#20 - Am I the Asshole

Chelsea Williams tackles real listener questions about the tricky intersection of money and relationships. From dealing with requests for financial help from family members to addressing money issues with a partner, Chelsea offers honest, actionable advice on how to handle it all.

Throughout the episode, the focus is on setting boundaries, resolving underlying issues, and using money as a scapegoat. Whether you’re navigating financial conflicts in a relationship or trying to manage requests for money from loved ones, this episode provides insight into how to handle these situations with grace, communication, and accountability.

Key Highlights:

1. Setting boundaries with family members who ask for financial help.
2. Understanding how money issues reflect deeper relationship challenges.
3. The importance of honesty, accountability, and communication in finances.
4. How to avoid enabling behavior by lending money.
5. Addressing the role of compromise and introspection in money-related conflicts.

Get ready to shift your perspective on how money impacts your closest relationships.

Submit your Am I The Asshole money questions here!

Always and Never About Money Episode Links:
Video Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@MoneyMasteryWithChelsea
Socials: https://linktr.ee/the_money_whisper
Money Mastery Website: www.moneymastery.work
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/AlwaysandNeverMoney/

Transcript

Welcome to Always and Never About the Money. Are you ready to embark on a journey that will forever change the way you perceive money? We'll get ready because we're about to dive deep into the fascinating world of finances and human behavior.
I'm your host, Chelsea Williams and Money Whisperer. I'm here to help you realize what your money story is telling you and how you can change it. But hold on tight because this is not the dull black and white talk about money. We're gonna splash all the color into this typical nap inducing conversation on Always and Never About the Money. We're gonna explore the intricate relationship between money and our daily lives from the impact history has left on us, and how we still manage it, how your habits shape your money, and what beliefs are driving your habits, choices, and relationships to the deeper values and emotions we've come to attach to it.
We are going to unravel it all through insightful conversation and personal anecdotes. We'll bring you the expert insights, real life stories and meaningful thought provoking ideas that will inspire you, educate you, and initiate some serious perspective change when it comes to your money. Remember, money is just a tool. Together we'll untangle the web of emotions, beliefs, and values. We've come to attach to it and find a new perspective on how it can enhance our lives. So whether you're looking for motivation, practical advice, or a good laugh always and never about, the money's got you covered. Thank you for joining us in this transformative journey.
Get ready to challenge your beliefs and embark on a financial exploration like no other. Without further ado, let's kick off the episode of Always and Never About the Money. Hey, hey, welcome back. If you have listened to some of our episodes, we're glad that you are here with us.
Now, if you're a newbie, welcome, we are talking about all things and no things money, because it's always a never about the money. So today kicks off the first of many series to come because I think this is gonna be so much fun. This series is part of the am I an asshole series where we take questions from our listeners about am I an asshole for doing this thing? And so today we have four listener questions asking, am I the asshole in this situation? Well, let's talk about it.
The first one is, my parents keep asking me for money. Am I the asshole? Because I don't wanna give it to them.
And all right, so this is not uncommon, by the way, some of my closest friends have this same situation. And what I think about this situation is, no, you are not the asshole because whether it's your parents, your family, your friends, your kids, if they're grown, what you're doing when you lend people money is you are enabling them, right? Because the more you lend people money, especially if you don't require that they pay you back, the more they're going to come and ask instead of going and working for it and earning it. So, no, I don't think that you're an asshole. If your parents keep asking you for money, it sounds like your parents need to get their money together, get their habits together, and you continuing to give them money, that ain't gonna help.
The second one is, I'm considering divorce over our money management issues.
Oh my God, you guys, I love this one. I love this one. So it is said out there in the world of therapists and counselors that money is the number one cause of divorce.
And what do I say? It is always a never about the money. And I have talked to counselors and therapists about this exact topic.
Whatever issues are showing up in your money, partnership skills within your relationship, within your marriage, the root cause of those issues, I promise you, is showing up in other areas of your marriage.
