Ever caught your partner sneaking around... with their bank account? That's the heart of this episode, where we peel back the layers of financial infidelity, revealing the secretive spending and undisclosed debts that are all too common in relationships.
The statistics are jarring – over 40% of married couples face financial betrayal, and it's shaking the foundations of trust. We tackle this head-on, analyzing how separate accounts, although handy in our increasingly global lives, can also pave the way for financial secrecy. We discuss the importance of transparency and the fine line between privacy and secrecy, inviting you to consider your own financial dynamics.
Finally, we dissect the motivations behind these fiscal falsehoods, from the pressures of social status to the fear of revealing a job loss. The episode wraps up with a discussion on the importance of fostering a culture where financial responsibility and trust are paramount.
As we set the table for our next conversation on overcoming monetary missteps, join us on this journey through the murky waters of financial infidelity. No guests this time around, just us, your trusty hosts, navigating these troubled financial tides together.
Ever caught your partner sneaking around... with their bank account? That's the heart of this episode, where we peel back the layers of financial infidelity, revealing the secretive spending and undisclosed debts that are all too common in relationships.
The statistics are jarring – over 40% of married couples face financial betrayal, and it's shaking the foundations of trust. We tackle this head-on, analyzing how separate accounts, although handy in our increasingly global lives, can also pave the way for financial secrecy. We discuss the importance of transparency and the fine line between privacy and secrecy, inviting you to consider your own financial dynamics.
Finally, we dissect the motivations behind these fiscal falsehoods, from the pressures of social status to the fear of revealing a job loss. The episode wraps up with a discussion on the importance of fostering a culture where financial responsibility and trust are paramount.
As we set the table for our next conversation on overcoming monetary missteps, join us on this journey through the murky waters of financial infidelity. No guests this time around, just us, your trusty hosts, navigating these troubled financial tides together.
Then there's hiding financial information as a type of financial infidelity. This would be if you were to open up, let's say, a life insurance policy on your spouse and not tell them hey, I opened up a life insurance policy on you for $3 million, but don't worry about it. It's not like I'm going to try to murder you or have anybody murder you tomorrow.
Speaker 2:This is Life, Love and Money with Dr Angela K Love the podcast for couples who want to get a handle on their finances and strengthen their marriage at the same time. We take deep dives into the money challenge's most married couples face and get real about them, Plus practical tips on how to ensure a rock solid future for your money and your marriage Now, Dr Angela K Love.
Speaker 3:Well, it's another beautiful day out here in sunny Texas. I keep looking out the window and wishing I was outside instead of inside, and I get supposed to be up in the upper 70s today.
Speaker 1:It's always hard to sit at your desk and work when you're looking out the window and it's warm and sunny.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's for sure, and you think of all the different chores you have to do outside because it's prime time for gardening and then won't be too long that we'll see the crappie begin to run and it'll be time to make sure we get the fishing poles out. Yes, go fishing, see if we can catch some fishing Crappie's, some of the finest freshwater fishing eaten. I think you can do.
Speaker 1:That'd be great.
Speaker 3:So today's topic what is today's topic?
Speaker 1:Financial infidelity.
Speaker 3:Mmm, that's an interesting combination of words. I don't think I've really ever heard the two of those together financial and infidelity. I've heard other kinds of infidelity.
Speaker 1:Yep, that's usually related to relationship.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so what do you mean when you're talking about financial infidelity?
Speaker 1:Well, financial infidelity occurs when one spouse or partner is intentionally deceitful about money. Can it happen in marriage, or it can happen in a couple that's dating, or maybe they're engaged.
Speaker 3:Could it happen in a business Like if you have two partners and you have one partner that's pulling money out of the business under the table without the other partner knowing?
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely, it happens all the time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know two different businesses this past week I've been dealing with that's. Something similar to that's occurring. One of them's going through what they call a forensic audit.
