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Marriage Assets

We tend to think about assets in terms of financial perspectives. How do we spend, invest, or save our money? Do we launder our money? How do I/we increase our financial assets? 

These, among others, are financial questions that every marriage deals with. Even if you’re not asking those questions, you’re still dealing with those questions. 

There’s a different kind of asset that needs just as much, if not more, attention: Emotional assets. 

Every relationship has an emotional bank account. Couples make deposits and withdrawals from that account, often not knowing how much is in the account. As is the case with money, when you run a negative balance, life gets really stressful. 

Some marriages live emotionally paycheck to paycheck. Every day there is a desperate need for some kind of positive experience in order to keep going. Others have invested well, and can go for a period of time through emotional debts and be ok. 

It takes a radical change to get out of financial debt. The same is true for emotional debt. 

Consider the emotional ledger of your relationship. Are you over spending your emotional deposits? What feels like a deposit for you, for your spouse? How about a withdrawal? Ask your spouse what their emotional bank account is with you. 

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Laundering Money

The only way finances can work in marriage is if it’s laundered first. Yes, you read that right. Launder your money. Clean it of ownership, of claim. Too many couples have split their financial assets, bank accounts, and credit cards.

A relationship based on earning says, “what’s yours is yours, and what’s mine is mine.” In this system, sharing household bills and common expenses works just fine as long as there is an abundance of money or abundance of agreement. Inevitably, the abundance goes away. “Fairness” changes over time, especially when one starts out earning their spouse.

Jealousy, resentments, and competition will grow in abundance when what is “fair” changes. When couples never financially marry each other, competition is bound to happen. Competition means that one person wins and the other loses.

Launder money so that when it’s done being washed, neither the husband or the wife know who’s money it is. It needs to be washed of individual ownership. The end result is: “We earned this.” Become teammates, not opponents.