Brittany Wyatt, Who goes By Bee, and her
husband Kevin had been living together for a few
years when they had the fight that nearly finished
them. Bee needed to buy a car, but her credit had
been demolished by her divorce, so she asked
then boyfriend Kevin to guarantee the loan. He de-
clined. She took this as a sign that he didn’t trust her.
To Kevin, however, it was just a sign that he didn’t
believe in loans. He’d never taken one out.
Even after he agreed to be a guarantor, the Mel-
bourne, Fla., couple still had money squabbles. “We
couldn’t match up with money,” says Bee, 33. They
combined bank accounts when they married but have
often differed over how their funds should be used.
In early 2018, they decided to watch a video of a
seminar called Money & Marriage, a three-hour event
that is half couples therapy and half financial advice.
None of the information it conveyed was revolution-
ary (communicate, budget together, don’t blame,
be grateful, plan). For the Wyatts, however, it was
transformative. “We’d been talking about every-
thing that they spoke about for a year or more,” says
Kevin, 32. “But for some reason, once you sat down
and watched it, like, ‘Oh, man, this totally makes
sense. We’re doing this wrong.’ ”
Money & Marriage is organized by Ramsey Solu-
tions, a faith-based financial- advice group started in1992 by the wildly popular Dave Ramsey, who looks
upon debt as approvingly as NASA engineers look
upon oxygen leaks. In the first half, psychologist Les
Parrott offers couples’ bonding skills and exercises.
In the second, Rachel Cruze, Ramsey’s middle child,
shares financial advice. Nearly all 20 of these semi-
nars that have taken place since 2017 have sold out,
she tells TIME. “The two comments we’ve been get-
ting for over 25 years is ‘How do I get my spouse on
board?’ and ‘Why didn’t they teach me this in high
school?’ ” says Cruze. “We just always knew that
there was a tension within people’s marriages when
it comes to money.”
Ramsey Solutions is not alone in combining cash
and coupling tips. There is a small but growing group
of advisers who believe it is impossible to address
people’s financial difficulties and personal struggles
separately and who are trying to carve out a new field
that addresses both at once. Academic institutions,
including Kansas State University, the University
of Georgia and Creighton University in Nebraska,
are beginning to offer training and graduate certifi-
cates specifically in financial therapy, while others,
like Florida State, have elective courses as part of a
social-work degree. The Financial Therapy Associa-
tion, a professional group formed in 2009 that puts
out a peer- reviewed journal, now has 300 members,Society
MONEY
T A L K S
When couples struggle with money, they need either
a financial planner or a therapist. Or is it both?