Men Are Hurting
Call it husband guilt. Many of us were raised to believe that it is our responsibility to be the financial providers in our families. Such beliefs are deeply ingrained gender expectations that shape a man's self-worth.
Fast Facts
According to 2017 PEW survey results, 72% of men believe that being able to support a family financially is very important, 71% of women believe the same.
45% of women earn around the same or more than their husbands, according to 2023 PEW survey results.
Many of us become distressed when we are not the financial providers.
A study conducted at Bath University in the United Kingdom examined more than 6,000 U.S. households over the course of 14 years. Couples were asked to measure distress in terms of feeling sad, nervous, restless, hopeless, or worthless or note that everything was an effort.
According to the research, men experience a higher level of psychological distress when they are the sole breadwinners of their household. Their distress decreased as their wives began to earn more money, and men felt happiest when their wives earned 40% of the household income.
The highest level of psychological stress reported by men came when they were economically dependent on their wives.
Wisdom from Ed Coambs
Edward Coambs, CFP®, LMFT, CFT-I™ is a Modern Husbands Advisory Board Member, who opened up about the challenges he faces in his marriage. Despite being wildly successful, Ed struggles with not being the breadwinner in his marriage.
Ed was a guest on the podcast The Struggle is Real: When She Makes More Than You…in a Culture that Hasn’t Normalized Breadwinning Women. In the episode, Ed acknowledges that while he fully supports women's professional success, he struggles with feelings of inadequacy, often intensified by external social pressures.
"These pressures are magnified in social settings where others, consciously or unconsciously, reinforce traditional expectations through offhand comments and jokes, leading to awkward dynamics and internalized shame."
How Women Can Help
Although complicated, a straightforward solution factors in the comprehensive contributions of men in the relationship extending beyond financial support, including household labor, emotional support, and childcare.
Some men need to feel liberated from the stress of being the financial provider. Open communication and vulnerability are vital.
Women can help by making it clear to their husbands that support extends beyond bringing home the bacon, which is just as valuable, if not more.
Related: Check out our Household Chores page for home management ideas.
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Podcast Transcript
[00:00:00] Justin: While we still have a lot of work to do, I'm really glad we've made strides in closing the gender pay gap. Women's increased incomes have led to significant changes in household dynamics. More women are becoming the primary or even sole breadwinner for their family.
This change is great and has led to many positives for both men and women. However, our culture is still caught up in traditional gender roles, especially when it comes to money. Many people expect a man to be the primary breadwinner in a relationship.
This leads to awkwardness, confusion, and tension. In today's episode, we're going to be talking about those feelings, especially from the lens of men. There is no better person to have this conversation with than my friend Ed Combs. Ed is a financial therapist and has over 20 years of experience working with individuals, couples, and families experiencing a wide range of money related distress. In this conversation, we dive into topics such as overcoming your internal feelings about contributing less financially, managing money with your partner without feeding resentment, and responding to friends when they joke about the income disparity in your relationship.
A lot of choosy topics, so if you're ready for it, I hope you enjoy my conversation with a firefighter turned certified financial therapist, Ed Combs.
Well, Ed, I'm excited for this conversation. We kind of workshop this topic back and forth. And I think if it's okay with you, we're going to draw on a lot of personal experience. You're also a financial therapist, so I'm sure you'll be able to bring in some of the conversations and the situations that you've seen through that practice.
I know we both have somewhat similar experiences around the topic today, which is when she makes more than you. And I think this is a really hard topic, and it's been an evolving topic, maybe a little less for me, I'm, just turned 31, so I don't know if I've necessarily been in the world where men always made more money than women, and then that kind of has been slowly changing, but even talking to my parents or my grandparents, that was not necessarily the case, so I got curious and I went and did some research, and it looks like since about the 1970s, when, at that point in time, men were the primary or sole breadwinners about 85 percent of the time.
And since then, over the last 50 years, that's shrunk to 55 percent of the time. we're now about equal, half and half, in terms of primary or sole breadwinners. And there's been a lot of conversation about women breaking the glass ceiling and all of that, but I think less of the conversation on How that's making some of the men feel.
And if we're going to be honest, it's not always a great thing either. So just kind of teeing up the conversation for today. That's what I'm really excited about. And maybe we can start with your experience or your dynamic right now. So I, I believe your, wife is a dentist and you've had a couple of career paths Can you kind of give us a summary on, where you were and where you're at now?
[00:03:02] Ed: Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I started my career professionally as a firefighter and thought that I would be a career firefighter. I'd ultimately become a fire chief, that was kind of. Where I thought I was going. And, I met my wife who was finishing dental school. And at the time that we met, you know, and I started telling the guys at the firehouse about it, they're like, man, you got to marry her.
