Okay. Let me sit with you in this for a moment, because what you’re describing is actually two problems layered on top of each other, and most people only see one of them.
The first problem is the money. The second problem, the one that’s actually keeping you stuck, is that you can’t even get to the money conversation because the wall goes up.
Here’s what I want you to understand about stonewalling. It almost never looks like indifference from the inside. From where your partner is sitting, that shutdown is almost certainly protection. Money carries an enormous amount of shame for most people. Debt, financial mistakes, feeling like a failure, feeling out of control, feeling like they’ve let you down. When you bring up money problems, your partner may not be hearing “let’s solve this together.” They may be hearing “you are not enough. You have failed this family. I see you clearly and I am disappointed.”
And so the wall goes up. Because shame makes us go silent before we go anywhere.
So what do you do with that?
First, I want you to ask yourself honestly: how are you coming to these conversations? Are you coming in problem-solving mode, with spreadsheets and urgency and a list? Because that approach, as logical as it is, can actually make shame worse. It can feel like a courtroom rather than a kitchen table.
Second, before you talk about the numbers, try talking about the fear underneath the numbers. Yours first. Something like: “I get anxious when I don’t know where we stand financially. That anxiety is mine to manage. But I need us to be a team on this and I don’t know how to get there with you.”
You’re not accusing. You’re not fixing. You’re showing up vulnerable first.
The goal here is what I call Sovereign Us. That’s the moment when both of you stop protecting yourselves FROM each other and start protecting the relationship together. Money problems are genuinely solvable when two people are facing the same direction. They become almost impossible when one person is shut down and the other is pushing harder to get through.
The stonewalling is a signal, not a character flaw. It’s telling you that your partner is drowning in something they don’t have language for yet.
Your job right now is not to break the wall down. It’s to make it feel safe enough to open a door.
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Figs is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 16+ years of experience working with couples. He’s the co-founder of Empathi, host of the “Come Here to Me” podcast, and author of an upcoming book on relationships and the systems that shape how we love.
Read more: Stonewalling in Relationships: What Your Partner’s Silence Actually Means
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