Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / Can't Buy Me Love: Why Do Your Relationship Problems Feel Worse The More Money You Make?

Transcript

Can't Buy Me Love: Why Do Your Relationship Problems Feel Worse The More Money You Make? · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi everybody, and welcome to the dr.
• 0:07
  Psych mom show. Today, we are going to be
• 0:10
  talking about what happens when you have a lot of money and
• 0:13
  you're still not happy with your relationship.
• 0:16
  And this is the situation that a lot of people I work with are in
• 0:20
  and before you start saying boohoo poor little rich people.
• 0:23
  I mean everybody struggles you know like it's not like people
• 0:27
  that are wealthy or happy so that could also reassure you.
• 0:30
  You know if you're if you don't feel good about your finances
• 0:34
  it's not like you know Get anything from listening to this
• 0:37
  because there is a much larger point at play which is that you
• 0:41
  really cannot just rely on any one thing to cure all of your
• 0:47
  problems. So that's the greater thing that
• 0:49
  you can get from this. But I also do want to speak to
• 0:52
  the specific situation of many of my clients who are uniquely
• 0:57
  situated in that, they can buy everything they want except they
• 1:01
  cannot buy this thing, which is a happy relationship.
• 1:04
  Before we get to that though I want to tell you to subscribe,
• 1:08
  of course I have a new subscriber only episode out on
• 1:13
  when you hate certain people or certain traits and what that
• 1:16
  really means about you. That's the most recent one and
• 1:19
  that's good for anybody who grew up in a judgemental household
• 1:22
  and was criticized and shamed for anything.
• 1:25
  I don't want to, I don't want to do whole spoiler for the episode
• 1:31
  though. So you should really listen to
• 1:32
  it. If you've ever struggled with
• 1:34
  anger, Cord. Anything or anyone that isn't
• 1:36
  like yourself and of course in the Lynn the large-scale like
• 1:42
  what does this podcast help you with overall?
• 1:45
  Hopefully one of the things is empathy and that's a that's an
• 1:48
  episode that directly relates to that and so does you know, the
• 1:53
  great majority of my episodes anyway.
• 1:56
  So now let's turn to the topic at hand.
• 1:59
  So obviously there's a lot of people in the world that can
• 2:03
  afford me. Me and other self pay therapists
• 2:07
  and to want the creme de La Creme or at least the person who
• 2:10
  puts out enough podcast episodes that you think on the creme de
• 2:12
  La Creme. And so, a lot of what my clients
• 2:17
  have in common is, they don't have to worry about money.
• 2:20
  Some of them are self-made, some of them are not.
• 2:23
  So if made, they started out with some family money and built
• 2:25
  upon it, but either way, the they do not have to worry about
• 2:30
  money, they don't make decisions in their life that are related
• 2:34
  to I afford this or this. I mean, sure, everybody would
• 2:37
  like to get a bargain but but they don't say, are we going to
• 2:41
  be able to go on vacation this year or not?
• 2:44
  They don't even say sometimes where is the cheaper place to go
• 2:48
  on vacation? They just kind of go where they
• 2:50
  want to go. And this takes a lot of work
• 2:53
  usually, to get to this place in life.
• 2:55
  But when you're in midlife and you've gotten to this place or
• 2:58
  to whatever place is equivalent for you, you know, maybe you
• 3:01
  still have to choose where to go on vacation based on money but
• 3:04
  not not that. That much, you know, it can be
• 3:06
  anywhere you want, but not the four-star.
• 3:08
  Whatever the case may be either way, you do not on a regular
• 3:12
  basis, make decisions hampered by money.
• 3:15
  A lot of these people when they make enough money they don't
• 3:18
  really have to do a job that they don't want to do any more.
• 3:20
  So I do have some people who are retired but I don't mean that
• 3:23
  per se I mean that you can only do what you want to do for work.
• 3:28
  You know you can only do jobs that make you feel challenged
• 3:32
  and fulfilled versus having to do.
