The Healthy Love and Money Way: How the Four Attachment Styles Impact Your Financial Well-Being

By Ed Coambs

We learn countless ideas from our families about money. Many of them are caught and not taught. The Healthy Love & Money Way shows how our attitudes about ourselves, relationships, and money evolve from our past experiences and the attachment styles we developed as children. If you are having money fights with your significant other today, t

• Language: English
• Publisher: SPARK Publications
• Release date: Jun 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9781953555090

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The Healthy Love & Money Way: How the Four Attachment Styles Impact Your Financial Well-Being

Ed Coambs, MBA, MA, MS, CFP®, CFT-I™

Copyright © 2021 by Ed Coambs. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For permissions requests, please contact the author at 1020 Crews Road, Suite M1, Matthews, NC 28105 or [e-mail].

Designed, produced, and published by SPARK Publications

SPARKpublications.com

Charlotte, North Carolina

Cover cloud background by robert_s/Shutterstock.com

with photo illustration by SPARK Publications

Printed in the United States of America.

Softcover, July 2021, ISBN: 978-1-953555-08-3

E-book, July 2021, ISBN: 978-1-953555-09-0

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021909879

Praise for

The Healthy Love

& Money Way

"In The Healthy Love & Money Way, author and therapist Ed Coambs explores the complex influence of human attachment on our relationships to money and our romantic partners. Leading by vulnerable example, Coambs provides readers vital insights and tools to succeed at creating financial health and money intimacy."

– Debra L. Kaplan, MA, MBA, CMAT, CSAT-S®

Even after years of exploring my relationship with money, this book gave me a better and deeper understanding of my financial needs and those of my partner. Ed explains in such an approachable way why we struggle to achieve fulfillment in and outside of our relationships even when we have made sound decisions or achieved financial success. His experiences and insights helped me recognize and accept my own story and show up differently in my relationship with my husband and my clients.

– Danielle Seurkamp, MS, MPAS®, FBS®, CFP®, Founder of Well Spent Wealth Planning

Ed Coambs has a special passion around helping couples negotiate the minefield of money issues. In this book, he shows the impact that the patterns of connection we learn in early childhood have on the patterns we and our adult partners develop around money, then offers useful strategies to help couples build financial health.

– Rick Kahler, CFP®, CFT-I™, CeFT®, coauthor of Conscious Finance and The Financial Wisdom of Ebenezer Scrooge

Wealth building and financial tips will be of little use if you don’t fully understand your money beliefs and attitudes. The same rule applies to intimate relationships and the importance of understanding you and your partner’s security-oriented beliefs. Ed is great at showing you the way to self-understanding, so you feel more comfortable in your intimate relationships while balancing your own needs with your partner’s needs. I highly recommend this book for anyone seeking a greater sense of security inside their relationships.

– Leisa Peterson, author of The Mindful Millionaire

Ed Coambs has compassionately interwoven attachment theory and the impacts of childhood trauma with his personal money narrative to highlight his approach to helping couples navigate financial conflict. The result is an engaging and informative book that gives readers the opportunity to perceive themselves and their coupleship from a different angle when it comes to money.

– Sarah Swantner, LPC, CFP®, CFT-I™

"The Healthy Love & Money Way by Ed Coambs is a deeply personal and powerful exploration of our emotional attachment to how we not only understand but also process our relationship with money. Ed writes in such a conversational tone that you feel like you are right there with him discussing his and your own lived experiences and money attachments together. Those who are truly reflective and complete the activities in earnest will grow significantly with this book. I recommend this text for anyone wanting to take a deeper dive into their own personal emotions around money."

– Bruce Ross, PhD, AFC®, Assistant Professor at the University of Kentucky, Past President of the Financial Therapy Association

This book is a cathartic tale of a journey through the good and bad of life and how outside influences impact our daily money decisions. If you are struggling with your partner, reading this book is a good first step in discovering your own way with love and money.

– Pam J. Horack, CFP®, Founder of Pathfinder Planning LLC

"In The Healthy Love & Money Way, Ed walks through the different attachment styles with his personal experience. His personal approach accentuates the different attachment styles and how financial decisions are more emotional than logical. As Ed demonstrates, connecting with your emotional truth helps you make healthier financial decisions."

– Dave Jetson, author of Finding Emotional Freedom and Setting True Boundaries

Ed offers a unique perspective on linking attachment styles to money management within relationships. He got me to think not only about my own attachment style but also about the attachment styles of those close to me and helped me to understand them a little better. The stories helped to drive home the teachings and key points.

– Julie Fortin, CFP®, FBS®, CeFT®, Northstar Financial Planning, author of "Integrating Interpersonal Neurobiology into Financial Planning: Practical Applications to Facilitate Well-Being"

We are meant to have healthy relationships. Disruptions in the way we create and maintain relationships happen early on in our childhoods. Events, including traumatic events, can create stress throughout our lives, not only impacting our relationships but also affecting our financial lives. Most of the time, we aren’t even aware of its effects, accepting things the way they are. But by becoming aware of and relearning how to create and engage in safe, secure relationships, we not only improve our relationships, especially our most intimate ones, but also improve our financial lives. Ed bravely shares from his own experiences, teaches with expertise, and invites you to explore your own experiences, so that you can cultivate closer connections to the ones you love and create financial harmony.