And I love to say, it's because like I told him all these great attributes about her character and her person and how we have fun together. But no, it was because she was going to be a dentist. Let's just call a spade a spade. and I think most people would generally know and understand that like a dentist is on a career path to make more money than a firefighter by and large.
Now, what people don't always know is some firefighters are very financially productive because they work as a firefighter. And so they have a stable salary job. They'll pick up overtime shifts and they'll also run their own side business. And that can, usually it's in the trades. It's in construction, tile work, electrical, [00:04:00] and there's a guy that did pressure washing business, you know, so they figure out how to produce a pretty healthy income, but I didn't want all that.
I didn't want to have to work a second job. and so when I. Initially, it was like, this is great, you know, and yes, all the personal attributes we met at a time when I had just lost a good friend to suicide and like her character really showed up. And so it wasn't just about marrying her for her professional identity.
It was about who she was with me while I was going through a profound loss. But the reality of Going from spending a lot of time with firefighters and, kind of trades folks to hanging out with doctors, lawyers, people with graduate degrees was a new world to me. And it was both exciting and overwhelming and scary.
there's a part of me that didn't feel like I belong. So there is this lens of like social class I'm from a blue collar background. My father's an electrician. My mom was a teacher's aide, like, I didn't grow up around loads of professionals. My parents were not professionals in a white collar sense of the term.
Now, both of my parents took their work very seriously. They were diligent. They did great work, but there is a big difference when you cross from blue collar working class background into white collar professional. And so I'll just say. What I initially thought was like, this is going to be great has ended up over the last 17 years led me on this journey of trying to figure out why do I feel insecure next to my wife who makes more money than me?
What is this all about? And why am I feeling it? and I am fortunate because she doesn't hold it over my head in any way, never has. sometimes I, over the years I've wished that I could say, well, I feel this way because she's made me feel bad about it. But she hasn't. I mean, credit to you, honey, you're a bigger person than me, I guess.
when I left the fire service, I initially thought I'm going to understand this money thing. I'm going to get my MBA, my CFP. I know how money works. This is great. And that helped us get launched pretty well in our early career phase. But there was some misunderstandings that just knowing how money Works didn't solve psychologically.
I still felt this angst, this discomfort, and then we were ready to have a family and she was on a, you know, had her dental practice going and she was working, she was making good money. I had transitioned and was working at Vanguard. I was in the call center. I was not making great money. And so it was like, well, who's going to stay home with our firstborn child? Well, guess who draws that stick? And pragmatically, I think this is true for a lot of couples. It's the person that's making less money. And this has long term career impacts when we enter the, exit the labor force to enter kids. And there's certainly values of staying home and taking care of kids that are kind of hard to fully, we can't quantify the number impact.
But there are the values of also being around with the kids, but that really started to magnify this difference in gender breadwinning and experience, because at least in our social circle, most of the male partners were the breadwinners for the coupleship. They maybe have been partnered with someone else that had higher education, but they, she would take a step back. And so during the week. I would be going to the playground while my wife was going to the dental practice. I wouldn't be talking with my buddies, I would be hanging out with my buddies wives. That was a weird dynamic. It was breaking some social norms. And so, I ended up back in school to become a couples therapist to understand how couples and people work and to try to get my head around this.
And, you know, what I've come to appreciate is that gender socialization is a very real thing. Gender expectations are a very real thing. And, While my personal values fully support women being at the highest levels of all society, my psychological experience of being partnered with someone who had a higher social position than me has created tremendous insecurities, has exposed tremendous insecurities that I wouldn't have known were there otherwise.
Had I married a teacher or someone else who wasn't on the income path my wife has been on, maybe this wouldn't have shown up in the same way because for men we've been socialized to be providers so often. That's what we've seen at least. And when I say men, I want to be sensitive to realize like that's also a stereotype because there's plenty of men that grew up with other men in their lives directly connected that are not providers and struggled to be providers for a number of different reasons.
And so I want to be sensitive when I say men, some, I need to qualify it and say some men. I think I've trailed off on your initial question, but
[00:08:26] Justin: I like the trail that, that you're paving right now, and I mean, you kind of gave us the crux of this issue. it's like, you fully support women. Let's just rule women out of it, but your wife, and her income trajectory, and her success. But at the same time, it's making you feel insecure, and to no fault of her own.
Not because she shamed you, or she makes fun of you, but because of both internal and, I'm guessing, external pressures around gender norms and, kind of what you think you should be in terms of the provider in this relationship. Is that fair?
[00:09:04] Ed: yeah, absolutely. And it, Was one of the most like enjoyable because here we have our firstborn child and also a very lonely time where I felt like. There's nobody else that's sharing this similar type of experience of being a stay at home dad. I would hear the anecdotal, well, I know a stay at home dad over here. well, okay. Where is this mythological creature? you know, this was 13 years ago now. I mean, my oldest is 13 and I spent probably two or three years very solidly home with him and kind of like wrapped my head around that. This is going to be my role in life through grad school. And, and fast forward, through, Through the counseling program, through, another graduate degree in, financial planning and really ultimately building a couple's therapy practice around helping couples navigate money.
