Hi, my name is Bob Brooks, you know if you've been around long enough, you've heard this statistic, that money is the leading cause or one of the leading causes of divorce. And when I think of that, I think of it a little bit different way. I think from the standpoint of effective communication. ineffective communication is the leading cause of divorce. Let's face it, when it comes to talking about money. We're not very good at it.

We're ineffective at best. And this causes a problem with throughout the course of our relationship. It chips away at trust, little bit by little bit as we as we ineffectively talk about money. This is why I put together my 10 commandments of couples communication with money, the working with people through over two decades. I found what works and what doesn't work. The good news is no matter where you are today in your relationship, you can change this up, you can become a better communicator, and have a better relationship, especially around money.

So let's just start and talk about some of these commandments. Number one, leave your ego at the door. This is so extremely important. Just think of it this way, as you walk into a room, your spouse is in there. And you know, there's a difficult discussion coming about money and you got to have it. But you walk in there with your ego, you walk in there making this all about yourself.

And you start out the comment, the conversation, you say, let me tell you what I think. Let me tell you why you're wrong. And you know, how does that conversation really go? Probably not too well. And how much trust does it destroy? quite a bit.

Versus if you walk into a room, you take your ego, you put it by the door, and you calmly walk over to your spouse to say, you know, listen, this is not about me. This is about us. Let's talk. Let's figure out how to work through this and make a compromise. How do you think that conversation goes? You know, when we argue if you really think about it, it's about making me right and you wrong.

It's a it's a debate, to prove my point that I'm right and making you wrong. It may be in a situation where you have a conversation, and you come out and you are right. But don't take the victory lap. Don't rub it in, don't bring up the fact that you're right. Just say, just be glad that you came to a conclusion and a compromise and you resolve the conflict. This leads to the second, this is one of my favorite principles.

This came from a book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. If you've not read it, it's a book that's been around for a long time should be on your bookcase. And you should be reading this, seek first to understand, then be understood. It's a powerful concept. You know, once again, this is a real good tie into leave your ego at the door because if you got your ego with it, you're going to come in, you're going to tell them how it is. You want to be understood first.

But if you come and shift that dynamic, and sit down with your spouse and say, Listen, I really want to know how you feel about this. What It Is this the problem with with whatever the financial situation is, and your feelings about it. That's a totally different conversation, than charging in to be understood. seek first to understand then be understood out. Here's why. What's an interesting dynamic with this?

Let's say that you have spent years in relationship being that guy or being that that that woman that wants to be understood wants to be heard first. And that's what's important. If you shift this dynamic, you are going to catch your spouse. So off guard, but what you're doing with this is you're creating respect. You're creating trust. And most importantly, you're creating a space to where you can start to look for the compromise as she talks or he talks about his issues and feelings about money, then you can start to see the compromising get there a lot quicker if you stop and listen, and not make this about yourself.

Number three, learn to trust Of course, trust is extremely important in any situation involving communication and money. And you might be saying, well, Bob, I trust my spouse. Well, there's these small levels of trust. And when I'm talking about I'll give you an example. Let's say that, you know, my wife, for instance, is great with money, I never have to worry about overspending. I have some friends who are just scared to death every time their spouse goes out the door and how much they're going to spend.

I don't have to worry about that. But I had these little triggers that and I don't know where they come from. But I had these little triggers to where if I if I see that she's gone someplace, I start to wonder with it, even though I trust her, and she's never given me a time not to trust her. I start wondering in my mind was she overspend? Did she buy something we don't really need? It's not like the money's not there.

It's just a little annoying. A little trigger that happens. So let's say that my wife goes to Walmart, and she comes walking into the house and she's carrying a bag and I'm thinking, Okay, we didn't talk about this. Why don't you go to Walmart. And so you get this little self talk going? And it's this distrust, you know, we don't trust.

We basically assume the worst is going to happen. We assume that they're going to do what we don't want them to do. So I'm not saying anything, obviously. But it's just it's just going around in my mind and all sudden she says, hey, guess what? I went to a Walmart I had to buy something for the kids for school and I found it at a deal. I saved money.

Which is a lot of times what she does say, and save some money on this and it worked out great. And all this time I've got this distressed building and I realized how dumb that was to do that. So on every little level, you've got to build up trust. Now, let's talk about the situation. And I was counseling with somebody not too long ago, married couples second marriage, and the husband had actually lost his wife. The the the lady had had been married before went through a bad divorce.

And I told him, I said, you know, what's important now that you're married is to start to combine your financial lives. And I saw the look of horror on her face, as I said that she looked at me and she said, You don't know about my past marriage. You don't know what I've been through. There's no way that I can combine these accounts. Now for him. He's kind of being he's being very gracious, very understanding.

