That was one of the most incredible introductions ever. That was fantastic. I have a very similar personality, where I just know in my gut about certain people. Truly, I can read somebody, and this is why dating was so difficult, was it was like I could walk into the room on a first date, and it wasn’t even physical attraction. I would know immediately, “This date will go well” or “This date will not.” I knew immediately. It’s the same thing where many of my friends, one of my good friends, Alexis, literally we were both speaking at a conference. We met eyes across the room, dancing to Beyonce, and I was like, “Oh, she’s going to be a good friend.” We just both knew. So I love that you bullied her into friendship. You were like, “All right.”

Jennifer:

That’s exactly how it happened. I’m an introvert. I like my alone time. So if you ever saw that meme that’s like, “Every relationship started with one extroverted person who bullied an introvert to be their friend.”

Emmalee:

Adopted. I think it’s adopted, not bullied. But I’ll [inaudible 00:10:42].

Tori Dunlap:

[inaudible 00:10:42] clear. I adopted you.

Jennifer:

I’ll say she adopted me. But I think it has been such an incredible relationship that we have built since 2012. I think one of the really important things that we learned in being therapists, and we’re systemic therapists, is how transformative your relationships can be in your life. That is something we emulate with each other, that’s something we emulate with all of our clinicians, and it trickles down to the clients that they see, too. We have learned that the biggest predictor of therapeutic success is the relationship that you have with your therapist.

We always talked about how when we’ve gone to therapy in the past, we’ve been with certain therapists who you’re hitting this clinical wall. Our question was always, “How do you build an actual relationship with that person?” So our business, The Therapy Group, has created that message of that in order to have really good success in therapy, you need to be able to build a relationship with a real, down to earth person.

That’s something Emmalee and I have talked about time and time again throughout the years, how important that was for us to not just create an authentic relationship with each other, but with our clinicians, with clients, and with everyone we meet. So we very much are the same across everything we do. People are very surprised, I think, when that happens, that people are like, “Wow, I’m meeting you, and you seem to be exactly the same as you are on the podcast, as you are as a business owner.” It just spans across all areas of our lives. So that’s, I think, one thing that we really connected on and has really helped us a lot in terms of building a business together.

Emmalee:

We say this thing. Everyone’s had a tour. You’ve probably had a therapist in your life who you’re like, “Not the best match for me,” whether you felt it by energy, whether you were a few sessions in. One thing I want to make clear is we don’t believe in ever talking smack at other therapists, because what you have to understand is this is what they’re teaching in grad schools. You are literally being taught to button yourself up as much as possible. Do not bring your personality into the room, right?

So what we do, we have a training program as well with interns and stuff. We have to teach people to unlearn all the bullshit. So unlearn all the stuff they taught you, which is really built in a very patriarchal way, because the basis and the majority of these theories you’re learning, the majority of people are older white men. Then what you know is that there’s a few women that come out, and they were loving and kind and held unconditional positive regard while being direct and honest with clients. Those were the relationships people saw transformed.

Tori Dunlap:

I think it’s also this perspective, too, that there’s almost a class or a status differentiation of the therapist is the one in power. The client is the one who just sits there and listens. It does not feel like a reciprocal relationship in that way. It’s just like, “This is the person who’s going to tell you what to do after listening to you.” There’s not a back and forth. There’s not a mutual empathy, if that makes sense.

Emmalee:

But you just used the exact word, which is power. There’s a power difference, and there’s a lot of therapists that are coming from a one-up position of, “I know what is right, and I know what’s best for you.” We really believe that every person is the expert on themselves, and I will say that there are some people that want to come in and to talk. They want someone to tell them what to do, and that’s great for those people. We are not for everyone. That is the number one thing people should learn in this life, is you are not for everyone, and everyone is not for you. That is okay.

Tori Dunlap:

That’s amazing. Have you guys watched Shrinking? Have you heard about this show?

Jennifer:

Yes.

