Having a relationship with money is nothing like having a relationship with a real person. But if left unchecked, a relationship with money can start to negatively impact the other relationships in our lives (without us even realizing it!). In this post, we’ll discuss a boundary that needs to be drawn for ourselves AND our finances, so we can make sure money doesn’t cast a shadow over the real relationships that are important to us.

A Loving Mother’s Advice on Money

Over the last few months, money was on my mind. As a blossoming entrepreneur hoping to be fully self-employed in the near future, I eagerly ate up the internet’s infinite information about how to run, grow, and build a successful at-home business.

But I couldn’t stop returning to stories I’d heard about highly financially successful people who, behind closed doors, quietly admitted that they felt empty and isolated despite their piles of cash and seemingly perfect lives.

Everyone who has an unhealthy relationship with money will suffer, regardless of whether they have a lot of it, or none.

Sue Barbret

I knew so deeply that money could never provide me with the kind of deep meaning and fulfillment I was pursuing in my life, but I wasn’t sure how to answer the question, “Why does money so often leave people feeling miserable?”

When I brought this up to my mother, who manages the majority of finances for her family business, she told me something that was so profound I don’t believe I’ll ever be able to unhear it.

She said simply, “A lot of these people feel empty because they make money the most important relationship in their lives, and money never gives back.”

To say I was shocked is an understatement. I knew that by “give” she didn’t mean there weren’t benefits to having and making money, of course there are benefits. What she meant was that money can never care for and love you the way you care for it, no matter how much time and energy you devote to it. 

In other words, if we devote all of our time and energy to making money, we compromise the quality of our other relationships, because real love and connection with other people, the relationships that will truly “give back to us,” inherently require energy and effort too.

She helped me understand that money physically cannot give back to you the way a dear friend or a partner can. It is incapable of connection, incapable of true love. It cannot offer us the kind of relationship that every human being deserves to have with at least someone. And so if we prioritize our relationship with money over the relationships of connection and love, we will wind up feeling empty and alone. 

This is true regardless of whether you’re focusing on money because you’re trying to be financially successful, or financially stable. If money is on your mind all the time, if it is the basis of every goal you’ve set for yourself, then your relationship with money is likely detracting from the quality of your other relationships and your ability to enjoy your life altogether.

Your Love for Money is Not True Love

In her book, “Steering by Starlight,” Martha Beck briefly talks about the difference between real love and spider love. She says that real love is always inherently freeing, whereas spider love (from the perspective of the spider) is grasping, needy, and controlling. 

She uses the term spider love because we might say a spider loves flies. But a spider shows it’s love by trapping, killing, and eating the fly. (I don’t think I need to tell you that that isn’t true love.)

The reason I tell you this is because when I read this description of spider love, I was reminded of the sort of “relationship” a lot of people have with money: grasping, desperate, and controlling.

If you feel this way about money, you need to draw yourself a boundary on worrying about money. If you don’t, it will fill your emotional life with that grasping feeling. And it’ll feel like constant stress, and discomfort in your body. However, if you do draw that boundary, then you’ll allow so much more real love to be felt. So much more gratitude, connection, and abundance.

Note: Real love is not only limited to your relationships with other people. It can also be found in your relationship with yourself, animals, or perhaps your relationship with nature.

To help with drawing your boundary, try asking yourself any of the following questions.

(You may find that when you physically write down your answers, the reflection “hits different.”)

While it’s necessary to at least be conscious of your finances and have an idea of where you are/where you’d like to be, money shouldn’t be consuming all your mental space. It shouldn’t be keeping you up at night and making your heart race indefinitely. So wherever the line is between those things for you, draw it in thick black ink. 

Because even if your financial situation is exceptionally grim, you can’t afford to waste too much energy on worrying. You will need that energy to help you find ways to take care of yourself and/or get help from others.

Money Should Be a Tool, Not a Partner in a Relationship

After a series of unfortunate events with the family business, my mother was pretty much forced to draw this boundary and stop her spider love relationship with it. 

She realized shortly after a long and grueling IRS audit (which led to nothing, by the way) and the loss of her dear mother, that if she continued spending 24/7 worrying about money for the business, it would eat her alive.

After evaluating how much her worrying was affecting her, she stopped micromanaging every dollar. Now, she simply makes sure to meet whatever needs she can (both for our immediate family and our chosen family). Then, she saves or spends anything extra in a way that aligns with her deepest values. 

For her, this means that she finds ways to make people feel cared for. She uses her money to create cherished experiences for other people. She uses it to help other people achieve their dreams and to alleviate the most intense forms of stress that come from unexpected tragedies. Her money has so much meaning because she knows the meaning doesn’t come from the money. 

That is my goal for my own money, to make it mean something, to make sure it makes a positive impact. This is so deeply different from making money the focus of your life, and it feels so much more abundant.

Money Can Trick You Out of Experiencing Meaning and Fulfillment

Money is enticing because it claims it’ll help us achieve and experience what we love. But since many people have a relationship with money that is desperate and grasping, they rarely escape their fear of “not enough” long enough to fully enjoy any of the benefits/joys in their lives.

You’d be surprised to find how many multi-millionaires and billionaires have everything they need and more, and are nevertheless fearful and consumed by their relationship with money. So much so, they spend weeks and months bedridden and depressed over the thought that they’ll one day lose everything. (Even though the odds that would ever happen are impossibly low). 

Many of these kinds of people have made money their most significant relationship, and they feel so… SO empty, scarce, and pitiful because of it.

Don’t make their mistake. Draw your boundary with money now and recognize it for what it is: a tool. A means to an end. Not the end in itself.

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Did this post resonate with you? If so, I’d love to hear from you! Leave a comment or send me a message to share your thoughts. For more uplifting content, check out some other posts on my blog, follow me on instagram @morgan_barbret, or sign up for the Self Love Atlas Newsletter!

Cheers, 

Morgan Rita Barbret