The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Most Replayed Moment: How To Talk About Money With Your Partner! The Mistakes Most Couples Make!
23 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: Why is discussing money important in relationships?
I don't know any founder who started their business because they like doing admin. But whether you like it or not, it's a huge part of running a business successfully. And it's something that can quickly become all-consuming, confusing, and honestly, a real tax because you know it's taking your attention away from the most important work.
And that's why our sponsor, Intuit QuickBooks, helps my team streamline a lot of their admin. I asked my team about it, and they said it saves them around 12 hours a month. 78% of Intuit QuickBooks users say it's made running their business significantly easier. And Intuit QuickBooks' new AI agent works with you to streamline all of your workflows.
They sync with all of the tools that you currently use.
Chapter 2: What are common financial misconceptions couples have?
They automate things that slow the wheel in the process of your business. They look after invoicing payments, financial analysis, all of it in one place. But what is great is that it's not just AI. There's still human support on hand if you need it. Intuit QuickBooks has evolved into a platform that scales with growing businesses.
So if you want help getting out of the weeds, out of admin, just search for Intuit QuickBooks now. I had a conversation a couple of days ago, actually, with James Saxton, who's the divorce expert. He's a divorce lawyer by trade, but he knows more about divorce than anybody else.
Chapter 3: How does financial avoidance affect relationships?
And he said to me, there's two things which cause people to end up in his office going through a divorce. Number one is cheating, infidelity. And the second thing is money problems in the relationship. So I find it especially sort of pertinent to have this conversation with you about couples' relationship with money.
Because clearly one of the things that is most likely to end my relationship, or I guess prevent me getting into one, is this financial avoidance that most of us engage in. You've interviewed hundreds and hundreds of couples about money on your podcast. What have you learned about our relationship with money in relationships from that?
Chapter 4: What patterns do couples exhibit regarding spending and saving?
I've learned that 50% of the people I talk to do not know their household income. 90% of the people I talk to who are in debt do not know how much debt they're in. And 100% of the people I talk to in credit card debt also have trouble saying no to their children. Isn't that shocking?
Each of those things, 50% do not know how much income they make because most of us are simply living by looking at our checking account and that's it. The debt part kind of makes sense. Why would you want to know how much debt you owe? You don't really want to think about it.
Chapter 5: How do gender roles influence financial conversations?
So you ignore those emails and envelopes. And the credit card debt part, that is really interesting. The idea that if you can't say no to spending, so you've racked up a bunch of credit card debt, the same principle applies to saying no to kids debt. For me, when I discover these, I find them absolutely fascinating, but the good news is you can also change these things.
And what's the difference between men and women in terms of spending habits in a relationship, secrecy, avoidance, arguments? Well, let's start with the roles.
Men always describe themselves as providers. Always.
Chapter 6: What are the financial red flags in a relationship?
That's what we are taught. It exists in culture. The problem is, of course, what happens when they are not the top earner, which is happening increasingly more now. So when I often ask them, who are you, financially speaking, if you're not a provider? and they're just stumped. But there's got to be something more than simply being a provider. You can be a provider, and you can be a nurturer.
You can be a provider, and you can be a helper, a leader.
Chapter 7: How can couples improve their financial communication?
There's so many different ways. Often what you'll see with women is discussions about a secret bank account. Keep a little money aside just in case. We have to remember that in the U.S., many grandmothers were not allowed to open up their own bank accounts. That happened two generations ago. And so there has been a rightful message that has been passed down orally
keep a little bit of money aside just in case, whether it be physical abuse, financial abuse, divorce, et cetera.
Chapter 8: What is the psychological impact of money on relationships?
And I totally respect that message. I don't think you should have a secret account. I do think you should have an account that is yours only, but no secrets in a relationship.
What about arguments as it relates to money and relationships? What are the cause of the arguments? Is it someone spending too much? Is it hiding money? Is it something else? It's usually not hiding money.
That's very small extreme. The biggest phrase that I get from couples is, He or she's a spender and I'm a saver. So it's creating this identity that they're a spender, I'm a saver, or they don't want to talk about money ever. Why can't I get them to finally sit down with me and get on the same page? That's a phrase that's tossed around everywhere.
When I ask them, what is getting on the same page? The answer is, I don't know. I just want to talk about it. So when it comes to money, yes, there are the numbers that we need to understand, of course. But what I often tell people, the way you feel about money is highly uncorrelated to the amount in your bank account. That is why I speak to so many multimillionaires who still worry about money.
They think if I just have 50,000 more, 500,000 more, $5 million more, well, guess what? I've had all those folks on my podcast and they still worry about money. That means there's two things you need to do to master your relationship with money. One, you got to know your numbers. This is a language you have to learn the basics of personal finance. Two, you have to master your money psychology.
That means you need to change the way that you talk about money and behave with money so that you can ultimately change the way you feel about money. You do those two things, you're going to have a very healthy relationship with money.
We'll go into all of those things and how you do them. On this point of gender roles, obviously society has changed in the last couple of decades in terms of equality and more women are in work, higher level positions in corporations, in the C-suite, earning much more money. This has caused...
a shift, I should say, in the sort of typical gender roles and assumptions of what each gender is supposed to be doing in couples. And I'm wondering now, with more women earning more money, in many cases, they're going to be earning more than their husband in heterosexual relationships.
Have you seen new dynamics and new issues created because of this in terms of like, I know, insecure men feeling emasculated or the woman not being happy that she's contributing more? And I ask this because I had someone on my podcast a couple of months back who... said to me that I think 70% or 80% of women expect that their romantic partner will earn more than them.
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