So then this is, there are so many nuances to why people struggle to be connected and to see each other for what, who they are and what they're experiencing and to bring empathy and compassion to that relationship. We very quickly start to fill in stories about ourselves and our partners and That are usually only half truths or partial truths.
[00:10:09] Justin: What do you mean by that? Do you have an example maybe?
[00:10:12] Ed: I think this example fits what we're talking about is, you know, when one partner said, so I ended up also working with a good number of blended families. when we talk about money dynamics, there are many layers and blended families adds a whole nother layer. And so does my partner care about my children from my first marriage as much as their kids from their primary or their first relationship?
And how do we navigate that? And how are we allocating financial resources to from your biological children and your stepchildren? And does that feel fair? but you're earning, two thirds of the pie. So does that give you more power? Does that then mean your kids become more endowed?
How do we navigate this with? My children and what I'm trying to provide, even though I bring one third of the income.
[00:10:56] Justin: That is a difficult situation right there. What, what is the response, or, how would you help someone even think through or work through that? Because even, take kids out of the equation, I think that's still a difficult situation. Me personally, if, let's say Gabby makes two thirds of our income, I, and I don't know if you feel this way sometimes, Then I almost feel responsible for only spending one third of the expenses like there will be the shared pot of things yes, of course, but I might like Second guess something like a 500 conference ticket.
is that for someone like, For Gabby to kind of pitch in to pay for something like that when I'm only making a percentage a small percentage of our total income
[00:11:35] Ed: You know, I think this is kind of that timeless question and it was a social post that I saw very recently, kind of asking this question about like, should she keep supporting him financially? And when does it become unfair? And there's, as humans, we have this propensity towards wanting fairness. Now, how we evaluate what's fair, that's where we see the diversity, But we're wired, part of our psychological makeup is towards [00:12:00] fairness. And so that's a good thing, but it also means that we end up in rub spots because what you identify as fair, Justin, and what Gabby identifies as fair may not line up. this is where we try to be very sensitive about not imposing the air quotes.
Fair for a couple, but I try to create a space for them to openly talk about and think about what is fair. How, where do your ideas about fairness come from?
Because, well, my wife and I have organized around the all in mentality, which is whoever's making whatever money it's all in for the benefit of our family. And it's our responsibility to grow and nurture it for the benefit of our collective family. But that certainly doesn't mean that I haven't felt the pressure of like, well, geez, I'm only making a 25 percent right now or 10 percent or nothing for a little while. How do I accommodate for that? And this is where sometimes we have to start to say, well, it's more than the financial contribution to the relationship. There's other contributions that we're making. There's other currencies, if you will. Maybe it's, I'm doing more of the emotional labor. Maybe it's, I'm doing more of the household labor. And while it doesn't have a market value, that's the same as your market labor. We're saying that these kind of balance the scales. So couples are never just trading in hard dollars. They're trading in time contribution. They're trading in relational contributions and emotional availability and financial. And so it's, it gets the balance sheet gets messy. It's really, it's a lot easier when it's just like. Well, I bring in a hundred and you bring in 200, we have 300, one third, two thirds, you're right, which would be like the math way people would say, okay, well then I'm responsible for a third of everything that we're doing and you're responsible for two thirds.
And that doesn't usually end up always working out well.
[00:13:49] Justin: It doesn't. And you're right. There's this, like, the household labor conversation I hear all the time, or the childbearing, responsibilities or whatnot. And maybe there's some quantification you can do for here. But like, A, there's no, like. currency that you can convert all of this to give you kind of apples to apples.
there's not this, this like, evenness across that. maybe some labor you can kind of think through it. Like, hey, I'm at work for eight hours.
This is what your eight hours looks like during the day. But then you, you talk about things like emotional labor too. There, there are like many of other things that, That one partner can bring to the table, and while the other one might not be able to because they're focused on their career, or something like that.
[00:14:32] Ed: Yeah. You know, and I came across an article recently to remind me is cause I don't work with this population of folks who were one person identifies as a sugar baby and there's the sugar daddy, right? That's not a community of folks that I interact with a lot. And so I'm not making a statement for or against it, but like they've worked out a currency exchange where one person brings the money and the other person brings the looks
[00:14:55] Justin: Yes.
[00:14:55] Ed: and they, they feel like that's an equal trade.
It's valuable. Now, whether You or I say that's what we want our life to be. Okay, that's for us to decide. That's our own values. But they've gotten to a very clear like, I'm bringing the beauty and the youth typically. And you're providing the air quote, unlimited resources.
