How Keeping Money Secrets Impacts Mental Health
One of the most significant causes of marital tension is fights about money. Unfortunately, rather than communicating with their spouse about how to resolve such issues, many individuals decide instead to conceal their financial activity, committing what’s known as financial infidelity.
According to a 2022 survey from U.S. News and World Report, almost a third of the respondents polled revealed they had lied to their spouse or their spouse had lied to them about money.
What’s more, the person who eventually finds out they’ve been betrayed by a spouse lying about their financial activity isn’t the only one who may suffer negative emotional, psychological, and, as a result, physical consequences. So, too, can the person doing the concealing. Here’s how, but first, a brief discussion of what financial infidelity looks like.
What is financial infidelity?
According to the survey above, financial infidelity encompasses a variety of behaviors, including concealing purchases, masking debts or accounts, providing false income information, secretly depleting savings, and loaning money without a spouse’s consent.
It can also include failing to reveal an inheritance or monetary gift, hiding a gambling addiction, and any other instance where one spouse isn’t forthright about their handling of money with the other.
Tami Zak, a licensed marriage and family therapist with Grow Therapy, says financial infidelity can also be less overt. “It can involve going against agreements related to financial goals, such as committing to a budget to be financially secure, then overspending and destroying an emergency fund and the kids’ college savings behind their spouse’s back.”
How can keeping money secrets affect mental health?
In situations where financial infidelity is an issue, the person committing financial infidelity may suffer psychologically along with the betrayed spouse as a result of past acts and ones they’re continuing to commit and then hide.
The offending marital partner may experience a range of feelings, including anxiety, fear, sadness, shame, regret, guilt, and depression. They may experience one or some of these symptoms long before anyone else, including their spouse, finds out what they’ve done.
Over time, harboring financial secrets can result in physical symptoms as well, such as disrupted sleep, higher cortisol levels due to increased stress, elevated blood pressure, and physical pain.
Zak says, “The stress of going further in the hole and not admitting to what is going on may cause the offending partner to experience a loss of appetite or to overeat as a reaction to the stress.”
According to Zak, the added stress will often cause them to start having issues at work or in their regular activities.
To cope with the emotional and physical effects, those who commit financial infidelity may turn to or rely more heavily on alcohol or drugs to numb their pain, exacerbating the feelings they’re already experiencing.
Tonyah Dee, a registered dietitian who created a spiritually-based meditation practice to support recovery from anxiety and the resulting addictive behaviors, says, “Addiction often emerges as a coping mechanism, as a way to numb the pain and suppress the underlying trauma.”
Dee describes addiction as a complex interplay between seeking relief in the moment and the deeper, unresolved issues that fuel the need to escape.”
How can you begin healing after committing financial infidelity?
Healing after committing financial infidelity is similar to healing after emotional or physical infidelity; it entails healing yourself and facilitating with your words and actions the healing of your partner, should you wish to repair your relationship with them. Taking the following steps can help the process for both.
Reveal your money secrets to your spouse
Coming clean to your spouse can allow healing to begin. Zak recommends you “stop digging a deeper hole for yourself and your family and share what is going on right now.”
If your spouse knows nothing of your activities or has been suspicious but doesn’t have the full picture, be prepared that they will probably not be happy to hear what you’re saying. Even so, don’t sugarcoat your confession or leave anything out. Continuing to lie will only intensify matters for you and them.
Find someone you trust to confide in
Part of healing from any type of detrimental and self-destructive behavior is first admitting you have a problem. Confiding in an individual you trust for support can make doing so easier. A mental health professional can fill this role.
“Going into couples therapy,” says Zak, “can help you either come clean or start to rebuild trust in the aftermath.”
Zak also advises “sharing with your spouse that you will go into your own therapy to deal with the issues that drove you to overspend and be willing to betray your partner.”
Ask for forgiveness
If you plan to ask for your spouse’s forgiveness, begin planting those seeds. Zak suggests “letting your spouse know that you are aware what you did was wrong and are committed to changing and being healthy in your approach to money.”
But do so without expectation. Your spouse (and anyone else you’ve hurt as a result of your actions) doesn’t owe you forgiveness and will need time and space to process the betrayal. Extend them that courtesy. Then, extend it to yourself by working on self-forgiveness.
Set boundaries for the future
The best apology is changed behavior, so if you’ve committed financial infidelity, go about changing yours. Zak recommends that, for the foreseeable future, you “become an open book about your spending by sharing with your spouse where every dollar you spend goes.”
An effective way to break old patterns is to set boundaries around how you will handle money moving forward. Find an accountability partner or a financial professional who can provide budgeting advice, set up a payment plan for existing debts, and create a savings and investment strategy.
However, Zak emphasizes that no one can do the work for you. “You are going to need to rebuild trust.”