In other first marriages, you may have an active type and a passive type, so you would explain that type of interaction.  When the passive type gets quiet and withdraws, because of fear or insecurity, the active type gets scared and pushes. Whatever the scenario, use their scores to explain why they're having trouble, and how they try to solve problems. Once you've done that, you address other areas of difficulties you will see on page nine of your text: budget and financial difficulties, sexual issues, interference by relatives, parents, and friends. For this case study dealing with a first marriage, I will discuss many of these which will be repeated in other cases. When you deal with a blended family and second marriage, they will have many of the same issues, perhaps a different slant, but same issues. 

I will explain the types of problems that cases may have because of the situation like a third marriage with sexual issues, or a couple not married, but living together. The same issues, like budget and finances, will have more complications. For your convenience, you will see the material reprinted but applied to different situations. It is the same for other types of relationships, but slant is different. This way you won’t need to go back to find the treatment on a previous page. For example, helping a blended family will have all of the information over sexual issues will be there for you with everything you need on a page. The pattern will be: find the Case Study, examine the composite score graph, and read the symptoms to understand the problem, look at your results, then look at the issues. So, that's a format for what I'm doing with you. In your course materials are several forms that will help you deal with various presenting problems ranging from creating a budget, to setting up a Biblical Separation. 

Budget and Finances

Our first case uses the forms for budget and financial difficulties. Please find the forms that deal with the budget.: 1) A monthly Budget Analysis of Income and Expenditures & 2) The Easy Guide to A Budget You Love, by Larry Burkett. Find those forms in the Required Written Materials zip file and I will explain how to use them to help a client with financial or budgeting difficulties. 

Many times, you'll have clients who live on credit cards, many which have reached the credit limit. One client had about $12,000 charged with 21% interest. They have a sense of hopelessness and despair about paying them off. Some clients are very angry because one spouse is irresponsible in his or her spending. Sometimes, they're just out of work. Sometimes their children are using their money for bail, cars, or non-payment on co-signed loans. Clients may not know anything about budgeting all, because no one ever taught them. They may not have any spiritual concepts of stewardship or budgeting or asking God for help with their money. Most of them don’t know where their spending patterns come from, or why they are constantly scrambling for money.  Thinking that God would help them with how they spend their money or budget, is very foreign to them. 

The treatment description (see Materials tab) starts with analyzing personality type, coping mechanisms, and spiritual concepts through the analysis questionnaire. You can use the budgeting forms to collect information about expenditures, income, and perhaps how to write letters to the creditors. If the clients are willing to honestly face their financial problems, you can help them. Sometimes, your credibility as a counselor will help them with letters to creditors. In order to do that, you will need the creditor to contact person’s information including the person’s name. You can write a letter that says they're sincere, they're in counseling, and you can negotiate for them, possibly some minimal payment that they will accept. Your counseling tasks will be working with their spiritual concepts to establish, strengthen, and clarify their understanding of stewardship. They will need to learn how God directs choices in finances such as learning to restrain from spending. This will ultimately lead them to spiritual understanding and financial stability. 

First, I asked each person to complete the Monthly Budget Analysis form without discussing it with the other and to the best of their ability and return it at the next session. The reason for this is twofold: 1) to see what they each know, and 2) bring reality to their ideas of the amount of money required to live the lifestyle they have chosen. Most times, they realize how little they know, or how much one knows that the other doesn't. In general, husbands and wives have very little understanding of what it takes for the other person to live a quality life: well fed, well dressed, have a sense of peace, and feel that the hard work they do at the job or at home isn’t wasted. This allows each person to have his own or her own personal sense of having life needs met. For example, my wife doesn't know a whole lot about my Harley Davidson, but when I need a spark plug, I need a spark plug. In contrast, I don't know what it takes for my wife to look as beautiful as she does. When she says she needs makeup, she needs makeup. I want her to look nice, but I don't know how much it costs for her to do that. 