– Sarah Carr, CFP®

"The attachment lens is a much-needed perspective in the current literature and research in financial therapy. The Healthy Love & Money Way fills this void. It is a thought-provoking and profoundly helpful book for therapists, financial practitioners, and laypeople alike. This invaluable contribution to the burgeoning field of financial therapy offers a fresh and evidence-based approach to truly healing some of the more intractable dimensions inherent in the relational aspect of money."

– Natasha Knox, CFP®, Pax Planning

Acknowledgments

This book has been a journey that has unfolded in unexpected ways. I would like to acknowledge the tireless energy, love, and support my wife, Ann Coambs, has offered me up to this point in our married life. I am grateful I met you in that pool hall all those years ago. My parents and in-laws have loved me in ways I am only now really getting to understand. They have been the examples that I have looked to, to help guide my life. Your love, care, concern, and yes, practical support of helping to be so involved in your grandchildren’s lives has given me the freedom to explore and try new paths that have led me to this wonderful place of being able to invest in other families.

Countless authors have shaped my own thinking, ability to feel new feelings, and capacity to create beyond my wildest dreams. To the authors who devote themselves to sharing themselves through the written word, I get it now. Thank you for being lights on my own path.

I have met countless professionals along the way who have invested in me even when I wasn’t sure what they saw in me. Starting with my first boss, Renee, to the many professors along the way, the faculty at Kansas State University holds a special place in my heart. It was there that I was able to pull together many disparate ideas into what has now become this book. To my conversation partners whom I talk with monthly about all my ideas, testing them out, seeing how they fit together and how they can help, thank you.

I offer deep gratitude to my personal therapist, Dr. Mary Gresham, and the therapists who preceded you. Each therapist has helped me to grow and heal in ways I once never even dreamed possible. The road to health and vitality isn’t always easy, but it is sure made better by their support.

Without the people I serve, none of this would matter. People have been entrusting their lives to me for a long time, from my days as a lifeguard to now as a couples therapist. Your lives matter to me. I want the best for you and thank you for entrusting me to be a significant person in your life. I have walked into your depths, and you have taught me about the very magnitude of human resiliency.

I have read countless acknowledgment sections trying to figure out how books come together, and the publication team always stood out to me. I have one now at SPARK Publications with Fabi at the head and her talented team of SPARKlers. They have helped mold this book into more than I could have imagined on my own.

Last but certainly not least, my closest of guy friends. You know who you are. You have taught me that grown men can cry. (See, now I am crying as I write this.)

To the love of my life, my wife, Ann Coambs.

Through financial highs and lows, we continue to turn back to each other with love.

Introduction

Hi, I am Ed Coambs, and I am here to share with you my story of how I discovered my attachment style and the way it has completely changed the way I think about personal finances. I have been on a journey asking the question: what stops couples from seeing eye to eye on their personal finances? Now, as a seasoned couples therapist, I have come to the conclusion that it is our attachment styles. We each have an attachment style that plays a major role in the way we manage our selves, relationships, and money. As a heads-up, I have an anxious attachment style, and as you read on, you will come to learn what that has meant for me and how discovering what your attachment style is will help you open new pathways to experiencing financial intimacy and security with your partner.

Let’s start with a big question. If you don’t have an answer yet, I anticipate by the end of the book you will have a new way to answer this question: What is the meaning and purpose of marriage? I hope you have asked yourself and your partner this question many times. When I start working with new couples in my counseling practice, I get a quick read on how well each person knows themselves and their partner. Inevitably, there will be gaps, which is why they come to see me.

People come to couples counseling for a number of reasons: help with communication skills, affair recovery, addictions, or mental health issues causing strain. Until recently, if couples went to a counselor for money issues, it was not seen as a real issue but as a stand-in for some other issue. Not anymore. I am proud to be a thought leader in the field of financial therapy, understanding that people have a complex and dynamic relationship with money. I wish this information had been available to me when I met my wife, Ann. It could have guided us through our early years of marriage and misunderstandings.

If you are reading this book, then you and your partner likely don’t always see eye to eye on your finances. Can couples find compatibility and connection around money? Or is it a lost cause? Money is a major source of stress for many couples, but this issue is not well addressed by couples counselors. Are you tired of avoiding the topic at all costs or getting in explosive conflicts about money? There are perfectly understandable explanations for your and your partner’s responses to money. Once you start to understand what drives the negative cycle of relationship and money interaction, you will be able to turn it into a positive cycle of relationship and money intimacy. Isn’t that what we all want—greater intimacy in our lives?

If you have been looking for help and have not been able to find it, don’t despair. Help is out there, and I wrote this book to help you bring your money and relationship together. I trust that both you and your partner are ready to learn, heal, change, and build connection. If this is not true, however, and your partner is not with you yet, I will help you understand why that is and what you can do about it.

After working with countless couples and extensively studying the science of couples and money, I have come to clarity about what it takes to help couples move from disconnection to intimacy. I have found this to be true in my life as well and have sought to apply all that I have learned to the couples I work with.

This book is written from my understanding of a wide and vast body of knowledge on the science of relationships and money. While the views presented here are my own, I have drawn on both the science and clinical observations of many of the greatest minds in therapy to help bring a transforming relationship to you, your partner, and the money you share.

I wrote this book primarily about attachment theory, which was formulated initially by John Bowlby over sixty years ago. Attachment theory started out with infant observation studies and over the decades since has blossomed into what is now known in psychology as the study of love. Attachment theory explains how humans form, maintain, and change the way that they manage relationships with