And so as long as you maintain the beauty and I've maintained the unlimited resources, we're okay.
But when that changes, then what are we going to do? Who are we to each other?
And so this is really a question that couples are navigating over the course of long term intimate relationships is what we bring in and contribute. What we want to contribute will also ebb and flow, maybe I wanted to be home and contribute to raising the kids or like when we first meet and we're young professionals, we're like, Oh, I want to have my professional identity.
I want to go after it. This is fantastic. And you do too. And so we're both putting money in. Hooray. But then like, I want to have a kid and I want to be home with them. That's important to me. And so I don't want to make as much money, which then means the money you're making has got to support us if we're going to stay together.
Now, what do we [00:16:00] do? How do we reevaluate what's fair? Okay. Now the kids are less dependent on me and You are, you know, still working and I've given up years of labor, I can't reenter. And you've progressed and this is assuming an upwardly mobile couple. couples have to continually revisit what's fair in their relationship.
I think it's, that's really my long way of saying the conversation of fairness is never a one and done. It's an ongoing conversation.
[00:16:27] Justin: And I'm glad that you pointed that out because I do think a lot of this Internal work and the work that you have to do as a couple to kind of overcome some of these income disparities it sounds like a lot of that work is done through conversation about fairness and conversation about contributions And making sure you guys both feel aligned.
But as you know that changes over time or maybe someone agreed to that but like internally, they didn't a hundred percent agree on that. And then there's like some resentment that builds over time and it's it's kind of like pushed under the rug until it finally boils and explodes.
[00:17:07] Ed: 100%, right? Because in some ways we're talking about this as if we arrive as fully developed, fully psychologically mature adults, but anybody really listening to this has been paying halfway attention, realizes that ain't the truth.
[00:17:20] Justin: Yes. Yes.
[00:17:23] Ed: full and honest truth at any one point. But because being fully honest and vulnerable about what we want and what we need is scary. Because on the other side of that is potential rejection. And especially when we're in the formation stage of our intimate relationships. So on the one hand we're sharing everything, but often we're not sharing anything at all. About ourselves in early intimate relationships, right? We're sharing what we want to have the other person see so that we're desirable and we're kind of skirting around the other undesirable parts. And if we haven't done any of our own real psychological work, then we don't even know that we might be hiding things from ourselves.
[00:17:59] Justin: hmm,
[00:18:00] Ed: table and start to partner with each other, they have their whole family history about how relationships are navigated. They have their religious or cultural traditions around how relationships are navigated. And those are setting very, sometimes very clear expectations about what you share or don't share.
And sometimes there's very implicit. And so part of our task as adults is being able to start to sift through that and say, well, I didn't share that. I actually want to be very sexual. Because I, I got a message in my cultural tradition that being sexually expressive is not good or not appropriate. I really actually want to make a lot of money and have a lot of wealth, but my cultural tradition said having wealth is evil or bad, or the other way around is, I'm afraid to say that I want to be a stay at home parent because like this group of society is saying to be a great woman means to go after my career.
And so now I'm at conflicts because I have this other part of me that really just wants to be a stay at home parent. So we can come at it from a lot of different angles where we may not feel like we even have the space to be fully honest about what we want because of our cultural family tradition conditioning. that's where a lot of the therapy work. Comes into play of claiming personal agency, being able to recognize that there is a spectrum of ways to live. And ultimately we have a responsibility to choose because most of it's chosen for us through our childhood. And so the task of adulthood is being a reflect on what was chosen for us.
And then making decisions about what do we want for ourselves as adults now that we're more and more capable of discerning.
[00:19:30] Justin: that totally makes sense to me. I mean, did that play a part in you kind of overcoming some of your own insecurities or thoughts around this? Because, I mean, I understand getting aligned with your partner on contributions and fairness and always having those conversations, but just because you got aligned on that, that might have, suppressed or maybe evened out a little bit of some of the insecurity that you were feeling, but at the end of the day, that still probably pops up on occasion.
Like, no offense, Ed, but like, I'm guessing you guys are both at a party together and you're sitting next to each other and someone asks, you know, Ed, what do you do? And you say, I'm a financial therapist. And some people might find that interesting, but there's only so much dialogue. And then it flips to her and it's, I'm a dentist.
And there's probably way more engagement on a question like that. And I'm, I'm imagining being in your shoes too, that I would be like, shoot, man, she always kind of gets the spotlight and she makes all the money and all of those things. Yeah. But it sounds like you've done some of the work overcome some of that insecurity.
[00:20:26] Ed: Yeah. I have, but it does show up. I think it was interesting because Very early on, I recognized, I don't want to say that when we would go to new social environments and she would say she was a dentist, people would ask her for her card, When I left the fire, when people heard I was a firefighter, they're like, Oh, that's cool. It sounds harsh. So I may need to reel this back in as people are self interested.
