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Welcome, my friends. This is Ask Ashley, the segment of Planning and Beyond, where advisors send me, Ashley, questions that don't quite have a technical answer, but certainly a human component behind it. Okay, our first one today is how do I handle things when a couple is disagreeing about money in my office? Ooh, this is juicy and I don't want to waste any time here. So let's get into it. When advisors, when they ask me this question, what I really hear are actually three different questions that they're asking. And the three different questions are how do I stay in charge of this meeting without taking a side? How do I keep this from damaging my relationship with each of the clients? And is this even my job? So I want to, I'll quickly just kind of speak to this last one here. When I talk to advisors about handling conflict, um, handling disagreements between uh partners within a coupleship, for many, there is a fear underneath, which is if I engage with this couple, if I engage with this conflict, am I stepping outside of my lane? Simultaneously, I think there's also this other question. And that is, if I don't engage with it, am I failing them somehow? And here's maybe what I would like to say. If you are an advisor who feels that tug and pull between, am I stepping outside of my lane? Or if I don't do this, am I failing them? That you are completely normal. I think that this is an incredibly difficult space for advisors to be living in. But it is definitely one that happens. And so from my perspective, I do not think that by stepping into conflict with a couple that you are playing the role of therapist. I think that you are just doing your job. I think asking questions, I think navigating hard moments, um, guiding them through and to maybe a decision. That's part of being a financial planner. It's part of being an advisor. And it's not whether you choose to engage in the conflict that matters. It's how you do it. And so today we're gonna get into a little bit deeper the how part, where hopefully you feel a little bit more confident when it comes to conflict showing up in your office or virtually in one of your meetings. Okay, that first question I posed the how do I stay in charge of this meeting without taking a side? Taking sides is probably, well, I'm not gonna say it's the worst because that would be, you know, I'm not quite sure how true that is, but it would be really, really bad if you were to take sides with a partner when there is active conflict going on. The way that you stay in charge of a meeting when there's conflict is by changing what the conversation is about, right? Let's move away from deciding who is right and let's move towards what is actually going on here. I find that in couples get caught in this, but certainly as practitioners, um, financial advisors get get stuck in this place of focusing too much on the content, right? They focus too much on, okay, what is the couple actually arguing about? Are they arguing about the retirement? Are they arguing about spending the 529, the boat, the credit card, right? These are all content pieces that can keep us stuck. And it makes sense, right? Because it's the thing that couples are saying, right? It's the thing that they're talking about. But process, right? How they are arguing, the process in which they're arguing, who's pursuing who, who shuts down, who's name-calling, who's making weird sounds that really display contempt, right? You guys know the person that does the huh, right? The grunt, grunting Gary in the meetings, that's all part of process. And so if we're gonna look at how do I stay in charge of this meeting without taking a side, we need to move away from content, what they are actually arguing about. And we need to focus more on how they are arguing. So, what I mean by that is if you have a couple and let's say they're they're there's conflict about spending, right? Classic. Okay, the partner that is getting animated, um, we'll say animated. The partner that's getting really animated, that's getting heated, right? How are they displaying that? Are they name-calling? Are they talking really quickly? Are they escalating the conversation, right? That's important to pay attention to. The same on the same side, right? The other partner, right? Are they withdrawing? Are they going quiet, right? Those are all important pieces to to to pay attention to as well. And so if we're gonna not take sides in this moment, we need to change the conversation and what it's about. And one way of moving from content to process is by being an active participant in the meeting, interrupting what's happening and naming what is going on. So here's kind of what I mean when I say it, when I say all of that. For those of you who have not maybe heard me talk before about being an active participant. Um, when I say being active participant, I mean you can't just sit there and watch what is happening uh unfold in front of you. You have to be like in the meeting. When I was doing supervision with pre-licensed clinicians, like I would demonstrate this like in my chair. And I would sit kind of on the edge of my chair. I would lean forward, I would have like my hands out, just kind of like this. For those of you that are listening on audio, you can't see my hands, but I would have my hands kind of out as if um to kind of welcome, right? But also balance um the partners. Like I was active in the meeting, not just in terms of what I was saying, but in my body language. You have to be active as a planner. And for those of you that are doing virtual meetings, there's a way that you can also do this um on the screen and being active with your body language. You have to also be active with your words. And if we're going to move and shift from content to