Clients will share their budgets and explain their expenses to each other. People argue and fight over money, because they don't have the foggiest idea what the other person needs. As a counselor, I guide them to just give estimates. At the next session, you start at the top and begin to review the completed form by just stating facts without arguing or giving opinions. You start with the wife and review her facts on the form. Then the husband states his facts on income and expenses. You will need to discuss the differences in their estimates. Help them analyze what their problems currently are. Do they need to increase income, cut expenses, set goals. What is currently happening compared to what they would like to happen. There are many options for reaching those goals. Have them put another set of numbers for their goal amounts. Here is where you can speak to them about tithing. Work through each category of spending to help them understand each other’s ideas. For example, ask how much did you put down for insurance? The one who pays the bills will know more of the actual amount. He may not pay the bills, and thinks they spend $100 per month on house insurance, but since she pays the bills, she knows it is $300 per month. You will see information from both sides, and they will see the reality of their finances. She may also explain the inadequacy of his life insurance at $25,000 with three children at home. This is a place they need to think and pray about. 

If you start with the woman to begin about insurance, then ask the man about investments and savings. How much do you save? How much would you like to invest? You will get a figure that may or may not be accurate. What would you like to save? Be prepared for opposition: “We never can. Oh, this is stupid. Oh, we're pipe dreaming. This will never happen.” Push through it anyway. Reassure them that they may not be doing this now, but God can help you establish what you want to do or should do. So, they will get guidelines as we go through this, as to how much they should save. Ask the other person those same questions. What would you like to save, invest? 

Utilities are usually pretty well understood by both. You may see items you may want to ask about. Are you being excessive? Do you want to set your thermostat down? Telephone expense can be a place to make adjustments on the type phone and type of service plans. This is a good item to discuss and propose adjustments. Ask them what they would like modify. Usually, whoever does the shopping, which often is the woman, understands the food and household expenses. Eating out is very expensive especially for families. Many times, men don’t know the cost of the types of food they prefer. They can be excessive in what they eat, or wanting to live beyond their means. You may find some adjustment here. You may set a goal for reduction, or in some cases, to spend more on higher quality food especially if they are not physically well. You will find that family recreation, medical health and clothing are the most neglected areas. 

The next issue is to discuss what they would like to spend. This is a valid reason to be able to set aside money for recreation and vacations. Many times, couples lose their romance, because they no longer go out together, while dressing to look nice for each other. They become overwhelmed with all of the daily obligations it takes to maintain a family; they no longer have time for each other and that sense of being special to someone evaporates. This category of recreation also includes recreation for the kids. The time set aside and the amount of money doesn’t have to be great, but it helps everyone to look forward to something fun and different. Moving money around from different areas can help get this funded. 

Poor health and dental issues are important to address for the whole family. If you don’t take care of your body, you lose energy, attractiveness and sexual functions. Each person should take on the responsibility for personal health. Men and women need yearly checkups, medications and examinations that prevent disease. Money for medications should be included. You may need to reduce your goal or redirect the money into new types of expenditures, so you can have current and future expenditures.  And the whole point of this is that God wants them to take care of themselves, be healthy, and will empower them to work to have their needs met. Clothing is another category where the same sort of thing can happen, but it's got a little bit different effect. It is important to a woman to have her husband dress in a way that shows self-respect and dignity and attractive. The clothes that create the image. Also, women need to have clothing that gives them a good sense of self respect, and appealing to her husband. This is a deeper issue that they need to think and pray about, to find what is reasonable and possible for them. God wants them to look nice for each other, and represent themselves well to others, and have a sense of personal self-respect. Don’t accept either of them to dismiss themselves as not being good enough or worth having what they need. And usually, you'll find they've neglected it because they have mismanaged their money. Their focus has been on other things.  

Auto expenses include payments and maintenance, age of the car and if some of the work is done by the husband. Often the wife is not aware of costs beyond the monthly payment. House payments and or rent is usually known by both of them. Sometimes housing expense is not in line with what they need or can afford. A house larger than is needed costs more in utilities, taxes, insurance and payment interest. For example, one couple I worked with had an expensive house with high costs, and unneeded space. They had two children, and six bedrooms, two stories with a full finished basement, and three fireplaces. They bought it for all of the wrong reasons. When they really looked at what they had done, they realized that they had to sell the house. 