Speaker 1:Yep, and I think that actually occurs. Forensic audits are used in divorces to look for financial infidelity as well, Not only in past behavior, but when it comes to determining how much money is going to be paid from one spouse to the other and this one spouse says I only make this much or I only have this much money, then they'll go through and sometimes order a financial forensic audit to determine what type of financial infidelity or what type of money is being hidden from the other spouse and from the courts.
Speaker 3:So it all comes back to a little secrecy and a lack of being open and transparent with how you're handling your money in the eyes of either your marital partner or if another person you might be living with, or a business person, if you have a business partnership.
Speaker 1:Or if you're an adult and you're helping out your adult parents, who are senior citizens, maybe elderly, and you could have some financial infidelity going on there as well. But today we're going to focus on married couples. So the one thing for those that are listening may have never heard this term as you said, you hadn't heard this term and they may think that it's not a big deal, but I have some statistics that show just how big of a deal that it is.
Speaker 3:So lay the statistics out. How big is this?
Speaker 1:Well, the first one is that over 40% of couples experience financial infidelity. That would be four and 10 married couples experience financial infidelity.
Speaker 3:Is that at some particular time in their marriage, or is that every year, or how's that work?
Speaker 1:The statistics didn't drill down to that. I'm sure that you could go research that, if you wanted to, to find out when that's happening or what. I do have some causes. We'll get into that. What causes financial infidelity, what it looks like, that sort of thing?
Speaker 1:Another statistic is that financial infidelity is the leading cause of divorce, is one of the leading causes of divorce, and what's interesting about this is that the statistic for divorce rates has gone down. A lot of people still quote the 50%. It's actually 41%. But the reason why the divorce rate has gone down is not because there's less people necessarily getting divorced. It's that couples are waiting until they're older to get married. That's one reason why the divorce rate has gone down. But the other contributing factor to the divorce rate going down is that more couples are cohabitating. So when they break up and they say we no longer want to be in this relationship and we're going to move out, then that doesn't get recorded as a divorce. They're not going through the courts to get a divorce. They might be going through the courts if there's a lot of contention going on, a lot of fighting over finances or property and that sort of thing, but that still doesn't register as an actual divorce, so that's why the statistic goes down.
Speaker 3:So you got more people that are just kind of shacking up together.
Speaker 1:That's one way to put it.
Speaker 3:They're doing that and they're not getting married. They're living in sin, however you want to put it, and so at least in terms of the divorce rates going down, but it sounds like that the marriage rate where people getting married is probably going down a little bit too, if more people are opting to just live with each other as opposed to making it official.
Speaker 1:I don't know if the marriage rate is lower, because if people are waiting until they're older, I assume that that statistic would balance out at some point, because based on population rates and all that. So I'm not really sure about that. I'd have to go look that up.
Speaker 3:Okay, financial infidelity and I know you've talked about how finances financial struggles period are a leading cause of divorce.
Speaker 1:Right, it's actually one of the top leading causes out of the top five.
Speaker 3:Okay, and financial infidelity is2. Is that one of those things of financial problems or is that a separate category?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's part of that financial people getting divorced because of financial problems. One of the problems within the financial issue is financial infidelity. What's interesting another statistic is that over 50% of divorcees admit to financial infidelity. That's where you get into, where they're hiding money from the courts, from the spouse, so that they don't have to pay the amount for spousal support or child support based on their income. Okay, and then the last statistic, which is really interesting, is that 67% of Gen X admitted to financial infidelity, and that's actually higher than any other group, like baby boomers, millennials, gen X, gen Alpha. What are we in? We're not baby boomers, we're right before the baby boomers.
Speaker 3:Or after baby boomers.
Speaker 1:That's right. We're right after baby boomers.
Speaker 3:But I can't remember we're after baby boomers.
Speaker 1:But before millennials? Yeah, I don't know quite where we are.
Speaker 3:So if anybody out there knows, we were born in the late 1960s 60s. That's right, wherever that kind of comes in.
Speaker 1:I'm drawing a blank too.