[00:20:50] Justin: definitely.
[00:20:51] Ed: so like, Oh, you're a firefighter. That's cool. What are you going to do for me? Nothing. Okay So, oh, you're a dentist. Oh, I need a good dentist. I like a dentist. I feel more comfortable. But like when I was holding myself out as a financial planner, when I first left firefighting, nobody was asking for my card. Now, some of that may have been my own insecurity, self sabotaging too. So there's some of that. But as I was a couples therapist and would hold myself on that way. Nope. No one was like, Oh, cool. Can we come see you? And so like, from a business development standpoint, that would have like evoke this insecurity and frustration.
Like, see, it's just so easy. Like I would be in the kids consignment shop, looking at something and I'd strike up a conversation with a mom and say, Oh yeah, my wife's a dentist. Just casually shake. Oh, that's cool. Where is she? And then I would say, and then she'd actually, you know, she's scheduling an appointment at my wife's dental practice Like, you know, sometimes you end up partner with someone. Person who has a professional status that is very socially desirable or attractive, and that's, that is, can be another place of insecurity. I think the old phrase is you're the doctor's wife. Well, I was, I'm the doctor's husband. And you know, like it or not, in our society, we value certain professional identities way more than others. No one's impressed when you say, Oh, I'm a garbage truck driver. Oh, really? That's so cool. Tell me all about that. I don't think that happens. but I think it's, challenged me to continue to look for and remember where does my self worth really come from? And this is something I talk about with my clients a lot is because we also in our society blend our professional identity with our self worth.
[00:22:25] Justin: Yes.
[00:22:26] Ed: And so this is more philosophical and conceptual and harder to live into practically, but my belief now is that our self worth is intrinsic to being human. So if you're alive and you're living today, my belief is that you're worthy and valuable independent of anything that you do have done or belief like all humans have intrinsic worth and value. Now, we add other layers of value to humans, and one of the values that we've been talking about is market value, and that's purely an economic, proposition, The market says, Justin, you are valuable in the market to provide this service. These are what the market will pay. That doesn't make you inherently a more valuable person than me, intrinsically. And so I think that's a big reckoning is where do we turn for our self worth? And a lot of people will turn to the spiritual traditions to kind of fill in that void or gap around self worth therapy. Offices are full of us trying to figure out how to take care of our ego, bruised ego, or build our self worth or, you know, whatever the language is.
And so, you know, our sense of self is really important. And you know, there's this old phrase that You probably heard as a kid too, it's sticks and stones might break my bones, but words will never hurt me. That's the biggest crock of shit.
[00:23:46] Justin: It is. It is It's the opposite.
[00:23:48] Ed: the opposite. Words are so damaging and our sense of self as a very real thing.
While it's intangible in one way, it's, it is, has its own body to it. [00:24:00] It's structured within our mind, our nervous system, our neural pathways. It can be injured. you know, when we really look at. Insecurity, as much as, as many right things as my parents did do, there was places of emotional insecurity that I've internalized and continue to struggle with.
And so this is not about blaming my parents as much as it might sound that way to some. It's about acknowledging also that my parents had their own places in life where they developed insecurities about themselves and they did the best they could to buffer me from those. And yet no parent is perfect from buffering their children against their own insecurities. Now, some parents are unaware that they're doing that. some are aware. I think that's where there can be a big, a big place to come to reckon with, at the end of the day, it really comes down to what were your developmental experiences. How did that shape your sense of self? and that all just bubbles right up into the very practical, like, well, when she makes more, I feel insecure.
[00:25:03] Justin: words can be piercing. I've had many of injuries in my life, and they suck for a period of time, and then I kind of completely forget about them until maybe I look at a scar or something. But words, man, I remember, you know, one example that I had, it was probably episode five or six of this podcast.
my buddy reached out to me and was like, Hey man, been listening to the podcast and I'm like, Oh, cool. What do you think? He's like, you're really bad at reading your intros. I was like, Whoa.
[00:25:32] Ed: Oh,
[00:25:33] Justin: I'm like just getting going on podcasting. And then Oh, it probably took me a hundred plus episodes after that, good intros after that, to really overcome that kind of thought.
And for a long period of, time through, through podcasting, I would routinely say out loud, I'm really bad at intros, I'm really bad at intros. Like, and that just like, once again, internalized from one off handed comment. One off handed comment from somebody that has, I still think about today. I hope I've gotten, I know I've gotten way better at, recording intros and developing intros on this podcast.
And I like to think that I'm pretty good at but I don't, I probably wouldn't have admitted that or even believed that a year ago. Like it has taken me a long, a long process to, unwrap that.