But she what she is doing is she's transferring that distrust to her new relationship instead of dealing with those issues, putting closure to it and learning from it. She's transferring that distrust. So it's important to look at what areas Am I am I showing subtle distrust, or maybe large areas of distrust and start to fix it and work on him. Number four, his goals, her goals and our goals. You know, I think when we get married or get into a relationship we have in the back of our mind, this is what I want to happen. This is what I want to do financially, this is what I want to end up the kind of house I want to buy.

And then we kind of bring our spouse along with us. And we just we tie them into our goals, when in reality it needs to be about your, your spouse in your goals together to compromise. And I think we oftentimes don't really realize how important that is. And we do that in the eighth commandment. I'm going to talk about this in a lot more detail and why it is so important and how what it can do for you going forward. Number five, don't lead separate financial lives.

I kind of talked a little bit about this a second ago with that example. But oftentimes I'll meet with people and He'll have a bank account set up, she'll have a bank account set up, they might have a joint account, but boy, it's got very little money in it, he pays some of the bills, she pays some of the bills. And that's the kind of lead these separate financial lives. I've never really liked that idea. And I've, and I hardly ever see it work. Now, to be fair, there is a percentage of the population very, very small, that this does work for, but for the most part, not a good idea.

Let me tell you one of the main reasons why I go actually to the first one is that it's very difficult to tell if you're on track when you have everything separated out. I mean, I've talked to people who've been married for a very long time. And maybe I'll talk to this the the wife and she'll say, you know, I don't really know what kind of retirement he's got set up. I don't really know what kind of debt that he may have. I know one client in particular is a big question mark as to how much debt his wife has in her name. They don't know they lead separate financial lives, it's important to pull it all together.

Now the second problem this is there is somewhere underneath They're a level of distrust. If they can't combine the accounts of the 10. I would say the vast majority of the time, there may be some other reasons. But it's important to work through that distrust is something that you'll see throughout all these now what we've only been through five commandments. So far something you'll see is that these are all designed to build a trust. And whether you've been in a relationship of 50 years, or whether you whether you've been in a relationship of two years, no matter where you are, you can start to rebuild that trust.

Again. Now, it's a process. I'm not suggesting that these are easy. I'm not suggesting that leaving your ego at the door all is the easiest thing, but it's something you have to work at. And really develop the skill set to do this so that you'll be more of an effective communicator. Let's go the sixth one, the sixth one, this can be interchanged man or woman and because they it goes both ways.

However, this is what I see mostly with men and this is what I see mostly with women. When in counseling with with people These are small things, but they're very important men watch the condescending tone and the body language. This is and I have to confess here, this is something I kind of had an issue with, with with my wife is that I would use this condescending tone. Now she would, she would fire back at me Stop yelling at me. I don't yell at my wife and I wasn't yelling at my wife. I was just using this condescending tone.

And she says to me Stop yelling at me. Of course, I barked back at her. Well, if I was yelling, you'd know it. And of course, you know how well that communication conversation went. So watch the condescending tone, it does not go over well. And guys, we do have a tendency to do that.

And the body language if you're talking to your wife and you're like this, this is not what the way to communicate, be open and have more of a trustful based body language. Women support your man's financial dreams. I can't tell you how many times I've heard this guy's come up with some pretty wild ideas about what they're going to do. their financial goals, what they're going to achieve. Oftentimes, I'll look over and the wife rolling her eyes. And she'll say, it's not gonna happen, you're never going to do that.

That Look, I know it sounds harmless, but that chips away at trust. Remember, when you're having a community, you're having a conversation about money when it comes down to it. You can either do things to build trust, or do things to destroy trust, there's no in between. So always think of it from the standpoint of building trust. Number seven resist reacting. Now I feel like I'm in a confessional because this is the second thing.

This is the speaks to me. Because what I would have a tendency to do is react, and you know who you know how that happens? Your spouse says something, and then before you process that thought, and think, Okay, I'm gonna put some space between this and my reaction. And I'm going to say something that builds trust versus destroys trust. Your mouth just starts moving, it comes out. You say some things that are hurtful you say some things that are biting and not a good conversation.

Once again. chipping away at trust. Now, here's the problem with reacting is that if the more that you do it, the more that you do it in a relationship, the higher chance that your spouse is going to stop and say, You know what? I he's going to react if I say this, or she's going to react, if I'm going to say this, I'm just not going to talk about it. Now, what you don't want to do is shut down communication. One time I was counseling, a couple, they're happily married and all, but been married for 50 years.

