Showtime ‘Couples Therapy’ Orna Guralnik Talks Couples and Money

Orna Gralnik to appear on Showtime’s “Couples Therapy”.

Source: Showtime

When I was a child, my father would repeat the words he heard from my grandmother when I was a child. “When money doesn’t come in through the door, love goes out the window.”The saying seems to date back to the 19th century. painting Titled “When Poverty Comes in the Door, Love Flies out of the Window” by British artist George Frederick Watts.

I passed these words on to Orna Gralnik, a psychoanalyst, and she agreed. money This is one of the biggest stressors for couples “especially because of the society we live in.” Guralnik is the star of Showtime’s documentary series ”.couples therapy, she analyzes real patients in a room with hidden cameras. New episodes of its third season premiered last month.

Financial problems can cause intense conflicts in couples, but Gralnik doesn’t believe money or lack of it is the real reason they break up. “At the end of the day, from my point of view, a breakup is not about money,” she said. Instead, Gralnik said, “Honestly, the reason we broke up was that we weren’t able to negotiate our differences and find a way to reach an agreement,” she said.

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Guralnik explains that money is one of the major “reality touchstones” that can reveal the inability of two people to solve problems together. This incompetence is informshe said, empathizing or compromising with each other can ruin a relationship.

in the meantime my interview When I spoke with Gralnik in late April, she told me many other interesting things about love and money. Here are three of her.

1. When people don’t talk about money, they are “protecting themselves from knowing the reality.”

While working with patients, Gralnik said it can take a long time for them to recover. Be open about your financial situation.

“Sometimes I find that people are more private about their money than their sex life,” she says.

Therapists aren’t the only ones who avoid topics like debt and overspending, Gralnik said. Some people have been married for years and still haven’t told their partners about their financial situation.

Guralnik understands the avoidance of this subject.

“In American society, money establishes its place in the social fabric more than anything else,” she says. “A lot depends on money when it comes to people’s self-esteem.”

People are taking big risks by avoiding talking about or confronting their economy, she says.

“If you refuse to look at your bank account when you withdraw your credit card, it can lead to more debt,” says Gralnik. “And if it continues, that debt can be pretty devastating.”

Sometimes I find that some people are more private about their money than their sex life.

Orna Guralnik

Psychoanalyst, organizer of “Couples Therapy”

“It can keep you stuck in that hole for the rest of your life,” she added.

“I’m not exaggerating that,” Gralnik continued. “I have a lot of people who come to my office in that situation.”

Guralnik said that when people refuse to pay attention to their financial situation, they are “protecting themselves from knowing the reality.” “You can’t take care of yourself if you don’t face reality,” he added.

2. It’s okay “Money is part of why people stay together”

At some point in a new episode of Season 3 of Couples Therapy, Christie and Bullock tell Guralnik that they worry that saving money is a big reason they live together.

But Gralnik doesn’t see the motivation as problematic. “I take the fact that the economy is part of what brings people together,” she said.

“Christy and Brock are idealists and I love them for that,” she continued. “They believe they should move for love, not for financial easement.”

But the idea that marriage should be all about love is a fairly new idea, she added.

“Marriage has always been, first and foremost, a means of building structures that protect people. Marriage is there to protect the economic unit.”

Guralnik said money also helps couples stay together. in the end, Two people could lose a lot financially by breaking up.

“It gives them another reason to try to solve the problem,” she said.

3. “Money is not just money. It stands for something else.”

According to Guralnik, two people in a relationship can have very different attitudes about money.

“Some people are thrifty and obsessive,” she says. “Some people can’t control their impulses and don’t like to think about the future.”

“Conversations about budgets and plans are intolerable for them,” she added.

Jamie Grill | Getty Images

To understand their behavior, Gralnik tries to understand what money has come to represent for patients.

“My general approach as a psychoanalyst is based on the belief that concrete reality is linked to unconscious reality,” she said.

For example, she once had a patient who hoarded money. “Through her analysis, we discovered that for her, money is time,” Glarnik said. “She was unknowingly protecting herself from her death by hoarding money.”

In other words, she said, “Money is not just money. Money can also mean something else.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/25/showtime-couples-therapy-orna-guralnik-on-couples-and-money-.html Showtime ‘Couples Therapy’ Orna Guralnik Talks Couples and Money

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