Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / When One Partner Wants To Move Up In Socioeconomic Class And The Other Doesn't

Transcript

When One Partner Wants To Move Up In Socioeconomic Class And The Other Doesn't · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi everybody, and welcome to the dr.
• 0:08
  Psych mom show, today, I'm going to be talking about when one
• 0:11
  partner wants to change socio-economic class, which I
• 0:15
  will just heretofore say class instead of socio-economic class,
• 0:21
  but just for all my fellow soft Sciences.
• 0:25
  People, who remember, SES, I could say, SES to some of y'all,
• 0:29
  probably are still still in research in some way.
• 0:32
  I stopped being in research after Academia but this is
• 0:35
  really Going quite far afield. Even before I get to my intro,
• 0:40
  so we're going to be talking about when one partner wants to
• 0:43
  go up in class and the other one doesn't and why and how to deal
• 0:46
  with that. And what I even mean and before
• 0:50
  that please, do subscribe, the most recent one is when you're
• 0:52
  replicating your parents marriage without even knowing it
• 0:55
  and I'll have other ones coming out shortly.
• 0:57
  Also, please do Follow Me. And subscribe to me on Tick
• 0:59
  Tock, I am now I've doubled my number of tick tock followers
• 1:03
  which is you know kind of easy to go from one to To.
• 1:06
  No, I'm just kidding. I think I'm at like 1600 or
• 1:09
  something by now, which is still like basically nothing.
• 1:12
  But please do follow me there too.
• 1:14
  All right, so I work with a lot of people that have money, and
• 1:19
  as do most self-pay psychologists, and especially
• 1:24
  lately, you know, obviously, you get older people listen to you
• 1:27
  more. It's hard to be an expert when
• 1:30
  you're in your 30s, but now I'm 41 and so on, I'm officially an
• 1:33
  expert territory. I'm Striking Distance about
• 1:36
  8:45. I think I will Peak.
• 1:39
  And anyway, so a lot of people that have money.
• 1:43
  It's not so straightforward as I've discussed in another
• 1:46
  podcast about when people have money.
• 1:48
  Sometimes, the only thing they can buy is love.
• 1:51
  So, I get lots and lots of couples in because when people
• 1:54
  can buy everything they want, but they can't buy a loving
• 1:56
  relationship. It's thrown into Stark relief
• 2:00
  how little the money, really matters, you know, until of
• 2:03
  course there on the dating market then it's helpful again.
• 2:06
  But anyway, there are more conflicts than one might imagine
• 2:12
  between people. And I'm not even just talking
• 2:14
  about, the upper echelons right there, where I'm working.
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  I'm seeing like going from lower middle to middle, middle to
• 2:19
  upper-middle. You know, whatever the change is
• 2:22
  in class. It any sort of change can stress
• 2:27
  a couple. So I often talk about the
• 2:30
  example and I quote the or I reference the movie, When a Man
• 2:33
  Loves a Woman with Meg Ryan So she got sober in that movie, she
• 2:37
  had been an alcoholic and it very much stressed the
• 2:39
  relationship and that is pretty much what happens.
• 2:42
  You know. It's not just people are like,
• 2:43
  oh wow, my partner's so much better now.
• 2:45
  That's like so awesome for us. I guess I will just have to and
• 2:50
  improve myself and then we're better.
• 2:52
  No way. Like people are used to the same
• 2:55
  old. You know, thing they're used to
• 2:58
  having a comfort zone and that comfort zone.
• 3:01
  Maybe that one person drinks a lot and parties a lot or that
• 3:05
  they Both do, and if one stops and that stresses the
• 3:07
  relationship. What are we going to do now?
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  What's our identity going to be? If we're not Partiers and
• 3:12
  sometimes it's getting a lot more money or the desire to act
• 3:17
  as though you have a lot more money, which even even a while
• 3:22
  after you've gotten it. So what do I mean by this?
