Listeners Ask About Relationships
Join Tamara and Sheena as they talk answer listener questions and comments in this episode of Les Talk About It.
Episode: 11 of 12 of the Relationship Season
Listen to this episode
In this episode:
- How do you find balance and not lose yourself?
- Money management tips
- Your house, my house or our house?
Les Talk About It Series: Relationships
Relationships are important for humans. We need them to survive, never mind thrive. In this series we delve into relationships and break down some statistics and realities because, let’s face it, most us just muddle through and don’t necessarily have the skillset to rally make a relationship work.
Transcript
please note this transcript has not been edited and is automatically generated meaning certain words will be incorrect
[Music] welcome to Les Talk About It, I’m Sheena and I’m Tamara and today we are doing questions about relationships so these are listening questions that came in during our brief hiatus and now we’re answering them today tomorrow are you ready with all your research I’m ready shall we begin yes let’s get started with the first question ok so the first question comes from Kia Munoz and it’s hard to be with someone but still be yourself she also states that she’s finding it hard to say time aside for her own activities and she feels guilty about doing something without her partner so how do you deal with that that’s a great question I know that this is something that a lot of couples struggle with especially in the beginning of the relationship when everything is new and you feel like you should be with this person 24/7 and it’s very exciting being together and then you start realizing that this person actually doesn’t love doing you know the less Vic related book club chats the way you do and then what it’s not at all a specific example ok so I think you know there’s a couple of things at play here so firstly you feel guilty right you’re in a couple so you feel like you need to like whatever it is that the other person likes right absolutely the problem with that is who gets president so whose needs fall to the wayside and whose needs boys gets dealt worth basically okay so the thing to remember here is that you still are two individuals in the relationship you are not emerged entity and this requires some sort of compromise not that I like the word compromise because I feel like it has negative connotations but I think that’s use it for the want of a better word so you need to remember that you’ve both come into a relationship with a history with your own likes with your own beliefs ok so going forward you need to retain these so that use or sell yourself I mean you each fell in love with each other and for the person that you are not for some sort of weird non person that shall become if you keep dating Stephie locks live so I think your basic point is make sure you keep your individuality within the relationship yes and I think something that’s very important is not to let other people remove your individuality either and this is something that we have experienced as a couple where people will you know think of us as a unit instead of two people so that they might us count you know what you want to do because I’m there so it’ll just they’ll just ask me and they won’t think about your opinion for example so what we did to overcome this is we deferred to the other person a lot so if somebody asked me about plans or something I would say I need to check with you first yes and a lot of the times were also very clear with people that we are two people and not one person as well because you do have to set that boundary now in terms of taking some time out for yourself how do you do this without feeling guilty okay so I think you know the first thing you need to remember is that your relationship with yourself comes first okay not your relationship with the other person as difficult as that is to understand for you to be happy in the long term you need to be good with yourself okay so don’t do things that are going to make you depressed don’t do things are gonna make you angry or sad secondly the other person will never be more important to me than I am to myself and thirdly I will always love myself more than another person and this isn’t to say that you’re going to discount your relationship or love the other person any less it’s to retain that individuality within yourself what that manages to do those well is it means that somebody’s taking care of you emotionally and if you’re able to put in that boundary and say to your spouse listen spouse I need some time out to do some me stuff I need a pedicure I know you don’t like pedicures that’s totally cool I’m gonna go with my friend or I’m just gonna go by myself and get a pedicure your spouse if they’re doing the same thing will understand that the timeout is important for both of you and love is that lovers you know recognizing what the other person needs and lacing them habits and you know sometimes that means not making them do everything with you for example so the balance here is trying to make sure that you have enough quality time as a couple but I say quality time and not just time right because if you have enough quality time as a couple then what happens is there isn’t that much resentment when there’s me time needed so if you are spending enough time as a couple doing things that you love together then that bond stays strong and it allows you for the time for yourself to do what you need for your own personal satisfaction and help and I think something to keep in mind is that when you are taking some downtime for yourself or alone time it’s to make sure that you and spend their time doing quality things right so