Financial infidelity
Hiding a financial behaviour from a partner because you expect them to disapprove: secret spending, debt, savings, gambling, gifts or income. The secrecy is the defining part, not the amount.
What drives it
Concealment avoids an argument, keeps a pocket of independence, or protects the person from shame about debt or spending. For identification, the methods give it away: cash instead of card, parcels sent elsewhere, a separate account, packaging thrown out.
How it shows
Work
Salary paid into an account the partner doesn’t know about, a bonus never mentioned at home, side income kept off the joint picture, and parcels delivered to the office.
Relationships
Statements that stop arriving, quick changes of subject when money comes up, a card found in a drawer, receipts taken out of bags, and a discovery felt as a betrayal close to sexual infidelity, followed by a fight about trust more than the sum.
Self
You round down what things cost when asked, keep a balance you would not want shown, and feel a jolt when your partner picks up your phone near the banking app.
What tells it apart
Economic abuse: Someone hiding money from a controlling partner to build an exit fund is protecting themselves. Financial infidelity is concealment between partners where neither controls the other.
Compulsive buying: Hiding purchases can be one sign of compulsive buying. If the spending itself is out of control and continues despite harm, the secrecy may be a symptom rather than the main problem.
Money conflict in couples: Conflict is the open version. Infidelity often starts where open disagreement felt too costly.
A test
Ask whether there is any account, debt or purchase the partner would be upset to learn about, and why it hasn’t been mentioned. Fear of disapproval may point to financial infidelity. Fear of what the partner does in response to any independence points more towards control.
Questions to carry
- When the partner last asked about money, what was left out, and what was the person afraid would happen if it came out?
- Which number in my finances would I least want my partner to see, and what do I think it says about me?
Go deeper
- Read: Mind over Money, Brad Klontz and Ted Klontz, 2009. Written for readers by a father and son who work in financial psychology. It sets out the money scripts and the money disorders they lead to, among them money avoidance, financial infidelity, enabling and dependence.
- Listen: The Money Scripts That Are Holding Back Your Financial Future, The Art of Manliness podcast, episode 529, 2019. Brad Klontz on how money scripts form in childhood, on money avoidance and money worship, on the pull back to the class you grew up in, and on secrecy, enabling and dependence in families. Free to play, with a full transcript.
How strong the research is
moderate. Garbinsky, Gladstone, Nikolova and Olson (2020) built and tested a Financial Infidelity Scale across lab studies, a field study and bank-app data, and scores predicted hidden transactions and accounts. Prevalence figures mostly come from polls with loose definitions, and the researchers set apart hiding money to escape an abusive partner, which is a safety strategy.
Where it comes from
Emily Garbinsky, Joe Gladstone, Hristina Nikolova and Jenny Olson, 2020 (Love, Lies, and Money: Financial Infidelity in Romantic Relationships, Journal of Consumer Research).