The Money Disruptors

Bob: Do you and your spouse have separate bank accounts? Do you keep your money separated? Art Rainer says there may be a reason why that’s necessary for some couples; but in general, it’s a bad idea.

Art: There’s a big shift that should occur when you get married. It’s no longer “my money” or “my bank account,” but “our money”; “our bank account.” If we’re saying that God’s design for our marriages is to be one—look at Genesis 2:24—they’re to be one. You go to, then, 1 Corinthians 7:4. Paul says that not even their own bodies are their own anymore. If our own bodies are not our own, then should our bank accounts be?

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, May 11^th. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson; I'm Bob Lepine. You can find us online at FamilyLifeToday.com. The way we handle money in marriage can either promote oneness or can push us toward isolation. We’re going to spend some time talking about that today with Art Rainer. Stay with us.

And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. Did you ever have actual envelopes, where you divided up the money and put some in one envelope, some in another envelope?

Dave: Ann is over there, laughing.

Bob: She’s laughing again. What’s going on?

Dave: I think I know why. I want to hear her say it. [Laughter]

Ann: No, go ahead.

Dave: Go ahead.

Ann: What are you going to say?

Dave: I don’t know; I’m going to let you go.

Ann: Well, I’ll answer that. We always wanted to. [Laughter]

Dave: That’s what I thought. [Laughter]

Ann: We sat in with Dave Ramsey. We were like, “Yes, yes! We’re going to do this,” and then we never did.

Bob: Yes?

Ann: But we needed to.

Dave: We do it in a different way, Bob. It’s basically an envelope.

Bob: Our kids had envelopes.

Dave: Wow.

Bob: As we were raising them, we’d use the: “Here’s your allowance. You get $10; so $1 goes here, and $1 goes here. You’ve got the other $8.” We used that with them. We were more sophisticated than envelopes for ourselves, that we were able to kind of divide it up and know what our allocations needed to be. The envelope idea—to have mental envelopes—is not a bad thing for a married couple as they start to think about, “Okay, here’s the paycheck.”

Ann: It’s worked for a lot of couples, at least, in the beginning in getting their minds straight and getting their head around it.

Dave: We know many couples who still do that. One of the greatest things about it is that it forces you to communicate about money.

Bob: When it comes to money, communication may be one of the biggest reasons why there are money problems in marriage, not money.

Ann: —especially when the money in the envelope runs out.

Bob: That’s right. [Laughter]

Art Rainer is joining us this week on FamilyLife Today. Art, welcome back.

Art: Thank you for having me.

Bob: Art is the Vice President of Institutional Advancement at Southeastern Baptist Seminary in Wake Forest. He’s got an MBA. He has written a book called The Marriage Challenge. Actually, you wrote The Money Challenge first; right?

Art: That’s correct; yes.

Bob: That’s all about money and how we use it. The Marriage Challenge really takes those principles and talks about the relational tensions that can happen around money.

Art: It places it in the context of the marriage.

Bob: The thing I love about the book—you give couples a game plan—you say: “Look, here’s Step One,” “Here’s Step Two,” “Here’s Step Three,” “Here’s how you get on track. It may take you awhile to get to Step Four, Five, and Six; but that’s okay. Just stay with the steps.”

Then you talk about how couples get sabotaged and what the problems are. Communication is one of those issues that: “Couples don’t have money problems; they have communication problems”; right?

Art: Yes; usually when you hear of a couple who divorces because of financial issues—so they say that finance is the reason why they separated—that was more of a symptom of something that was going on in their marriage. Usually, there’s an underlying symptom that manifests itself in their finances. Certainly, finances can cause stress; but more than likely, when a divorce happens, there’s probably something else that was under there. Communication, and the lack of communication, is absolutely one of those issues that you often see.

Bob: Right.

Ann: I remember the two of us: if I would overspend, I would think, “What’s the problem? I apologized! Why are you so upset?” What I realized [was] Dave felt disrespected by me not adhering to our plan. To me, it was like, “I respect you. I just want to spend more money.”

Dave: We definitely were weak in communication. I was the guy, who didn’t want to talk about it. I wanted to talk about it; but I really didn’t, because I felt stress and anxiety. When you talk about it, it’s all there.

