Money and power in a couple: when one partner earns most

“You don’t need to worry about it. I’ll take care of it.”

It is said kindly, almost tenderly. The person saying it believes they are offering a gift: relief, security, the freedom of not having to deal with bills, loans and investments. The person hearing it sometimes feels something else. A slight tightness in the chest. A sense that someone has just closed the door to the room where decisions about their shared life are made — and that they have been left outside.

Couples find it hard to talk about money. It is often easier for them to talk about sex than about who earns how much, who pays for the holiday and who has the final say when buying a flat. When one partner earns considerably more than the other, the silence grows even thicker. A difference in income is not a problem in itself. The problem begins when, without a word, it turns into a difference in power — into whose voice counts for more, who is allowed to ask and who has to plead.

In this post I write about what happens in a couple when money becomes the language in which they negotiate closeness, security and worth. And about how to talk about it so that you are not arguing over figures when you are really asking each other something else entirely.

Why we argue about money differently

Lauren Papp, Mark Cummings and Marcie Goeke-Morey asked a hundred married couples to record every argument they had at home over roughly two weeks — what it was about, how it went and how it ended. Arguments about money were not the most frequent. But they were different: more intense, more likely to come back and more likely to remain unresolved. The partners experienced them as more significant for the relationship than arguments about other topics.

The sociologist Jeffrey Dew and his colleagues showed something even more sobering on a large American sample: arguments about money were a stronger predictor of later divorce than arguments about children, housework, in-laws or sex. A word of caution — this is an association, not a cause. It does not mean that money breaks marriages. It is more likely that arguments about money bring to the surface things that are already hard for a couple: trust, equality, the sense of being seen.

That is why an argument over whether the new car was really necessary rarely stays with the car. Money is concrete, measurable and part of everyday life — which is exactly what makes it an ideal surface for old, unspoken questions to stick to. As with the arguments I described in It is not about the dishes, the topic is only the way in.

When income turns into a voice

In many couples where one partner earns most of the money, nobody ever says: “Because I bring in more, I will decide more.” They don’t say it because they don’t even think it. But the rules form quietly. The one who earns more “just suggests” where you’ll go in the summer. The one who earns less “just asks” whether they can buy a new coat. One person signs a contract; the other hears about it over dinner.

Power in a relationship is not only about who has the final word. It is also about who can say “no” without fearing the consequences. Who could leave if they had to. Who has to justify their wishes and who can simply have them. When money is unevenly distributed, these differences tend to stack up on top of each other, even when both partners mean well.

Interestingly, the balance of power does not always run in one direction. The economists Marianne Bertrand, Emir Kamenica and Jessica Pan found in US data that couples in which the wife earns more than the husband are, on average, less satisfied and more likely to divorce — and that such wives often do even more housework, as if they were settling some kind of account. So money does not automatically bring power. It brings power within the expectations both partners grew up with. Where income does not match what “ought to be”, a tension arises that few people are aware of.

The dependence nobody names

When one partner earns most of the money, the other is financially dependent. That is a fact, not an accusation. It is often the result of a joint decision: one stayed at home with the children while the other built a business; one followed the other’s job abroad and put their own career aside. At the time the decision was sensible and loving.

But dependence has consequences that need to be named. A person who has no money of their own finds it harder to allow themselves anger. Harder to say that something is not right for them. Harder to imagine life outside the relationship — not because they want it, but because the very thought that there is no such option changes how free they are within the relationship. The partner with more money, meanwhile, may feel constantly responsible, as though carrying everything alone, and at the same time not understand why the other is withdrawing.

I have written about this in the knowledge base under dependence. In a couple, dependence is not bad in itself — in love we all depend on each other. The trouble is dependence that runs one way and is never spoken about.

Shame on both sides

When I talk to couples about money, shame almost always comes up. And it is almost always on both sides.

The one who earns less may be ashamed of “not contributing enough”, of having to ask, of being seen by parents or friends as someone who “got lucky”. This shame likes to hide behind pride: “I won’t ask you for money,” even when she badly needs it.

The one who earns more may feel ashamed in a different way. Of having more than they deserve. Of being loved for their money. Of their worth in the relationship lying only in what they bring home. This shame likes to hide behind control: if I keep the finances in my hands, at least nobody can take that away from me.

Shame is the emotion that makes us want to hide — more on that in the knowledge base entry on shame and in the post Guilt and shame are not the same. When both partners are hiding, each behind their own armour, money does get talked about, but only in figures. Whatever hurts stays outside.

What we say and what we mean

This is why arguments about money are often conversations in code. On the surface they are about amounts; underneath they are about questions we don’t dare ask directly.

This is how a conversation that many couples will recognise might sound (composite, not a real person):

“Why didn’t you tell me you’d bought a stake in that company?”
“Because it was business. You know you don’t need to bother yourself with that.”
“It’s not about the business. It’s that I found out from your brother.”
“Fine, next time I’ll tell you. But it wouldn’t have changed anything.”
“That’s exactly it. It wouldn’t have changed anything. My opinion wouldn’t have changed anything.”

He is talking about a single purchase. She is talking about whether she has a voice in their shared life. As long as each stays on their own bank of the river, he will become more and more convinced that she is “distrustful”, and she that he is “unreachable”. Gottman would probably recognise this pattern as the beginnings of the defensiveness and withdrawal he described among the Four Horsemen in relationships.