process, if we're gonna move away from who's right, who's wrong, you've got to be willing to be actively engaged in the conversation. That might also mean that you need to interrupt. Now, this is probably the thing that I hear advisors say makes them so uncomfortable is interrupting a client. But I can assure you that once you practice it and learn how to do it correctly, then it can be a powerful, powerful way to change the conversation from content and conflict to process and connection. So here are a few maybe ways that I interrupt when I look at interrupting a couple. First and foremost, I actually tell my couples that if conflict comes up, I am going to interrupt them. And I actually do this at the very beginning. So if I were to back up a little bit, one of the best things that you can do for yourself if you work with couples is to have some sort of a, you know, it can be brief. It doesn't have to be long-winded, but you know, expectation setting up front early on in the relationship. Um, I used to do this in my very first meeting. And you can set the tone for how conflict is gonna be handled. You could say something like, you know, one thing I want to say is that in these meetings, the two of you are probably gonna disagree about something at some point. And I want you to know that that's completely normal. And sometimes it is incredibly useful because it usually means that we found the thing that actually matters most. When that happens, when you guys get a little hot, right? When things start to heat up, when there is tension, disagreement, or conflict, I am not going to referee it. I am, however, going to slow us down to make sure that I understand both of you. And that may come across as me interrupting you in the moment. I want you to know this up front because for some people, it may come a bit of a surprise. But I want you to know that I am doing this from a place of really trying to make sure that we are staying focused on what truly matters. That was a little long-winded. You can find your own script, but that is how I talk about how conflict will be handled from the get-go. Now, going back to, okay, how do we interrupt maybe the client when conflict starts to happen? Um, you can say something like, hey, I just want to pause us right here for a second because I think something important just happened. Or you could say something like, Can I stop us? Not because anything is wrong, but because I don't want to lose what just came up. Would that be okay? Those are two fantastic ways to interrupt not just the people, but we're interrupting the content, right? Going back to we want to move away from content, right? We want to get out of that place. This is how we, you know, make sure that we're not picking sides right here, is we want to interrupt the content, right? And so interrupting in that way, it's interrupting the what is being talked about without telling someone, hey, can you be quiet for a second? Um, so that I can, you know, hear what this other person has to say. It's not making one client the problem, right? We've just shifted the conversation in such a way to reducing the tension. Hopefully, it allows, you know, breath to kind of be taken. Um, but it also then allows you to get in and to really focus on what matters most. Okay, if we're going to also work on not taking sides, you know, I said we need to be an active participant. We need to move away from content. Um, that might include interrupting. The last piece that I'll say for this one is that I think it's also important that we make the covert overt. Sorry, I have to think about that every time that I say it. We have to make the covert overt. And what I mean by that is naming what you see, naming what you observe, right? Call it out, say it out loud. Here's a way that you can do that. I notice that every time we get to the retirement date, the energy in the room shifts. Am I reading that right? When you make something explicitly overt, like tension, right? Like when we say, hey, I'm noticing that this happens. Am I getting it right? You're giving permission for the couple to be able to talk about the thing, the problem. You're you're giving them that sense of, hey, it's okay. I can handle this. We can have this conversation. There's a real sense of relief that clients can feel knowing that, okay, my advisor, like we can talk about something that's hard and they can handle it. Like they're picking up on this, they're noticing that. There's a real sense of relief and connectedness that can come up in that place. Clients actually will learn to trust you more by naming that out loud in a gentle way, right? We don't want to call them out in a way that's rude and always asking, am I getting, am I getting this right? Okay, so let's move on to that second question that I talked about, which was making sure that we are, you know, not um losing trust with the clients. How do we not damage the relationship there? Now, a few of the things that I just shared are certainly ways that you can build relationship equity with them. That one that I just mentioned, I won't reiterate it, uh, but it's a way that you can build trust. I think that it's important to remember when we look at how do we not damage the relationship with one or with both? The important thing to remember here is that when clients leave a meeting, especially if there is conflict, they want to know that at the end of the day they were understood and that they were heard. And so, how can we structure for you conversationally? How can we structure your position and what you say in such a way that both partners feel understood and they feel heard? Now, there's a few things that come to mind here. One is validation, making sure that you validate and say, hey, I completely understand where it is that you're coming from. That makes