Emmalee:

Of course.

Jennifer:

We love Shrinking.

Emmalee:

They’re doing an amazing job. The way they’re talking about just how unbelievably difficult this is to feel like, “I can only stay in the room, but then I’m missing half of my client’s life. What if I was to go out in the world with them? What if I said, ‘Fuck the rules’?”

Tori Dunlap:

Right.

Emmalee:

Right? I think that that is really cool, because that’s exactly what we would love to see happen with this field. Let’s stop putting all the rules on. Let’s figure out how to be ethical while still being involved in a different type of way.

Jennifer:

Right. There’s certain things that maybe we wouldn’t recommend, like the client moving in with the therapist. I don’t know if necessarily-

Tori Dunlap:

That’s not super ethical. Yeah.

Jennifer:

[inaudible 00:15:25]. Right. But I love that show.

Emmalee:

But going to a coffee shop with them.

Jennifer:

Yes. Yeah.

Emmalee:

Going into a coffee shop and saying … You know what I mean?

Jennifer:

Making therapy more fluid in some way.

Tori Dunlap:

Totally.

Emmalee:

Yeah.

Tori Dunlap:

Yeah, and I’ve only seen the first episode. But yeah, it did seem both so lovely and empathetic in the way he was going about it, Jason Siegel’s character, but also, at the same point, I was like, “Oh, this is borderline unethical.” I was like, “Ugh, it’s getting a little spicy.”

Jennifer:

Right. Oh, yeah. Oh, it gets worse. Oh. Oh, yeah. Keep going, Emmalee. Yeah.

Emmalee:

Well, and I think there’s a funny part of it, that you could sit there and be like … Jen and I had this conversation I was talking about in ShrinkChicks that I was having a miscarriage. I have had multiple miscarriage. I’ve struggled a lot with infertility. I was started miscarrying during a session. It was a virtual session. It was over COVID, and I did nothing. I just knew it was happening. I knew this thing was going on. I froze, and I finished the session. It’s 15 minutes in. So you go through this thing, and you watch them do it in the first episode, where you could have someone bitching about their husband taking their phone charger. You’re having this huge thing happening for you, and still, your job is to hold space for them.

Tori Dunlap:

Right, and you’re not doing, of course, a good job of it. So that’s the other thing, too. Yeah, and we know this from statistics and studies of mutual vulnerability, like, “I feel safe to be vulnerable if the other person is also safe to be vulnerable.” I understand it again from an ethical, from a boundaries perspective. I totally get it. But one thing I think that’s been difficult for me in therapy is it’s like there’s not a mutual dish, which is part of the reason I’m going to therapy, is it’s just like I don’t have to also hold space for somebody else’s problems. But there is that certain level of, “Oh, this is going to be a little bit more difficult to navigate, because there isn’t this mutual vulnerability.”

Jennifer:

Yeah, and we always talk about the isomorphic nature of the therapeutic relationship and how you can take that into other relationships in your life. Just in your example, Tori, of not having that kind of mutual space that you start to learn that, “Okay. I can create space for” … If you’re someone who’s typically creating space for someone else, going into therapy and having someone else create space for you is going to feel very different and very uncomfortable.

So to be able to create that with a therapist in a space that feels really safe, part of that goal is to take that relationship and have that translate into other relationships in your life. I think one of the things we always talk about, too, is a way to combat that with your therapist is if your client’s asking you a question about yourself, a personal question, you get to decide what you do with that. We were taught in grad school if you’re like, “Oh, well, I’m going on vacation, so I won’t be able to see you this day,” that if someone says, “Oh, where are you going on vacation?” that your answer should be something to the effect of, “Well, what does that mean to you?”

Tori Dunlap:

It’s a fucking harmless question.

Emmalee:

How would you feel? So how would you feel, though?

Tori Dunlap:

Yeah. It’s them probing back into, “Well, why are you asking that?” I’m like, “Because I’m being a good person who’s interested in your life. Woof.”