What you each bring from home

Nobody enters a relationship with a neutral attitude to money. Each of us brings a family in which money meant something. In one, money was a taboo, never discussed in front of the children. In another it was a weapon: “As long as you live under my roof …” In a third it stood in for closeness — whoever had no time gave a present. In a fourth there was never enough, and every bill meant fear.

In relational family therapy, in which I am training, we look closely at how these early patterns repeat in adult relationships. Christian Gostečnik describes how we unconsciously bring into a relationship the emotional atmosphere we knew at home and recreate it there — even when we have sworn we will never be like our parents. The daughter of a father who controlled the family with money may marry a generous man and still feel the old fear every time he buys something. The son of a mother who spent her whole life worrying about saving may experience every purchase his wife makes as a threat.

I have written more about what we carry from home in What I inherited besides genes. When the difference in background is large — one partner comes from a wealthy family, the other does not — this inheritance gains an additional layer, which I write about in When one of you comes from a wealthy family and the other does not.

For couples who want to look at these patterns in more depth, one option is a longer session with a genogram — a family tree that shows how previous generations dealt with money, power and dependence. With me, this kind of session is called A Look into the Past.

Exercise: a couple’s money map

Don’t do this exercise in the middle of an argument. Choose a calm evening when neither of you is tired or hungry, and set aside an hour. Each of you should have your own sheet of paper.

1. Each of you writes down three sentences about money you heard at home. For example: “We don’t talk about money.” “Whoever pays decides.” “Save, you never know.” Don’t explain them, just write them down.
2. Write down what money means to you. Finish the sentences: “When I have money, I feel …” and “When I don’t, I feel …” Be honest, even if the answer isn’t pretty.
3. Read to each other what you have written. First one of you, then the other. The one listening only listens, and at the end says just: “Thank you. I understand you a little better now.” No comments, no corrections.
4. List the silent rules. Together, write down who decides what in your relationship — including the things you have never actually agreed on. Who suggests the holiday? Who sees the bank statement? Who has to ask?
5. Choose one rule you want to change. Just one. Agree on how it will work from now on, and check in a month’s time how it went.

The exercise is not meant to solve everything. Its purpose is to say the silent rules out loud for the first time. That alone often changes the atmosphere.

When it isn’t about communication

Everything I have written so far assumes that both partners mean well and that the difficulty lies in misunderstanding, shame and old patterns. That is true for many couples. It is not true for all of them.

Economic abuse is not a communication problem. If your partner controls every euro, denies you access to the joint account, takes away your bank card, forces you to give up your job, or uses money as punishment and threat, that is not an argument about money. It is control, and it is one form of domestic abuse. In that case a couple’s conversation is not the first step. In Slovenia you can seek help from the SOS helpline for women and children victims of violence on 080 11 55; in an emergency, call 113 or 112 (in Slovenia).

Even when there is no abuse, a therapist is not the right person for everything. If you need to decide how to divide assets, how to arrange ownership of a company, how to protect children from a previous marriage or how to plan an inheritance, you need a lawyer, a notary or a financial adviser. I don’t give legal or financial advice. What I can do is help you talk about these decisions in a way that doesn’t make you lose each other along the way.

And finally: not every inequality is a problem. Some couples live very well with an arrangement in which one looks after the finances and the other after something else, and both experience it as fair. The measure is not whether you are equal. The measure is whether you both feel heard, and whether you could reopen the arrangement at any time without it being a disaster.

How couples therapy can help

In couples therapy, money rarely comes up as the first topic. Couples come because of distance, arguments that keep returning, or because one of them has stopped talking. But once we start looking at where things get stuck, money often turns out to be one of the main routes by which power is distributed in the relationship.

In sessions we don’t do sums and we don’t divide assets. We do something else: I help you translate amounts back into needs. So that the one who earns more can say how hard it is to carry the responsibility alone. So that the one who earns less can say how it feels to have to ask — without it sounding like an accusation. It often turns out that both of you are lonely at opposite ends of the same problem. I have written about how a couple learns to talk about needs instead of blame in From blame to needs.

It matters that you both feel safe. That is why in couples therapy I don’t take the side of whoever is “right”, nor the side of whoever earns more or less. I am on the side of the relationship. It also matters that a discussion about money doesn’t turn into a discussion about who is the better person. Money in a partnership is always also a question of trust — and trust is built slowly, through small agreements that hold.

When one topic tangles up another — for instance, when the question of a prenuptial agreement opens up before a wedding — it helps for a couple to talk it through before deciding anything. I write about this in The prenuptial agreement: a conversation you don’t have to lose.

I also work with English-speaking clients, in person in Ljubljana. If something here sounds familiar, you are welcome to write to me.

What to remember

• Arguments about money are not necessarily more frequent than others, but they are often more painful and more likely to come back unresolved.
• A difference in income is not the problem in itself. The problem is the silent rules about who decides, who asks and who can say “no”.
• Shame is often on both sides — with the one who earns less and with the one who earns more.
• Beneath sentences about amounts lie questions about trust, worth and security. When you answer those, the argument about figures often dissolves.
• Economic control is not a communication problem but a form of abuse — in that case, seek help outside the couple.