Speaker 3:I can't remember what that is On your Gen X thing or Gen Z that you talked about? Could that be because one thing I noticed, especially with some of our kids, is that they tend to keep the husband and wife keep the finances separate. Is there more of a tendency to do that in that younger, in that age group? And if you're keeping the finances completely separate from each other, then there might be more of a tendency to kind of hide what's actually going on from the other person. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Right, that could happen. So Gen Z is 1997. Those born 1997 to 2010 or 2012. I can't remember on that, but it's right in that range. So this is not the folks that are born from 1996 and earlier, which would be your millennials. So the millennials, along with your Gen Z, and I don't know about Gen X or Gen Alpha, but your millennials and your Gen Z, they do have this more of the separation of their finances when they go into marriage and they have separate accounts. And our kids have done that. They've kept their accounts separate. They also have a one account where they share.
Speaker 1:I think it makes it easier to hide what you're doing, financially, possibly, but I haven't seen our kids hide their finances from each other with their spouses doing that. But I could see where you have a higher probability just because it's easier, because you don't have combined accounts. You have separate accounts, and so when I'm asked this question at conferences and folks ask me, should we have a combined account or is it okay to have two separate accounts, I typically put that back on them and say well, it depends on what your motivation is. For example, our daughter lost her from China and so she has an account through a Chinese bank, and that is very helpful when they travel. When her and our son travel to China, then they have that checking account already established. It makes it easier for them to get funds. It's really hard to get money when you travel overseas, particularly I don't know I mean, I haven't traveled, but just from what they've shared it's really hard to go somewhere and try to find money and then it's converted for the exchange rate and then you have to pay these fees to get it through an ATM and it's not that easy to go. You can't just go up to a bank and use the ATM to get American funds because your bank's not there, and so that happened when our son was first going over to China. He had a more difficult time getting money withdrawn In that situation.
Speaker 1:I think it makes sense If you have a couple ones from one country and the other one is from another country and they are going to be traveling a lot overseas and they need to have access to their money, it makes sense to have two different accounts and something like that. But for those that live in the same country, the big question is what is the motivation behind that? And it could be totally fine, it could just be that this is how we operate makes it easier for us to manage our money. One spouse pays for these items, the other spouse pays for those items, and they just break it down that way. I don't like to tell people what they should do in regards to you have to have the same account, share all of that, and the reason that is is because when you are working for a company, for example, and you have a retirement account, that's not in both people's names, it's in the one spouse's name, and then they have a beneficiary of who gets that money right.
Speaker 3:Life insurance. Be that way too. I don't see in today's world how it would be possible for a married couple It'd be pretty rare for a married couple to have every financial thing relationship that they have once you start thinking about insurance and retirements and ownership of this, that or the other and accounts, to have everything joint. It seems like if there's going to be some stuff that is going to have to be individual.
Speaker 1:We already have that.
Speaker 1:We just typically think of checking accounts as being, oh, that has to be joint, and we forget about the retirement counts and the insurance accounts and that sort of thing, which are already separate just because that's the way they're set up.
Speaker 1:And in answer to that question, I think it just has to do with what's the purpose. If you're wanting to have separate accounts because you're wanting to hide money from each other and you think that that's going to be something that's going to be easy for you it's going to be tempting for you to hide the money that you're making or not to share the money with your spouse then I would say that that's the wrong motivation to have separate accounts. If it's going to turn into something that's going to cause conflict in the marriage and cause infidelity, where you're being deceitful and hiding money from each other, I don't recommend doing that. But if there's a purpose behind it and there's a reason and everything is still open and honest and each spouse has access, like the passwords, and can log in and take a look at the account, that sort of thing, I don't really see what the big deal is with having separate accounts.
Speaker 3:So can financial infidelity be not just when we talked about checking accounts and retirement and stuff like that, but could it be like asset purchases that you'd have? Say, for instance, I snuck out to Bass Pro and bought a bass boat?
