110. The Silent Cheating Series Pt 2: Financial

Meet the Host

Five years ago, after achieving my degrees and teaching as a professor, I was feeling proud that I had checked everything off my life list. But, I wasn’t satisfied in my marriage.

Today, I’m a relationship coach on a mission to resurrect the side of you that got lost in your relationship and responsibilities teaching you how to stop arguing and have more sex. Millions of people around the world soak up my content for advice on how to have a more satisfying relationship.

Welcome to our new podcast series - The Silent Cheating Series. This is a 3 part series and I break down the top ways in which you are silently cheating in your marriage, and you don’t even know that it’s cheating.

In Part 2, I highlight 3 areas in which you may be financially silent cheating in your relationship.

If you have shared expenses, you should talk about your money openly and honestly. Because finances are part of the building blocks of your future goals.

In this episode, I reference Episode 73, How to Stop Arguing About Money and Have More Sex.

Click the link to listen below and email me back with your thoughts, I want to hear from you!

If this episode resonated with you and you're ready to work with me during this season of your life, then I invite you to book a call for us to connect and chat.

During this call, you will share what is going on in your life, what you have tried so far, and I will share how I can help. I can't wait to meet you.

P.S. This podcast is sponsored by ⁠⁠⁠BetterHelp®⁠⁠⁠. Get professional support when you need it, at a fraction of the cost of in-person therapy. ⁠⁠⁠Sign up today and receive 10% off your first month!⁠⁠⁠ Click the ⁠⁠⁠⁠link⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠to get started!

BetterHelp: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://betterhelp.com/karinafdaves⁠⁠⁠⁠

Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/karinafdaves/

Tik Tok: ⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.tiktok.com/@karinafdaves

Personal Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.karinafdaves.com⁠⁠⁠⁠

Youtube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqlt...

Amazon Storefront: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.amazon.com/shop/karinafdaves

Episode Transcript:  

Karina: Amigos, buenos dias, como están? Welcome back to Relationships. You Understand? This podcast is hosted by me, Karina F. Daves, relationship expert, speaker, and podcast host of this dope podcast that has been ordained and blessed by God. I guess I'm not feeling like under the weather, but...

Today we're gonna continue our series called Silent Cheating Series, Financial Cheating. I thought that it would be beneficial before we get into it to share just an update of where I'm at emotionally and mentally very quickly because I know that we all have to get somewhere. But I hope that what I share helps and blesses somebody, right?

I visited three different countries in a matter of three weeks with different time zones. And I never really realized how long it really takes to recover from that. And so in September, I visited Bangkok, Japan, and Brazil. And I had a week in between them.

But when I got back, it took me a really long time to adjust. Originally, I thought the adjustment was the time, but the adjustment was also emotional in the sense that life doesn't stop, right? And so when I came back, I had to get back into the swing of things, of a mom, of being a wife, of being here for my household, my nine to five, my business. And it wasn't easy, and I pushed through. And I think plenty of times we push through thinking that our body and our mind will just adjust.

And I've been waiting for that adjustment since the beginning of October. And I know it's not that long, but it hasn't occurred. It just festered. And, This weekend I...I just decided to surrender and give it to God because a lot of the weight that we carry isn't meant for us to carry.

And I think that we carry it for a lot longer than we need to. So for anybody carrying a lot of burden today, feeling just the weight of the world, feeling what you feel, I want you to know that you're not meant to carry that burden. And here's the thing, no matter what I did, a massage, sleeping, relaxing, that burden came with me. And today I just decided to give it up. I think that...

There are so many roles that God gives us and our innate human behavior is to be perfect at all of them. But we're not. And so we fail. Duh. So I hope this speaks to someone. All right.

Let's get into the silent cheating series, financial cheating. So last week we'd started this series. And the purpose of this series is to bring to light other ways that we can cheat on our spouse unknowingly. And so when it comes to financial cheating, obviously that's with money. And I want to highlight three areas in which you may be yourself financially cheating and not even know it, right? And silently cheating.

And so the first is by having hidden accounts, secret accounts that you have away from your spouse. And some of the reasons why we have a lot of these hidden accounts are due to shame, are due to guilt, due to you feel restricted by your partner. You just want to avoid a lot of conflict. You feel like there are a lot of money expectations that you necessarily can't meet. And so what do you do? You have hidden spending accounts or just secret accounts that you don't share with your partner. And what that does is over time, it's going to impact your relationship in a way that it impacts a lot of conflict. It borderline feels like betrayal once they find these accounts, by the way. And it makes you both feel out of the loop of one another, right? I always say that like, especially with any type of secret, you got to tell yourself if you're willing to sleep and lay in bed with this person, then you should be able to be open and transparent with them. And that's the same with money, right? I'm not gonna get into sharing the money, okay? I know that everybody has different beliefs about that. For me in my house, we serve the Lord. I just felt like saying that, because that's what people say. But for me in our house, our accounts are all shared. We share all of our money. But we have very specific things that these money go to, and there are a lot of conversations that happen about our money constantly. But again, you got to understand that we were also somebody that got married at 25 years old. So we were very broke when we got married. It's very different. So again, I'm not talking about sharing your money. I'm talking about being open about your money. Okay. So the one way that you financially or that you secretly cheat with your finances is you have hidden accounts. And what you need when you do have secret accounts is you need financial transparency.

