Love, Money, and the Wounds We Carry: A Reflection on Rahkim Sabree’s Overcoming Financial Trauma

Every Couple Carries a Money Story

Every couple carries a money story. Sometimes it’s told through spreadsheets, sometimes through silence.

When I began reading Overcoming Financial Trauma by Rahkim Sabree, I wasn’t just thinking about my own relationship with money, I was thinking about the couples I work with, and how often two people who love each other are living with entirely different emotional histories around money.

Rahkim’s framework of Exposure, Education, and Execution offers a path for understanding not only ourselves but also our partners, with greater compassion. His writing reminds us that financial trauma doesn’t live in isolation; it shows up in relationships, especially in the space between partners who long to feel safe and seen by one another.

A small, personal moment brought that home to me. The afternoon I started reading Rahkim’s book, my kids came home from school with news: their pet fish, Taco, had died. My son told me quietly, “I feel sad.” I acknowledged his sadness, and we sat with it for a moment before he moved on to play.

It was a simple, tender reminder that not every painful experience becomes trauma. What often makes the difference is emotional attunement—being met with care and connection in the moment of pain. Trauma isn’t only about what happens; it’s about whether we feel alone with what happens.

That truth sits at the heart of Rahkim’s message too. When financial stress or loss occurs, an argument about spending, a sudden job change, an inheritance dispute, what matters most isn’t just the event itself but how we and our partners attune to one another in its aftermath. Do we listen? Do we care? Do we repair?

It’s that relational attunement that can transform financial adversity into growth instead of lingering trauma.

Why This Book Matters

Overcoming Financial Trauma: How to Break Free from Guilt, Build Wealth, and Redefine Success explores the inner and outer forces that shape how we relate to money. Rahkim structures his work around the 3 E’s of Overcoming Financial Trauma: Exposure, Education, and Execution.

It’s an elegant, grounded framework that speaks to both the individual reader and those of us who help others navigate their financial lives.

I read this book as three people at once:

• a person still learning about my own emotional relationship with money,

• a professional practicing and teaching financial therapy,

• and a friend who admires Rahkim’s courage and clarity.

From all three perspectives, I found a book that invites us not just to think differently, but to feel differently.

Exposure: Seeing What’s Been Hidden

Rahkim begins with exposure, helping readers see the invisible patterns that drive their financial stress. He shares stories of poverty, class tension, and identity, reminding us that you can have money and still experience financial trauma.

That sentence alone reframes so much. Trauma isn’t reserved for the poor; it’s carried by anyone who has felt unsafe, shamed, or judged around money.

As I read, I was struck by how clearly Rahkim illustrates that our drive for financial success often carries unspoken psychological motives, longings for safety, status, or belonging that grow out of earlier deprivation. We may chase financial goals believing we’re pursuing freedom, when at a deeper level we’re seeking protection from fear or disconnection.

That insight opens a wider conversation about how society rewards striving. Rahkim writes,

“The workplace borrows from the rationale of chattel slavery; in both systems, human value is measured in productivity.”

It’s a jarring statement, but an important one. It asks us to confront how deeply our culture equates worth with output, and how easily we internalize that message in our personal and relational lives.

Exposure, as Rahkim shows, isn’t about blame, it’s about illumination. It’s about seeing the systems, stories, and survival strategies that shape how we define success, so that we can begin to heal them.

Education: Making Sense of the Patterns

The second “E,” Education, offers context and language for what we’re feeling. Rahkim draws from Dr. Joy DeGruy’s Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome to explain how intergenerational trauma gets passed down—not just through genes, but through beliefs and behaviors around money.

He integrates neuroscience, describing how the Triune Brain, the survival, emotional, and reasoning centers, shapes our financial responses. Even small tasks like checking a bank balance or opening a bill can trigger old fear responses.

One of the most powerful visuals in the book shows how fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses appear in financial behavior. It’s a simple chart, but it captures what so many clients experience when they avoid, overspend, or over-control money.

“Financial trauma doesn’t just live in the numbers; it lives in the nervous system.”

Reading those words, I felt the comfort of recognition. Someone else was naming what I’ve witnessed again and again: that money behaviors are emotional survival strategies.

For couples, this section is an invitation to curiosity. If your partner seems to freeze when you bring up budgeting, or gets anxious reviewing accounts, it’s not defiance—it might be an echo of something much deeper. Understanding that opens space for empathy.

Execution: Healing in Action

In the final section, Execution, Rahkim turns toward healing and intentional change. He shares a personal shift, from seeing himself as a “money manager” to becoming a “money generator.” The first mindset worked when he was an employee; the second was necessary as an entrepreneur.

He introduces clean pain and dirty pain (from Resmaa Menakem’s My Grandmother’s Hands)—the difference between leaning toward what hurts so we can heal and avoiding it, making it messy. That distinction hit home. So often, financial healing begins when we stop running from discomfort and start facing it together, with compassion.

He also offers a liberating reframing: to see not “poor financial decisions,” but simply “financial decisions.” Removing the moral weight helps couples talk more openly, without shame or blame.

Reading Together

As I read, I noticed how many times I wanted to share a passage with my wife. That’s when I realized this isn’t just a book for individuals, it’s a conversation starter for couples.

Every partner brings a history of money, stories of scarcity, messages about success, silent fears, secret hopes. When one partner begins to unpack their own financial trauma, the relationship changes. Compassion grows when both partners can say, “I see where that fear or pattern comes from.”

So I’d encourage couples to read Overcoming Financial Trauma together. Read slowly. Share what resonates. Notice what stirs defensiveness or discomfort. Let those reactions become invitations to empathy.

Because healing our relationship with money isn’t just about balance sheets, it’s about belonging, trust, and safety with each other.

Closing Reflection

Writing this reflection reminded me why I do this work. I want to bring psychology and therapy into the world of personal finance, to reduce shame and help couples find connection in the very place where so many feel alone.

Rahkim Sabree’s Overcoming Financial Trauma is more than a book; it’s a bridge. Between cultures and classes. Between the past and the possible. Between you and the person you love.

Pause & Reflect: A Conversation for You and Your Partner

Take a few moments together—without judgment or urgency—and explore these questions:

1. When have you felt most safe and supported in a financial decision or season of your life? What helped you feel that way?

2. What early messages did each of you receive about money, success, or security—and how might those still show up in your relationship today?

3. How do you each respond to financial stress? Do you tend to fight, flee, freeze, or fawn—and how can you begin to meet each other with empathy when those patterns appear?

Let your answers be beginnings, not conclusions. Healing financial trauma isn’t about perfect communication; it’s about learning to see and soothe each other in new ways.

If you’re ready to explore the deeper layers of your financial story, start here:
👉 Order Overcoming Financial Trauma on Amazon 

About the Blog Author:
Ed Coambs, CFP®, LMFT, CFT-I™, is a pioneer in therapy-informed financial planning and the founder of Healthy Love & Money . Through writing, teaching, and counseling, he helps couples and professionals deepen their understanding of how love and money intertwine.