Speaker 3:and then took the bass boat and put it in the woods to the north of the house, where you probably don't go a lot, where you wouldn't see it, and only decided to try to get the bass boat out when you weren't around and use it at that time. Would that be a financial infidelity thing?
Speaker 1:Yes, that would be huge financial infidelity. So, sharing that example, we can go into some different types of financial infidelity, but that would be a big one.
Speaker 1:But I think it would be hard, like you would have to go open up a different account. You would have to somehow get that money, so you would have to do alone, without me being present. Then you would have to get money out of the checking or savings without me knowing about it. That would make it really hard. So let's say you did buy a bass boat and you did go hide it on the north part of the farm in the woods where you don't think I would go to see it.
Speaker 1:It would be difficult I know spouses do it because it happens but it would be difficult to hide that. But we have everything's joint for us and we both have access to everything. That would be a difficult thing to hide but it would be easier to hide if we had separate accounts. And this is where it becomes easier to engage in financial infidelity with something like that. Because if you had separate accounts and you're having your paycheck go into your account and I have my paycheck go into my account, and if I didn't have access to your checking account, then it would be easy for you to go out and buy a bass boat or get a loan and then you're making payments and I wouldn't know about it.
Speaker 3:So the more separate accounts that you have or separate things you own, the easier it is to engage in financial infidelity where you're not telling your spouse, hey, I went out and bought this, or I've got this investment over here on the side, or something like that.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I mean, I think the temptation would be greater to not share what you're doing with your finances in a situation like that, and so that's why you have to just look at what is the motivation and what is the accountability, so that you're not tempted to start engaging in being secretive about the money that you have.
Speaker 3:Okay, so you got other examples other than our bass boat and checking accounts and retirement.
Speaker 1:Along those lines of the bass boat and it would be opening up a line of credit in secret for like on the house, that sort of thing.
Speaker 3:Another one or a new credit card.
Speaker 1:Or a new credit card, yep.
Speaker 3:You could get a new credit card and I wouldn't know about it, that's true, because you get those offers in the mail all the time.
Speaker 1:You know, yeah, so you go through email when you walk into a store. You go to a store and you're checking out. The one thing they ask you before you pay is would you like to open up a credit card? They actually ask you that before they even start ringing up your purchases, would you like to open up a credit card?
Speaker 3:Some of them ask it when you get out of your vehicle and you're parking.
Speaker 1:It feels like that sometimes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they're kind of pushy on some of that.
Speaker 1:And they try to lure you in with oh you get $20 off today, get 20%, whatever it is, you'll get $50 back cash to spend in a future visit, whatever it is, and they try to make it really enticing. You have to be careful, but it would be, if I am out shopping by myself and I really want something, I could open up a credit card and not tell you about it. That could be a temptation for some folks.
Speaker 1:Now another one is spending large sums of money, not great upon Some folks. We've done this where it's like if you're going to make a big purchase over a particular dollar amount, then you would need to come and consult. We would have to come and talk to each other if we want to spend a large sum of money over a particular dollar amount that we've agreed upon, and if you or I were to go out, so like if you were to go out and buy that bass boat, that would definitely be way over the dollar amount that we've talked about. Talking to each other before we spend that kind of money and that would be a type of finance. Infidelity is not sticking to the agreement made between you and your spouse.
Speaker 3:So generally anything above my $20 flash cash one.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's a little bit higher than that for those listening Phil's joking.
Speaker 3:We need to visit about, unless it's something we're.
Speaker 1:It's a little bit higher than $20 for each of us.
Speaker 3:I mean tomorrow or the next day, we're going to have to go to the feed store and I know I'm going to write a check for a whole lot more than $20, because we've got animals out here that need to eat.
Speaker 1:But we generally know when you're say I'm going to go to the co-op and get feed for all the animals on the farm, we generally know how much that's going to be. That's not you hiding large sums of money. An example would be as if I were to go and spend maybe going to shopping spree for clothes and I spent $500 on clothing.
