Money and relationships break down together and the timing of that break is more predictable than you'd think. You wait. The bill arrives. Your partner is still on a work call. You hold up the statement and something that was a financial problem becomes a relationship one. That sequence is not random and it's not inevitable.

The neighbors of lottery winners are statistically more likely to go bankrupt than the average person, because financial behavior is social before it's rational. The scripts you absorbed watching your parents, money is the root of all evil, that person has so much they must be a jerk, those are still running in the background when you split a check or avoid telling your kids the account is tight. Debt correlates with divorce at a higher rate than almost any other relationship stressor, and 2026 is adding pressure to couples that were already stretched.

The dream sandwich changes the sequence: shared goal first, hard number in the middle, shared goal again at the end. It's a framework, but what it's really doing is making the money conversation something you want to have instead of something you've been avoiding.

Topics: money and relationships, financial stress couples, talking about money with partner, family money conversations, financial anxiety 2026

GUEST: Melissa Leong | @‌lisleong

Originally aired on 2026-02-24