How to maintain a strong marriage no matter what comes your way
Now more than ever, couples are facing tough times that can impact on even the strongest of marriages. In In Good Times and Bad, family counselor and relationships expert M. Gary Neuman and his wife, Melisa, take a look at one of the biggest issues couples face, money management, and give you the tools you need to deal with whatever financial challenges come your way. The Neumans explain why it's so important to talk about money in your marriage and offer strategies on how to discuss this often avoided topic. No matter what your age or how long you've been together, In Good Times and Bad will teach you how to come together when it matters most.
- Learn what money means to you and how to strengthen your marriage even during challenging times
- Includes strategies for dealing with other tough times such as grieving or serious illness
- From the author of the New York Times bestseller The Truth about Cheating
In Good Times and Bad is the tool you need to ensure your relationship remains strong through all of life's ups and downs.
Q&A with Author M. Gary Neuman
In In Good Times and Bad, you and Melisa write about “the moment” when people decide to make their relationship succeed or fail. How important is the moment? The moment, as we write in the book, is when a person chooses to respond to a stressful part or conflict in a relationship. All too often, a person decides not to talk about something stressful, not to connect and force herself to deal with it together with her spouse. Sadly, this quickly becomes the way the couple deals with their issues—by not dealing with it. It may feel easier at the moment not to talk about finances, what we owe, how we need to budget, what we'll tell the kids about something we cannot do, and once that moment happens inertia makes it harder and harder to get back to being able to open up and connect over these issues. This attitude spills over into every part of our relationship. Now we're feeling more distant and are having more difficulty just having fun together. That distance builds and sooner rather than later we're feeling like strangers and are angry at each other.
When you recognize the moment, you can turn it around and create a different moment, one in which you force yourself to connect to your partner, as we show in the book. Once you open up to your spouse and find good, healthy ways to talk about finances and other stressors in life, you've now sent the most powerful message possible to your relationship: we work together as a team and nothing gets in the way of that. That builds in a profoundly positive way for your marriage and now both of you can connect better in every aspect of life. The fun is back.
Gary, what “moments” have you had in your marriage? I've had many of those moments and still do in my marriage—every time I try to catch myself avoiding a stressful moment and conversation. Who wants to talk about something difficult related to kids or money or a health issue? Melisa is great at talking about important things and connecting over them but I wouldn't mind letting many things slide. But because I now realize what I'm doing, I can force myself to connect with Melisa and open up and share my inner feelings and thoughts about complicated subjects. It's remarkable how close we feel because we can share with each other on this level. That's why our book goes to great lengths to show you how to have these kinds of tough conversations and moments. They're so important and when you come out of them feeling in love and in a team, it's the most relaxing, comforting feeling—knowing you're never alone in any stressful situation.
Gary, can you talk about the One-Week Relationship Program That Will Change Your Life featured in Chapter 8? I've had the wonderful pleasure of helping many couples who are really suffering turn their lives around relatively quickly. Many people think that when their relationship is in trouble there is no quick fix. Wrong. I've learned that love is so powerful; it's just a matter of tapping into that love in a healthy way. Many couples are suffering and have developed a history of being disconnected. They still deeply love each other, but they just feel beaten up by life and their marriage. When a couple learns to skip all of the tension for a while and truly focus on the love and connection they once had, amazing things happen. That's what the one-week plan is about. I'm a realistic and practical person so I'm not comfortable shouting out about one-week changes just to get your attention. I've had the blessing of helping wonderful people who deserve real love in their relationships rekindle and change their negative paths into something very meaningful. I know as a therapist when I meet with a couple that if I can help them learn to use their love as a tool to dealing with life, they will find their way and make incredible changes. I just have to get them to focus and bring out the loving connection and give them a way to deal, talk, and manage life's stressors together as a couple. Too many books talk about a plan without a lot of details. In our book, we wanted to present a clear daily plan for one week in which we offer you scripts on what to say to your partner (and your kids if you have them), how to manage finances and build a better marital financial style, and how to have fun in order to turn your marriage around. At the end of that week, you'll feel so renewed in your relationship because you've learned how to allow space for your love to be nourished while finding new ways to manage stress. Now stress isn't distancing you and your spouse—you've made it a catalyst for actually bringing the two of you closer.
You don’t just write about how marriages can survive financial difficulties. You personally experienced it. How big a role did that play in your marriage and in this book? Melisa and I were upside down on our mortgage twenty years ago before people knew what that meant. We were lucky to have a neglected condo, a one-bedroom apartment with no working stove or oven, that my family owned. We were stressed to the max. We moved our 1- month-old and newborn into the small apartment and we cooked for our family using a toaster oven for almost a year. It could've been the end of happiness as we knew it but we really made a conscious effort to focus on our loving spirit.
Melisa and I talk lovingly and laugh now about that year. I think it really cemented us early on in our relationship. It gave us a we-can-get-through-this attitude. As difficult a time as it was, we found fun and love during this time. Instead of getting through in spite of our financial hardships, we were determined to make the situation in which we found ourselves a positive one.
You have five children. How important is involving the kids in discussions about finances? Will talking with them about money scare or confuse them? We love our kids so much that we usually want to protect them from all stresses, especially the financial ones, because we feel guilty that we can't offer them everything in life. Regarding finances, we can feel so guilty as parents that it causes us to hide from our children. Unfortunately, our kids are more tuned in than we usually give them credit for. They sense tension, hear the arguments, and sadly, develop their own interpretations which often are worse than the reality. They hear one parent yelling at the other, "You're spending all our money" and they think, "Oh my God, all of our money is being spent. One thing I've learned over my many years as a counselor and developer of my Sandcastles Program for children of divorce is that children are far more aware than we think and they're so much better served by open, loving conversation than they are by not talking about finances. In our book we help you talk to your kids and involve them in your financial issues in a way that makes them feel a part of your team, never on the outside of things. For kids, being in the dark is very scary. Our book offers you clarity in how to approach your children of different ages and have the frank discussions about money that will build them up for life.
We wanted our five kids to learn that life will always serve up stress and that when that happens, it's time to turn to your loved ones and connect with them as the primary way to get through it. After Melisa and I fully discussed our issues, we brought our thoughts to our kids not just to notify them but also to ask them some of their thoughts about ways that we could deal with stress as a family. It's been very rewarding seeing them develop into young adults who can reach out to each other in times of need as well as in easier times.
What is the one message you want people who read In Good Times and Bad to take away when they are finished with the book? I hope you are inspired by the stories of many great people we interviewed who opened their lives up to all of us to show us how we can come through tough times more in love than ever before. This book shares many very practical, detailed things you can do now so that one day you can look back on your challenging times and see them as times that ultimately fortified you and your family through it all.
Don't think for a second that any long-term relationship hasn't hit some major bumps along the road. You're not alone although you might feel as if you are. All of us have to learn from each other and need a helpful hand when times are tough. When you can learn from someone else how to make it through, you've done something wonderful for your family.