it’s knowing yourself and knowing what matters to you so if you get time to yourself don’t just spend it on the couch watching TV you can do that every now and then but use the time to do something that strengthens your sense of self so if you have a hobby engage in their hobby if you’re missing your friends go spend time with your friends so do stuff which matters to you and then also remember to make sure that you keep pursuing your own goals in life as well I want it all so just have a quick side note here that in your alone time you can also have alone and that’s also perfectly fine and natural within a relationship you don’t have to feel bad about that either no not at all so you know being suit yourself means basically doing stuff that you know you love and making sure that you still have time for that within the relationship so balance your time wisely and spend quality time with yourself and your partner that’s basically the answer today yeah so Kia I hope that that helps answer that question I also think have a frank conversation with your partner and say listen it’s not that I don’t love you but I just feel like there’s stuff that we don’t need to do together that I just need some time and that’s okay it’s totally okay we wish you lots of luck here for you and your partner and I hope you manage to get back that little sense of self that you’ve lost absolutely okay so our next question is from Brenda Murphy and she’s asking basically about money in relationships so Brenda says we don’t struggle now but when my wife and I first started dating we were in different places financially one of the best things we did was to make it a point to talk about money openly I had a full-time job and she was a grad student with a very small stipend I want to pay for everything but she didn’t like it she wanted it to be fair no one person picking up dinner dates movies etc all the time we came to an agreement about how to make it equal between us we carried that forward when we married and have a monthly money meeting to sort out bowls etc as our money is health jointly I know more than a few couples who struggle with control and financial decisions and financial stress and incompatibility is often listed as a reason for divorce it’s a fraud subject and it’s something that’s definitely worth talking about Brenda this is absolutely one of the highest reasons people find tension within a relationship is money mm-hmm you don’t have it you don’t know how to spend it and many naturally comes with this power dynamic as well exactly and I think that’s probably one of the biggest problems with money besides trace is the power dynamic so whenever someone earns more whether that’s a dollar more than the other person there’s always going to be an imbalance so it’s dealing with that in the relationship and when there is times when there isn’t enough money it’s dealing with the stress of financial instability right so here’s an example when you and I were both working for the same company I earned more money than you and so I would take on more of the balls but then we both lost their jobs and you got another job and so now you earn significantly more money than me so we had to make quite a transition to where you paid the balls and I know for me that was a very emotionally difficult time because I went from somebody who was used to being the provider if you like to somebody who needed to be provided for and that was a difficult transition for me because there is a power even though I didn’t feel like you were less than me I now thought less than you if that makes sense no I get that and it’s not that you know that’s true at all but it is still that thing within a person’s self feeling that way okay so you know there are some advice from financial experts when it comes and relationship experts when it comes to money and Brenda is doing a lot of it right okay so the first thing they say is talk about money okay so don’t keep it secret so this includes dates even if it’s dates that you got before your relationship talk about it because it’s going to affect both of you talk about your salaries talk about what savings you have and more importantly if you’re a couple that doesn’t pull their money into a central sort of bank accounts or everyone’s got different responsibilities with the money you need to be able to be open and tell you the other person when you aren’t able to afford something okay so for example some couples if they go out for dinner they each pay part of the ball they don’t pay it as one bull okay so if or if they go away on holiday they will share the expenses of the holiday instead of coming from sort of some sort of shade flattened rights so if you have a dynamic where someone earns a lot more than the other there will be cases when one person just simply can’t afford it and a lot of times the person who can’t afford it simply goes along because they feel bad or they feel embarrassed and that creates quite a problem so the thing is in those cases you need to be able to tell the other person that you can’t afford it and the other person needs to be able to understand about that so basically open discussion and planning meetings and figuring out how best to split the money obviously if you’re in a situation where one person is earning significantly more than the other person there is no way around the fact that the person who’s earning more is going to take on more of the financial responsibility it just is what it is but I think being open and honest about it and talking about it and in dealing with all the feelings that come with that is a very important part of keeping the relationship stable you’re listening to the lesbian talk-show the lesbians or choke on your hub of podcast