Is It Really About Money? What Financial Stress Reveals About Marriage

"My wife and I have a good connection, and we generally get along well. The problem is that lately our financial situation has become very tight, and it’s really affecting the atmosphere at home. My wife asks for things, and I have nothing to give. I feel overwhelmed and stuck. What am I supposed to say? That I don’t have anything?”

“That’s not really an option for you,” I replied.

“Exactly,” he said. “You think I can just say I have nothing? She won’t accept that. I know exactly what’s happening in our bank account, but she doesn’t seem to care. She needs money for shopping and doesn’t care where it comes from. It weighs heavily on me.”

When External Problems Enter the Relationship

Many therapeutic conversations begin with difficulties that appear to stem from external circumstances. Financial pressure, parenting challenges, health concerns, and similar issues are often presented as the source of tension in the relationship.

Couples usually arrive with the belief that their relationship is struggling because of these outside pressures and that they are simply trying to survive them.

“And when the tenth of the month arrives,” the husband says, “what happens at home is catastrophic.”

Yet interestingly, there are couples, though fewer in number, who describe the opposite experience. During difficult periods, whether financial or otherwise, they manage to get through the challenge with their relationship intact. Some even describe the crisis as something that strengthened their bond.

In other words, the same external pressure that weakens one relationship can fortify another. This suggests that not every relationship responds to challenges in the same way. Some systems collapse, while others become stronger.

Perhaps a more accurate statement than “we’re struggling because our financial situation is affecting our relationship” would be “we’re struggling because our relationship isn’t stable enough to contain the financial challenge.”

This leads to a deeper question: what qualities allow a relationship to cope effectively with hardship?

Fulfilled Needs as a Source of Strength

If we observe stable relationships, we often see that many emotional needs are already being met. There is mutual respect and appreciation. Each partner recognizes the other as a full person with legitimate desires and needs and values what the other brings into the relationship.

Partners in such relationships are often able to anticipate each other’s reactions, decisions, and plans. This predictability creates a sense of security and control in their shared environment.

When a challenge arises, such as financial pressure, it naturally threatens basic needs like stability and security. Questions about the future intensify uncertainty. However, when the relationship itself provides a sense of grounding and safety, the partners have an internal anchor they can rely on. That anchor supplies the emotional energy needed to confront the challenge together.

In less stable systems, the deficiency exists even before the challenge appears. The external problem simply amplifies an already-present instability. In such cases, there is no surplus emotional energy to deal with the difficulty. Often, each partner looks elsewhere for strength instead of investing in reinforcing the relationship itself.

Tension as a Catalyst for Growth

Another key element in resilient marriages is a high level of intimacy. Intimacy means that each partner has space within the relationship to express vulnerability, weakness, and emotion without fear of being rejected or harmed.

It also means the ability to accept the other person as they are, including their differences and complexities, without feeling threatened or destabilized.

This sense of intimacy provides a foundation that allows partners to take risks, grow, and pursue personal fulfillment. Rather than breaking under pressure, such relationships can actually develop through tension.

In these systems, tension is not immediately reduced or avoided. Instead, it is tolerated. The relationship grows precisely because the tension is allowed to exist and be worked through.

By contrast, in systems that are not secure, much effort is invested in maintaining calm and avoiding disruption. As long as no challenge arises, the relationship may feel peaceful and even pleasant.

But challenges inevitably appear, because reality never fully aligns with desire. When tension increases, the system is tested. If it lacks stability, it will attempt to reduce tension at all costs, often by redefining the problem as purely external.

When the husband says, “She won’t understand me,” or “She needs this right now,” he is expressing a relational difficulty. But admitting “I find it hard to be with her” feels far more threatening, because it puts the relationship itself under examination. It is emotionally safer to frame the problem as financial rather than relational.

Looking Beneath the Surface

In conclusion, when partners feel that an external problem is threatening their relationship, it is worth pausing and asking a deeper question. Rather than focusing only on solving the external issue, it can be helpful to explore how the challenge touches the relationship itself and what it stirs within the connection.

This exploration can be done independently or with the guidance of a therapist who is able to observe the system from the outside. Often, what appears to be a financial or practical crisis is actually revealing something fundamental about the relationship’s structure and resilience.

Haim Arnerich is a marriage and family counselor, M.F.C.