The Love & Money Wound™ is the fear that you can’t have both money and love, freely and in abundance.
The core self-limiting belief behind this Wound is “Love & money are wrapped up together in many of my most intimate relationships, both present and past, in a way that limits them both. So money is never just about money, and love is never just about love. To get one I must sacrifice some aspect of the other.”
This Wound is the most difficult one of the 6 primary Sales Wounds™ to recognize in yourself because its roots are deep in our early childhood, and it forms the basis of how we give and receive love in the world.
So unless your Love & Money Wound™ has been dealt with (usually through therapy), your life is currently built around your Wound, and to acknowledge it would require you to make some BIG changes in your most intimate relationships. Understandably, most people don’t want to do that – at least not in response to reading an article!
While there are many different relationships that can form in response to the Love & Money Wound™, today we’re going to look at the Rich Housewife. And we’re going to look at it through the lens of a friend of mine, Heidi Knoderer.
The Rich Housewife Love & Money Wound™ Archetype
Heidi is a 60-something professional woman living in Guadalajara, Mexico with 4 grown children and 2 ex-husbands.
Hers is the classic case of the Rich Housewife archetype of the Love & Money Wound™: she married an extremely wealthy man who bought her anything and everything her heart desired, and yet he demanded that in exchange, she obey him in every way.
Why did she marry him?
First of all, she freely admits, she really enjoyed the material things he gave her!
But even as she was enjoying his gifts, she recognized that he was selfish and entitled and didn’t exhibit a lot of consideration for her feelings and desires.
Yet somehow she talked herself into believing that once they were married, he would change. Because he loved her and understood her so well, she convinced herself, he would come to see how unhappy it made her when he disregarded her, and he would stop doing it.
Wasn’t he surprised to discover the exact opposite! After they married, he became more demanding, more controlling, more inconsiderate of her feelings and desires.
And when she tried to discuss it with him, pointed out how selfish he was being, his response was always, “How can you say I’m selfish?! I give you everything you could possibly want!”
This is a classic Love & Money Wound™.
For his part, he doesn’t even recognize that money and love are different. He doesn’t understand that even though it’s true that he’s providing as much material support as she could ever hope for, it doesn’t let him off the hook for also providing love.
For her part, when they were dating she talked herself into believing “He’s so in love with me!” just because of all the gifts he bought her. He showered so much affection on her in the form of presents every single day of their courtship, that she didn’t have time to notice that he didn’t show affection or love in any other ways.
Heidi’s story is far from unique unfortunately. Many, many women make the choice to marry a wealthy man, believing at the time that it’s love. But when they realize that they actually want more than just money, it can be difficult to extract themselves from the relationship.
Have you had relationships in the past where you let money masquerade as love?
A much harder question to ask yourself is, Are you in any relationships now that don’t feel loving to you, but you don’t say anything because of the material security the relationship provides?