information and then okay the next thing to be successful at money management as a couple is to in some way have a joint bank accounts or to share your finances in some way so apparently couples who keep completely separate bank accounts and who you know they assign their paychecks for different things have a hot much harder time of working through money trouble together so couples who either have joins bank accounts or who share a financial responsibilities together actually have a much better go of it what does that mean that does that mean so I always pay the electricity bill you always pay the husband or does this mean I don’t quite understand so experts actually recommend having a joint bank account but this isn’t waste possible in South Africa for example joint bank accounts don’t exists even if you’re married you just can’t have one so how we get around us is that we have different bank accounts for different expenses basically so we’ll have one bank account that’s dedicated to paying things like electricity and the mortgage and then like another bank account where all the funds for groceries for the month goes into and we both have credit cards linked to that account so that we can draw from it we’re also through online banking or able to see what money’s in the accounts you know there is still there transparency even though it isn’t the traditional joint account okay because it’s all about being able to share it and see where the money is absolutely now the power dynamics was many extends to beyond cash itself the next question is from sandy anger and her question is your house my house or something we buy together so this is once again the power dynamics of money and how it in property is a big pot of money right so I know people who move in with other people and it’s the other you know the initial person’s house and it never becomes you know our house it’s always my house or your house and I think that that’s a really bad dynamic yeah look I think it also depends on whether you’re purchasing the house or if you’re just moving into someone’s house at their own or a house are there any rent or whatever it is right on a personal level I would much prefer it if we moved in together completely I agree but it’s not always something feasible I’ve I mean I think there are situations where whether you live in a city that housing is really expensive and difficult to find and you have a place that you can afford and it’s really great you probably wouldn’t want to move out of their arts so I think you know it depends on the situation okay so how do you make it less mine and more ours again this depends on the dynamic greatly okay so if you’re going to buy a house together there needs to be some sort of contract in place which states who owns what or what percentage of this house that you’re buying right especially I think especially if you’re not married because if you separate what do you do at the house whereas if you’re divorced you know there’s legal proceedings and stuff that go with it and with the split of the property but I think especially if you’re not married you need to make sure that there’s a contract in place so that you know exactly who owns what so never have a situation where you only have one person’s name on the papers for the house yeah if you’re renting a house and there is some sort of power dynamic at play there may be see if there’s a way of including the other person’s name on the lease so it’s not just whoever had the lease first just so that you can level off that dynamic as well so sandy I think the important things to remember when it comes to buying a house and whether at your mine or ours is to go in knowing who’s gonna pay for the house are you splitting it yes or no who do you want to be on the papers that’s for the property ownership and thirdly you need to have a contract in place if you’re not married beyond just the paperwork for the ownership of the house and you also need to have a plan for what’s going to happen to that house should you split or should you die because property is one of these things where okay so now you both die and say a car accident let’s hope that doesn’t happen but if it does happen what happens to the house do you have a will in place that’s true very true and also just in terms of while your relationship is happy and while you’re still alive how are you gonna split the costs because if it is one of these situations we’re one of Ewing’s more than yeah but are you gonna split it 50/50 do you have a shared pool of money that you’re just gonna you know use to pay the house how does that work and how does that figure into percentage of ownership as well and repairs on the house who’s gonna pay for that and my gosh house earning is a whole nother thing okay I think that’s it for this episode patrons are going to get an extra two questions after this they’re going to get the question about power dynamics and not the intentionally orchestrated one instead of fun and they’re gonna get a question on living in a place that doesn’t accept your relationship and we’re going to talk about both of those so that’s coming up shortly in the patron exclusive if you are a patron and you’re listening to this through the patron exclusive podcast then stay tuned because that’s coming up next if you’re not a patron then consider becoming a patron because you get access to extra things like the answer to those questions I’m Sheena and now I’m Tamera and you’ve been listening to let’s talk about it we’re almost finished with the relationship season we have what you want us to talk about in the next season these buttons so this was the relationship season and we starting to research our next season so you know us bye-bye [Music]
