Relationship
How to deal with an overspending spouse (final)
Living within your means is important
If you have gone through the steps above and haven’t seen much improvement, don’t lose hope. You and your spouse may need to take extra steps or get more help. Here are five things to try first:
Cut Up Your Credit Cards
If you tried the envelope system for budgeting, but kept your credit cards just in case, the power of plastic may be too much to resist for compulsive shopaholics. If you suspect this is the case, then get rid of them. Spending money can be addictive, especially if you can’t actually see the money leaving your hands. Cut up the credit cards, and if you must, close the accounts to take the temptation out of the picture altogether.
Use a Piggy Bank
Did you make a piggy bank when you were little? Well, I still have one and I use it to this day. I regularly deposit change in my piggy bank and after a while, I am rewarded for my efforts. It’s a great way to practise patience and discipline, which may be exactly what your spouse needs to lose the overspending habit. Don’t use the piggy bank method alone, however. Do it in conjunction with cutting up the credit cards and the process described above. Reinforce to your spouse that this is not a punishment, but a way of rewarding hard work and self-control.
Motivational Reading
Like many people, I get really fired up and excited after reading a book. If your spouse is this way too, try picking up some inspirational reading like Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover or Thomas Stanley’s The Millionaire Next Door for starters. Once you’ve read these, there are other great personal finance books out there as well. Reading about how others managed their spending can inspire both of you to work towards the changes you need to make.
Seek Counselling
If all else fails, or perhaps you are feeling resistance from your spouse, you may need to seek help from an outside source. Counselling can uncover deeper issues that your spouse is trying to cope with by overspending. Consider joint sessions, at least to begin with, to make sure your spouse’s overspending isn’t a response to underlying dynamics in your marriage.
Get Support
Organisations like Debtors Anonymous (DA), can give you and your spouse the tools you need to handle your situation effectively. Debtors Anonymous offers a 12-step programme to control overspending and provides support from others who have been in the same place you’re in now.
Final Word
These suggestions will only work if you do not overspend yourself. Make sure you set a good example and that you are working towards financial goals just as hard as you expect your spouse to. Most importantly, support your spouse through the process and only use loving words so that the issue doesn’t drive a wedge in your relationship. Change and healing are most likely to occur if you demonstrate that you are in this together.
Parenting teens can be challenging. But it can also be a joy. The key is to know how to care for yourself, first and foremost. Before you have children, you might think that parenting will come naturally. And, to some degree, it does. But there are days (and sometimes months and years) when all parents could use some extra support.
Last week we looked at some four simple yet powerful approaches for parenting teens that build strong relationships for the long-run. Here are the remaining two:
4: Keep communication going
Because we are often busy and distracted, we do not always take the time to really focus on our kids when they’re trying to tell us something. Take advantage of the time you have together. Having dinner together as a family, using car time to talk, or chatting before bed are good ways to stay in daily touch with your teen. Prioritise quality time as well as quantity: Consider having breakfast out on the weekend as a special catch-up time to chat about the week. Or schedule monthly “family meetings” to discuss how things have been going and any conflicts that have arisen.
5. Be an empathetic listener
Listening with empathy and caring is one of the most important tips on parenting a teenager. Researchers have shown that people’s brain patterns synchronise when they listen closely to one another and watch each other’s expressions. As a result, the connection between them becomes stronger. Not feeling truly heard can lead to isolation and lack of self-esteem which are the root causes of anxiety, depression, and substance abuse. Therefore, take listening seriously. It’s not just a way of coping with teenagers; it has an enormous impact on their well-being.
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SHE did not find out he was cheating. She found out he was drowning.
It was two weeks after their beautiful wedding. The jollof was still in the fridge. A loan officer called her number—not his—and politely asked, “Madam, please tell your husband to pay his overdue loan. We have been calling him.”
That was how she discovered her new husband had entered their marriage with a hidden debt of over GH¢40,000. No cheating. No other woman. Just a financial secret.
And that is how many Ghanaian marriages begin to die. Not with a shout, but with a secret alert on a phone.
In my therapy/counselling office in Accra, week after week, I sit with couples whose marriages are not broken by infidelity, but by invoices. If you ask me what is quietly killing Ghanaian marriages today, I will tell you without blinking: it is not that love has died; it is that money honesty never lived.
We prepare for the wedding. We do not prepare for the wallet.
What is money honesty?
Let me define it simply. Money honesty is not that you both earn the same. It is that you both know the same. It is the ability to sit down and say without fear:
“This is how much I earn.”
“This is how much I owe.”
“This is how I was raised to see money.”
“This is what scares me about money.”
Financial transparency is not about control. It is about clarity. You cannot build trust on top of secrets.
Many couples tell me, “Counselor, we love each other, love will handle money.” I always answer, “Love is the car, but money honesty is the fuel. Love without honesty cannot move.”
Why do Ghanaian partners hide money?
From my clinical observation, it is not always wickedness. It is often woundedness.
1. The fear of losing power: Especially for men, money is seen as power. “If she knows how much I have, she will control me or disrespect me.” So he hides.
2. Family entanglement: “If my wife knows I give my mother GH¢1,500 every month, there will be trouble.” So he creates a second MoMo account. Many Ghanaian marriages have three accounts—his, hers, and the secret family one.
3. Past trauma: A woman who grew up in a home where her mother begged for chop money will never be honest about her savings. She is not greedy. She is scared. She is saving for her survival.
4. Debt shame: In Ghana today, with easy access to Qwikloan, Fido, and bank salary loans, many young men and women enter marriage already drowning in debt. They hide it because they feel, “If I tell him/her, they won’t marry me.”
So the hiding begins. And that is where the insurance lapses.
The 3 Devastating Prices You Pay For Financial Secrecy
Research from Kansas State University found that arguments about money are the number one predictor of divorce, more than arguments about children, in-laws, or sex. Why? Because money arguments are never about money. They are about trust, respect, and security.
Price 1: It destroys trust faster than infidelity.
When you discover your spouse has a secret child, you are hurt. When you discover your spouse has a secret debt that loan officers are now chasing YOU for, you feel betrayed and foolish. Clients tell me, “Counselor, I can forgive cheating, but I cannot forgive that he made me look like a fool at the bank.”
Price 2: It creates chronic anxiety in your home.
A home where money is a mystery is a home where no one sleeps well. The wife is always checking his phone not for other women, but for loan alerts. The husband is always anxious when his wife says, “Can we talk?” You cannot have intimacy where there is financial anxiety.
Price 3: It teaches your children to lie.
Children are watching. When daddy says, “Tell anyone who calls that I am not around because of money,” you are teaching your son that lying about money is normal. We are raising a generation of financially dishonest partners.