Jennifer:

Yes, and that is exactly the thing that we battle back against, that if someone asked me where I’m going on vacation, I’m going to tell them. The answer would probably be nowhere. I need a vacation.

Emmalee:

It’d have to be at my house. I’m just not leaving for seven days.

Jennifer:

My house. I’m going to take a serious nap. Yes, staycation. That’s a small example of how important we believe it is as therapists to be real human beings, that if you ask me a question about where I’m going on vacation, I’m going to be honest with you. Am I going to talk about what I’m going to do on that vacation, my relationship with my husband, and how this is helping us reconnect? Absolutely not. But I am going to share these things with you because I’m a human being, and it’s okay as a therapist to be a human being and for you as the client to want your therapist to also be a human being.

Tori Dunlap:

I feel like all the professors at y’all’s grad school must have watched What About Bob? and then based their entire-

Emmalee:

Yeah, and we told them, I will say this, that we were in our early twenties when we opened up our business, and we got a lot of negative feedback, a lot of people directly saying to us, “Are you sure you’re really ready for this? Do you really think you’re worth it to charge that amount of money?” We were charging $60. We were charging $60 a session, and still, it made an older generation incredibly uncomfortable.

I understand why. It feels a little bit like right now we’re having these intergenerational battles, right? The Boomers hate the Millennials and the Gen Z and all this stuff. But I can really understand why you might feel frustrated with that when you have felt kept in a box for your whole life, when you have felt like, especially with women, there could only be a certain amount of women in charge or a certain amount of women on the executive level. It makes sense of how you can turn on each other really, really quickly. What we did was really uncomfortable for them, and it was really hard for us to get a bunch of negative feedback and still go with it. It’s still something you just keep doing, because if you can learn to trust that gut and trust that instinct the way you’re talking about, Tori, you’re going to feel really good about it.

Tori Dunlap:

Totally. You mentioned when you introduced yourselves as systemic therapists. I don’t know if I’ve heard that term. Talk about what that means.

Jennifer:

So systemic therapists basically see their clients and everything they do in context, right? So you can think about this, if you think abou
t going to therapy, that there’s certain things that are maybe pathologized, like, “Oh, you have depression, and here’s your diagnosis.” We like to look at everything in context. “Well, when did that depression start? What was going on in your life? Did you have a death?” You’re looking at everything in the context that it started, as opposed to this linear nature of X equals Y, right? So we look at the big picture. We look at intergenerational stuff, how your parents’ messages, how your grandparents’ messages have trickled down into the way in which you see the world, the way in which you see your relationships and so that you can gain an understanding of how you function in the world, how you see things in the world, and you get to make choices, right?

The more understanding you have around, “Well, I picked up these messages from this intergenerational trauma, and I’m still following through with how I’ve learned to function in the world,” is that actually serving me, or is it not serving me in the ways that I think that it is, right? So we take these messages from our families, from our systems, and we bring them into our lives and believe that they’re still functional for us. So what we do is help people see the larger systemic picture of how you developed into the person that you are and how that might be affecting your relationships.

Tori Dunlap:

For me, that just feels so obvious. Why doesn’t everybody do that?

Emmalee:

Yeah, it does feel obvious, right? But people that go in, and you’ll hear something. You ever meet with someone, and you’re like, “Man, that person needs therapy.” They start talking about going therapy, and you’re like, “Whoa, who’s their therapist?” Right? There’s a lot of people that will go into therapy, and they will talk about how everyone else in their life is causing them problems or everyone else in their life is the problem, right? So our job is to be like, “Okay, well, what’s your part in it?,” because that is very important to see, “What is my part in the system, and then how is the system involved?” That is on such a massive level, right? So your microsystem, your family, who’s working in the office next to you, but that even goes as high as intergenerational racism within the country, sexism within the country. All these different things that affect literally everything we do every single day have to be taken into account for.