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  So obviously, you have a lot of money and still act as you used
• 3:28
  to when you didn't have a lot of money.
• 3:30
  That's plenty of people. If you read the book, The
• 3:31
  Millionaire Next Door, you know, some large percent of
• 3:34
  millionaires still Five cars that are not, you know, flashy,
• 3:38
  because they don't spend their money on those sorts of things.
• 3:40
  And the point is, that's how they got to be millionaires in
• 3:42
  the first place. And a lot of people believe in
• 3:45
  that philosophy, like the money is to be socked away.
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  It's to be used for whatever it's needed for the children's
• 3:51
  College. Maybe they're a graduate school
• 3:54
  down payments for their homes, one day.
• 3:56
  And basically, we're going to keep living the same.
• 3:58
  As we were always living, even if we get more money, but then
• 4:01
  some people say, YOLO, and I want to seize the day.
• 4:05
  And live in the way that I always wanted to live when I was
• 4:08
  a child and I want to have the car that looks a certain way and
• 4:13
  the house with the pool and the right neighborhood said the kids
• 4:16
  to the right schools. And by the right, obviously,
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  this is in quotes, you know, whatever is the signifier of a
• 4:23
  jump in station and so this can be done to impress a family,
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  right? So like if you grew up poor and
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  now you have all of the markers of wealth, then this could very
• 4:35
  much Each impress, everybody, you grew up with it can impress
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  yourself, you know, you could feel like you're really living
• 4:40
  the dream. Now it could be something that
• 4:43
  you feel makes you happier, you know, day-to-day and there are
• 4:48
  actual studies that show that money is correlated with
• 4:51
  happiness, but like only at certain amount of money, you
• 4:56
  know? So, the lesson you could cut the
• 4:59
  data either. Way, there's stuff that says,
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  somebody doesn't make you happier unless it takes you out
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  of poverty, in which case everybody Recent makes you
• 5:06
  happier but then there's like there's different sorts of
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  studies on whether it makes you happier at upper levels or not
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  but the port and also you got to have your definition of what's
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  happy and you know all of the various research Associated
• 5:19
  issues in definitions and what have you?
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  But the point is that it doesn't really matter for the sake of
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  our purposes, what these different philosophies are it
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  matters do does the couple share a philosophy on whether they
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  want to join the next? So So, economic class up and
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  have all of the signifiers of that class.
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  So frequently, this is the cause of a lot of marital conflict,
• 5:44
  you know. So for example, one person wants
• 5:48
  to retire early and wants to save all their money.
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  So they have a lot of money to live off and they want to retire
• 5:55
  at like 45 and the spouse thinks that that's bullshit.
• 5:59
  They think that that's being lazy and silly and they would
• 6:02
  want that. What are they going to do if
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  they retire so early instead? They want to work and or for the
• 6:07
  spouse to continue to work as much as possible, you know,
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  until the normative age or the usual stereotypical age of 65 or
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  whatever. At which point, they will have
• 6:18
  provided all of these luxuries for their children, you know?
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  And so and the other person may also feel that the children and
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  or this is a different situation, or it could be or any
• 6:29
  of these could be, you know, commingled, but that the
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  children would do better with more quote like Like, wholesome
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  values and having to know the value of a dollar and how the
• 6:39
  part-time job and not get everything they wanted.
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  The other person could say, I will, I'd like them to get
• 6:45
  everything they want. I certainly never did.
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  And this can go a long with different philosophies of
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  parenting as well. There's usually one who is
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  softer and one who is harder on the kids.
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  And I discussed that frequently, this, you know, the idea of
• 6:58
  setting boundaries with your children and trying to strike a
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  happy medium of authoritative instead of authoritarian too
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  strict or permit. F 2 lakhs.
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  So these can be layered on top of different parenting Styles.
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  And also there are very different personalities that go
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  along with each person's desire to either be in the next class
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  or to stay in the same class, right, which are really.
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  It's interesting introversion and extraversion so introversion
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  introverts usually want kind of a quieter simpler more minimal
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  life because they don't like the big hustling.