And obviously, they were in to see me because they can't get on the same page with money. And so what I started to notice is that the husband really kind of dominated the conversation, the husband really reacted a lot to things that that she would say, and so I made a kind of a safe place for her to open up and start talking and boy did she ever and it was interesting to watch the reaction, the facial expressions on the husband's face, as he it's almost as if things that he hadn't heard. That was important. Her through all these years of being in married and it made such a huge impact on him to hear these things and he realized the damage he would do by reacting. And here's the here's the beauty of this and I can tell us for firsthand is that when I stopped to realize that by reacting I'm not advancing anything and I stopped reacting, I put a space in between the message that I'm getting and what I want to say and I think about what I want to say, and the communication is so much better.

And that's the that's the beauty about implementing any of these things is that if your spouse is a custom, and doesn't really like the way that you respond, and then all sudden you change it you make the biggest difference right away immediate impact. Number eight, make a grand plan I talked about this with his goals, her goals, our goals, but make a grand plan, put it put a life plan together that this is what we want to accomplish. This is where we want to be this is when we want to retire not this is when I want to retire This is when we want to retire. And what we want to do the kind of income that we want to have the vacations we want, like whatever it is, you put this plan together. Now here's the here's the power behind this. And of course, along with that plan, you want to have a financial plan that shows how to get there from point A to point B.

But here's the power behind that you've just created a decision filter. Now for every decision that you have to make you filter it through, will this help me help us get from point A to point B in our grand plan, it's a great way to do this, especially if it's fueled by your values. Financial values are so very, so very important because what we do with money demonstrates what we value what's most important to us. And I talked about this and I don't believe in budgets, it's a teaching video, you really need to see it because I go into detail about it. But the thing is, is that you know, just like with his goals, her goals, you have his values, her values, but you need our family values, what's important to both of us, what drives us in our decision making, and through this process, you can add Identify that, number nine make make a monthly financial date.

And this is where I'm probably going to lose a lot of you right now because you're saying, okay, you know, reaction thing, I'll work on it, the ego thing, I'll try to work on it. The has to be right, I'll work on that. But you want me to set a date to intentionally talk about money. You want me to intentionally do this, that's going to be tough to do. It's very important that you don't leave this step out because of the fact that so many husbands and wives are not on the same page. So many times I'll see and it doesn't necessarily have to be the husband or the wife, but one in the couple will be taken care of all the money will be taken care of the bills and everything and the other ones just kind of in the dark doesn't really know what's going on, doesn't know what the electricity cost doesn't even know what the bank account looks like or anything.

This will give you the opportunity to be intentional about getting on the same page. So whoever takes care of the bills takes care of the expenses, the income tracks that coming in, we'll run a report, once a month, you'll sit down and say this is what we spent this last month. This is where all the money went. This is what was leftover, not leftover. And this is what we have coming up. And this is what we need to plan for and anticipate.

It's a great way to get everybody on the same page. And believe it or not, it also ends up being a trust builder, because you're sharing what's what's coming down the pike and anticipating these expenses and doing it together. Number Tim, probably my favorite unless you are perfect show grace. Now, you know I gave the example of reacting. When your spouse comes in, they say something you automatically react well, this is kind of the same thing is that your spouse comes in and your spouse tells you, Hey, I forgot to pay the credit card bill. We got a $35 late charge, you know and it's it's in your in your mind.

It's not about the $35 it's about financial irresponsibility. As if you've never been financially irresponsible, that's the problem, right? Is that all sudden you're perfect. You're on, you're on the altar and you're looking down and you're about ready to unleash the fury. And let her know how stupid that was. As a put that into Tintin Think about that for a second.

How much trust is that build? Do going that route. Now, I'm not saying that you don't have a conversation and say, you know, I wish you would have done things differently. How can we make sure this never happens? Again, I get it. You know, I've made mistakes in the past.

We all make mistakes. Let's figure out how to fix it. How do you think that conversation goes? Show some grace, very, very important to do. And it makes all the difference in the world. You know, here's the thing about communication is that this comes down to your choices.

You don't have to wait for your spouse, your spouse may say not be willing to work on on himself or herself and may not be in a place that they want to correct the problem. That's fine. Don't even worry about it, work on yourself, change your reactions, change the way that you communicate. And you'll start to lead by example. I think one of the most powerful things is that when your spouse is expecting negativity and you show a positive reaction, you show a different reaction, a more loving reaction, it starts to make change, and then it starts to make them want to be a better person. So regardless of whether they're in the same spot that you are one of you has to lead by example.

But the good news is this whether you've been married for 50 years, whether you've been married for two or three years, you can implement these and create better communication around money.