Speaker 1:That would definitely be over the agreed amount of how much we would spend before talking to each other. And then come home and then I try to hide it how much I spent, you'd be like, wow, that's a lot of clothes, yeah, but there's a lot of discounts and there might have been a lot of discounts, but I'm still not disclosing how much I spent. And it would be over that dollar amount that we agreed upon that we wouldn't spend without talking to each other. Another one, and this goes along the lines of opening a credit card or a line of credit and secret, and that's hiding the debt. Maybe you already have a credit card and the spouse is the one who pays all the bills, and so they go and charge something and now they're paying the bills and they just go and pay off or they make a payment towards that, and they're hiding that they're increasing the debt, that they're making these purchases from the other spouse without telling them. So that's one way that you could hide debt as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, that would make sense. If you had one spouse that's doing that, they could charge something. The other one wouldn't know at all.
Speaker 1:Right. Then there's hiding financial information as a type of financial fidelity. This would be if you were to open up, let's say, a life insurance policy on your spouse and not tell them hey, I opened up a life insurance policy on you for $3 million, but don't worry about it. It's not like I'm going to try to murder you or have anybody murder you tomorrow.
Speaker 3:Maybe hiring a food taster.
Speaker 1:Right. Or there's other sorts of financial information that you could hide, and that would be along with opening up accounts and that sort of thing. But maybe it could be something simple like you decided to open up a 401K through your business and, for whatever reason, you decided to hide that, and that goes into another type of financial fidelity and that's where sometimes the spouse if you have one spouse that's controlling and the other one doesn't feel safe, and then they start hiding financial information. Maybe they open up a savings account and they start putting a little bit money. Maybe they take their weekly flash cash, as you'd like to call it, and they start putting that into their savings account instead of using it to spend on other purchases. And so now they have the savings account because they, for whatever reason, that makes them feel safe, but they're not sharing that. They have the savings account, they're not sharing that. They're putting money into there.
Speaker 1:On the flip side of the financial fidelity, that's where you have a spouse that's controlling about the finances and I don't mean the spouse who's in charge of the finances. In a sense, they're the ones who are managing the finances, but they're updating the checkbook, they're reconciling the bank account, they're writing the payments, making sure the bills get paid. This would be someone who's very controlling, saying, okay, here's your $200 to go buy groceries and you're not allowed to get into the checking account, you're not allowed to have a debit card, you're not allowed to see what's going on with the finances, you're not allowed to see what the payments are. That would be controlling. It's not sharing all of that information. So it goes along with that, hiding financial information but at the same time telling the spouse you have zero control.
Speaker 1:You can't just go out and spend money the way that you want to. If you want to go out to eat, if you want to stop by your favorite place Chick-fil-A to get an iced tea, you can't do that without my permission. You have to get my permission before you can spend money. That would be a type of financial fidelity as well, is just controlling every tiny aspect of the finances.
Speaker 3:It sounds like it's a lack of trust that you'd be dealing with.
Speaker 1:Right and some would say well, I'm justified in that because my spouse goes out and just spends money all the time and it's causing us problems. But being ultra controlling of the finances isn't addressing the root issue of what's going on with that. So it's better to maybe meet with a financial coach or someone and get to the root issue of what's going on and try to work on that together as a couple, versus trying to have to control that spouse and cutting them out to where they can't spend any money at all.
Speaker 3:That makes sense.
Speaker 1:And then the next type of financial fidelity is where one spouse will ask you or require you to sign a document without you reading it a financial document, and it's putting you at risk financially and you're not allowed to read what the document says. They just show you here, sign the line, while I want to read it. No, just sign it, you don't need to read what it says. So that's the type of financial fidelity is where you're causing a spouse to be financially obligated for something without letting them know exactly what they're agreeing to.
Speaker 3:Sure, or they could be signing some disclosure with not knowing what they're agreeing to disclose.
Speaker 1:Correct.