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  Bustle. So to them getting like a huge
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  house with a pool, where they're like be entertaining, all the
• 7:41
  kids friends and all of their friends that they don't even
• 7:44
  want to have sounds like some kind of nightmare, whereas to a
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  more extroverted person, this would be such a happy, you know,
• 7:53
  Wonderful, fun, sort of thing to be like the house that everybody
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  can go to and where all the kids friends can always sleep over
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  and there's a game room and there's like, you know, a poo.
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  Always like, oh, and she's going to serve this always, she
• 8:09
  actually, it's not always she with the pool.
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  It's usually, she usually the woman is the impetus for the
• 8:14
  pool because they had so about the kids, you know, the kids
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  friends. But there's a lot of guys who
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  want big houses to and so I, there's no gender in this.
• 8:21
  So if you're thinking, like, if you're came to me and, you know,
• 8:25
  from from one of the manosphere conduit and are thinking that,
• 8:29
  this is only these materialistic women that are forcing men into
• 8:33
  indentured servitude, hell no ice See, plenty of women who
• 8:37
  are, like, why do we have to upgrade our house?
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  I don't understand. In fact, it was interesting.
• 8:40
  I was talking to my Facebook group which you should join if
• 8:44
  you like talking to me or people that were if you like people
• 8:49
  that like talking to me also. But I was talking about how the
• 8:52
  new trend that I see is that when women get divorced, they go
• 8:55
  into an apartment because they're like, I don't want this
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  fucking house, I hate it taken care of this house and I don't
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  want this big house. I want to be free and the kids
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  are going to share a room and it's going to Be fine.
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  And those are the women who usually do not really want these
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  big markers of wealth, you know, they're like, I'm fine
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  downsizing. Like, I never really wanted this
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  house to begin with and I'm cool.
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  Like being out on my own. I don't need alimony fuck it.
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  And that's a lot more women that I see.
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  And of course, women are making as much money as men if not more
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  at higher rates but irrespective of that even if their lower
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  earners, many women are like, fuck it.
• 9:32
  I want to go into the apartment or a smaller house, you know?
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  Because they didn't like having to deal with and manage all of
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  it and they found it to be showy or uncomfortable and they just
• 9:44
  want it to be done after being divorced.
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  They want to have a different identity, which is more simpler
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  and more minimalistic. So, what are some other reasons
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  that go into? People not wanting to show
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  markers of being in the higher class?
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  I think I've said, socio-economic more times than I
• 10:01
  promise to but I don't really remember I go into like, a Fugue
• 10:04
  State when I These podcasts, I have no notes.
• 10:08
  But anyway, another reason is that, people were trained by
• 10:12
  parents to fear or hate the wealthy.
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  So, like, if you had a blue collar parent and they were
• 10:18
  always like, you wouldn't believe this fuck that drove his
• 10:21
  BMW into, you know, whatever if the father was a mechanic and he
• 10:26
  was such a piece of shit and he talked down to me what a
• 10:29
  motherfucker. If you heard that growing up,
• 10:31
  you're going to be pretty uncomfortable with driving a
• 10:34
  BMW. You right?
• 10:36
  I mean it lets you really hated your dad and it's a big fuck.
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  You usually you would have on some level.
• 10:42
  A lot of trepidation around joining a class that had been so
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  maligned by your own parents or feared or just kind of they were
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  in discussed. Also religious people can based
• 10:52
  on the religion can tend to be raised to really ask you
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  material things. And so the idea of having some
• 10:59
  huge house and not something that very much indicates, that
• 11:02
  you're probably not giving away most of your I'm to charity
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  because you've kept a quite a hell of a lot of it would be
• 11:09
  seen to be, you know, another source of discomfort like that
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  wouldn't be who you want to be. So there are so many variables
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  that go into an individual's Comfort level with with, with
• 11:22
  attaining, a different obvious level of wealth, you know?