• 3:34
  Work. And then frequently one partner
• 3:37
  often. The woman doesn't have to work
• 3:39
  at all. So she can volunteer or she can
• 3:42
  run organization or she do whatever the hell she wants.
• 3:45
  She can make her own nonprofit, you know?
• 3:48
  Or she could stay home with the kids, like, whatever the case
• 3:50
  may be. So, you would think that this
• 3:52
  sounds pretty good. However, if you're in this
• 3:55
  situation, you're listening, you're like, well, there is a
• 3:58
  problem, though. I cannot really actually buy the
• 4:01
  thing that I most want. Maybe you've never even phrase.
• 4:04
  It like this in your own mind because, you know, you don't
• 4:07
  want to sound like a jackass or something, but that is kind of
• 4:10
  what underlies, some of the sadness, and confusion.
• 4:14
  And some of the clients that I work with, who have these
• 4:16
  issues, they can, but they can work hard enough, that have to,
• 4:21
  then be able to buy anything that they want.
• 4:25
  And to also opt out of shit that they don't want to do and to do
• 4:29
  stuff that they do want to do. So if they have a hobby, let's
• 4:32
  say the hobby is, you know, snorkeling His snorkel like a
• 4:36
  motherfucker, they snorkeled the best snorkeling equipment, they
• 4:38
  could snorkel anywhere in the world, snorkeling is never going
• 4:43
  to be moderated by money or time because they can be flexible in
• 4:49
  their time. So, you know, to an extent less
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  than money. People all have same amount of
• 4:54
  time but you can opt out and different ways.
• 4:56
  If you're financially secure in this manner, but what can they
• 5:00
  do? Well, guess what, they have the
• 5:02
  same problems with intimacy as Other people, but they even feel
• 5:07
  worse. Because, and here's why, when
• 5:09
  you are still, let's say your man listening to this, you're 30
• 5:13
  years old, you have not made the amount of money, you think
• 5:15
  you're going to make in your lifetime, your wife is still
• 5:17
  working in her job that she doesn't really like, very much.
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  You may have a fantasy that your wife is not sleeping with you
• 5:23
  because she's so tired. And she's so tired because she
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  has to do this job. Let's say she's a speech
• 5:29
  pathologist since a common job for women, they'd like children,
• 5:33
  they like talking You know, it's a good job.
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  I don't have the patience to do it personally, but so your wife
• 5:40
  is a speech pathologist and you think all right, one day.
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  She'll be able to only have a few clients if she wants to or
• 5:49
  no clients at all. And should be able to do all the
• 5:53
  things that she likes to do. And I'm going to be the one who
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  provides that. So she then is going to be in so
• 6:02
  happy with me. She's going to be in such a good
• 6:03
  place then. He's gonna want to sleep with me
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  all the time. So what I really have to do is
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  get their taken off shut off of her plate and then the world is
• 6:11
  going to open up before us and this world is going to include
• 6:14
  sex touching kissing. She's gonna be happy to see me
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  when I walk in the room because I will have provided all of
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  this. Now, there's other situations
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  obviously where the man and the woman make equal amount of money
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  and they're both working very, very hard.
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  And they both have this idea that when they get to whatever
• 6:31
  Financial place is their goal then Then they can both relax
• 6:35
  and spend so much time together and the relationship will be
• 6:39
  better in whatever way, the female equivalent of this
• 6:42
  unfettered sex life that the man frequently yearns for is this
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  emotional life and quality time when we make it till X time,
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  then when x amount of money and these things often coincide with
• 6:55
  the children leaving house, say then we will have Infinity time
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  so he's never going to be too busy with work to talk to me.
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  He's never going to be too busy, making money.
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  Worrying about finances and traveling and all of that to
• 7:07
  have a conversation with me, where you have all these nice
• 7:10
  relaxed weekends. We're gonna do all these things.
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  Now notice, it's not only about money, it, you can insert any
• 7:17
  sort of thing that, that is a goal for the couple.
• 7:22
  So for some people, a really is leaving the house.
• 7:24
  So I talked to some men that really feel that the damper on
• 7:28
  their sex life is having the children in the house.
