A conversation with 'Til Stress Do Us Part author Elizabeth Earnshaw

Happy Fall, from The Joint Account! Today, you’ve got Heather, and I have no shame in admitting that I blew through my Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew allotment in August. However, I’ve yet to visit a Michael’s, HomeGoods, or Spirit Halloween store, so there’s still lots of room for mindless seasonal consumption in our future. Will keep you posted.

Before getting to the pulp of this week’s newsletter, I must share this bit of good news: Substack is featuring The Joint Account on its homepage this week! If you are a new subscriber, welcome—we are so happy to have you. Since Labor Day, we’ve been back on this platform that our individual newsletters once called home, and we have truly felt the warmth in our homecoming. We want to create a space that approaches money from every angle, so that both partners get interested and curious about their personal finances. In turn, we hope to help you open the dialogue and talk better about money with each other. We’re very grateful to have Substack’s support in helping our message reach as many readers as possible. Hooray!

Oh-em-gee!!!

But enough about us. I am thrilled to bring you our first author Q&A of the season. Elizabeth Earnshaw is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and founder of A Better Life Therapy. In the spirit of making couples therapy more accessible, she authored I Want This To Work, has grown a vibrant community on social as @lizlistens, and pens a fabulous newsletter right here on Substack called The Balancing Act.

When I first got word of Liz’s new book, ‘Til Stress Do Us Part: How to Heal the #1 Issue In Our Relationships, I reached out in hopes she would lend some nuggets for our own forthcoming book. But I can’t emphasize how much of an impact our two conversations, as well as her book, have had on the way the way we navigate stress as a couple. Her book provides constructive tools without telling you what to do. She couples her advice with personal stories told in her own voice, which are just too relatable to not see a piece of yourself in.

Money is an evergreen source of stress in relationships. I was very interested in drawing the connections between Liz’s work and our own. As you will see, we focused on one particularly stressful situation that can arise without warning: losing your job. I am so excited to share a sliver of our talks (edited for brevity and clarity) with you now.  

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H: What’s the most common source of stress for couples?

E: Either parenting or money. But if you go underneath, the issue is that people have different life philosophies on things and have different levels of willingness to change. So, kids, money, whatever it is. What’s causing stress is that partners think so differently about something, and one or both of them is not really willing to do what they need to do to make it less stressful.

H: Why do you think couples stress about money?

E: I work with couples in all different demographics and economic levels. And I rarely see an issue that’s actually about, like, we aren’t going to be able to figure out the money and we’re going to end up homeless, or we’re going to end up in federal prison, or we’re going to lose everything. Most of the time, it’s not that consequential. Usually, it’s related to how we deal with the issue and how that’s influencing the way we function. Then, it’s about whether or not we believe we're on the same page, and whether we feel like the other person is working with us to negotiate or compromise.  

H: We spent some time chatting about the notion of losing your job, which can of course, be incredibly stressful. What are some of the most effective ways for couples to communicate about the challenges related to unemployment?

E: The most important thing is to be emotionally attuned to people. Unfortunately, what we try to do is give solutions too quickly, and then if they don't work, we get frustrated, right?

I've been in that position—everybody has. One partner will say something like, I just can’t find a new job; I don't feel comfortable spending money. And their partner will say, well, have you thought about being a DoorDash driver? That might be a good solution, but your partner is really smart and capable, and when you throwing out these unsolicited ideas, it could be very belittling and discount the fact that they’ve either: (a) thought of it, and it’s not going to work for whatever reason; or (b) they haven’t thought of it, and are like, great, she’s got all the good ideas. I’m the problem, and I’m embarrassed. Then they get mad and withdraw.

If your partner loses their job, first tune in emotionally, which just means being curious. You could say, hey, I can tell you’re feeling down about what happened, and I’m just wondering what’s going through your head? How are you feeling about the way it went down? Just ask open-ended questions. Then, ask permission before you give solutions. Let them know they have permission to not problem solve with you right away—they have permission to just be upset.

Now, that’s not to say the recently unemployed partner can continually not collaborate. They owe their partner, who’s been emotionally supporting them, the security and stability of a plan. You still need to be an active participant with your partner even when you’re frustrated, upset, overwhelmed.

H: What advice would you give to couples who might need to adjust their roles and responsibilities at home, because one partner has lost their job? What are some tips couples can implement to not breed resentment, even when those responsibility shifts make the most sense?

