Breaking Free from Idealized Financial Standards: Finding Your Own Way to Wealth and Worth

I was in a coffee shop when it hit me.
Just like airbrushed models on magazine covers, there are airbrushed versions of financial success we carry around in our heads, polished, curated, and often entirely unrealistic.

Many of us are familiar with the cultural conversation about idealized beauty standards. They appear in commercials, on social media, in movies, and our self-talk. They create impossible expectations and quietly convince us that we’re not enough. However, what is less discussed is how the same phenomenon is also occurring with money.

We live in a world of idealized financial standards.

They whisper:

• “You should be farther along by now.”

• “A real adult would own a house and an investment property.”

• “Your car, your clothes, your vacations—should look like you’ve made it.”

• “If you were smart with money, you wouldn’t have any debt.”

Just as beauty ideals are shaped by culture, class, subgroups, and social media algorithms, these financial standards are also influenced by these factors. And just like those beauty ideals, they can do real harm.

The Trouble with Financial Perfectionism

At Healthy Love and Money, we see this show up in so many couples. One partner feels pressure to perform wealth, while the other is trying to find a feeling of safety in the numbers. They each feel judged, ashamed, or invisible in different ways.

When you try to live up to someone else’s financial ideal, it’s easy to lose sight of your own values, needs, and lived realities. You may chase a salary that burns you out. Or feel embarrassed by a perfectly adequate home. You might avoid conversations about money with your partner because you’re afraid of not measuring up.

Idealization Is Always Contextual

Here's where it gets more complex. Every culture, community, or social class has its own set of financial ideals.

• In some professional circles, it’s net worth and investment portfolios.

• In others, it’s generosity and how much you give away.

• For some families, success is tied to education and upward mobility.

• For others, it’s being debt-free and financially independent at a young age.

You may be praised for your financial achievements in one group and shamed for them in another. You may be celebrated for thriftiness in one circle and viewed as cheap in another. These shifting standards can leave you feeling ungrounded and unsure of who you’re “supposed to be” financially.

How Financial Planning and Financial Therapy Help

This is where financial planning and financial therapy come together in powerful ways.

Traditional financial planning focuses on numbers: income, savings rates, debt-to-income ratios, and retirement projections. These are essential, but they’re not the whole picture. In financial therapy, we integrate your emotional, relational, and psychological relationship with money.

Together, Therapy-Informed Financial Planning™ helps you:

• Clarify your personal and shared financial goals

• Understand the roots of money anxiety or avoidance

• Heal shame from past money mistakes

• Navigate financial conflict in relationships

• Build a money life that reflects your real values, not just social expectations

If you're navigating money with a partner, Therapy-Informed Financial Planning™ creates space to explore how both of your backgrounds, beliefs, and behaviors shape your current financial decisions. This deeper financial intimacy fosters greater trust, clarity, and cooperation.

Defining Your Ideal

You can define financial success for yourself and within your relationship. But not by mimicking others. It requires pausing to ask:

• What do I believe money is for?

• What kind of life do I actually want to create?

• What did I learn about money growing up, and do I still believe those things?

• What are our values as a couple, and how do they show up in how we earn, spend, save, and share?

This is deep work. It’s identity work. It’s relational work. And it’s worth doing.

Because when your financial goals are anchored in your values, rather than cultural pressure or Instagram-worthy standards, your financial life starts to feel like your own. It becomes a source of connection, not comparison.

You Might Still Get Judged (And That’s Okay)

Here’s the truth we don’t always want to admit: even when you live in alignment with your values, some people still won’t get it. You might be misunderstood, criticized, or excluded.

And that’s where the healing deepens.

You’re no longer chasing perfection, you’re practicing integrity. You’re building a financial life that matches who you are rather than who others want you to be. And for most of us, that’s a lifelong journey.

Final Thought:

Just like redefining beauty can lead to self-acceptance, redefining financial success can lead to financial intimacy with yourself, your partner, and your life.

So the next time you feel the pull of an idealized financial image, pause. Breathe. Ask yourself: Does this reflect who I really am and what I want?

And if not? You have permission to let it go.

Financial intimacy starts with one brave conversation. Let’s have it.

If you’re tired of chasing someone else’s financial dream, therapy-informed financial planning can help. At Healthy Love and Money, we help couples build a meaningful financial life together, based on their unique values, history, and goals.

🔍 Learn more about our process or book a free consultation to see if financial therapy is right for you.

Wishing You Healthy Love and Money,
Ed Coambs - Founder