[00:26:19] Ed: Well, I appreciate you sharing that because I think that that's, what we have to remember when we're working with and talking with each other as friends, but also with our intimate partners, is that those experiences that when that one person said that one thing that maybe we still remember consciously, and sometimes we don't remember consciously, but we've taken it on as we're not good. either. We're not good statement about safe or we're not good at activity. In this case, podcast is a very practical one, right? But my experience of you is like, Hey, Justin's this cool guy. He's got this podcast. He's confident. He knows what he's doing. Meanwhile, there's this internal dialogue that. Did I read that intro good?
And probably not today on this one as much as it was like 50 episodes
[00:26:59] Justin: Probably, today as well. I, it's, it's always in the back my head, but
Ed: have popped up. Right. And so that's the other thing is like why we're not able to extinguish those negative memories or experiences. Right. And I think this is, to me, my understanding of a lot of mental health and addiction issues are trying to We drink excessively, we drug excessively to numb out or bypass these painful experiences that have become lodged in our brain.
And really what we're hoping to do in relational therapy is create a safe enough place to process and talk about those experiences and to help ourselves Re contextualize, re understand what's being said and what was happening there in a way that allows us to regain our sense of integrity and worth, in the context of talking about money, people get all kinds of messages through their childhood that they're bad with money. They're not good with money.
They're irresponsible with money, or that they have to be overly responsible because the adults in their life are not able to take care of or manage the money.
[00:28:00] And so then when they partner with someone who's being irresponsible with money, they feel a lot of resentment because they're in adult intimate relationships. There's an expectation of equality for most of us. And if it doesn't start that way, you certainly want to get there, Some of us come into it with expectation.
Well, I'm going to be the financial caretaker. It gives me a source of pride. And the other person comes in with a sense of, I just want someone to take care of me financially. That's not an uncommon pairing consciously or unconsciously, but at some point, resentments definitely starts to build because this is not a relationship between adult partners, this is. A power dynamic, a parent child dynamic, and it feels like crap.
[00:28:39] Justin: Changing subjects, Ed, I know we only have a little bit more time together, and although I'm not sure if we had tons of practicals on, overcoming this, probably because it's just a very hard thing to do, it was really just a thought exercise or an opportunity for people to explore and be honest with themselves on where resentment might be coming from, their relationship with their significant other right now. But if it was just between the two of us, if it was just Gabby and I, that's all that, that really impacted our own relationship, we might be able to overcome this.
But then you dump on top of the fuel other people's opinions, and other people's feelings. And One that has come up in some of my friendship circles on this dynamic where a significant other way outperforms from an income standpoint, the other person, is just like, jabs or jokes. Like, I got a friend that I'm thinking about right now, and his wife makes, I don't even know how much more, but a significant amount more.
Let's just, for easy numbers, probably like, He makes 40 grand, she makes like 300 And everybody in our, circle knows that there's this big disparity. And I can tell he often gets, some jokes on, you know, if we're out and it's just us guys hanging out something. he swipes his credit card, he's a punching bag right away.
Like, oh, I'm glad she bought that for us or something like that. How do you work through? Maybe some of the other pressures that are maybe even continuing to not allow you to extinguish your own insecurity and feelings around the situation.
[00:30:17] Ed: Justin, I'm laughing at myself as you're walking through this, because I had some part of me just show up and say, punch the sucker. And I was like man where did that come from? Because that's not my normal MO, right? My normal MO in that kind of comment. And I've had similar types of comments said to me.
It's a just shrink back and not say anything. And that's where the, the hurt and the shame and the resentment really gets stuck inside of us. And this is where I think it takes a lot of vulnerability on both intimate partners to be able to talk openly and acknowledge the reality that like the ideal might be that we're seen as equally valuable in society and in our relationship.
But the reality is that's not the case. And so how can we turn towards each other and be supportive when that happens? Now, ideally, if these are good enough friends, we can have enough integrity to go back and say, Hey, look, John, when you said this the other night, that actually hurt my feelings. this is a kind of a therapy phrase, but we're going to assume good intentions. you were wanting to be playful, right? But this actually hurt me. And the reality is, and this is the hard work for a lot of us is sometimes we have to have these hard conversations and then really see people's true colors. And a good friend would be able to say, wow, I can see that. I'm sorry. I, I was just wanting to be playful or just razz you a little bit because I think a lot of us think men and women have a different version of being razzed or teased.
I think both genders do it to each other, and it, it is part of a social process of pecking order and keeping people in places. but I think for long term, healthy, productive relationships, we really have to be open to how we're impacting each other. if our male, for men, I'm speaking to us men specifically, it's a growth edge to be able to talk to your buddy and say, Hey, when you said this, it made me feel really uncomfortable.