• 7:32
  Yeah. This is true.
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  But guess what happens alongside the the the children aging
• 7:35
  guess, who else is aging the both of you especially her.
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  So there's a lot of men who, you know, forget that it 52.
• 7:42
  Yeah. The kids are out of house but
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  she's in menopause. So this x arcade, this Fantasia
• 7:47
  that you were predicting and hoping for ain't going to happen
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  for that reason. But be that, as it may, it could
• 7:53
  be money. It could be time.
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  Those are really the things that people try to get more of in
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  this life. And if you end up with enough of
• 8:02
  both, then you And then you are not having this Fantastical
• 8:07
  communion that you thought that you would with your partner.
• 8:10
  This feels like a crazy joke, it feels like a nightmare.
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  You've got everything. There's, there's Twilight Zone
• 8:16
  episodes predicated on this, you know, having everything you
• 8:19
  want. But you can't get that one last
• 8:21
  thing. And the last thing is, the most
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  important thing for most human beings it's evolutionary, its
• 8:28
  biological the desire to pair-bonded to have a meaningful
• 8:32
  sustaining relationship with another human being as Infested
• 8:35
  by frequently for men, physical affection, and sexual contact
• 8:39
  and for women by emotionality quality time.
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  And you know, obviously each gender can have all five love
• 8:46
  languages, you know, but again playing it how it lays with,
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  what I see and the statistical variation there in in such that,
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  you know, two-thirds of women are want more.
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  The other Love Languages and two thirds of men want physical
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  touch, what? Not only the physical touch wood
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  but they certainly want that one.
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  So when people have enough money and or time to do and
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  frequently, as I said, at least, what I see is that the man will
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  buy the woman out of whatever thing she doesn't like to do
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  including her job if necessary. If she doesn't like it, many
• 9:24
  women do like their jobs of course and and he will think.
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  Okay, I've done it. I have achieved this now, isn't
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  she going to be relaxed and happy?
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  Happy and want to be with me and or the woman will think, okay?
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  He's gotten to this financial goal that he always wanted.
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  You know, whether that is a certain yearly salary or whether
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  that is a certain amount of money in the bank.
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  And so now that he has this, what is going on that?
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  He still does not want to be close to me and what's going on
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  is that the money doesn't actually help you know because
• 9:58
  these are deeper issues and the people were just kind of
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  fantasizing that they would be stopped by Money or time.
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  So if you are if you hear yourself in this and you are
• 10:12
  young enough that you can really have a deep Epiphany about this
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  and change your tune, do it. Now if you want to work on the
• 10:19
  sex life you got to do it right now.
• 10:22
  They're going to be no amount of time and money in future that
• 10:26
  allows your partner to open up in this new and different way.
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  Now, there's an exception to this which is immediate Most
• 10:34
  Birthright. So while you still have an
• 10:37
  actual baby that is not sleeping through the night.
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  So until like, let's say birth to age two really should be less
• 10:45
  than that for most people birth to age one.
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  Then yes, your wife is all sorts of fucked up.
• 10:51
  She's her hormones racing the baby.
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  Not the good way, not not how you want her hormones to be
• 10:57
  raising her. Mommy hormones are racing.
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  That is creating a dyad with your child.
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  She is breastfeeding. Is getting her body is
• 11:06
  completely different than she thought etcetera, Etc.
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  So, in this case, this is a time where yes, if you give her
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  enough time and even money because many women don't want to
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  work frequently right after the baby's born.
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  So this is a case in which you really can make her life nice
• 11:23
  with time and money, and then later she may feel closer to you
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  and more like having sex. This is a whole different topic
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  which I touch upon in many posts and podcasts.
• 11:34
  Cast, where the young mother stage is a lot of, there's a lot
• 11:38
  of empathic ruptures that our rice, you know, to happen.