My managing money within a relationship is a partnership. Partnerships, whether it is professional, personal, or intimate, all work really the same way. You have to come to the table and be willing to compromise. You have to be willing to look in the mirror. You have to be willing to work with each other. If you have an issue, you have to be bold enough to bring it up, and your partner has to be humble enough to receive it and be motivated enough to be willing to change the situation.
There's always a middle ground in these situations. And if there is one person who doesn't want to come to that middle ground, that's the issue. It's not the money. It's what are you willing to do? What are you not willing to do and why?
And here's the thing with that too. When you are in a relationship, whether it's money, whether it's kids, whether it's schedules, whatever you can't agree on, you have to be looking in the mirror at yourself. You have to be honest with yourself because if you can't be honest with yourself, there is no way that you can be honest with other people.
Are you in the wrong? Are you being uncompromising? Can you take accountability for the things that you are contributing to this problem? And accountability is not the same thing as responsibility, meaning responsib, taking responsibility or taking fault. Taking blame means that you're wrong, right?
And if you're in a healthy relationship, in a healthy marriage, it's not about blaming the other person. It's not about, oh, you're wrong. So now you get to suffer. That's toxic, right? It's about, okay, you made a mistake. Let's own that. Let's take accountability for that. And accountability means what did you do to contribute to the problem? Or what could you have done differently to avoid that problem? So coming to the table over a mistake or somebody who has done somebody wrong in a relationship means owning your part. Even if you were the person who was done wrong, own your part.
Here's a good example. And if you've got kids in the car, you may wanna pause this and pick back up when they're not around you.
But one of the common issues in marriage is that women have less of a sexual desire than men.
And so women can go a really long time without having sex, and that causes the man to get really sexually frustrated, right? And some women are like, they are of the mind that if I don't wanna have sex, I shouldn't have to have sex. It shouldn't be forced, right? Well, I listen to a lady who specializes in sexual relationships, within relationships within marriages, and I listen to a lot of content on it, not just one lady, but one of the pieces of advice, if you were, if you have this problem and you were to work with a sex counselor, a sex therapist, on improving your sex life, one of the things they're going to tell you is have sex even when you don't feel like it, right?
And I'm just speaking statistically that women are usually the ones that don't feel like having sex. Of course there are exceptions.
Of course, the man can be the one that that doesn't have the sexual drive at times. And these things go in seasons, right? But what a lot of men that cheat say is that the reason that they cheated is because their wife lost their sex drive. Now, let me make this very clear. I'm not condoning infidelity, and I'm not saying that it's the wife's fault if a man cheat, but what I want you to think about is for people who are in relationships and an infidelity has happened, if you are to stay in that relationship and move through it and move past that situation, you have to take accountability.
What does that mean for the woman who has been cheated on? It doesn't mean that she did anything wrong. It doesn't mean that it's her fault. What it means is that if she wants to come to the table and and contribute her part to the solution, it might mean acknowledging the fact that they deprived their partner of sex for a really long time.
And if we're being honest with ourselves, we're animals. Humans are incredibly animalistic. Even if you don't like to hear it. So like the sex counselors would tell you have sex, even when you don't feel like it in a relationship, in a marriage, you're going to do things that you don't feel like doing. And it's not you being forced, it's you doing what you realize it takes to be able to make this thing work, right? So the question of, am I an asshole for considering divorce over our money management issues? It really doesn't make you an asshole. But what I would say to you is take peel back a couple more layers of whatever money problems you are having in your marriage, and look at the other areas of your marriage and see if you can find a pattern.
What is it? Is it that one person doesn't like to feel controlled?
Is it that one person has a spending problem? Are they a compulsive spender because they're trying to fill some void, right? Do they also do other things compulsively to try to fill the void because they are, they are running from something within themselves. Is it something they need to realize is happening within themselves and work on it themselves? And your role in the situation is to support them and give them grace while they actively work on it.