Here's why. And because if you have male friends that have, you've never done that with before, or you've never had another mature adult male do it, that's going to be scary as hell. And you might know that they're probably not going to receive it. So you don't do it. So you don't feel the blowback, right?
It's like, Hey, I know how John responds. He's just going to minimize it. So then it's not relationally safe to bring it forward. And that raises up much harder questions about do I need to maintain this friend or this friend group even because they're not able to be emotionally mature with me. And that's one of the hardest things when people are working towards getting emotionally healthy is they actually often end up losing friends.
And that's not the message most want to hear at that point because they're usually so desperate to have friends. And be accepted. Like when you're insecure, you can cling on to unhealthy relationships for unnecessarily long periods of time. because your own self worth is not intact. as you reclaim your own self worth, you take more courageous vulnerable moments and know that you'll be okay.
If you lose friendships, if you're doing it in a, in thoughtful way, right? If you go back and you start yelling and cussing out John, well then you've just caused more of the same problem. Emotional maturity is not about counter attack. Emotional maturity is about acknowledgement of what hurts with the expectation that you'll be treated with respect and understanding.
And if you're not received with that, then you set boundaries and limits.
[00:33:30] Justin: that's hard. really freaking hard to I, nobody wants to ruffle the feathers or cause confrontation, but I, totally agree with you. And, knowing this friend dynamic too, if that person had that conversation, they would receive and receive it well, and be thoughtful. I know, just being third party pers, perspective in That is truly just guys being guys, joking on each other, trying to get a laugh, maybe at the mercy of one person, but the group it all has fun with it, but that's only good in certain situations.
A, if that's not something that they're actually vulnerable or insecure about, but B, there's an equal share on on the take and and being the center of the joke too. can't just be one person and and it can't be for something that they might be insecure about but Some of that responsibility is the person that, that is telling the joke.
The other part of that responsibility is also the person receiving it and making sure they're being heard, and someone recognizes that, that is a sensitive topic for them.
[00:34:32] Ed: yeah. And I think, you know, what makes it so sensitive is, You know, our, what we produce does become part of our identity, , and I do believe from the bottom of my heart that we all have intrinsic worth and it's not connected to our market value. We're just psychologically too complex and sophisticated not to tie some of our identity and worth most of us to what we do in the marketplace.
There, there might be some true sages out there that have really been able to disentangle fully their sense of who they are in the world and what they make, but
[00:35:01] Justin: Good for them.
[00:35:02] Ed: that's a unique soul. and look, I have the good fortune of hanging out with people that are deep on doing this type of work all the time and the financial insecurities still show up.
And they, this, the entanglement still show up. So psychologically speaking, I don't think we can actually fully disentangle this, as much as we might try. but I think, you know, when we tease people about things that are somewhat part of who they are, it's even more painful. And so like when we tease people about having flat hair or curly hair, brown hair, like I didn't choose that fully.
I mean, maybe I can choose some of how it's styled, but tease people for their cultural identities. That's really offensive. And so I think that that's also a way to think about it. It's like social class and income is part of cultural identity. It's part of my place in the world. And this is, I think why so many men are struggling is when they have the breadwinning wife, and this has been one of my big struggles is in some ways I experienced financial [00:36:00] independence way before I ever thought I would or could. in our relationship, my wife was making enough money that I didn't need to work for us to live the standard of living that we wanted. So now all of a sudden this idea that I'm going to have to work for 30 years plus saving, you know, I know you're into fire, so I know there's some other conversations about accelerated in either way.
Like that, You take someone from thinking, I'm going to, it's going to be five years, 10 years, 20 years. And you, all of a sudden you just lift that burden. You would think relief and gratitude would be the first response, but more often than not, it's anxiety, fear. Who am I now? And this is what retirees, many, many struggle with.
[00:36:37] Justin: even in a similar vein, I was, I know somebody that is going to be getting an inheritance and has been getting an inheritance over, over time. And it has required them not to even necessarily think about their future and honestly, even think about kind of what they're doing on a current basis.
they can truly pursue. A career that mostly interests them and has no connection to how much income they have. And, once again, so many people, when they talk about this situation, are like, Oh my gosh, that's amazing. But I know this person, I've had one on one conversations with this person, and it's daunting for them.
They almost wish they got to forge their own path, and they went through that struggle themselves. They feel a sense of, responsibility and ownership to their parent because of that, and I can tell they're, even their parent can sometimes, guide them in certain ways because they are supplying this inheritance over time.
It's, it's not always just like sunshine and rainbows whenever a situation like this comes through. There's still a lot of internal work, and some kind of, Insecurity or things that you have to think through, with this windfall of money.
