Society is changing. Though Canadian men and women are a long way from income parity, according to Canada’s Global News Service, women have been joining the workforce in increasing numbers. At the same time, old gender stereotypes persist — the man is the breadwinner, the woman is the breadmaker. These old stereotypes can make these conversations difficult for women to navigate. Furthermore, and this fact is widely-known, money is the leading cause of stress in any relationship. Part of being intimate with somebody, though, is being ready to deal with all sorts of emergencies, including financial ones. So, when you’re a woman dating a man, how do you talk about the subject of financial setbacks, and then, how do you deal with them? Specifically, how do you deal with your own?
While plenty has been written about the psychology of how men fall in love, achieving intimacy with somebody is no easy feat. And while it can feel like the two of you inhabit your own small world, the larger world is always trying to creep in and shatter that illusion. If you or your partner begin to experience money problems, it can seem like the whole world floods in at once. Latent issues in a relationship, trust issues, personality mismatches, and questions of intimacy can come to the surface, all triggered by money problems.
As this article from Bustle explains, the first step to preventing that from happening is having similar financial priorities. Before you bring up the worst-case scenario, try working out best-case scenarios. Ideally, what are your financial goals together for a year, two years, and five and ten years? Key here is charting out your goals for yourself. Sharing these goals with your partner can be nerve-wracking, but it is ultimately a way of investing in the long-term health of your relationship.
It is best done in a setting where you both feel comfortable, at a time where there are few-to-no distractions. Even better if you can plan an evening around it: set a day to be your ‘finance night,’ cook a nice meal at home together, and spend time together afterward going over what your financial goals are for the future. The more of a positive atmosphere that surrounds going over your finances, the better the outcome will be.
What do you do about financial setbacks in a relationship? First, you should develop a plan for how you are going to move forward. A plan is going to be different depending on the nature of the dilemma. Running out of pocket money for the weekend is a financial problem of a different order of magnitude than, say, your car getting repossessed by the bank. Setting up a budget spreadsheet is a great way to keep your finances in order and minimize the risk going forward.
Once you are in a financial hole though, what are your options? Do you open another credit card? Do you seek out online payday loans in Canada? This might be the best approach for you to turn things around. Whatever your emergency financial scenario might look like, and the better you know the finances between the two of you, the better your outcomes will be as you consider emergency options. If you have invested a lot in savings, it is better to tap the rainy day fund. But if you’ve been living on the razor’s edge — you might be a student, a freelancer, or stuck in a low-wage job — the trick with any borrowing is to include your partner in the conversation. Not only do you need to let them know what borrowing you might be doing, since it could be their risk as well as yours, but planning alongside them could help you recover from your financial fallout.
There are still long-standing misconceptions surrounding how women spend, save, and shop. These challenges, plus the persistent pay gap between men and women, make planning for and communicating about your financial future all the more important. We are long past due to dispel the old myths and plan for our futures one conversation at a time. Key to that is being confident: the future is yours.