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  And if you can get out ahead of that by being extra loving and
• 11:46
  supportive during that time, the later in your life, she will
• 11:51
  remember this positively and that can indirectly lead to a
• 11:56
  better sex life later on. However, if you are in the stage
• 11:59
  of life, where you just have young children, bunch of young
• 12:01
  kids and you guys are both working this that the other Our
• 12:05
  and she's saying to you that she doesn't want to have sex with
• 12:07
  you because she's too tired and too busy.
• 12:09
  You got to interrogate that because it's true that nobody
• 12:13
  wants have sex when they're too tired and too busy but but
• 12:17
  you're tired and busy too, you know, like it really so you
• 12:21
  still want to have sex. So, in what I see, that's not
• 12:25
  usually the problem if it is the problem, then try your opt out
• 12:30
  strategies. Now, you don't have to have all
• 12:33
  the money in the world. Nobody You should be doing shit
• 12:35
  that they don't want to do. Ironically it's your massive
• 12:39
  Powerhouse push to end up with nothing to do and complete
• 12:44
  swaths of time that are just you know unused that is stopping you
• 12:49
  from being present currently. So there's a lot of women that
• 12:53
  would have a much better sex life with their husbands at age
• 12:55
  40 50 60. Even if the man had just fucking
• 12:59
  been around you know in their 20s and 30s and 40s.
• 13:03
  Who whatever whatever. Because she felt so disconnected
• 13:06
  and lonely during that time to time during which he was making
• 13:08
  this big career push that. Then they have nothing in common
• 13:12
  later on when they when he's actually achieved the goal.
• 13:16
  And again, there's women who are the primary Breadwinner.
• 13:19
  I don't frequently see women with this mindset.
• 13:22
  This mindset, that I am going to bust my ass.
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  So completely doesn't matter if I have to travel, doesn't
• 13:29
  matter. If I'm pulling 16-hour days
• 13:31
  because usually the women, I don't know his file.
• 13:34
  Logical or social. I think it's a little bit of
• 13:36
  both. I think it's mostly biological
• 13:38
  if you ask me but they see. Like, the song Time in a Bottle
• 13:42
  is playing as I look at their toddler.
• 13:44
  And you know, they're like, oh my God, he's only going to be a
• 13:47
  baby, this love. Oh my God, he's only gonna be a
• 13:49
  third grade. This long.
• 13:50
  Oh my God. So women are much more.
• 13:53
  Usually, this is why women, even if they're on like this
• 13:57
  tremendously successful track, that's why they usually still do
• 14:01
  not do like, you know, month long trips or something for But
• 14:05
  so either way, whoever is the person in your family unit, the
• 14:12
  adult who is saying if I just, you know, buckles down for x
• 14:17
  amount of years then we can have time to be together.
• 14:21
  This is a Fool's errand and the time during which your buckling
• 14:24
  down is frequently, the time during which the other partner
• 14:27
  feels lonely and disconnected which is going to long-term, do
• 14:29
  you? No favors in terms of intimacy
• 14:32
  later on? Well actually sabotaged.
• 14:34
  Or chance. Now if you are somebody who
• 14:36
  already is in this Dynamic and now you do have all the time in
• 14:40
  the money and your partner still does want to be with you
• 14:43
  frequently. This is a time of Reckoning, a
• 14:46
  there are empathic ruptures which have to be resolved often
• 14:49
  due to you, not being around and them, not being around and
• 14:53
  everybody doing this, push for for Career Success at the
• 14:57
  expense of time together, so much that now you really don't
• 15:00
  have much in comp and this can be worked on in couples
• 15:04
  counseling. And often, it's not, it's not
• 15:09
  due to any one variable, you know.
• 15:11
  So of course menopause happens, this is not great.
• 15:14
  I've talked about women's body changing in their 40s and a
• 15:17
  previous podcast, well in your 50s or changes even more and
• 15:22
  later on like there and Men. By the way, their sex drive goes
• 15:26
  down too, so they're going to need more excitement, more
• 15:28
  intimacy etcetera, just at the time when the women don't really
• 15:32
  want much at all. But also, There's other kinds of
• 15:35
  connections. So the woman or the man may want
• 15:39
  closer conversations and time spent together.
