FRLN66: Fitness in a Relationship, Talking about Money in a Relationship, & Building a Strong Marriage That Lasts
Fit Rich Life
Newsletter #66
Tips, Tools & Strategies for your Fitness, Money & Life
Newsletter Archive
"Love is the greatest adventure of them all."
— Unknown
Greetings my friends,
I recently celebrated my 3rd anniversary with my wife and it has me reflecting a lot about building a Fit Rich Relationship so in this newsletter I'm going to focus on the following:
- Fitness in a relationship
- How to talk about money in a relationship
- Our tradition of renewing our vows each year
My wife and I have been together for almost 11 years. We were not always dialed in on our fitness, money, and relationship together.
It's taken a lot of trial & error, breakdowns, many ups & downs, and plenty of professional help in the form of therapy, coaching, books, & courses.
I hope to save you and your partner some pain by sharing these strategies I wish I had learned earlier in our relationship. And even if you're not in a relationship yet, learning from my mistakes and experience will save you a lot of unnecessary stress when you do get into a relationship.
Without further ado, let's proactively build your Fit Rich Life.
This is your weekly dose of actionable tips, tools & strategies to take your Fitness, Money, and Life to the Next Level.
FITNESS: Supporting your partner's fitness journey
Before I got with my partner I dreamed of working out at the gym with my significant other.
I saw other couples working out and thought that was so awesome.
So naturally, when my partner and I got together I tried in vain to get her to go to the gym with me.
In the beginning, I failed to realize that although the gym worked great for me, it did not work great for my romantic partner.
She's always been super fit but never went to a public gym.
She's always enjoyed working out at home and attending group classes of her choice.
At the beginning of our relationship, I did not understand this and I tried repeatedly to get her to go to the gym with me.
This rarely went well, because I was trying to get her to do what worked for me. What usually ended up happening was that we both became frustrated.
She was frustrated going to the gym as that isn't what works for her and I was frustrated because I couldn't understand why she didn't like it.
Eventually, we learned that certain fitness activities work well for us to do together (like hiking & rollerblading) and it's better if I go to the gym by myself or with gym friends while she does her home workouts or group classes.
A similar thing happened with nutrition. I tried to get her to eat more like me and she felt judged.
Eventually, through enough breakdowns, we came up with the idea that we could affirm each other's fitness journey without forcing the other person to do it in a specific way.
This resulted in us coming up with the following affirmation: "I support your health & fitness."
We even wrote it out on a piece of paper and put it up on our fridge where we saw it daily for years. Each time either of us started to feel tension around our respective fitness journies we would say the affirmation out loud to one another.
This was also helpful for my side of the relationship because, in the beginning, it wasn't apparent to my partner that working out 5-6 days a week in the morning was critical to my mental wellbeing, even when we were on vacation. By having the affirmation in place my partner was able to get on board with supporting my fitness in the way that worked best for me.
I realize some couples love going to the gym together and working out together, but if that isn't working in your relationship stop trying to make it work and focus on supporting each other's fitness journey, whatever that may look like for each person in the relationship.
Then test out different fitness-related activities that can be fun to do together until you find the ones that work well for you and your partner.
Here are a few other activities my wife and I enjoy doing together that may work well for you and your partner -- frisbee, pickleball, pool, air hockey, acro-yoga, and running around a field playing tag.
MONEY: How to talk about money in your relationship
When I first got into my relationship I had a lot of debt, a terrible credit score, and I was six years behind on my taxes.
I was deeply afraid my partner would leave me if she found out my dire money situation so I kept it hidden for a few months after we moved in together.
My partner thought I had my finances together as I had spent most of my life up until that point "looking rich" -- fancy car, fancy clothes, eating out, etc.
I then made things even worse when I convinced her to put me on her credit card.
Neither of us was working when we moved in together at the beginning of our relationship and we proceeded to rack up credit card debt together to cover our expenses.
I eventually built up the courage to share my true financial situation with my partner and fortunately, she didn't leave me (although she was unpleasantly surprised).
This was the beginning of us getting aligned on our money together.
When you're in a relationship, money becomes a team game.
The sooner you realize this and the sooner you normalize talking openly about money the better chance that your relationship will thrive over the long run.
Not only did my partner not leave me, but she introduced me to the tax accountant who helped me get caught up on my taxes.
While cleaning up my taxes I discovered the concept of Financial Independence.
Financial Independence is when you have enough investment assets that you can effectively Retire Early or be Work Optional as you can live off of your assets indefinitely without having to earn more money.
Freedom and control over your time is the highest dividend your money can pay.
I was deeply intrigued by this idea of Financial Independence and I made it my number one goal (as I talked about in Newsletter No. 65).
I shared this newfound Financial Independence Goal with my partner but made a lot of mistakes in the beginning in regards to money and our relationship.
I am a bit of an extremist when I get into something new. I can go from zero to a hundred with a flip of the switch.
I told my wife that I no longer wanted to spend any money on going to the movie theaters, eating out, or spending money on anything other than investing as much money as possible.
This included staying in our crappy rental house despite the fact that by this time both of us were working and making plenty of money.
My partner felt like I was sucking all the fun out of our relationship and it took a lot of breakdowns and money talks before we started to find our groove together.
But over time as we talked more and more about money and our goals we started to get aligned.