a lot of sense to me. Being able to reflect back what it is that they say. Um, and so we talk about reflection, you know, as not just repeating back like word for word, but saying something like, so what I'm hearing is that this is not really about whether we spend $40,000. It's about wanting to know if something happened to you, she would be okay. Do I have that right? We want to make sure that when we're reflecting, we're also, you know, we're not just parroting, right? We're reflecting back the meaning here. And so protecting the relationship, you know, not causing further damage if we're engaging in conflict, you know, validating each partner's position, reflecting back what it is that you're hearing is a way that you can ensure that the client feels seen, that they feel heard, and that they feel understood. Now, a caveat here is that I understand for some, when we validate, it might feel like you are agreeing with what the client is saying. Please hear me that just because you validate someone's position, just because you validate and say, I understand why it is that you think the way that you think or have come to make this decision does not mean that you agree with it. Trust me, there have been countless times that people, clients, couples, partners, they have told me things that I can understand why they have come to that place and feeling this way or making this decision. And also, that's not a great look for them. It's not a great idea. It's not healthy. I can understand it, but I don't maybe agree with how they handled something. So those two are not the same thing. Okay, let's talk about is this really your job? Right? Do I stay inside of this conflict? Do I engage with this? Is this, do I handle this? Is this really actually even my job? Like, should I be doing this? I think that that is a deeply personal question. There are some obvious, right? You know, in ways of like answering that of like, hey, is it your job? Well, no, you shouldn't, your job isn't to resolve the relationship, right? You should not be giving relationship advice. Um, and that's obvious. I don't think that most advisors go into that, into that lane, into that scope. I don't think they want to. But I do think that there are probably many advisors that could walk into those waters, maybe up to their ankles, and just ask questions or validate or reflect back what it is that they're hearing that could help to diffuse the conflict. So is this even your job? There are some aspects, no, right? That are that are not. But there's probably more here that you could be doing that could be helpful. Now, going back to the personal piece, if you are just somebody that is deeply uncomfortable with conflict, please know that by no means am I saying that you just have to deal with it. You have to just learn how to navigate it. It is okay if overt conflict tension makes you really uncomfortable. There's nothing wrong with that. You just need to have a plan for how you're gonna handle it when it shows up in your office, because I don't believe that it's a matter of if, especially if you're working with couples and families. It's truly a matter of when. And conflict might not be yelling and screaming and carrying on and cursing, right? It might be small, it might be subtle, but it still can be there. So if you are someone who is like, hey, I really, I just want to do planning. I really, I have an appreciation for this, but I'm just not quite there on being able to navigate conflict in a way that I feel good, that is okay. Know then at what point or at what level are you going to, I'll say possibly if this was your plan, at what point are you gonna refer out to a specialist who can handle that? With the firms that we work with, our firms, this is the point where they bring us into the client meeting and they will do a handoff and say, oh, this is an Ashley conversation, uh, or we need to bring Ashley Meg into this and have them navigate um this with us. This can be a great um place to bring in somebody else into the meeting if you don't want to necessarily refer them out. So if conflict isn't your jam, that's okay. It doesn't have to be, but you have to have some kind of a protocol, some kind of a process for how you're going to navigate it, what you're going to do when it does show off, uh, show up, even if that means referring out or bringing in a specialist with you. Okay. We talked about several different ways here to navigate conflict. And unfortunately, we're not going to get to all of it. I'm sorry. Oh, I know time is running out, my friends. But if this was helpful for you, I'd love to know exactly maybe what was helpful. Or if this is something you struggle with, let me know. Send me a message and say, hey, yeah, this is actually something I struggle with. I'd like to know a little bit more uh about this. Try out one of these techniques in your next meeting or with your next couple uh where there is conflict and let me know how it goes. I would love to stay in touch with you. All right, my friends, if you have an Ask Ashley question, if you have something that you'd like some feedback on, you'd like to hear my thoughts on that you would like me to answer, feel free to send me that question. You can send it to me by heading to our website and the contact me. You can shoot me an email, hello at beyondthefp.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn where I hang out a lot and you can shoot me a DM with your question. I would love to hear from you. I'd love to be helpful. If this resonated with you, make sure that you go on, subscribe to the Planning and Beyond podcast so that you never miss a future episode like this one. And as always, my friends, remember finances don't have feelings, but your clients do. Until next time, keep planning, keep growing, and keep going beyond.