix when both partners have different ideas about the level on which level they have used money or feelings. Only supposedly passionate heart exchanges and later demanding consideration for it leads to the conflict. Likewise, there will be an imbalance if a partner has to do without the consideration of the other in the event of a partnership.
Precisely because so many couples are disputed over the money, they don’t even talk about it. This is wrong because relationships are good to talk about money. Couples are so closer together. And so it works best with money and love, step by step.
Published in Stern 46/2024
Source: Stern