Eventually, my partner became okay with me being an extremist frugal weirdo as long as she could spend her money in ways that worked for her.
So while she continued to eat out with friends, I didn't pay to eat out for over two years.
She supported my dream of Financial Independence while I led the way for us to get there as fast as possible.
That was all that I wanted.
I stopped trying to tell her what to do with her money and just led by example.
She naturally started spending less money and even got into investing alongside me.
Over time it became very normal for us to talk about money a few times a month and we still do this today even after achieving Financial Independence (and moving into a much nicer home).
Since I started coaching people on money over the last 2+ years, one of the most common questions I get is:
"How do I talk to my partner about money?"
Here are 6 steps on how to get started talking about money in your relationship:
Let your partner know that you'd like to get aligned on money and schedule a time in advance to start the conversation over a 30-minute meeting. DO NOT just jump into talking about money. Give them advance notice and schedule a time and place that works for both of you.
In the first money meeting share your childhood money stories. Share with each other how money was handled by your parents. Talk about your experience growing up when it comes to money. Oftentimes, you and your partner will have radically different experiences with money in childhood that shape how one feels about money and how one treats money in adulthood. Understanding one another’s relationship with money is critical to getting aligned.
Start to talk about what your vision for money & life together could be. Creating a compelling vision for your life together and how money will power that vision must come before diving into the nuts & bolts of budgeting, spending, earning, saving, & investing.
Keep the first meeting short and light. Focus on understanding your partner and their relationship with money and building a vision for life together.
Then schedule a follow-up meeting for 1-3 weeks later and in the follow-up meeting you can start to dig into how you will bring that vision alive together.
In the follow-up meetings, you can start to dig into splitting expenses, budgeting, paying down debt, saving & investing, and creating a plan together to achieve financial independence.
Plan for monthly or bi-monthly money meetings until you get fully aligned on your money and life together. Then you can switch over to quarterly meetings or whatever cadence you and your partner feel works best.
The key is to go slow, be super respectful, and normalize talking about money in your relationship.
Over time and multiple money meetings, you will start to figure out how the two of you can play as a team when it comes to money.
It's different for every relationship and that's how it should be.
All that matters is to normalize talking about money and that you're continuously working on getting more and more aligned.
In time you will figure out who plays what roles in the collective Money Journey and how you can support one another.
And when you're working together as a team, you will achieve your money goals so much faster.
LIFE: Renewing your vows
Good relationships take work, whether you're married or not.
Unfortunately, I think a lot of people get lazy after they get into a relationship, especially after they get married.
Many people falsely assume that the relationship is good if they're legally bound to one another.
But like anything that lasts it must be taken care of. New energy must be poured into a relationship if it's going to last.
Plus, people change and evolve over time.
Therefore if a relationship is going to last it must also evolve as the individuals in the relationship evolve.
My wife had the brilliant idea to renew our vows each year to ensure that we were not only upholding our vows but were also updating them as we evolved and new gaps arose.
This annual vow renewal process is potent in 4 major ways:
It gives us an opportunity to reflect upon how we did with upholding our vows over the last year.
It also allows us to modify our vows -- removing aspects that are no longer applicable and adding new elements to ensure our relationship grows stronger in the coming year.
It's an opportunity to recommit to our vows that are still applicable and make a new commitment to the new vows each year.
It provides a powerful, memorable, and sacred ceremony for us where we get to honor our growing marriage.
I like to think of this vow renewal process as an annual review of our relationship and goal-setting for our relationship in the year to come.
In the first two years, we went on vacation for our anniversary.
The first year we went to Mt. Shasta in California and renewed our vows under a waterfall after a short hike.
The second year we went to San Louis Obisbo and renewed our vows in front of the beautiful Airbnb we were staying at which was deep in nature.
This year we are traveling to Portugal and the UK only a few weeks after our anniversary so we made it easy and went to a beach that was a 20-minute drive from our house.
Each year we record a video of our vow renewal on our smartphone so that when we're older we will have years of documentation of this sacred ceremony. Recording these kinds of memories will pay happiness dividends throughout our lifetime together.
So whether you're just in the first year of marriage or if you've been married for a while consider renewing your vows on your next anniversary.
It's been one of the most powerful things we've done for our relationship.
Closing Thoughts:
What is one thing you can do this coming week to improve your Fitness, Money & Life?
Here are some ideas:
- Commit to supporting your partner's fitness journey in a way that works for both of you.
- Schedule a money meeting with your partner and start to get aligned on financial goals.
- Make a plan to renew your vows on your next anniversary.
Remember, making progress is the most reliable way to create happiness & fulfillment in one's life.
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I am sending you all lots of growth energy!
Your Fitness, Money & Life Coach,
Justin David Carl
P.S. Below is my latest Fit Rich Life Podcast (episode 80) with Nick True from Mapped Out Money. We talk about letting go of something good to get to something great, creating a vision for your life, problems with the FIRE movement, and more.
Whenever you're ready, here is how I can help you:
I run a custom-tailored 1-1 & group mastermind coaching program that will empower you to get into fantastic shape, master your money, & live your best life.
It's a proven Fitness, Money, and Life Coaching Program unlike anything else out there.
You can book a free consultation with me here or just drop me a note on Instagram to find a time to connect.