Trauma-Informed Love and Money: A New Paradigm for Couples and Money

What If Love and Money Was Trauma-Informed?

There’s a moment in many relationships, especially when money is involved, where one partner says, “I just don’t get why they’re acting like this,” and the other thinks, “I feel so unseen.” It’s not a lack of love. It’s a lack of understanding.

At Healthy Love & Money, we’re introducing a new lens for couples: Trauma-Informed Love and Money.

This concept draws from the evolving wisdom of trauma science, somatic psychology, financial therapy, and cultural healing. It helps us understand that love and money doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It lives in nervous systems shaped by early life experiences, some of which were painful, invisible, or embedded in systems of power and disconnection.

Trauma-informed love and money is not about blame or pathology. It’s about compassion, context, and co-regulation.

Trauma, Adaptation, and the Nervous System

When couples struggle with financial communication or intimacy, what often gets overlooked is the role of survival adaptations. Trauma isn’t just about what happened to us, but how our bodies and minds adjusted to those experiences in order to cope. As Bessel van der Kolk describes in The Body Keeps the Score, trauma reshapes our biology, hijacking the nervous system and leaving us more prone to reactivity, avoidance, or shutdown.

Layering onto this, Polyvagal Theory helps explain how our nervous systems constantly scan for cues of safety or danger—often without conscious awareness. The brilliance of Stephen Porges’ work lies in showing that behaviors like defensiveness, withdrawal, or hyper-control aren’t flaws; they’re protective patterns designed to maintain survival in the face of perceived threat.

But trauma doesn’t exist in isolation from our relationships or the broader cultural context. Thema Bryant, psychologist and past president of the American Psychological Association, reminds us that trauma is also spiritual, relational, and systemic. In her book Homecoming, she writes about reclaiming our voice and power through embodied healing, which is especially relevant for couples trying to co-create emotional and financial safety together.

Family Systems, Cultural Legacy, and Differentiation

Family systems theory teaches us that couples often “marry at a similar level of differentiation”—a concept introduced by Murray Bowen to describe our capacity to maintain a stable sense of self while staying emotionally connected. But this idea becomes even richer when viewed through the lens of culture and trauma.

For example, Joy DeGruy’s research on Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome reveals how centuries of racialized trauma affect present-day relational and financial patterns. DeGruy’s work expands our understanding of differentiation by reminding us that how we “hold ourselves” in relationships is shaped not just by our families of origin, but by intergenerational and societal forces.

Similarly, Resmaa Menakem, author of My Grandmother’s Hands, shows how trauma lives in the body across racial lines. He urges us to move beyond cognitive approaches and into somatic practices to heal our nervous systems, especially in intimate partnerships where cultural and racial trauma may be activated.

These insights are crucial for couples who may initially perceive each other as opposites, with one partner being practical and closed off. The other being emotional and expressive, but who are in fact mirroring unresolved protective adaptations.

When Financial Trauma Is Somatic

Many of the money behaviors that frustrate couples, like avoidance, overspending, or over-controlling, aren’t simply bad habits. They’re somatic imprints. Our bodies carry money stories that words can’t always reach.

In The Art of Money, Bari Tessler teaches that financial healing begins with emotional presence and somatic awareness. She invites us to slow down, track our body’s response to money, and bring compassion into the most tender financial parts of ourselves.

This idea is expanded in The Body of Money by Gayle Colman, who weaves together decades of financial planning and spiritual practice. Colman writes, “Your body is wise. It has carried you through joy and sorrow. When you stop overriding it, you can start to trust it.” That trust is essential in relationships—especially when vulnerability around money feels unsafe or unfamiliar.

The Role of Dreams and Grounded Ambition

One of the common patterns we see is couples oscillating between two extremes: either clinging to lofty dreams and idealism, or anchoring too tightly in control and predictability. Trauma can push us toward either pole, toward fantasy or fear.

The work of Lisa Miller, a clinical psychologist and neuroscience researcher, offers a way through this polarity. In The Awakened Brain, she explains that cultivating spiritual and intuitive awareness increases resilience and the capacity for meaning-making. Couples with a shared sense of purpose, not just shared numbers, are more likely to stay grounded and forward-looking.

Growth in a trauma-informed relationship isn’t about getting everything right. It’s about honoring both the desire to dream and the need to feel safe while doing it.

A Shared Healing Journey

At its heart, trauma-informed love and money is an invitation. It asks:
Can you look at your financial arguments and see the survival strategies underneath?
Can you soften toward the version of your partner that had to develop those patterns to survive?
Can you hold both your pain and your potential?

This is the deep work we do in Therapy-Informed Financial Planning™ and Financial Therapy. Not just budgeting. Not just investing. But building a relational container where each partner can feel seen, safe, and empowered.

The Invitation

If you’ve ever said, “Why do I react like this around money?” or “Why does my partner shut down when we talk about the future?”, this is the invitation to look deeper.

Trauma-informed love and money says: You’re not broken. You’re adapted.
You’re not failing. You’re protecting.
And now, you have the opportunity to grow together—with insight, compassion, and care.

Want to Explore Trauma-Informed Love and Money in Your Financial Life?
Schedule a free 30-minute consultation to discover how Therapy-Informed Financial Planning™ and Financial Therapy can help you and your partner reconnect not just with your finances, but with each other.