I remember one time, sitting in Moby Gym, at a Campus Crusade staff training—we were on staff with Cru^® at the time—some missionaries [were] on the stage, and they asked for money. We had little cards; I wrote down a number. They said, “Pray and ask God, then write down a number; send it in.” Never looked at Ann; never talked to her about it. I made a pledge as much as is in our savings account.

Bob: Wow!

Dave: We’re talking $3,000; it wasn’t a lot of money.

Bob: That’s a lot of money—

Dave: —at that time, yes.

Bob: —to not talk to your wife about what you’re doing with it.

Dave: You know, after we were done, she goes, “What do you think?” I go, “I’m sure you thought the same thing. I gave our savings account.” She’s like, “What??!!” There we were—newlywed couple—nobody had taught us anything about money. One of the first things is: “Talk!”

Art: Absolutely! “Talk; communicate about money.” Also, what I’m hearing is the need to understand each other’s money personality.

Ann: Yes, and to go deeper into it. You’re right.

Art: That’s absolutely right. When you marry your spouse, they’re likely to have a different money personality than you. In The Marriage Challenge, I have four different types of money personalities. You have the Saver—

Dave: That’s the right one; that’s the right one. [Laughter]

Bob: Right; it’s the biblical one.

Art: I’m going to get to that, you know. [Laughter] You have the Spender; you have the Investor; and you also have the Ignorer.

As you mentioned, the Saver often gets the praise; right? They’re the ones that everybody says, “Well, they are the ones that have everything together.”

Ann: I wasn’t praising Dave about that. [Laughter]

Art: It’s the Spender that often gets the bad rap. It’s important to understand that—regardless of your money personality/regardless of your spouse’s money personality—there are strengths, and there are weaknesses.

Bob: Yes.

Art: For the Saver, your strength is you like to save money; that’s a good thing to do.

Ann: It is a good thing.

Art: The downside is that, if you go on a vacation, you’re opting for the tent as opposed to a hotel. It’s not because you can’t afford a hotel; it’s because you save money by going with the tent option.

Dave: Did you say, “Go on a vacation?” [Laughter]

Art: I made some assumptions there. [Laughter]

For the Spender—the negative that’s often pointed out is that they’re quick to swipe the credit card—they’re very likely to spend money without asking the other spouse. That is a negative; that’s not good. At the same time, the Spender is the one, who often thinks of others first; they’re the ones who are more willing to buy gifts for other people.

Ann: That is the true spender that I am: It’s not on myself; I want to buy for other people.

Art: That’s a good thing, as long as it’s within the context of the budget.

Ann: Right.

Art: But you’re probably thinking about it more than you [Dave] are.

Dave: Hey, watch it! [Laughter]

Art: I’m not saying that you don’t love people! It’s just your money personality.

The Investor likes to take risks; that can be good and bad. They’re willing to invest for retirement. They’re not scared of stocks, and mutual funds, and these types of investments. However, they can be a little bit too risky at times; that’s the downside.

The Ignorer—the positive is that they’re not really phased by money—that doesn’t really bother them. The downside is they’re often detached from the actual financial dealings of the house/what’s actually going on. They don’t know whether they’re in a financially healthy spot or not.

Dave: Where do you think these patterns come from? Are they nurture?—nature? Is it what you grew up in? Is it the way you’re wired?

Art: A little bit of both. You have what’s called your “money story”—how you learned about money. That’s derived, in part, from your upbringing/your experience with your own family. You also have, sometimes, generational effects. Then, of course, you have your natural personality. It’s just really a combination of those things that develop your money personality.

Dave: It’s interesting—as you talk about marriage dividers, one of them being this communication thing—talk about how a married couple should talk about this very thing before marriage/in marriage. We never had a discussion about money before we got married. How naïve is that? Talk about: “How do we communicate about money as a married couple?”

Art: It starts with simply the words that you use and how you describe the finances in your home. There’s a big shift that should occur when you get married. It’s no longer “my money” or “my bank account,” but “our money”; “our bank account.”

Ann: So every married couple should join their accounts.

Art: Yes; that’s something that I’m a pretty big proponent of. I like the idea of joint accounts, because of what it brings to the marriage. As I’ve dealt with couples that are in pre-marital classes, that’s often a big surprise: “So you’re saying I shouldn’t have my own account?”