Tori Dunlap:

Totally. When we’re doing research and thinking about this increased focus on mental health, which is great, we’re still getting this conversation happening around accessibility, right? It’s like mental health is super important, yet many insurance companies refuse to cover mental health or are very, very limited on what they will cover, and there’s some therapists, understandably so, who don’t offer an insurance option. Even though it’s this talking point for politicians, there seems to be very little resources about how to get people help. Do you feel like that’s stigma? Do you feel like that’s lack of qualified clinicians? Is it something else? Emmalee, if you want to start, we’re in this mental health soup. What are all the factors that are affecting this?

Emmalee:

So one of the things is we’re also throwing in mental health as the solution for everything, but it’s not. It’s revolution and changing law.

Tori Dunlap:

Sure. Yep.

Emmalee:

So if I am involved in a mass shooting, right? You know what I mean? If I am in school and someone comes in and shoots up my school, going to therapy is going to maybe help. Doing EMDR is maybe going to help. But what’s really going to help is gun laws. So people are going to keep talking about mental health, but I got to tell you, I can’t do shit about gun laws. I cannot do shit. You know what I mean? I can do stuff on my little level with people in my room right here, but I can’t change laws. So I think that it’s a huge buzzword, but nobody’s actually doing anything, right?

It actually would be really easy for them to … Maybe not easy in this day and age, but it would be possible for legislation to put involved that insurance has to cover mental health, but also the fact that mental health clinicians are the least reimbursed for everything. You have doctors that are getting reimbursed 80%. Mental health clinicians are getting reimbursed 30 to 50%, meaning they can’t make a livable wage. There’s no livable wage with it, right? So you want somebody to come in, and we’re huge advocates of therapists, because you want someone to come in and sit in trauma and help people all day long, but then they can’t afford their rent. That is not going to work. So this is a larger issue that we can’t deal with within that room, but it has to be dealt with through legislation.

I think that there’s been tons of therapists that put out free content all the time. We have a podcast. There’s a gajillion therapist on TikTok. There’s a gajillion things. Saw a lot of people that should not be doing those things, but hey, listen, beggars can’t be choosers sometimes. So there is a ton of free stuff that is coming out there, and there is accessible stuff. We have a training program here. People can be seen for low as a dollar. There are lots of therapists that are having sliding scale spots. They’re doing all of these things as much as they can, and we have a greed problem in this nation, not a mental health problem when it comes to money.

That’s really hard for people to see, and you’ll see it. You could see the discord around it online of how therapists are greedy, because they’re not taking insurance. They’re not able to truly eat and pay their rent when they take insurance. You have to take on … It’s not the problem, right? There is such a larger problem here, and it is. I can’t tell you the amount of time that there is some mass shooting and they talk about mental health that I want you scream, because yeah, we have mental health problems. Every nation does. Every person has mental health, and every single nation has mental illness and struggles with mental health. We’re the only ones that keep having this issue. So I don’t think it’s the mental health.

Tori Dunlap:

Right. Well, there’s a million examples like that, right? Like sexual assault survivors. Maybe let’s teach our typically men to stop assaulting people. Let’s hold men accountable for these sorts of things, right? Let’s not create a criminal justice system where it’s almost impossible to get somebody prosecuted and also the trauma you have to go through to get somebody prosecuted, but it’s of course just like it’s on the victim to then navigate the trauma for the rest of their life. Yeah, we could do this with any example. It’s all systemic issues.

Emmalee:

Okay, and in the state of Pennsylvania, we have amazing victim compensation funds here, but almost nobody knows about it. So in the state of Pennsylvania, you can get great therapy and get victim compensation and get reimbursed for those sessions. But first of all, then you’re asking people to fill out paperwork. You’re asking them to then follow up. You know what I mean about how long it takes to ge
t reimbursed for that kind of stuff, right? You’re asking people to be able to front that money.

