COVETING YOUR SEX AND YOUR MONEY, WHICH ARE YOU GUILTY OF?
Recently I was speaking with a fellow educator, author and public speaker on this matter and he brought up this very question of what we choose to covet more. As I thought about his inquiry, I realized that if I look at my track record and what I am far easier about letting someone be intimate with, to share that I would have to say that it is my body. Thus my sex.
Matter a fact, just this week my life partner and I were speaking about finances, making some large purchases, potentially starting a new business line, how we each foresee the future of our combining money and how we are going to handle financial responsibilities in our partnership. As he asked me my take on these things, I found myself with sweaty palms, a nervous gut, my heart rate increasing and feeling unsafe in some measure.
I realized that I was feeling very vulnerable around money.
And that I had not shared a bank account with a man, nor major financial items for over a decade. My reasoning was that I had felt burned in my marriage many years back by sharing and I wanted to protect myself, that fear that was activated way back then was supported in a follow up close relationship of sharing almost everything, and had I allowed the merging of finances then, I would have been financially destroyed at the end of that relationship as well.
So here I sat, with this conversation before me around finances.
And I wanted to run.
I wanted to hide.
But I wanted to commit myself as well.
When it comes to money, at least for me, I am pretty tight lipped about it. If I am low in the pocketbook, no one will really know just like if I am rolling in the green. I find that our money is a place of immense intimacy. And for me to share, let alone merge, it means far more than bedding me.
Think about it…
Which are you easier to allow another person to engage with?
Your body or your bank account?
Your sex or your investments?
We as humans generally are easier with our sex.
We will “hook up” with someone, pressure for sex even, sooner than we will ask for financial help or give it. And the thought of handing over our financial affairs to someone that we just met at the bar or an event, even a person we have been out with a few times versus opening our legs or penetrating another, is laughable to say the least.
It just is not a thing.
(Unless you are a financial dominatrix that is, but that is a special skills set for a unique clientele.)
With that said, what do we women want men to prove to us and show us?
We want a financially responsible man, a man that has his shiz together with money, and we want to be romanced of course.
We want to know this stuff pretty early on in the relationship as well.
Many women want to be “taken care of” in some fashion and even feel that it is part of their needs or that it should be expected. In today’s world of high maintenance relationships, money plays more of a role in the getting and maintaining of the relationship than the sex.
Again proving that we put less importance on our sex and body than we do on our bank accounts.
However there are some major challenges with this way of relating.
Let me clearly state, there is zero wrong with wanting a partner that is financially responsible and can hold their own, has their shiz together and/or can even “take care of their partner” in some measure in this way, however today’s world and much gratitude to all the feminist movements of our past and current, women can and often do earn just as much as men. We can take care of ourselves and it is silly to believe that if we are really wanting a partnership, a true union and to fall in love that we are not basing it on each other’s bank accounts or investments but on our hearts and the essence of each other.
Do we coming together make a better you and a better me, thus a better us? Or do we drain each other in some way or have a relationship that is one sided?
The two leading factors of divorce today: Sex & Money.
Here is the issue, we never drop our guards around our money out of fear of getting screwed over and we never drop our armour around our sex, because that would require us to be vulnerable with our hearts as well, because we are afraid of getting screwd over and hurt there as well.
We do enter relationship and attempt to build partnership with surface level, fast food sex that is easily handed over in hopes of being cared for financially by our mate. And generally the man will hand over romance and his financial resume with ease to “prove” or convince to the woman that he is good enough to get into relationship with.
So women hand over sex and men show bank statements with roses attached and a trip.
And THIS is what we base love on.
THIS is what we proclaim to be chemistry, energetic connection, even romance.
It’s all a bunch of malarkey!
If you need romance to feel safe in your relationship, you’re setting yourself up for heartache and failure. If you need to prove that you have this or that then you are setting yourself up for failure and drama. If you are jumping into bed right away to feel connection, but “think” that the sex is a sign of love and commitment, then you are fooling yourself and will only discover pain.
We women think that romance should be a prerequisite of getting into a relationship.
We believe that it proves that he is caring, taking it serious, wanting to go deeper, and is mature.
We think that it is a sign of emotional maturity even, because he shared some feelings after a bottle of wine and some sex.
And we are eager to open ourselves up physically and “act” vulnerable because we believe that’s what is required of us as a prerequisite to the relationship.
Money & Sex.
But what if the opposite were true?
What if we had to earn these things, and the earning came from us first actually being in a relationship and revealing who we really are, as well as taking the time to get to know someone.
What if we waited a few dates in to have the sex?
What if we waited to romance each other?
But instead chose to inquire and communicate how we do sex and money in relationship upfront so that we knew if we were in alignment or not on these two major subject of relationship and partnership?
What does that look like, you may ask?
Healthy dating, which leads to healthy relationships and then to healthy partnerships starts with healthy communication.
And that looks like this early on:
“How do you operate around sex? I like to spend this amount of time with the person I am dating and I like to do it like this (number of dates per week, calls, daily texts, overnighters , trips) I prefer monogamy and exclusivity, as that is what I am looking for in partnership and commitment as well. I do not like to dilute my energy and time in the dating process. How does that sound to you and are you open to doing this in our relationship?”
Unhealthy communication around this same subject would look like this:
“When I am dating someone I expect monogamy and exclusivity from the start if I am going to invest any further time with someone.”
It’s all in the delivery.
The majority of relationships today, like always are either casual relationship where the sex flows easy, or transactional where there is the expectation that you give sex for financial safety and you give financial safety for sex.
There is a cost associated to a relationship.
And anyone who says that there is not they are crazy in the head or a taker who does not do their fair share of carrying the cost, nor appreciate it.
There is dinner, movies, presents, gas, travel, time and so much more.
All the little things.
Our world runs on money.
Our relationship does as well.
So why not address this up front pretty early on?
“How do you operate with money in a relationship?
“How do you use money in a relationship? – do you like sharing expenses? Do you like to treat and plan events as well as receive a treat and planned out event? Or do you want just the man to lead and take care of it? Or you always have to pay your own way?”
These inquiries show how giving a person is and what their capacity to receive is as well.
I have read a few studies about how men respect women who invest ( yes ladies, I just said that invest) in the relationship more than they respect the woman who just takes.
Men are not expecting the woman to invest an equal financial amount.
They are not expecting women to foot the bill or to always go dutch ( well the right men are not),
But a woman who can give and receive, a woman who makes plans and prepares events, dates and grabs the drink round every now and then, is something rare. In general, we women will fall either hard core on “ I GOT THIS!” and insist on not receiving to prove that we don’t need a man, which is silly because why then are we even wanting to explore relationship with a man, of courses we need men, just like they need us, but not for money or sex. But for depth, connection, expansion and life partnership. Or we women, expect that the guy will bear the full load always and dare he want a partner in the land of money. We will offer up our sex but not our money.
To have a partnership, we must let go of our fears of being vulnerable with the subjects that make or break relationships, and instead be willing to broach these topics sooner than later or we will forever find ourselves in the nasty loop or transactional relationship where we forever feel alone and used.
On both sides.
As Always, Stop Existing & Start Living
“Coaching for Grown A*s Believers”
Ready to say YES! To your soulmate relationship today?
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