If we’re saying that God’s design for our marriages is to be one—Genesis 2:24—they’re to be one. You go to, then, 1 Corinthians 7:4. Paul says that not even their own bodies are their own anymore. If our own bodies are not our own, then should our bank accounts be? I understand there are accounts out there, like your retirement accounts, where you can literally have only one person on the account. In that situation, I would say, “Make sure that your spouse has the user ID and password; that they have access to it.”

Try to be as unified in your finances as possible. It goes back to changing the language and the way we think about money. So when you’re communicating, it’s no longer “my money.” It’s no longer “my paycheck”; but it’s “our money”/“our paycheck.” At the same time, it’s no longer “your expenditures.” You’re not saying, “You spent this; this is your expenditure,” but it’s ours; because, when you’re married, expenditures don’t happen in a vacuum. They affect one another, so it truly is our expenditure.

Dave: That’s a good question. I’m out on my own, and Ann’s at home; and I want to buy a pair of shoes. What do you tell a married couple? How much communication? Do I check with her to buy a $50 pair of shoes? Or do I only check with her when I want to buy a $15,000 motorcycle? Which one—

Art: I’m going to provide a very clear answer on that one: “It depends.”

Bob: There you go.

Dave: Alright.

Art: So it’s going to depend on how you all/on what you all decide as a couple: “Is $50—is that the limit?” “Is $15,000 the limit?” I doubt it would be $15,000.

Dave: No!

Art: But is there a limit, where you all are comfortable, saying: “If there is a purchase under $40, I am fine. We can do that.” It goes back to communication; that conversation has to happen. You have to sit down and figure out, “Okay, what is that amount for us?” because it’s going to vary from couple to couple.

Bob: This communication presupposes that we’ve got some basic principles, where we’re in alignment and in agreement. I think, a lot of times, you’re not having good communication because, when you try to communicate, you’ve got clashing presuppositions—not just personalities—but clashing priorities or clashing—like one person says, “I started an IRA when I’m 16,”—like you did—

Art: I’m weird; I know. [Laughter]

Bob: —saving for retirement is a big deal. The other partner is looking and going, “We’re putting money in our retirement account, and the kids can’t have a new pair of shoes to go to school with because we want to have money for retirement?”

Can we look at them and say, “He’s right; she’s wrong,” “She’s right?” We have to figure out how we get to oneness around these priorities.

Art: One of the tools that I provide in The Marriage Challenge are the eight money milestones. Wherever you are on your financial journey, these eight money milestones can maybe provide some clarity for what steps need to be taken in your finances as you pursue financial health for the sake—and I always want to make sure we put this in there—for the sake of advancing God’s kingdom/for the sake of living and giving generously; that’s why we pursue financial health.

Those eight money milestones are in there. They really guide a good section of the book to, hopefully, provide clarity.

Bob: That’s really the heart of the book.

Art: That’s right.

Bob: As we’re dealing with the obstacles to financial oneness and things like communication being a trip wire, we’re really jumping past the heart of the book to say, “Let’s talk about where couples find discord.” Communication is not the only place. One of the things that’s a big issue here is selfishness: “I want what I want,” and “I earned that money,” or “I deserve that money,” or “You got your thing, so I should get my thing.”

Dave: That’s a big one! Not for me, but for most other people, who are selfish. [Laughter]

Ann: Art, you even say in your book that you didn’t realize how “me-centric” you were until you got married. How did you discover that?

Art: Well, pre-marriage, it was all about me. I’m the only one that I had to concern myself about. With my finances, I was taking care of myself and nobody else. Now, I have my spouse; I have Sarah. I have to think about somebody else, not just with finances, but in every aspect of life, whether it’s even just scheduling a trip/going out of town. I need to check with her first. I did not have to do that before.

My eyes were opened quickly to see how selfish I was because my world revolved around me. I am going to say, now that we have three kids, I really understand how selfish I was. Marriage opens your eyes to see how selfish you were.

Dave: I can honestly remember—I mean, this is decades ago—standing in a sporting goods store, looking at a pair of Nikes that I so badly wanted, and having three boys at home, knowing, “I can’t buy these,”—I can and be the most selfish jerk in the world—“I need to take the money I would spend on those and spend it on my kids.” It was a hard decision.

I know some people don’t make that decision, and they don’t even communicate about it. You’ve got selfishness and communication destroying their marriage; right?

Ann: That was nice of you to do that. [Laughter]

Dave: I got them a different way. [Laughter]

Ann: But you have some signs of our selfishness: “You don’t compromise; you blame,” “You take the ‘It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission,’ approach”; “You hide purchases.”