• 15:41
  Now you have all this time and money to do it, and nobody wants
• 15:45
  to do it because that's you. You got on this track where
• 15:48
  people other people are have always come first.
• 15:51
  Whether it's were kids, whatever.
• 15:53
  And now when you're together feels kind of awkward and weird.
• 15:56
  So again, couples counseling can really help people to reconnect
• 16:01
  and to also resolve the empathic ruptures that happened in the
• 16:04
  Longer years, but also there's like a mindset that needs to be
• 16:08
  worked on individually where it's almost like, you know, the
• 16:12
  ultimate narcissism feeling that you can stop time somehow and
• 16:17
  just get it back when you want to.
• 16:19
  Like if you are pushing through your 30s a long time, in order
• 16:25
  to make a certain amount of money and get to a certain place
• 16:29
  and then you thinking that you could just pick that up.
• 16:32
  Like remember out of this world when you've used to stop.
• 16:34
  Time putting her fingers together and then, you know,
• 16:37
  bam, she puts her fingers together again in the world
• 16:39
  starts again. She does not like that, you
• 16:41
  can't do that with your kids and you can't do that with your
• 16:43
  spouse. So thinking that you can
• 16:46
  thinking that there's a way to just like spend like a decade or
• 16:50
  more of your life in massive amounts of work and a punishing
• 16:54
  schedule. And then when you want to reap
• 16:58
  the fruits of your labor, you are going to is crazy if you
• 17:02
  really think about it. Has marched on in that time and
• 17:07
  something that a lot of men don't realize is a woman who's
• 17:10
  going to be sand. This is if the woman is a
• 17:12
  primary Breadwinner, do it in the inverse.
• 17:14
  The partner that is going to be cool with you working all the
• 17:18
  time. They don't need a lot of
• 17:20
  intimacy like you pick them because you're gonna say, oh,
• 17:24
  you're going to be like, I have to go to Dubai for work or
• 17:26
  they're like, okay? Like the woman who like really
• 17:30
  wanting sex intimacy closeness is gonna be up your ass.
• 17:34
  You know, I hate this job, don't don't go and you don't want that
• 17:38
  at that point in your life. You want to go to Dubai.
• 17:41
  You want to make as much money as you can.
• 17:43
  You probably have issues like in the self-made, man, and the
• 17:47
  high-achieving male posts and podcasts that I write about.
• 17:50
  And so the same woman that's very adaptive.
• 17:53
  As a partner for a man that is focused on financial success.
• 17:58
  Primarily is not going to at age 50 turn and be like this
• 18:03
  compatriot. Wants to like cuddle all the
• 18:06
  time and talk all the time. Because if they were that kind
• 18:08
  of person they would never have survived the early Merit, on
• 18:12
  some level, you picked somebody who would allow you to work, you
• 18:17
  know, x amount of hours a day, that is much more than usual.
• 18:21
  So this is another, you know, thing that people have to
• 18:23
  realize it's similar. If you were both working all the
• 18:26
  time constantly, then you both got a lot out of that.
• 18:30
  And we're wired to do that. And now, and you had created
• 18:33
  your whole life. As with other people.
• 18:35
  So your, you know, your work colleagues spent so much more
• 18:39
  time with you than your spouse. So you can't just like pick that
• 18:44
  up again when you want to. So what you want to learn from
• 18:47
  this is if you feel like you are in this situation, currently you
• 18:52
  need to make like a massive deep dive in couples counseling and
• 18:56
  try to reconnect and see who you even really are.
• 18:58
  Now you may not even know each other in the way that you think
• 19:01
  you basically took a many years break from one another You know,
• 19:05
  on and did not learn all the ins and outs of each other's
• 19:08
  evolving personalities values and goals and who you really are
• 19:11
  now. Secondly, I don't want to, you
• 19:15
  know, bullshit you like sometimes these marriages, don't
• 19:18
  work, you know, sometimes people have grown apart and they really
• 19:21
  did a successful basically first marriage, the marriage during
• 19:25
  which there was all the working in child rearing.