Because here's the thing, whether it's money, whether it's sex, whether it's schedules and priorities, you both have to be willing to come to the table and work on it. And you both individually need to be willing to look in the mirror and say, is this really about the money? Or is there something deeper within myself that I need to work on? And it takes work on behalf of both individually and on behalf of both together. So am I the asshole. Number three, am I the asshole if I ask for interest on money that I lent to a friend?
Hmm. Well, here's the thing. If your friend was to borrow money from anybody else, they like a bank or a credit card company, anywhere that they would go to borrow money from an institution, they're going to pay interest.
Absolutely. So is it wrong for you to expect interest back back? I mean, I guess that depends, right? How much interest are you asking for? Is it less than they would pay anywhere else? And also check your intention, right? I think that's what this one's gonna boil down to. What, what exactly is your intention on requiring the interest? Right? Like I, my dad owns a business, he's selling it to my brother, he's selling it in annual payments and installments, and he is charging my brother interest, but he is charging my brother interest because he has to. It's under a legal entity. And even within a business, if you lend money, you have to charge at least the federal minimum interest rate, right?
So I don't know if this necessarily makes you an asshole. To answer that question, you're gonna have to ask yourself why? Like, are you trying to teach him a lesson? Is it because you wanna make more money? That still doesn't make you wrong, doesn't make you an asshole, but it's not unheard of. And then, so the last one, am I the asshole for pretending I don't have money? So my family and friends won't bother me?
Hell no. I love this, this, this way of doing this, okay? It money is a scapegoat. It can be a scapegoat. I tell my clients, my fractional CFO clients use me as a scapegoat. Tell them that my fractional CFO said that I can't spend money here, or I can only spend this much. Look, if you are not in a place within yourself to be able to say no and admit that it's for your own reasons, use money as a scapegoat.
And look, when I'm working with people in their personal finances, what we do is we create separate bank accounts. These are cash budget buckets, right? So each bank account has a purpose and you're prioritizing where your money's going. So you know, one of them is for your needs. This is your rent, your mortgage, your utilities, the things that you absolutely need to survive, right? And the last of these buckets is your fund money, your play money. If you're following this system and somebody comes to you and asks for money, the only bucket that's gonna come out of is your extra money bucket, right? And if you don't have the money in that bucket, that's a legitimate response. Just because you tell somebody that you don't have money to give them, doesn't mean that you don't have money.
Your money is just accounted for and you have to take care of you and yours first.
Because back to the first question about when people we love and we care about ask us for money, it's kind of like that saying of you have to fill your cup first because you cannot pour out of an empty cup, right? And if, let's be honest, if you let people take advantage of you financially, most of them will. So if you are doing it out of feeling some type of sorry for these people, or you want to help these people, consider the fact that your sympathy may put you in a position where you can't even cover you and yours, your household, are you willing to do that? Because you can't be mad at both, right?
You can't be mad because people keep asking you for money and you keep giving them money. And you're in this situation, either choose to be okay with putting yourself in a financial situation where your shit might not be covered or say no and be okay with saying no.
But don't put yourself in a situation where you're mad at both. We can't be mad at both. When you make a decision, you gotta stand by it, right? So I love this last one. Money and a budget and money systems can absolutely be a scapegoat for you because some people are giving money that they don't actually have to give. And if you're prioritizing your money and you don't have it, you're not really being an asshole. You're just speaking the truth. So this was fun. I I am going to love this series. Am I The asshole stories?
So listen, we want more. We want more of am I the asshole in this situation when it comes to money, when it comes to life. So we're gonna drop some links for you in the show notes on how to submit your Am i the asshole questions? And I look forward to next time.
If you liked this episode, be sure to show us some love by subscribing and turning on those notifications. You can find me on Instagram under The Money Whisper, and also where we encourage you to contribute to join the conversation, ask questions, and share your thoughts so we can create more episodes tailored exactly to what you wanna know about Money. I'm your host and your Personal Money Whisperer. Until next time, remember, it is always and never about the money.