A multimillion-dollar windfall would be a silver bullet for many people’s financial problems, but for Rachel of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, a recent inheritance of $7.2 million from her late father has exposed cracks in her marriage.
She shared her story on a recent episode The Ramsey Show, detailing how her husband is reluctant to spend the money for even minor conveniences, especially on finishes for the house that they are building together.
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“It’s really affected our marriage,” she told co-hosts George Kamel and John Delony. “Money has always been a big issue in our marriage. He just wants to save, save, save and I’m all about it. I’ve done my best to be frugal … [but] I feel controlled by it. Almost like he doesn’t love me [or] he loves me but loves his money more.”
Rachel and her husband had already saved up $1 million before the unexpected inheritance. Kamel and Delony concluded that the couple’s real problem isn’t financial discipline, but psychological barriers.
Rachel’s situation highlights how the wrong mindset can make it difficult to deal with good fortune.
Scarcity mindset
Kamel said he believes Rachel’s husband is struggling to break free from a scarcity mindset which is why he’s not dealing well with the sudden windfall. A scarcity mindset is the belief that you won’t have access to what you want, even when you have access to your basic needs.
“He spent his whole life building a sand castle and you just wiped that all away with one big wave and now there’s a mansion there that he didn’t build, and I think that scares the crap out of him,” Kamel said.
A 2023 study published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience found that zero-sum thinking, or perception of insufficient resources, triggers many behavioral changes, including less empathy for others’ feelings. This is evident in Rachel’s describing her husband’s obliviousness to her frustration over his tight grip on the purse strings.
Similar research by Sendhil Mullainathan, an economics professor at Harvard University and Eldar Shafir, a psychology professor at Princeton University, found that a scarcity mindset is often the result of obsessively focusing on a lack of a specific resource, such as money, to the point that there’s no room to focus on anything else.
In other words, people develop tunnel vision that impacts other aspects of their lives, such as their relationships. After years of relentless frugality, Rachel’s husband seems to have developed this tunnel vision while she has avoided it, which is causing friction in their marriage.
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Seeing eye-to-eye, financially speaking
Financial compatibility is a key ingredient for a happy marriage. In fact, 84% of American couples say they are on the same page with their partner when it comes to money, according to an Ipsos poll conducted on behalf of BMO. Nevertheless, 34% of partners consider money a source of conflict in their relationship.
Rachel and her husband seem to have been on the same page for a while, but the sudden windfall may have put them on divergent paths. The couple already have a financial advisor helping them manage the huge inheritance, but Kamel suggested they need to visit a therapist to help them resolve these psychological and emotional issues.
“Here’s the bigger conversation,” Delony says. “The marriage that you had is over. What you and your husband have to decide to do is [ask] ‘Are we going to build something new? Because every bit of our life is different now. We are multimillionaires and now the game has changed.’”
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This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.