• 11:27
  And, and the other one that I kind of touched on briefly is
• 11:31
  how much the person loves work. Because, like, if you go on the
• 11:34
  Reddit for like, Like Financial Independence retire early fire.
• 11:38
  Like there's all these people that are like I'm just slogging
• 11:41
  through this job so that I could get to like a state of passive
• 11:45
  income and retiring early and if those people are partnered with
• 11:49
  people who love their job and and would retiring early sounds
• 11:53
  like a death sentence because it sounds so boring and like their
• 11:56
  point there are their meaning would be gone.
• 11:58
  Then those are two people that are going to have conflict over
• 12:01
  this idea of whether they should be saving or spending.
• 12:05
  You know and and whether they should get the house in the
• 12:08
  different neighborhood or whether they should stay where
• 12:10
  they are and just sock away all that money so that one of them
• 12:14
  can be freed from the burden of work, you know.
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  But if the other one doesn't think that working is a burden
• 12:19
  and derives a lot of intrinsic satisfaction from working.
• 12:22
  Then these two have the capacity or the probability of
• 12:26
  misunderstanding each other and talking past each other.
• 12:28
  And usually what happens is the one who wants to go up in class
• 12:34
  and get the next car. Our and though, the flashy,
• 12:36
  whatever the big vacations, that one is seen as like, Shallow by
• 12:41
  the other partner and then the one who wants to do this evening
• 12:44
  is seen as like really stodgy and scared of the world and a
• 12:48
  buzzkill and somebody who doesn't like to experience
• 12:52
  things you know. And so obviously these are
• 12:55
  caricatures and a caricature never tells the full story of
• 12:59
  all the complexity of a person. So what would we do in couples
• 13:02
  counseling for these couples is or dress?
• 13:05
  Kind of the root causes of these belief systems around money and
• 13:09
  class, which most Partners have really never explored in one
• 13:13
  another, you know, or in themselves for that matter.
• 13:16
  So forget about one another. Very few people have been like
• 13:18
  really sussed out like why do I think the ways that I do about
• 13:22
  money and wealth and power and class?
• 13:24
  Like what did I learn in my upbringing about this in what
• 13:28
  ways is my spending now intentional and what ways is it
• 13:31
  automatic? And what ways is it a reaction,
• 13:34
  you know? No versus something intentional
• 13:37
  and mindful. And then what about the same for
• 13:40
  my partner? Like how did my partner's
• 13:42
  upbringing influence the way that they think about money and
• 13:45
  class? Why do they seem so upset at the
• 13:48
  idea of, you know, upgrading in my mind, upgrading and quotes, I
• 13:53
  have house, you know, in the mind of the speed of the
• 13:55
  hypothetical speaker, you know, and why doesn't that make them
• 13:59
  so happy? You know, when this can really
• 14:02
  cause a lot of conflict when people have not, Really examined
• 14:06
  it in themselves which is again really frequent and so they
• 14:09
  assume that like they that their way is the only way.
• 14:13
  So like a guy will come home, like he'll get a big bonus and
• 14:16
  come home with like a tennis bracelet for his wife and she'll
• 14:19
  be like, oh my God, you didn't spend did that, that's not real.
• 14:23
  What did you spend on that? Oh my God.
• 14:25
  Can you return? That is that in the window of
• 14:27
  returning? And so, of course, he might take
• 14:30
  that very, very personally as a slap in the face that she's
• 14:33
  being nasty about his gift and He might think if he were doing
• 14:37
  some therapy, he might think. Hmm.
• 14:39
  Why do I take her fear about that personally?
• 14:42
  Huh? Maybe because my mother would
• 14:44
  have just died of joy to get a tennis bracelet and my father's
• 14:48
  never able to get her one and I just kind of assumed for my
• 14:51
  whole life. That that's what a woman would
• 14:53
  love like that. Then I would have really made it
• 14:55
  and I was picturing as I was driving home with this thing.