[00:37:46] Ed: absolutely. A hundred percent. And I think that's kind of one of those, it's how we call it money naivete. It's just not understood, like not being able to appreciate or imagine. And it, look, it's understandable, you know, from that position of having to work hard, having to be very thoughtful about money in my young twenties and dreaming and imagining about what it would like to have, be like to have so much more money. It's hard. It's part of maturing and growing up to realize like, well, this is just one perspective, but it's not everyone's experience. And on the other side, if you're the benefactor of having more money than the air quote, normal population, you do realize that you're an outsider to a large group of people who have to work for a period of their adult life to sustain themselves. And there are real experiences that are formative in the process of having to develop income for yourself and support yourself and make it work. You grow psychologically through that experience. And if you don't have to have the, you don't have those constraints, then there's certain ways that you're less likely to grow you have to find alternative ways to grow in those responsibilities of, of management.
[00:38:52] Justin: Man, I'm really disappointed that we're at the end of our today. I'm sure we could go for hours. I have like, we, we had maybe a quarter of my notes, which I expected in, in conversation with you, Ed, but people want to, explore working with you. do financial therapy and couples work work.
Can people go and, kind of absorb, more of what that could potentially look
[00:39:12] Ed: Yeah. Absolutely. I appreciate you asking. So, my firm is called healthy love and money. And so if you head to that website, that's where you can find all the goodies. So, you know, the biggest thing that I'm doing with couples now is what I call therapy informed financial planning. And so I really have wedded couples therapy, financial planning and financial therapy together in an integrated way that helps couples go from a feeling of disconnection, Her resentment, shame.
I can't imagine sitting down and talking about her money too. We're saying now we're looking at it. We're looking eye to eye and we're having these meaningful, productive conversations. It's safe now for us to talk about it. And oftentimes couples need that external third party support to go to there because their experiences up to this point have not felt safe.
So there's nothing wrong with you needing an external third party that can provide that sense of safety and help both partners to understand themselves and their partner better. So that's kind of my primary offering. But If you're, you're not there and you're like, man, but I want to keep learning more.
I have a blog, I have a podcast. I have a book called the healthy love and money way, which goes through a lot of these concepts. So you can find all that great stuff on the website as well.
[00:40:22] Justin: Sweet. Ed, final question for you. If you had the opportunity to teach a 16 week class to a group of graduating college seniors on a topic that isn't normally covered in the classroom, what would you teach, and how would you
[00:40:33] Ed: that's a great question. So I would teach the couple's guide to financial intimacy
it would be an experiential class where People would enter into, what's the word I want to use? Fake relationships. I'd give case studies where you have to be John and Sally or Samantha and Joan, and put them in real life situations and then have them figure out how to work.
They're going to work through these messy. Spots.
But what will we be learning about is the psychology of attachment. We would be learning about how the brain is wired around fear and safety and protection and the different anatomical parts of the brain and how they work. We would be learning about family history and family systems.
We would be learning about how childhood trauma maps into your financial life. And then of course we would be learning about the spectrum of Financial planning topics. So how do we budget? How do we invest money for the future to meet our needs? How do we navigate taxes? Taxes, Justin, I just got to say, holy smokes.
Couples get sideways on taxes, especially if you're an entrepreneurial couple. Like one of the biggest places where couples get sideways early on is they don't understand 1099 versus W 2 income. And so they spend all their money Entrepreneurial 1099 income and then have no money for taxes. And so, these are fundamental things that we've got to learn in order to navigate as a couple.
And I think the big thing that I would want every student to leave with is a sense that money is a shared responsibility in an intimate relationship. It is not one person's responsibility. And one person doesn't get to be good and the other person gets to be bad. And you asked me if we could talk about sex and sex therapy. That's a hundred percent what I've learned also from sex therapy is It ain't just about the sex. It's about the relationship between the two. And then unless you have the relationship between the two, the sex ain't going to be good. And I see that all the time with money as well. So if you want to have a thriving financial life, you've got to work on the relational side too.
[00:42:31] Justin: Well said. and honestly, if you want to just learn a little bit more, Ed, you were on the podcast before it was a long, long actually over a hundred episodes ago. so you can scroll all the way back to episode 47 and we had a pretty in depth conversation about attachment theory and the four different attachment styles, which I know is one of your favorite topics to talk about.
but Ed, this was such a pleasure. Thanks for coming Thanks for being so vulnerable and transparent in your situation and, and always blessing me with, tons of knowledge. I appreciate it.
[00:43:00] Ed: Just, I appreciate the work you're doing in the world to inspire and encourage, folks. I mean, look, we're born in this world. Without a foggy idea about how to navigate most of it. And we spend most of our life just trying to figure out how to live this life called humanity.
Yeah No shame in the game and needing to learn and figure it out.
[00:43:18] Justin: I love it. Thanks again, Once again, this is Ed Combs, healthy, love, and money. Go check him out on his website. Ed, this was awesome. Thanks so, so much.
[00:43:26] Ed: Thanks, Justin.