You need to be open about the fact that this is what I have. This is what you have. This is how I'm saving for retirement. How would you like to save for retirement? I would like to spend, you know, I don't know, $3,000 on brand new tints and tires, or I would like to spend, you know, $3,000 on a girls trip. Well, I would like to spend this, all of this. And I actually have an episode which we can link here in the show notes called How to Stop Arguing About Money and Have More Sex, and a lot of that has to do with being financially open and transparent.

The second way that you're silently cheating on your partner when it comes to money is debt secrecy. So it's one thing to have hidden accounts. It's another thing to be secretive about your debt. Again, it's the same of like, why are you secretive about this debt?

You're secretive about this debt because you're also ashamed of it, right? You feel embarrassed. You don't want to be judged. You feel like, especially if your partner disapproves of the things that you're spending money on, you don't necessarily want to show them your debt. And so you keep your debt a secret. Need I remind you that the main reason why you were so secretive when it comes to your money is because you and your partner do not value money in the same way? What I want you to understand is that you and your partner grew up believing and being taught very different things about money. Y'all watched money being spent and saved very differently. And so when you get married, you are essentially bringing together two different types of money values.

And so keeping these things a secret, your debt a secret, your financial secret accounts, all of that hidden doesn't benefit anybody. Instead, it makes the both of you grow further and further apart from each other. And it just starts with money. Then it starts with values on parenting. Then it starts with values on intimacy. Then it starts with values on careers and goals. You want to start creating what I call a marriage gap in your relationship, start keeping things a secret and hidden from each other and watch the snowball effect of gaps be creating your relationship from just one thing to five things, to then 10 things, to then waking up one day and feeling like the person that you look over to is a complete stranger to you because y'all have not been aligned on many things that you both value for a very long time. It starts with just one thing. You understand me?

When it comes to secrecy with your debt, again, you fear being judged and so you keep it a secret. How this impacts your relationship is that it impacts the future things that you wanna buy. Whether that be a house, whether that be a car, whatever the case is, it starts to impact the things that you wanna purchase in the future. You understand?

And what I want you to start having is again, financial transparent conversations about what you both value. You need to talk about it, okay? And this is exactly what I coach my clients through, the very uncomfortable conversations. Cause I know that you know that you need to talk about it, but the next question you have is how do I talk about it?

Some of those initial conversations, you're going to have to be okay feeling uncomfortable. Some of those initial conversations, you fantasize about having them in a way that nobody gets upset and that there's no judgment or there's no people being mad at each other. That is a fantasy. That isn't initially going to happen in the beginning. It's just not because both of you are coming from this place of hiding or from this place of keeping things to yourself. You understand?

The third type of way that you are secretly cheating on your partner or silently cheating on your partner when it comes to finances is, and this is not for everybody, but I have an example about this from one of my clients, is you use money to manipulate each other, to control each other.

And how that works is, or the reason why you do it is because there's a need for power. There's a desire for control. And so you need to feel like your partner is dependent on you. And so you use money to control each other. That's a way of silently cheating on each other. You understand? Because there's no free will at that point. And what this does is that it impacts the relationship dynamic with one another. It makes one of you guys feel trapped, right?

It creates this loss of autonomy, this loss of freedom with one another. And again, the main thing I want you to understand here is there needs to be a shared decision-making process in your relationship when it comes to money. There needs to be an opportunity to be transparent with one another, to budget together, to look at your money with one another. And the thing about it is that we can sit here and joke around all day about how we hide Amazon purchases from each other and how we, you know, tell the UPS person to hide our packages because we don't want our partner finding out. What's the big deal? I want you to ask yourself, what's the big deal? What's the big deal with telling your partner what you're spending your money on? I don't want them to get upset with me. Okay, so you're seeing them get upset with you as an opportunity for you to hide something rather than an opportunity for you to talk about what you value, right?

I have, let me tell you something. I have probably over $50,000 car sitting in my garage, a race car, right? That I don't necessarily know or understand every single purchase that my husband made. He didn't like run through every single purchase with me, but I know that he worked hard for it. I know that.

He is a doctor of cars and engines, and I appreciate that. I know that when he started the process, we had a very open conversation about how that hobby could not hurt our family. And how could we make his dream possible, his goal possible, right, of something he wanted for himself that hurt our family? How could we make that work? And so we made a plan.