Speaker 3:You know, seeing a lot of them where you have personal financial statements, you know that I need your wife's signature on this too, and they'll just stick it in front of the wife and say, here, sign it.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:And then she looked at it and she hadn't had anything on it. She's just signing it going down the road.
Speaker 1:That one goes into another type of financial fidelity, which is where the spouse refuses to answer questions about the finances. So that would be I want you to sign this document. Well, what am I signing? Just don't worry about it, Go ahead and sign it, and that would be a type of financial fidelity. Or if the spouse says how much money do we owe on the house? What do we have left on our mortgage? Well, you don't need to know that. Well, can I log into the account to see what it is? No, you don't need to log in information.
Speaker 1:And so it's refusing to answer questions about the finances. It could be that a spouse is using a credit card to make a lot of purchases or to withdraw money from the checking or savings account, and then the other spouse is like what are you using all this money for? What are these purchases for? And saying well, I work too. I don't need to share with you every little purchase or why I'm spending the money, and refusing to answer the questions about what's going on with the finances or what's going on with purchases and that sort of thing. But it's frustrating for the spouse that is not in the know and feels like information is not being shared. And then it's what else is going on that I need to know about? And then you start to feel betrayed, you start to feel insecure about your marriage, your relationship and just not knowing what's happening because the other spouse isn't willing to share that information.
Speaker 3:So where do you cross the line between what's financially infidelity versus just too much information is being shared? Say you have a business with somebody else. You've got a partner that's not me in this business. Say you do tax preparation and you and your partner they're running the business. Maybe you even have some other employees and stuff like that. But when you're doing all that, you've got income and expenses and all kinds of stuff like that you're dealing with over here. Is that necessarily my business? And knowing that, when you have a partnership that's over here with somebody else, kind of, where's the break between what do you think what's financial infidelity on that and what's being or one spouse is just too nosy and really shouldn't know that information?
Speaker 1:Wow, that's a big question and we could go all sorts of directions with that. There's a lot of ifs in there. So if the partnership that the spouse is involved in and it's completely separate from the personal finances, then there may be like where you can't like if your personal finances aren't mixed in with it and it's completely unrelated. The business is completely separate. There may be some fiduciary responsibilities for that spouse where they can't share certain financial information. Now, if the spouse is having to make contributions into the company, I would think that then the spouse would need to disclose this is I'm going to make this contribution of this dollar amount and this is why, if the spouse is using a personal credit card to make business purchases, I think that's a legit question that should be answered by the other spouse. I think it's just what is the question being asked and what's the purpose behind it. If the spouse is a guarantor the spouse who's not involved in the business, but they're a guarantor and they're going to be liable for anything that goes on with the business.
Speaker 3:Then they should know a little more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they should be able to have questions answered. So I think that there's a lot of ifs in that question that what's going on? How is the business set up? Are both spouses financially responsible or are they a guarantor for the business? Yeah, let's say there's a small business loan, an SBA loan for the business. Now if the spouse defaults and now the SBA can come after personal property that would impact the other spouse, then I would say absolutely, if they have questions, those should be answered. But if it's a completely separate entity, like a corporation, and they have certain fiduciary responsibilities where they can't share it and it's the other spouse that's not impacting them financially, I think it would just depend on what are the questions being asked and why are they being asked.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I had a case once where there is a business loan and they ended up having one of the fathers of the business partners signed a lien on his house in order to get the loan. The business wasn't doing very well. Every time that the dad had talked to his son about the business oh everything's fine, everything's doing good, we're doing this, we're doing that. But the business began to not make enough money to make the payments and stuff. Then it's kind of out of left field that it comes to the father that hey, you may end up losing your house because it's got to get sold to help pay the business loan. It would seem to me that, talking about the financial invidelity, that that would have been a case there.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Between the sons and the father.
