The Saver and Spender in Marriage

Shame is often the common denominator in marital disputes about money.

Couple therapists would agree that struggles over money can lead to serious relationship difficulties, even divorce. The most common dynamic I have experienced in my clinical practice is when a saver is in a relationship with or married to a spender. The saver appears financially frugal or, in extreme cases, cheap, and the spender is financially freewheeling or, in extreme cases, out-of-control.

On the surface, it looks like this couple is a gross mismatch, and they often present that way in couple therapy. The saver complains of all the debt the spender has accumulated, and the number of times he or she has bailed the spender out of trouble. The spender in turn becomes defensive, presenting evidence that his or her spending is necessary, not frivolous – some even claim that unlucky circumstances are the culprit. Regardless, a control struggle is in place that reflects a parent/saver - child/spender dynamic. The saver seeks better control over the couple’s finances and fiscal responsibility, while the spender seeks freedom and unconditional acceptance.

Upon deeper investigation, however, this couple is not a mismatch. In fact, they may be quite similar, with the common denominator being shame — that is, the shame that each has experienced growing up in their respective families of origin. Consider the following case example:

Partner A is an admitted saver. He grew up in a house that emphasized earning and saving and anything less was met with open hostility from his parents who lived through The Great Depression. Partner A claimed that his parents would often make fun of people who lived above their means, referring to them as “idiots” or “losers.” Partner A’s siblings were encouraged to obtain jobs as soon as they could, and to invest their earnings. Participation in sports or general student activities were considered unimportant in comparison. As a result, by the time Partner A was 30-years old, he had accumulated a substantial amount of savings and owned his own home.

In stark contrast Partner B was $250,000 in debt when she first met Partner A, and her credit was in shambles. Partner B claimed that much of her debt was attributed to living expenses and vacations, but she also had accumulated $200,000 in student loans.

Partner B grew up with parents who loved to have fun regardless of the financial situation. She told of the time that her father, having a good year in sales, rewarded himself with a used, but still extremely expensive Rolls-Royce. Partner B said she had mixed feelings about this: It impressed her friends and neighbors and made her feel special, but she also knew that her father was showing off and could not afford the car. She said she knew it would all end badly, and it did when her father had to, embarrassingly, return the car for failed payments. Partner B said that these “financial ups and downs” were common growing up and that her parents filed for bankruptcy more than once. She claimed that her parents’ shared motto was: “You only live once, so live it up.”

One would think that Partner A would run from someone like Partner B, but he never entertained this despite the financial consequences. Instead, he tried a variety of failed interventions, such as begging, screaming, and seeking advice from friends and relatives on how to manage Partner B. In a final act of desperation, he cut up Partner B’s credit cards. But nothing worked.

My clinical interventions failed as well, until I began to focus on the couple’s mutual shame. It occurred to me that every time Partner B overspent, she was shaming Partner A by breaking his family of origin’s rule on saving. By association, she made him feel like an “idiot” or “loser.” Reacting strongly to this, Partner A would then shame Partner B by ridiculing her, which in turn reminded her of the financial chaos she experienced in her family of origin at the hands of her parents. In response, she would overreact emotionally and eventually pull away from Partner A.

For this dynamic to make sense to a couple, each partner would first have to get in touch with the shame they experienced in their families of origin and accept that it had helped to shape them. They would then have to accept a counterintuitive hypothesis: that each partner maintains a cycle that they claim they want to rid themselves of – a cycle of shame.

While there are other examples of this dynamic that I can use to support my views about money and shame, the preceding case is representative of the most common. My main point in this post is: Contrary to widespread belief, money is not unequivocally a major cause of divorce. But it can serve as a vehicle for it, with shame as a frequent driver.