E: Whenever there's major life transitions, relationships get messy if people don't sit down and talk about what that transition means. It’s really important for people to first just accept that's normal. Like any life transition—having a baby, changing jobs, moving, even breaking a leg—you should always be talking about the changes in navigating roles and responsibilities. If you don't talk about that, then you are likely to breed resentment, because what's going to happen is you'll maintain similar dynamics that don't make sense anymore.

H: There’s that communication again. It’s incredibly important when navigating money with your partner, especially when you’re being dealt a major blow to your household finances.

E: We try to protect people from discomfort. In the context of spending, many times, the person who loses their job doesn’t want to talk about it because they don’t want anything to have to change. They don’t want the job loss to impact their family. Sometimes, the other working spouse doesn’t want to make the unemployed person feel guilty, so they offer to pick up extra shifts so they don’t have to change spending behaviors.

Now, instead, you could just say: it’s okay, this is a change in our lives, and we will probably have to change the way we’re spending money right now. I believe that you can handle the discomfort, and I can, too. You don’t want to avoid talking about it just because you want to make them feel comfortable.

H: As couples, do you think that our generation of millennials embodies more stress than earlier generations, or are our stressors just novel to us?

E: It's an interesting question. The APA did a study that showed that right now, the American public is the most stressed out it’s ever been. But if you really dug into that, is it that the stressors are worse, or is it that we have worse stress management tools? You know, like, our grandparents' generation, they are all war vets. So, it's kind of hard to say that we're facing worse stressors. We’re factually in the safest period of time that’s ever been.

[We spoke about Liz’s grandfather, who was a gun turret operator in World War II. Douglas’s grandfather fought in the Battle of the Bulge. We both agreed that no, what we are dealing with as millennials in Western society is certainly not more stressful than what our grandparents had to deal with. They are heroes. But I digress.]

I do wonder what would be if people were able to finish their stress cycles in a more natural way like before. Things were simpler. Roles were clearer. There wasn’t so much to do. We’re now being told we can do too much—and we do it.

This is what we're used to, but we're pushing ourselves so much. Again, I don't know that the stressors themselves are worse in terms of our health or safety. But I think we're more stressed out than people have ever been, because we just don't get to break from things in a healthy way, and we have weird lifestyles, and we don't have clear roles, and there's decision overwhelm, which is constant.  

H: In your book, you write about the notion of controlling what you can, even when there’s something looming over you that you cannot control. What can you do to mentally reconcile these difficult moments?

E: One thing you can control is how you respond to your partner. Say to them, you couldn't control this. Layoffs happen, we could have not known that this was going to happen, so we couldn't control it. Saying that can be very powerful in its own right.

Then, look at, what can we control? We can control having conversations about what we need to do as a unit to make this work. We can control changes in our spending. We can control what types of jobs you're looking for and how often you're looking. We can control how we treat each other.

Thank you so much to Liz Earnshaw for this thoughtful discussion (and for becoming one of my favorite new internet friends :) ).

What do you find most stressful as a couple? Let us know, but also, Liz’s book will help you with it. Buy your copy today!

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As of September 21 (yes, *the 21^st night of Septembahhh*), Doug and I have been married for 11 years. I’ve spent much of our past year writing a book of people’s love stories, which will be called, Money Together. “I thought you were writing about money,” you’d say, and that’s true, too. But so much of what guides our decisions are our values, our feelings, our hearts. We make choices out of love. We compromise. We get it wrong. We learn more about each other every day, if we stay curious enough. It’s all related.

Life is far from perfect. We have almost no photos from our wedding. We got COVID on our ten-year anniversary trip not long after the photo above was taken. This year, on our actual anniversary, Doug had to sleep in the guest room, because I was hacking up a lung after our trip to California. Not ideal, but what is?

We don’t strive for perfect. We just want to laugh, watch our kids thrive, reach our own versions of enough. We want to do it together, because that’s the way we’ve been doing it more than half our lives now. If I’ve learned anything this past year, it’s that I don’t need much more than this. Everything else is a bonus.

Tell us some ways your relationship ain’t perfect, but it’s perfect for you.

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TJA in the news!

It was a (pumpkin) spicy week in the finance world. Douglas spoke to CBS News about how much credit card debt is “too much” and whether long-term CDs are still worth it after the Fed’s first interest rate cut in four years.

For our industry frens, he also spoke with Barron’s about the evolving ways advisors work with a new generation of clients.

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The content shared in The Joint Account does not constitute financial, legal, or any other professional advice. Readers should consult with their respective professionals for specific advice tailored to their situation.