Empowered Relationship Podcast: Your Relationship Resource And Guide · Dr. Jessica Higgins

ERP 495: Play the Right Money Game Together: How Couples Balance Today's Joy with Tomorrow's Security - An Interview With Kali & Eric Roberge

·47 min·3 clips

Kaylee says her own fear of running out of money pushed her into extreme saving.

Dr. Jessica Higgins welcomes listeners to the Empowered Relationship Podcast and introduces episode 495 as a conversation about playing the right money game together. She points listeners to the show notes, where they can find links mentioned, key takeaways and practices to work with, and a free relationship guide on shifting criticism into connected communication. Before the interview begins, she invites a brief pause and a return to body and sensation. The conversation with Eric and Kaylee Roberge looks at how money beliefs often begin early and keep running underneath conscious thought. They describe how each person brings a personal money story into a partnership, sometimes without noticing how deep that story goes. Eric notes that people rarely say those beliefs about money out loud, but they still shape behavior and reactions. Kaylee reflects on how she had once been much more extreme about saving, driven by fear and scarcity. She describes being afraid of running out of money or never being able to earn again. That fear led her to squirrel away a large share of her income, even when it limited what the couple could enjoy in the present. Eric responds to that kind of thinking as something that can seem irrational from the outside, even when it is emotionally true for the person living it. The episode leaves room for both perspectives without turning the disagreement into a contest. Instead, it treats the tension as something couples need to understand before they can work with it. The couple also talks about how having a daughter changed Kaylee's relationship to money and to control. She describes becoming more present and less tightly gripped by future anxiety. That change did not erase caution, but it did soften the all-or-nothing pressure around saving. The discussion keeps coming back to the idea that the future is unknowable, which means the work is not to master it but to find a steadier balance. Dr. Higgins reflects back what she hears and notices that the guests seem especially strong in creativity and in outsourcing what they are not naturally good at. That turn widens the money conversation into a larger picture of how couples can divide labor, trust each other, and stay aligned. The episode closes in the same warm, relational mode it begins with, emphasizing reflection, partnership, and the effort of making financial decisions together without losing sight of the relationship itself.

As heard by us

A thoughtful look at money strain through a relationship lens.

Dr. Jessica Higgins keeps the conversation tied to how couples actually live with money, security, and day-to-day pressure. It moves from childhood money stories to the routines that shape saving, spending, and fear, which gives the topic a clear human center.

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Why you'd press play

If money talks in your relationship feel loaded, this one gives you a softer way in.

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