“Many of us believe that wrongs aren’t wrong if done by nice people like ourselves.” Author Unknown.

At the risk of starting this blog sounding sexist, there are two common areas of regression I’ve seen in men and women over many years working with couples.

Women often dig in and want to be taken care of financially.

Men often regress and want to be taken care of at home. They may resist participating in household chores or child rearing.

Perhaps you’ve worked with a couple for a while and the husband says,  “She never sticks to our budget and she won’t participate in realistic financial decisions.”

His wife typically responds by saying,  “No matter what I do, it’s never enough. You’ll never be satisfied.”

He might continue to describe her unilateral extravagant spending as a problem and say that he’d like more collaboration. She may resist.

You’ve done some exploring and discovered that she does indeed have reckless spending habits.

So let’s look at some specific confrontations you might use with her.

Here are seven brief responses to her complaint and to her desire to stay regressed and disconnected from finances. Remember that unpacking a very entrenched position will probably take time and you will need to integrate a combination of these responses.

I’ve  listed a variety of choices. I start with some that are easier and create less anxiety for the client, and later I present some in which you intensify discomfort in the client as you challenge her regression more directly.

1. Consider whether impulsive spending started in early childhood.  Ask, “Did you grow up rich or poor? Did you spend all your money as soon as you got it?”  Did she nurture herself materially because there was little other nurturance available to her?
2. You might look for ways her experience as a child is now being replicated with her husband. “Is there someone in your family of origin who was always unsatisfied with you or what you did?”
3. Also, ask about how hard she thinks it would be to learn more about money and investments. Does she have learning issues? Does she think she is too stupid to understand their finances? Or does she refuse to make the effort so that he will be forced to take care of her financially?
4. To increase the tension a bit more, you can agree with her very factually. “That’s right, your husband is not likely to ever be satisfied. Your current financial involvement will never be enough as long as he wants a grown-up interdependent financial relationship with you.”
5. Increasing the tension even more, you might confront the implications if he were indeed satisfied with her low involvement.
   Ask her about the implications if he were satisfied. “Is that more of a statement about him or you?”  In this case you are opening her up to viewing what the marriage might be like if she were infantilized and viewed as not having enough intelligence to participate as an equal partner.
6. Next, you might want to illuminate what she does with her own anger. Is her spending part of a passive-aggressive pattern? “What do you feel when you hear him say you never do enough financial collaboration? What are your thoughts about him? And then what do you do to cope with how you feel about him?”
   Following this line may surface her silent but angry rebelliousness. You might tie this in with what you learned earlier. “Perhaps you hope for more nurturance from your husband and now nurture yourself the same way you did as a child. What you do now works well for you. You nurture yourself and get back at him the same way you were angry with your father.”
7. And last, find out what the client wants from you. “What do you wish I would do?” This question will elicit the client’s transference to you and their unspoken wishes about how you might rescue them and nurture them. Does she hope you will support her? Does she want you to rescue her from the wrath of her parent/spouse. Is she creating a bind for you?

Perhaps support means that you will be a protective parent and get her husband off her back. Does she want you to  protect her from his disapproval, and make him leave her alone? Or perhaps support means that you go along with her request/demand that you not talk about her spending in therapy.

Either way, support to her may mean that you continue to support her regression. Throughout your exploration, explore her desire to stay regressed. Do it gently, allowing her to come to an understanding of why staying regressed seems best to her.

You will want to address both sides of this dilemma by saying something like, “I do want to support you and I don’t want to see you having to face your husband’s ongoing anger and frustration. Even worse, I hate to see you feeling inferior so often. On the other hand, I don’t want to see you working so hard to defend your inability to collaborate and your refusal to be more interdependent with your husband.”

Give her a moment and ask, “What do you think and feel about what I just said?”

This blog post is from a 5 day “mini-workshop” on confrontation.
Click Day 1: Confrontation Video: 6 Types of Confrontation and How the Cycle of Confrontation Unfolds
Click Day 2: Confrontation Transcript: Indecision after Infidelity
Click Day 3: Confrontation Video: Challenging Hypocrisy