Focus on the Family Marriage Podcast

Guest (Male): Pastors, if you're struggling to help couples in your church whose marriage is in trouble, we can help. Marriage 911 by Focus on the Family trains laypeople to mentor married couples. Each kit includes two training guides, four workbooks, and all the training necessary to meet with couples who need help. Go to marriage911.com. That's marriage, the numbers 911, .com.

John Fuller: All this month we're talking about the theme of teamwork and today we touch on the sensitive subject of money. What do you do if you and your spouse are not on the same team about money? I'm John Fuller with Greg and Erin Smalley, who lead the marriage team here at Focus on the Family.

We're going to turn now to a couple that are experts on money, Chuck and Ann Bentley. He is the CEO of Crown Financial Ministries, and before that, he admits he worshipped money. Let's hear how it went for them as a couple. Here they are talking with Focus president Jim Daly.

Jim Daly: Chuck and Ann, welcome to Focus on the Family.

Chuck Bentley: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

Ann Bentley: Thank you, Jim.

Jim Daly: It's good to have both of you. This is that common topic. I mean, we do cover this from time to time regularly because it is one of the core problems that crop up in marriage. Describe for us, if you will, the early years for you. Kind of paint the picture for the viewers, the listeners, about where the Bentleys were at early on and what were some of those issues that propped up in your marriage about finances.

Chuck Bentley: Well, they say out of your misery comes your ministry, Jim. And so I would say misery describes where we were. We loved each other. We met and married very quickly. I asked Ann to marry me after six weeks of knowing her.

Jim Daly: Okay, hang on a second. Ann, is that true?

Ann Bentley: Yes, it is.

Jim Daly: What did your mom and dad think of that?

Ann Bentley: Well, I didn't really ask. We were still in college. I knew better than to ask.

Jim Daly: Right, I'm sure. Was that a shock for you, though? I mean, I'm sure you were in love and moving that direction, but six weeks is a pretty quick moment to go, okay, do you want to make this permanent?

Ann Bentley: We were in agreement.

Jim Daly: That's good. That's good.

Chuck Bentley: But we didn't know each other, Jim. And we knew we loved each other, and that's always held true. We've always loved each other. But as you know, opposites attract, and then after they get married, they attack. And so I was difficult to live with. And when it came to money, I had a very stubborn view of it.

Jim Daly: Did you know that then when you were that young man? Or did that come over time that you realized I was difficult to live with?

Chuck Bentley: No, I didn't realize that. I thought I was Prince Charming, Jim. I thought Ann had hit the jackpot.

Jim Daly: I just remember Jean saying to me one time, "I love you, I don't like you." Did you ever say that, Ann? Did you ever feel that?

Ann Bentley: Oh gosh, yes.

Jim Daly: Okay, good. I feel better. Thank you. You just saved me. But that's kind of it, Chuck. We're kind of blind as young men. We think we're the best of the best and our act is together.

Chuck Bentley: Yeah, and so I treated Ann like I was the right opposite and she was the wrong opposite. Like we're totally different, but my view was if she would just be more like me, then we would get along.

Jim Daly: You're classic.

Chuck Bentley: And I treated her that way for many, many years. I expected her to become like me. And so she lived under that oppressive view of who she was. And I don't think it allowed her to flourish. It didn't allow her to contribute to the financial difficulties we were having. I was causing them, she was trying to solve them, but I didn't give her the space to do that.

Jim Daly: Well, that's important. Describe for us, if I could say it this way, your financial personality. That might help us better understand you as a couple. So Ann, what was your approach to money?

Ann Bentley: I grew up in a home of schoolteachers. So we were savers, and I never knew that we didn't have much growing up. I was born in the '50s, so...

Jim Daly: But money was tight?

Ann Bentley: And I didn't know it, Jim. We just lived very frugally. Totally different from Chuck's upbringing. And it didn't dawn on us until later in our marriage how differently we had been raised and why that had affected how we viewed money.

Jim Daly: Well, what was yours, Chuck?

Chuck Bentley: Well, she's the classic saver and I'm the classic spender. I'm the big spender in the family. I like to spend money. I have big dreams, big goals, big ideas. If it's got four-wheel drive, camouflage, or any of those kind of things, then I would want to buy it.

And I'm a risk-taker. I grew up in the oil and gas business. That's my family background. And so there's a little bit of a gambler in me, and I thought that's how you got ahead. So when Ann and I married, I was ready to take a lot of risks. And she was always driving with her foot on the brake. So it immediately caused conflict. I really didn't even know how to save. It wasn't in my worldview that we needed to save money for the future. It was we need to invest and take a lot of risk.