• 14:57
  I was picturing we would have sex tonight.
• 14:59
  I was pictured, she would be over the moon and then she would
• 15:02
  see me as this amazing guy, who managed to make this Wonderful
• 15:05
  gift happen for her. And then on her, and what is she
• 15:08
  thinking? She's thinking, oh my God, what
• 15:10
  does this mean? Who does he think?
• 15:12
  I am to see, not even know who I am.
• 15:14
  I'm not somebody who would be comfortable wearing this?
• 15:17
  This is like those other women that I see that I don't like,
• 15:20
  you know, and that I was trained not to like if she were to go
• 15:22
  into therapy and think about it. Those quotes snobby or elitist
• 15:26
  women that wear all the jewelry, you know, like I'm not like
• 15:29
  that, doesn't he even know me? So you see how something as as
• 15:33
  minor as one? Gift can cause an empathic
• 15:36
  rupture truly on both sides, where the man feels terrible on
• 15:39
  the woman. Feels terrible.
• 15:41
  But this is not about the bracelet.
• 15:42
  Of course, it's about their different conceptualizations and
• 15:46
  belief systems surrounding money and class and what the
• 15:50
  signifiers of wealth mean to each of them and when this stuff
• 15:54
  is discussed in a very open way, people can learn so much about
• 15:58
  each other and really empathize with one another's.
• 16:00
  Experiences both growing up and now and often come to a common
• 16:05
  ground. Where nobody feels like they're
• 16:06
  living a life that isn't their own which frequently leads to
• 16:09
  divorce. You know, when people think my
• 16:11
  god, I've had to play a role in this relationship for so long,
• 16:15
  you know, like corporate wife or like, you know, like successful
• 16:18
  doctor when I've wanted to retire from this medical
• 16:21
  profession years ago, or like, whatever the case may be, you
• 16:24
  know, and talking about these things sooner than later, can
• 16:28
  really help couples get on track and have a deeper understanding
• 16:31
  of one, another as full and complex people and not.
• 16:35
  Take things so personally and instead understand the entirety
• 16:38
  of their Partners experiences and their own experiences and
• 16:43
  kind of get to a middle ground, which is so much easier if you
• 16:47
  understand where each person is starting off.
• 16:49
  All right, so if you found this interesting, this should be
• 16:52
  something again. A topic that you can bring up
• 16:54
  with your spouse, do not bombard them with my podcast.
• 16:58
  If they don't like my podcast, but you could bring it up
• 17:01
  yourself. Like what do you think about
• 17:02
  money? In fact, in my book 52?
• 17:05
  To transform your marriage. I have one on money.
• 17:07
  I'm pretty sure I wrote that damn thing a long time ago, but
• 17:10
  I'm pretty sure I have one on money.
• 17:12
  An email that you would send out with questions and whatever
• 17:14
  these are prompt, I hope you all know that I have these books.
• 17:18
  I have the, how to talk to your kids about your divorce one.
• 17:20
  But I also have 52 emails to transform your marriage which is
• 17:23
  something that some of my clients have done productively
• 17:26
  only if they are very verbal and they are prompt to email one
• 17:31
  another basically as though you're in couples counseling,
• 17:33
  the same sorts of questions that account.
• 17:35
  Allure might ask you to prompt you to engage on a deeper level
• 17:38
  about certain topics, so that's always something that that you
• 17:42
  can do as well. All those are on Amazon anyway.
• 17:46
  So hope this was interesting, please do follow, all of my
• 17:49
  various social media channels. I'm going to be on Twitch.
• 17:52
  No, I'm kidding. Yeah, I'm not gonna be on
• 17:54
  Twitch. Twitch is like for gamers, I
• 17:56
  don't think I've ever played a video game but I will not be on
• 18:00
  Twitch. But you know what?
• 18:01
  Never Say Die. Who knows?
• 18:03
  And anyway. Subscribe, I'll see y'all soon.
• 18:06
  Bye bye.