Speaker 1:Absolutely In that situation if you have someone who's signing as a guarantor on a business loan. I would want monthly reports, quarterly reports. I would want to know what's going on with the business, how it's being run, because I wouldn't want to be on the hook financially and I would want to be able to step in and say how can I help if things started to not go quite well with that yeah, I think Proverbs talks about warrants, about being a cosigner or what do they call it?
Speaker 3:like a guarantor or putting a pledge up or something for a loan that's not yours?
Speaker 1:Right Warrants against that. Basically it says don't do that. Actually, in the corporate finance course I used to teach with Liberty Now I'm teaching some doctoral level courses with Liberty but when I was teaching the corporate finance class that was one of the questions. The discussion was should you be a cosigner? What does the Bible say about that? And the Bible actually warrants against cosigning for someone, putting a pledge up for someone.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, another type of financial infidelity is lying about or concealing purchases. When I read this, this reminds me of the thing that women often talk about retail therapy, where they are having a tough time emotionally with something. Then they're like I just need retail therapy. They're very stressed out, they go and shop, they make a lot of purchases. They come home and then they're hiding the purchases from their husband and I know that husbands do this too. They just don't tattle on themselves and say I'm going to go out and do a little retail therapy at Bass Pro or wherever it is that they like to go make purchases or spend money. But women tattle on themselves all the time about I just need a little retail therapy and that they engage in this and if the husband's okay with it, yes, please go out and have some retail.
Speaker 2:Yeah, go, take care of yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, go do what you got to do, and here's a dollar amount that we agree upon that you can spend. This is what we can afford.
Speaker 1:Then go for it. But if you're going out and spending a lot of money and you're racking up the credit card bills and then coming home and stashing the stuff away and you're not telling your husband disclosing what's going on or how much you're spending, or the flip side, if the husband's the one going out and doing the spending, then that gets into that financial infidelity piece. And now I'm not talking about if you're buying Christmas presents and it's like hey, I bought you a Christmas present but I don't want you to go into the closet or I hit it because I want to keep it a surprise. That birthday present, something like that, that's something completely different.
Speaker 3:You're talking about the bass boat in the woods.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm talking about the bass boat in the woods. That's right and that type of concealing or hiding purchases. And then another type of financial infidelity is not disclosing when you get cash back. This goes along with maybe your returning items for cash and or you get cash back on something. Maybe you bought something and there was a rebate, you submit the rebate and then you get cash back and you're hiding that from your spouse. Or maybe you bought something and you're like well, I don't really like this, or it didn't work out, so you take it back and rather than have the money put back on your debit card or your credit card, or if you get the cash taken and put it back into the checking account, you just hide that in your wallet or wherever and you're just hiding that cash and not letting your spouse know about it.
Speaker 3:So you have more flash cash.
Speaker 1:We have these things about financial infidelity and what it is, but one of the biggest questions is what causes it. What causes financial infidelity to happen? And the first one is addiction. This is where people that are addicted to drugs or drinking or sex or shopping or gambling or hoarding these types of addictions these are some of these, or a lot of these are mental health addictions, so we need to go see a mental health person to help you work through those addictions. But addictions can lead to financial infidelity, where you're hiding, spending your hiding cash because you want to keep engaging in that activity rather than deal with it. The root of it and try to work through that.
Speaker 3:Okay, what are some other things that cause it you?
Speaker 1:want to social pressure. This is where you want to impress friends. You want to be like the Joneses. This has to go with the personality trait of extraversion. It could also be where money status is very important to you. You want to have the latest cars, you want to have the latest IT type stuff, the latest iPhone or what have you, because you want to impress your friends, and so that can lead to financial infidelity. To keep up that status, you have to continue to spend money to have the nicer clothes, to have the nicer house, to have the nicer car, and so that could cause financial fidelity, especially if your spouse is like please stop spending the money. And so now you may start hiding purchases or you may go out and get a loan and not tell your spouse about it.