Jim Daly: But this conflict went on for quite some time, right? I mean, like a decade, like two decades?

Chuck Bentley: Two decades.

Jim Daly: Okay, no, and I think there's a realism in that. I appreciate that being the case because these aren't things that you can unwrap easily and then put back together. Ann, during this time, I mean, 20 years of being married to a spender when the dollars weren't necessarily there, how did you approach things? How did you go to Chuck and say, "Honey, we got a problem"?

Ann Bentley: Well, I was raised in a church-going home, but I was biblically illiterate. And by the grace of God, some women invited me to a Bible study, and it's where I first started learning what God said.

Jim Daly: How many years had you been married at this time?

Ann Bentley: Oh goodness, I think I was 30 when I started. At that point, we had baby number two. We'd been married nine years.

Jim Daly: Okay, so nine years in, which you should have some maturing signals there, but here you are in this Bible study, and what happened?

Ann Bentley: And then it wasn't immediately, but several years later an older woman said, and she didn't even know that I was going through anything, she was talking to a group of us and just said, "You know, it's not wise to nag your husbands." She said, "It's always better to just pray first. Go to God with it. Ask him to work it out."

Jim Daly: And was that a challenge that you heard? Did you know, "Ugh, that's me. I am nagging Chuck"? Or how did you process that? I would think some wives would say, "Yeah, Lord, you know what's going on. You know I gotta stay on him." I mean, how did you go through, "Okay, that's a word for me"?

Ann Bentley: Chuck, did I nag you? I'm trying to remember if I did.

Chuck Bentley: Well, Ann's personality type is a cautious thinker. So when I have a big idea, she sees what can go wrong with it. So she was constantly correcting. And so it's easy for her to point out where my actions or my thoughts or my attitudes are wrong. And she would do that in love, but I didn't want to hear it. I got to the point where I just shut that off.

Jim Daly: And some might label that that nagging issue, but you were trying to do it for your good as a couple, right?

Ann Bentley: And I wouldn't even say I did it in love. I was just truth-telling. Not thinking how it would affect him, and it came across as being disrespectful.

Jim Daly: So that moment, I mean, that woman said that and then you thought about that. How did it change your behavior?

Ann Bentley: I started praying. I just took it to the Lord.

Jim Daly: So less correction?

Ann Bentley: Less talking to Chuck and more talking to the Lord.

Jim Daly: Now, doesn't that apply to just about any area of marriage? Not just finances, but that is a good place to start. How did the Lord begin to reveal a better direction for you that inspired you to keep praying? Did you get nuggets of affirmation, "Okay, Lord, this is good. You're working in Chuck's heart"? Or did you do it in blind faith?

Ann Bentley: Well, I just looked at him as my shepherd. So he was in charge of the family, and if our finances were screwed up, it was his fault.

Jim Daly: Okay, so that was the deal you were making. I get it. So what unfolded over the next months or even years, actually?

Chuck Bentley: We went through a lot of financial pain, Jim. I went on the course that I thought was best for us. And so I would make investments or decisions that didn't work out. And we would live on the financial edge. And it made Ann feel very insecure. And looking back, I see why she was trying to get my attention, but I was just too stubborn to listen. I think I had that mindset of I need to have the answers and I don't need to ask anybody for help.

John Fuller: Money is so hard. What are your starting points when you have a couple that you're counseling and they are stuck financially?

Erin Smalley: I would say overall it's redirecting them to the fact that they're on the same team and going through something we call WordTalk. Because that aligns them and it gives them a shared language and a process to utilize for any decision they need to make, including finances.

So they can utilize that and figure out what are the win-wins within their relationship around finances. But so importantly then going back to what are our goals? Like, where do we want to go financially? And then how do we begin taking those steps towards whatever the goal is, whatever the vision is, and doing that just from the place of being teammates.

John Fuller: I so appreciate that perspective. And I remember talking to somebody not too long ago who said that they knew a young couple that were dating and the guy was saying, "I'll take care of my part of the bill, you take care of yours," and they just kind of carried that into the relationship. I'm sure there are couples that you counsel that you see who have done this. They've been very isolated in terms of his and hers. Is that good or bad or whatever?

Erin Smalley: I always wonder when I come across a couple, because I know each marriage is uniquely unique, different. The con that I see around doing that is that it keeps them very separate and independent. There's not that teammate mentality because I have some couples that are like, "We're going to go on vacation. You pay your part, I'll pay mine. If you don't have yours, well, I'm going on the vacation."