He would work nights, certain nights, and he would work certain weekends to fund that vehicle. We made a plan.

Was it uncomfortable? Of course. Do I gag and throw up a little bit in my mouth when I see how expensive certain things are? Of course. Does it hurt our family? No. Right? Same thing when I say, I wanna go on a girl's trip. Okay, how are you making that happen? This and this and this. And sometimes, sometimes a lot of these conversations are, I need a little more.

Is there any way that our savings could support me in this? Is there any way that we have a little bit left over so I could do this? Yeah, sure. Let's plan for it. If that's what you need, let's plan for it. I'm really tired. I need to take the day off. Is it possible I can take this day off and we could plan for it financially? Of course. Of course. These are the conversations that you’re not having and avoiding. And what you don't realize is that these are the very conversations that you need to have in order to become a unit, in order to become closer to one another, in order to become better in your marriage. You understand? You want to be better in your marriage? Have these uncomfortable conversations and stop hiding these things from one another. It's not doing you any good.

Okay, I had a question and then I'm gonna pray for you. Why are women so over Detroit red? Why are old women so overly concerned about a man's money? You guys are only concerned about money. great question. So this podcast is not about being overly concerned about just a man's money. We're talking about different ways in a relationship in a marriage where you should be transparent about your finances because your finances essentially are part of the building blocks of your future goals and the things that you currently have, like your house, if you have kids or certain things or you're paying bills and things of that nature. So if you're having shared expenses, then you should probably talk about your money or you should talk about your money. So Detroit Red, I hope that answered your question. All right.

Essentially, what I want you to understand is that trust isn't something that's built through words. Again, trust isn't something that's built through words. Trust is something that is built over time through actions. And those actions are having transparency and honesty and respect with one another. Okay? I want you to ask yourself right now, or one of the things you're asking yourself right now is, where do I start? You need to start having conversations about things like your spending habits, your financial goals, and being able to check in with each other regularly. And if you figure out that these aren't conversations that...

After time you've tried to have one another and you need support, I wanna work with you on that, okay? Go to the link in my bio and book of sales call. This is exactly what I help my clients with through our conversations, especially my couples who are trying to do stuff, whether it's fun stuff or whether it's build a life together and wanting each other to really be on the same page with one another. This is exactly what I do. And I have so many examples in my mind but I literally have to go and get my kids ready for school. So the takeaway I want you to leave with today is I want you to keep investing in what matters. Keep investing in what matters in your marriage matters. OK, I'm to give you a quick really example. OK, so I'm working with a couple in which they are financially amazing, financially amazing. They both work, but one partner feels like the other one doesn't necessarily make themselves involved in the things like budget or habits or understanding the money. And it makes the one partner feel some type of way. And so one of the things that we're working on is, is one, figuring out why the partner hasn't taken that position. Two, does the partner desire to take that position and why? And three, now coaching them through how they can work as a unit rather than feeling like now all the weight is on them. Okay?

It's a process, but I want you to know that it's possible. All right. Let me pray for you. Father God, I thank you so much for this episode. I thank you so much for our hearts to be open and transparent with each other in ways that I can only imagine were not possible decades ago. Now having the access to the Internet and social media and being able to connect with one another. I ask that anybody that's listening right now that's going through any financial situations or burdens or debt.

I ask that you allow them to be honest with each other and remind them that even though it's scary, that it's exactly what you want them and that the things that are scary are sometimes the things that we must do in order to open up the doors of unknown heavens, Lord, instead of remaining stuck in our known hell. I thank you so much for the relationships that you have put together. And for those that are listening that are tired in their relationship, reminding that is purpose in them. Remind them that it is important to seek the purpose in them and important to understand the value of them rather than constantly being annoyed at them. Lord, would you refresh our hearts and change our hearts and change us into people that are more so open and progressive rather than remaining stagnant and believing the enemy's lies. I thank you so much for your word, In your name we pray, amen. Okay.

Again, listen, if right now you are at a point in your life where you're like, I really need to start having these conversations with my partner. I just don't know how, because I feel like we'll just blow up on one another. We need to work together. Okay. Go to the link in my bio and book a sales call with me. I've opened up about five slots for November to work with me and I want you to have one of them. All right. And if you have any questions about anything, your relationship, this podcast episode, or working with me, send me a DM. Okay.

I know that it can seem scary. I've heard from a lot of people, it can seem scary just being on the social media platform and feeling like people are not accessible. But I promise you that those of us, and I'm including myself in this pocket that are here to serve, make ourselves accessible to serve. So send me a DM, send me a spoken signal, send me something.

My name is Karina F. Daves. I'm a relationship expert speaker and host of this dope podcast, Relationships. You Understand? Thank you so much for coming back for another week. All right. I love you so much. Bye.