and the two of you still have your separate accounts that give you the autonomy you need for yourselves without any questions from your mate. If he wants to buy a box of cigars, he can dip into his individual account to buy them, no questions asked; if you want to get your nails done or buy a cute pair of shoes and you have the money in your individual account, he can’t say anything about it. See? Everybody has some control.
Now, if your man spends frivolously, isn’t taking care of business, and doesn’t seem like he’s remotely interested in climbing out of his jobless state, you’ve got a problem-and I don’t have the book to help you with that guy. Rest assured, a man who isn’t taking care of business is going against what I think are his natural instincts, and if you happen to be hitched to him in any way, you have the absolute right and power to walk away. Or you can hang in there-and good luck to you.
But the bottom line is that when you make the move to be with someone, from the get-go you have to play the game like you practice the game. If you have the hard conversations about finances and how the two of you handle bills and saving before you get in deep, and put into place this practice of handling money together in both good financial times and bad, then the sharing is going to work, even when something goes wrong,
2. REMIND HIM WHY YOU FELL IN LOVE
We’ve already discussed that telling your partner you love him when the chips are down is something that, while appreciated, may ring hollow with a man who’s down on his financial luck. But showing him you love him is something wholly different. My parents didn’t have a lot of money, but they made it. And I’ve got news for you: you can make it too. All that history together, all the time you’ve loved each other, is worth preserving. Show him that by reminding him what made him love you in the first place-by focusing on the little unexpected things. Make his favorite meal, hold his hand, send him love notes. Do things as a family that don’t cost money: rent a DVD, make popcorn, and have movie night; spread a blanket on the living room floor and have an indoor picnic; after dinner, take a family walk around the neighborhood; go swing on the swings at the playground; park your car by the airport and watch the planes take off and land; drive to the suburbs and look at the Christmas lights; learn how to play one of his video games, then challenge him to a duel. While you’re out on those impromptu “dates,” take care to enjoy each other’s company. Don’t bother talking about the negative things or the problems. Just take the time to really connect; even if the connection is short-lived, make it count. Encourage him to find solace in you, even on the days when he’d rather find a corner and get really quiet. Building a loving relationship takes work, but keeping that love and romance alive in times of adversity takes
3. DON’T JUDGE HIM
You have to remember that if money is tight, anything you say to him about money is going to amplify the situation in a negative way. A scenario: You come home from a tough day on the job to a mailbox full of bills, and before you can get into the house, the phone rings. It’s the cable company, informing you once again that if you don’t pay the bill, they’re going to shut down service. Now, your man knows the bill is late but you hang up the phone and huff, “The cable bill is due.”
In his mind, you might as well have said: “They’re about to shut off the cable and if that happens, I won’t be able to watch my shows after a hard day’s work and I’ll be doggone if I’m going to be the one going out here and getting the money and you’re sitting here doing nothing while they take away the one thing I do to relax. You got us into this mess; what are
Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter that this isn’t what you intended; it’s about the perceived attitude and tone, which can come across even when you don’t realize you’re doing it. He’s already disappointed in himself, and he’s just biding his time until you show that you’re disappointed in him, too, until you let it be known that he’s failing as a husband, father, and man because he’s not providing for and protecting his family.
You know the bills are due and so does he; there’s no need to bring it up unless you’ve got something concrete to offer in terms of how to dig yourselves out of the mess in which you’ve found yourselves. Otherwise, your words-whether they were said with attitude or meant as a simple observation-might just have him taking a trip down to the pawn shop, or dialing up a loan shark, or going down to the corner to do some things he has no business doing. All I’m saying is tread lightly.
4. FORM A TWO-PERSON CIRCLE
What’s happening in your bank account-whether good or bad-is your business and your business only. Keep your financial information between the two of you, and share it with no one because believe me, no matter how much-or little-money you have, it’s news to somebody. Tell a girlfriend that you went for the promotion on the job in hopes of earning more money because your man is out of work and “somebody’s gotta do something,” and the next thing you know, your entire world-family, friends, acquaintances, and enemies-will be standing at the ready to use that information against you. All you need to do is consider what happens when someone hits the lottery: as soon as the lottery winner pops up, and they’re on the news with that oversized check, everybody’s got their hands out. And in the instances when they lose all that money, spend it on foolish things, make some bad investments, get taken advantage of by people using and abusing them for their cash, the first thing everybody does is talk about how dumb they were. In other words, people get jealous and use whatever information they have to make you feel bad and themselves feel better. This hardly ever changes. Keep your information to yourself, and no one gets the opportunity to put your business in the street, pass judgment, or make you or your man feel bad about your financial situation.
Similarly: don’t compare yourself with other couples. People specialize in making outward appearances shimmer; they’re driving the bigger car or living in the fancier house, but chances are that something is probably wrong in their world too. Their car note may be two months behind, or they may be trying to work out a smaller payment on their mortgage loan. They’re fronting and flexing and making you feel inferior for not having what they have, but they may well have problems even worse than yours. Whatever their financial business is, stay out of it and keep yours to yourself.
This is the advice I had for a listener who wrote into SteveHarvey.com asking for advice on how to handle family members and friends who started asking him for money after he and his wife opened a successful barbershop in their neighborhood. He’d made the mistake of telling a few people at a family get-together that leaving his regular job and starting his own business was the best financial decision he’d ever made-that he was making triple what he did working for someone else. Well, when people started passing that story around and eyeing the brisk business he was doing and seeing his wife driving around town in her new car, people started counting his money and making demands on his bank account. “I make good money, but I don’t make enough to take care of everybody else. I’m just getting on my feet and people don’t understand what it takes to run my business,” he wrote. “How do I get them out of my pockets?”
I told him to start by keeping his financial business to himself-to stop announcing his financial success at the family barbecues. No one but he and his wife need to know how much he makes, what they do with their money, where they put it, and how much they spend. “Take everyone out of it,” I said. “And if anyone asks, keep the details to yourself, be as up front and clear as you possibly can: tell them your financial business is between you and your wife and that’s that.” And this is how it should be with all couples.
IF YOUR MAN IS THE BREADWINNER…
Of course, there will be some relationships in which everything is fine financially and your man will be earning what he needs for the family while you set about the important work of keeping the house together. Please understand that even if you’re not the primary breadwinner in your home-or a breadwinner at all-you still have power in your relationship. Most men I know give our ladies a lot of credit for holding down the fort. I know I need my wife to function and when I’m onstage performing, I frequently give her and the work she does at home a shout-out. A woman who is at home-I call her a home executive-is an incredibly valuable piece of the pie and has to be respected as such because she tends to things at home that make a man’s life so much easier to handle. For instance, Marjorie is in charge at our house. People are constantly saying to me, “Hats off to you,” because I married a woman with three kids and took them all in as my family, but what she did was no less. She’s accepted my children from my previous marriages as if she gave birth to them herself. She’s opened up our home to my kids and loved them, taken care of them, chastised them when they went astray. She’s helped raise them, and while I’m going about my business, I know my kids are being well cared for and nourished emotionally and otherwise. That’s major. More, I haven’t a clue where the electric bill is, how much the cable costs, what it takes to keep my phone service running, how the groceries get purchased and cooked and set out on the table. Do you understand the peace this creates for a workingman? I can’t put a price on what my wife does for me and our family. And it would