Art: You’re hiding.

Ann: There are some real signs of selfishness.

Art: Absolutely.

Bob: Yes; and hiding purchases—I’m going to bust myself here—because I went to the grocery store one time. I came back and Mary Ann said, “What did you get at the grocery store?” I told her some of what I had gotten at the grocery store; right? [Laughter] I did not tell her a lie; I just didn’t tell her the whole truth; right? What I had forgotten was that the grocery store had started printing out, on the receipt, itemized descriptions of what you bought. [Laughter] She found the receipt. She said, “Where are the Doritos^®? You didn’t tell me you got Doritos. And ice cream? You got ice cream, too?”

Here’s what I learned from that: it’s not an issue of whether I can buy Doritos if I want Doritos or not. I had just sown seeds of distrust by not being disclosing with my wife. When she said, “What did you get?” I said, “I got oranges,” and “I got this,” and “I got that.” I just left off the Doritos and the ice cream. I had just sown seeds of distrust. Now, the next time she says, “What did you do? Where did you go?” she’s wondering, “What’s he not telling me?”

This issue of building trust around money: this may be the biggest hidden explosive in a marriage—when one of you is not being disclosing; when you are doing what your [Ann’s] mom did: “Don’t tell Dad about what we bought,”—that’s toxic, not just for your money, that’s toxic for every part of your relationship.

Art: In The Marriage Challenge, there’s a fictional story that goes along with what I call the core content. In the story, you have Chris, who gets really upset over some undisclosed debt that his wife Claire has brought into the marriage. They’re newlyweds; they’re on their honeymoon; then he finds this out. For those who are going to read the book, I’m not going to spoil it.

Bob: No spoilers; right?

Art: Right; but the reason why Chris is so upset about the loans is—not that he’s/he’s somewhat scared for the financial future—but he’s also concerned for their marriage because of what that type of thing did to his brother, who is now divorced. It became a trust issue; it was all about trust. Once again, it manifested itself in the finances; but there was actually an underlying issue there, and that was distrust.

Bob: Yes.

Art: He was concerned about that.

Dave: What do you say to the listener who, right now, is listening and going, “Should I tell my husband?” “Should I tell my wife? I’ve got something that I haven’t…”—maybe it’s bigger than Doritos.

Art: It likely is.

Dave: Yes.

Art: If there’s something hidden, it’s likely it is bigger than a Doritos purchase.

Dave: What should they do?

Art: You should tell; you have to be forthright with this information. It’s the only way that reconciliation can happen; because it is going to show up at some point, whether it’s with that particular purchase or another purchase in the future. It’s going to reveal itself. It is going be ugly and can be disastrous in the marriage. It’s wrong, in general, to hide these from your spouse; but eventually, something’s going to happen to where it will come to a head; it will come to light. The result’s going to be disastrous.

Dave: Yes; in a sense, Jesus—I mean, it reminds me of Jesus’s words—what you do in the dark will be broadcast—

Art: That’s right.

Dave: —at some point. Whether it’s financial, sexual—anything done in the dark—as long as it stays in the dark, can destroy you.

Art: That’s right.

Dave: Now, obviously, we’re talking about money, but it could be anything.

I would say—here is what I would say, because the fear of exposing this to my spouse or to anyone is: ‘Honestly, I can’t trust God.”

Art: That’s right.

Dave: When you bring it into the light, you’re not saying, “I’m going to trust my spouse,”—because they may not respond in a great way—but there is a God, who even through that exposure, will meet you in that. It will be the best thing you ever do.

Today could be the day for somebody to say, “Okay, I’ve got to come clean,”—whether it’s money; whether it’s porn; you name it!—“Today is the day! I’m bringing it into the light. I’m going to trust God’s going to meet us.” It may be a little messy for a while, but He’ll eventually meet you right there.

Ann: There’s a freedom that comes in that.

Art: Yes.

Bob: That’s right.

Ann: Because that secret’s heavy to carry.

Bob: Yes; and I’m thinking a couple may need to have a conversation, where they go: “Okay; let’s just ask ourselves:

‘Is our communication healthy when it comes to issues of money, or are we dodging each other?’

‘Are we avoiding these conversations?’

‘When we have the conversations, are we teammates, or are we adversaries around these conversations?’

and ‘How can we become teammates?’

