My girlfriend and I have been together for seven years. We live together, and a few months ago we decided to get married since it seems to be important to her. I have always been less keen on marriage, as my parents divorced when I was a teenager and it was an awful process.
As a couple I’d say we are quite good at managing money, but six months ago I received a pretty sizeable inheritance after my great aunt’s passing and I haven’t told her about it.
My fiancee is sensible with money, so it’s not as though I am worried it would change her spending habits. And now I realise I’ve kept it a secret for too long – telling her now will cause a huge fight. But we have started to look into buying a flat together, so it’s relevant information which I’ll have to disclose. What should I do?
Money psychotherapist Vicky Reynal replies: Often secrets are not consciously pre-planned – they just sort of ‘happen’. This doesn’t mean they are accidents, however: when we withhold something from our partner, we might be enacting difficult emotions.
In your case, I wonder if it’s possible that you are harbouring some difficult feelings towards your fiancee for insisting that you get married, which you are ambivalent about. I wonder if this has unsettled you and, maybe, rather than have another confrontation about your reasons for not wanting to get married, you have agreed to it but are staging a protest unconsciously by keeping this financial secret.
Money psychotherapist Vicky Reynal wonders whether the letter writer is harbouring some difficult feelings towards his fiancee for insisting that they get married
Your ambivalence about marriage is linked to painful past experiences which might have left you scared of making such a commitment. You might usually like to preserve some distance in relationships. And now that this distance has been threatened by the engagement, you may be holding this secret to preserve a sense that you have held something back, as going all in evokes overwhelming fears or anxieties.
There could, of course, be other reasons, too. Maybe you don’t trust yourself with the money, and you fear that telling your partner will make it ‘real’ and you won’t be sensible with it.
Or maybe people in your family have been rapacious when it comes to money and, at some level, you worry this will happen in your relationship, too.
What to do? Understanding why you might have withheld this information puts you in a better position to have a conversation with your partner, once you feel ready to do so.
Continuing to hold on to the secret is rarely a good option.
Alongside the secret, you will have to manage the feelings that have led you to hold this information back, as well as the guilt of this financial infidelity.
You might be afraid of conflict – many people are – but couples can grow from it, as long as it’s managed well. You must speak with respect and listen to one another.
It might be important to voice whatever fears have created this secret so that they don’t continue to get acted out through other forms of infidelity, as sometimes happens.
You could find that your partner is understanding or, at the very least, that you feel relief in having voiced your fears.
Plus, as Mark Twain said, ‘If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything’.