Speaker 1:Just because, you feel like you need to impress those around you.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:Another one is different goals. It might be hobbies or helping family. I know that helping family is a big fight between a lot of married couples. One spouse might have parents or a sibling or aunt and uncle or cousins or someone who's saying, hey, I need help, and they come to them a lot for financial help. And so the spouse feels obligated Well, it's my sister, well it's my brother, or it's my mom, or it's my aunt, it's someone that's important to me and that I need to help them out. Or if I don't help them out, then it's going to impact their kids and their kids are going to go without. And so the other spouse is like please stop giving money. We can't afford to take care of our family and their family. Please talk to me first to see if we can afford to help them out. And that spouse starts hiding money that they're giving to the family because they feel obligated. They feel that pressure to help out their family.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I could see where that could happen a lot. Yeah, and then, especially if there's a disagreement in the spot within the spouses, that one says, no, you don't need to help that out anymore because you know they're just leaching off of you and the others saying, well, I got to, I feel obligated. And then there's a lot of maybe cash passed under the table and stuff.
Speaker 1:Right Now. This isn't if you have the means and both the married couple, the spouse, both spouses agree upon it and you're helping out and there's some parameters set on that. That's not what we're talking about. This is where it's just an ongoing problem and it's negatively impacting your marriage financially because you're giving money to another family member on a continual basis. Yeah, another one is revenge, and that has to do with even Stephen mentality. Well, you went out and you bought a bass boat, so since you did that, I'm going to go out and buy another bass boat, Another.
Speaker 1:I'm starting to think of what I would buy. I'm sure what I would buy. I'm going to go out and buy an RV, I don't know, a little travel trailer. I have no idea what I'd go out for revenge, you know, or it could be jealousy.
Speaker 3:So it's kind of like a double financial infidelity. So one of the spouses buys the bass boat, the other goes and buys the RV, in spite of what the other person did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if that's what's going on, you know, if the bass boat wasn't agreed upon, the other part of that revenge could be jealousy. You make so much money and you go out and you're going out with friends all the time. You do business lunches and you go to this and you do that, and I feel like I should be able to go and spend money. You go out and you go golfing with the buddies, or you go out and you go shopping with your girlfriends. It's really rooted in jealousy. It's well, you got to go do that, so I'm going to go do this. And that can lead to financial infidelity. It could also have to do with betrayal and that can get into like an affair.
Speaker 1:If one spouse starts having an affair and it comes out that they were spending money on this other person that they're having an affair with, the other spouse could start to feel like, well, you went and spent all this money on this other person, you had an affair and so I'm going to go out and spend all this money to meet my needs, to take care of me, because you betrayed me. You didn't stick with it only being us. You brought in a third person into the marriage. The next one is self-preservation. It's where your partner is controlling and you don't feel financially safe. So you start hiding money in case there's going to be a loss of the relationship or you feel like this person could leave me at any time that sort of thing.
Speaker 1:And then another one is a loss of a job, and we see this in the movies a lot. A spouse loses a job and they get up in the morning and they act like they're going to work, but they actually lost their job and they don't tell their spouse about it. That's a type of financial fidelity. But that also can lead into all the other types of financial fidelity, with hiding cash, not sharing financial information and that sort of thing. Well, the next type of financial fidelity, or the cause, is financial pitfalls, but we're not going to talk about it on this episode. We're going to continue that discussion in the next episode. So join us in our next episode, part two of financial fidelity, to find out about financial pitfalls that can lead to financial fidelity, and we will also talk about how you can overcome financial infidelity.
Speaker 3:That sounds like a big topic for the next one too, so nobody wants to miss that one.
Speaker 1:Nope, we're going to have a lot of great information. We appreciate you listening to the Life, love and Money podcast. One way that you can support us is by signing up for the monthly newsletter on AngelaKlovecom. That's AngelaKaYeLovecom. When you sign up for the newsletter, you will receive a free 10 questions to help you discover your spouse's money personality. Head on over to my website, angelaklovecom, and sign up for the free newsletter and get your free 10 questions to help you discover your spouse's money personality. Thank you again for listening to the Life, love and Money podcast.