Sometimes things are inappropriate, incidentals, and others can be anything we haven't listed here. People spend a lot of money on all types of small things like: TV subscriptions, video games, designer coffee, parking, gifts for family, fees and fines, etc.  Have them list all of the incidentals. I've put a note that reads, “Please list all items of debt on the reverse side of this sheet, along with the monthly payments for each debt, carry the total payments per month into the column marked others.” Once you have totals for each category, divide the totals into months, and the net income into months. This will show them why they are having financial difficulties. Go back through the expenses with them, to negotiate or compromise on any given expense. You're doing this through prayer. This will be a quantum leap for them. 

Question 4. Remind them of the process of patience: What are the facts? For example, one couple had, I think, $353 over on their first attempt run through at their budget. One item or two items we looked at were cable TV and pool chemicals. They had a large in-ground pool, so we discussed the cost of maintenance for it. We discussed the TV subscriptions and Wi-Fi costs which included many extra options.  What are the facts? What are your feelings about all of this? They were anxious about giving up what they liked. I asked them to pray about what they were outing in their mind. What does God think about how this supports you spiritually? The Bible doesn’t approve of being over your budget and viewing sinful activities. You will need to think and pray about what Jesus would do. You're going to have to ask the Holy Spirit to show you what you need to do. Spending money on something that is bad for you is creating financial instability. 

The other example, is the maintenance of a large swimming pool. This pool was costing them about $200 a month in chemicals. We used the same process of facts, feelings and perspectives. This was a luxury they really didn't need. They gathered facts about usage, chemical treatments and learned they use the pool about two months out of the year. They also learned that the pool doesn’t require the amount they were using. After praying about it, they decided to not use it as early or late in the year, which would save about ¼ of the cost of chemicals. The next expense we examined was the telephone. We discussed the cost of the phones, service plans and what they pay for, but don’t use to find more savings.  What will happened is the money begins to shift from areas of over spending to areas where it is really more needed. Through this process they will have a better sense of what they need now. This first budget is not set in stone, but a beginning. After a month, you check with them and see how they can adjust it further. Use patience again. Check out your motive. See what you're doing. See if you need to keep it there. Keep going through the process of prayer and evaluation and communication with each other so that you understand what the needs are, and work on debt reduction. So, you keep working on focus, priorities, prayer, and submission to the Holy Spirit. 

In this particular case, both were active type personalities. They were power strugglers, and while working on this issue, he would spend money and not talk to her first. He felt entitled. She would seek relief and happiness through buying things she liked. Both of them had to stop manipulating each other with their spending. They needed to learn and practice the process of patience with life issues. As they got better at this type of communication, they gave each other feedback about whether an expense was reasonable or workable. 

That second form is from Crown Financial Ministries (Money Wise), Larry Burkett. His 5 step model works well for clients, describes the steps to set up a budget, then provides other links to his forms on pages 10 & 11. His steps and forms simplify financial budgeting and spending and are used world wide and has helped thousands of couples over the last 20 plus years. This format will be better for clients who are interested in finding the detail information about how they are using their money. Dependent upon your discernment of the client, either walk through the 5 steps with them or assign it for homework for the next session, as a practical means to take action on their financial needs and accountability.

Obviously, they’re already living paycheck to paycheck, but as they adjust and stop spending money outside of their budgeted amount, with God’s help, they can work together to set aside a little to build up a buffer for savings. There are excellent online programs that will do all of this form them once they enter their basic information. I'd encourage them to do that and either way there are no illusions, fears, insecurities or misunderstandings about where their money goes. 

In this particular case, the power struggles were clouding the real issues of how the money was spent. I confronted them about their tendencies within their personalities to show them why they were arguing. They needed to address the spiritual issues of being submissive to God with your money, and not acting out insecurities through buying or control. Once they made out a budget, they learned how much they were spending beyond what they earned. Over time, they worked to get they spending within their limits.