‘How can we not accuse or polarize ourselves from one another?’

and ‘Is there any reason we don’t trust one another?’

and ‘Are we hiding anything?’

and ‘Why do we hide things? What’s behind that? What’s the motive there?’

and ‘How can we safely bring these things out into the open so that there doesn’t have to be hiding?’”

And then my selfishness—I mean, let’s just acknowledge this is bone-deep in all of us—we are predisposed/prewired toward being selfish. Even those who would say, “Well, I’m not spending money on me; I’m spending money on other people.” The reason you’re spending money on other people is because you feel better when you’re doing nice things for other people. There’s still a selfish motive that can be at the heart of that.

Let’s expose some of these things. Let’s have the conversation where we address these things so that we can start to get healthy in how we begin to pursue oneness around money.

Dave: You know, it’s interesting—on the back of Art’s book, it says, “God has a plan for your marriage and your money. It starts with a challenge. Will you accept?”—I was just listening to you, Bob, thinking, “There’s the challenge.”

Bob: That’s the challenge, yes.

Ann: It could be a great night; it could be a date night that you talk: “Tonight’s theme is money.”

Bob: It could be a really dangerous night is what it could be, yes.

Ann: Exactly!

Bob: But if you want to get healthy, sometimes, you have to go to hard places.

Ann: It’s necessary.

Bob: Art, you line out these challenges in one section in the book. I’d encourage a couple to get a copy of the book and say, “Let’s read through the chapter together; and then, let’s just be honest with one another. Can we trust one another? Can we have this kind of healthy communication so we can get to where we want to go?” The place we want to go is where we’re handling our money in a way that honors God, that advances His kingdom, and that takes care of the needs we have in this life.

We have copies of Art’s book, The Marriage Challenge, in our FamilyLife Today Resource Center. You can go online at FamilyLifeToday.com to order a copy or call 1-800-FL-TODAY. Again, our website is FamilyLifeToday.com. The name of the book is The Marriage Challenge by Art Rainer. You can also order the book by calling 1-800-358-6329; that’s 1-800-“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word, “TODAY.” 

You know, underneath the whole issue of money, as we’ve talked about today, is really the issue of oneness. Are we pursuing oneness in marriage—because that’s what God intends: for two to become one—or are we drifting toward isolation? Here, at FamilyLife^®, that’s one of the key principles of this ministry. We want to do everything we can, as a ministry, to help couples move in the direction of oneness—move closer to each other/move closer to God—and have the kind of marriage and family God intends for us/the kind He defines for us in the pages of Scripture.

And we’re able to do this because of you—because of listeners, like you, who don’t just listen to FamilyLife Today—you make this program possible through your donations that support the ongoing work of this ministry. During the month of May, we’ve had some friends of the ministry, who came to us and said, “We know summer can be a challenging time for ministries like FamilyLife. We want to give you a little head start.”

They agreed that, this month, they would match every donation we receive from listeners, dollar for dollar, up to a total of $250,000. That’s a very generous offer on their part; and so now, if we’re going to take advantage of that matching gift, we need you to call or go online—make a donation today—you can do that at FamilyLifeToday.com, or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY to donate.

When you do, your donation is going to be matched, dollar for dollar, with money from the matching-gift fund; and we’ll send you a couple of things as thank-you gifts. We’re going to send you two books—one for husbands and one for wives—these are books by Aaron and Jamie Ivey called Complement: The Surprising Beauty of Choosing Together Over Separate in Marriage. Again, there’s a book for husbands/a book for wives.

And we’re going to send you a flash drive that has some conversations Dave and Ann and I had recently, talking about the most significant lessons I’ve learned about marriage and family from guests we’ve had on FamilyLife Today throughout the

28 years that I have served as co-host for this program. We recorded those conversations/made five episodes out of it. We’re happy to send you those episodes, along with some of the stand-out programs from the last 28 years. All of that’s on a flash drive that we’re happy to send you, along with the books from the Iveys, when you make a donation today. And again, you can do that at FamilyLifeToday.com; or call 1-800-FL-TODAY to make your donation.

And we hope you can join us, again, tomorrow when we’re going to continue our conversation about marriage, and money, and oneness; how we come together as husband and wife, and how we can manage our money well. I hope you can join us for all of that.

I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, who got some extra help from Bruce Goff and our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I’m Bob Lepine. We’ll see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.

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