So I don't know that I love that because I like to go on a vacation personally with my husband. And the pro side, because I know that there can be pain with money and there's past pain. Maybe somebody's been deceitful or someone has a gambling addiction, something's gone on that the other spouse doesn't feel safe sharing finances. So it allows them to have a protection in place. Of course, I think long-term in a relationship it is much better to function as teammates, but I get it. There's many circumstances that can be at play.

Greg Smalley: Yeah, and I agree with that. And I think what I hear you saying, Erin, is really first and foremost be very clear on the motivation. Because like what you're saying, there are many legitimate reasons why we need to keep our finances separate. There are many reasons that may not be as healthy or it's fear-based or there's a motivation there that's probably not best for the relationship. That's what you want to be aware of. That's the conversation.

If we want to keep things separate, if we want to you pay for your part of the bill, I'll pay for mine, if there's a legitimate good motivating reason to do that, great, do that. That works for you guys. It's often, though, that that stuff is being done because one person has an issue around that and they're driving for that, and that's when it's not the best. Like for Erin and I, I don't want to have a system that every single dollar we have to talk through.

Like we've agreed that we have limits on, hey, if it's under this amount, spend it. You don't have to talk to me about that. But we know anything above that, we're going to have that discussion. My biggest pet peeve around finances when talking to couples is when there is zero insight or awareness or optics for one spouse into their finances. I hear that all the time. To where one is saying, "I really have no idea."

That is so unhealthy. There's no reason for that. Even if there's been secrecy or gambling, like you were talking about, Erin, both should still have full optics into every single bank account that we have. There's no reason to keep your spouse from seeing that unless you're trying to be secretive and something's going on.

John Fuller: Like Erin--

Greg Smalley: Erin hates managing bills and doing all that. Like I'm just better at that and what would be unfair if then I excluded her from any way to go onto our bank account at any time she wanted and to look and to come back and go, "There's a charge here, can you help me understand that?" I can go, "Whoa, what are you saying? What are you suggesting?" Or I can just say, "Great question. Thanks for looking. Let's talk that through."

Like that's the ideal. We both need to see all that. Don't set a system up that shuts someone out. That's wrong.

John Fuller: This is reflective of what you said off mic, which is we're better together, aren't we? Yeah. And Dina and I are in a season where she's got a lot going on.

Greg Smalley: Is it really?

John Fuller: Oh, do we have that on our store?

Greg Smalley: No, we should, though. Let's check that out.

John Fuller: That should be part of the swag that we give through this podcast.

Erin Smalley: Swag, t-shirts, stickers. I think all of that.

John Fuller: We do have some merch. We do have limited availability merch. We'll look at that. But you know, we're at a season where online banking makes it really easy for me to help her. There was a situation where, oops, our bank changed ownership and so there was something that didn't happen. We had an NSF check, it should have been covered. So Dina calls and she takes care of that.

And I went back later and saw that the rep that she had talked to didn't fix the problem at its fundamental roots. So we were set up for failure number two in a row here. But that was me checking something to see her. So we're better together on this stuff. We really are.

Greg Smalley: Yeah. Don't let either spouse feel alone in managing finances. So even if you're like, "I hate that, I'm not good at that," she's an accountant, he works in finance, don't set the system up that way. Both of you be aware, talk it through. If someone then executes more of it than you do, that's fine, but both of you be aware.

John Fuller: I appreciate that so much. And I want to encourage you to make sure you're on the same team. We have a free online article. It's called "Finding Financial Unity in Marriage." It's a real quick read, and you can find the link in the show notes. Also in the notes, we'll have a link to Godcaster, a new platform for us. We have a music station that you can listen to, great Christian music, and wonderful insights to encourage you in your marriage and parenting and life relationships.

Check out Focus Live on the Godcaster app. If you're able to, while you're online, make a donation to the ministry. Make a contribution, either a one-time gift or an ongoing monthly gift of any amount, and we'll send the book by Chuck and Ann called *Money Problems, Marriage Solutions*. It'll help you make sure you're on the same team from this day forward.

On behalf of Greg and Erin and the entire team, I'm John Fuller. Join us next time when Shaunti Feldhahn shares some research about what makes a couple happy. For now, thanks for joining us for the Focus on the Family Marriage Podcast.

Guest (Male): If you're a pastor wanting to save and strengthen marriages in your congregation, we've got a great tool for you. Marriage 911 by Focus on the Family trains laypeople to mentor couples who may be on the verge of divorce or who want to strengthen what they already have. The kit includes two leader guides, four workbooks, and all the training necessary to meet with and mentor men and women who need help. Visit marriage911.com. That's marriage, the numbers 911, .com.