• 19:28
  And then when it comes time to the second marriage, which is
• 19:30
  just going to be them on a yacht, they don't like each
• 19:34
  other. They each would rather someone
• 19:35
  else be there on the yacht, you know, and a lot of times there's
• 19:39
  also a disconnect in that one partner frequently.
• 19:42
  The guy thought that like it was obvious that they were going to
• 19:44
  retire together or do all this travel and all of this and she
• 19:48
  was all the time being like him. You never going to retire.
• 19:51
  So I'm not going to retire. I'm going to keep on doing all
• 19:54
  these things I'm doing and then grandchildren are going to come.
• 19:56
  So she was thinking about that. They would continue barely kind
• 20:02
  of seeing each other but there would be all Are things like he
• 20:05
  would, you know, golf all the time or he would travel all the
• 20:08
  time or he would be on boards and she would be with the
• 20:12
  grandkids or whatever. So frequently expectations are
• 20:15
  not even discussed and this is a big thing that's done.
• 20:17
  A couples counseling is what do you even want your life to look
• 20:20
  like now is it at all similar to what the other person wants?
• 20:25
  And people who are used to making a lot of money they're
• 20:27
  used to getting what they want so it doesn't usually go well to
• 20:30
  be like well you thought that you were going to sail around
• 20:33
  the world but she would really rather Rather be home in case
• 20:35
  your daughter needs, help with the two-year-old.
• 20:38
  So sometimes people just like split up.
• 20:41
  They either split up for real or they kind of split up in having
• 20:45
  like a marriage where they're basically separate, but there
• 20:48
  ostensibly still together. They do holidays together and
• 20:51
  that kind of thing, but they basically live separate lives.
• 20:54
  And this works for many people and doesn't work for many other
• 20:56
  people. But if you are still in the area
• 21:00
  of life, where it is the slog, where you feel like you're going
• 21:03
  to get to a place. Where you can buy your wife out
• 21:06
  of all of her issues and stuff. So then she fully turns to you
• 21:10
  with this delighted beaming face and then y'all have a lot of
• 21:14
  sex. No, it doesn't work like that.
• 21:17
  You got to stop right now and think and talk to your wife
• 21:21
  about the things that you want in a marriage and whether you
• 21:24
  working so hard is really going to get them or whether this is a
• 21:27
  fantasy. And does she even think truly
• 21:30
  that things would be very different if you you know, she
• 21:33
  didn't have to be. Be a speech pathologist anymore,
• 21:36
  the my hypothetical random one or whatever she is.
• 21:40
  You know, I mean she may love being a speech pathologist, you
• 21:44
  know, she you may think that she bitches and bitches about this
• 21:47
  job every day. So you're going to get her out
• 21:50
  of the school's out of whatever, she's or group practice.
• 21:53
  And she may be like I want to do this thing till I die.
• 21:56
  I never want to retire. So this obviously would be a
• 21:59
  pretty big disconnect and one which should really be discussed
• 22:02
  because it could You have no idea how many people are
• 22:07
  operating completely at odds, with their partner.
• 22:09
  In these major ways where their entire hypothetical future is
• 22:15
  different from what the other person in visions and this is a
• 22:17
  lot of what people need to talk about.
• 22:19
  If they want to redirect a potentially terrible, you know,
• 22:26
  cataclysm that's coming down the road.
• 22:28
  When they each realize that the other one wanted something
• 22:30
  totally different out of their lives.
• 22:32
  Alright, so I hope that this gave you food for Thought and
• 22:34
  again, even if you're not in the situation where you can buy
• 22:38
  somebody out of their entire life, there are probably parts
• 22:42
  of this that will speak to most people.
• 22:45
  And especially, I will also link you to the guy who thinks if he
• 22:48
  takes everything off, his wife's plate that she'll be happy and
• 22:52
  that is like a smaller. This podcast episode is like a
• 22:56
  more specific example of that. All right, I'll talk to
• 22:59
  everybody soon. Have a great day and please do
• 23:01
  subscribe.