So yes, in theory, it’s this great plan, but most people can’t front $100 to do that, not in this day and age. Also, you want to find someone who takes insurance. You have these amazing souls that do take insurance and are willing to be under a livable wage. How long do you think that wait list is? Wait list for a psychiatrist in our area that takes insurance right now is five months. Five months, someone told me the other day. Do you think anyone’s calling because, “Well, you want to know what? In five months, I think I might need some Lamictal.” They’re calling because, “Right now, I need medicine and an eval.”

Jennifer:

That’s the thing, is that I think, too, it is a broken system. Instead of looking at the system, we look at the individual, and we say, “You are the broken one,” right? “How are we going to fix you?” That’s the thing. As therapists, that’s what we have control over in so many ways. That’s what we can help with, is helping the individual manage a difficult society and a difficult world, right? A lot of the things that we talk about is there are so much that is out of your control. Let’s talk about the things that are in your control and the ways in which we can help you manage and cope with that and work through that.

Tori Dunlap:

That’s the nuance part of this. We looked it up. The cost for individuals, serious mental illness for those diagnosed at age 25 bear a lifetime burden of $1.85 million in care. Crazy. But then, of course, you have therapists who are also like, “This is my job. This is my job. I have to pay my rent and buy my groceries and pay for kids’ daycare. This is my job as well.” I think we’ve really started to understand especially in the past couple years how necessary mental health services are, yet how burned out our therapists and providers are, because I think any job burns you out, right? But there is a certain level, of course, whether you are working in physical healthcare, you’re a nurse, or it’s mental healthcare, where you’re literally taking on people’s trauma for a living. That’s horribly difficult.

Jennifer:

Yeah, and the thing is that most therapists who go into it, they are bleeding hearts. They want to help as many people as they can, and it’s really on a human level hard to not be able to do that for everyone and still be able to function in your own right. So we talk about this a lot with our therapists, because we talk about burnout and how they can find balance in their lives, because the more that they’re able to take care of themselves, the more they’re going to be able to take care of others. That is why we have an internship program, too, so that we can provide more accessible therapy.

But yeah, I think something that Emmalee said is that just the knowledge, too, about these accessible therapy options is also not there. So I think spreading the word and really getting referral lists together of, “Here are some more accessible options. Here’s what you can do and not spend as much money. You can listen to podcasts. You can read books. You can find these resources.”

Emmalee:

Usually there’s amazing local resources, right? If you are in the Philadelphia area and you need this, please reach out to us at Contact Therapy Group. We will help you find something that you can afford. But the reality is most local places do not have the money for mass marketing. So what you’re getting access to is somewhere BetterHelp that spends all of their money on marketing, which I guess good for them. They underplay their therapists, but most people are going to go there, because they hear the name all the time. It’s easy to access. I download an app, and it’s within their budget. So that’s what they go for. Most places in a community mental health nonprofit center, they’re not advertising, right? I can’t pay for a spot on a podcast. So there is a reality of what it is, but community resources are huge. Learn what community resources is in your area, and it can vastly improve your options.

Tori Dunlap:

I really appreciate you saying that. We took a BetterHelp sponsorship for the first season of the show, and we got a lot of responses from therapists that were like, “Please do not work with them anymore.” It was something I was always conflicted about, because it is like, “Yes, I want to do right by therapists,” but also, many friends have used BetterHelp, and that was their most accessible option. We have not taken a BetterHelp sponsorship since. It has been impactful for our business in terms of we have lost revenue. But it felt like the right thing to do. But it’s complicated, right? Because I’m like, “I want to do right with therapists. But also, if this resource is out there for somebody who’s really, really, really struggling” … Yeah, there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism is basically the …

Emmalee:

Exactly. That’s the answer, and the other thing that people also aren’t realizing is the fact that they’re a state licensure, right? So the other thing is that if I have a rural kid in Arkansas who very much needs help, they’re going to log onto BetterHelp, because they could call us up and maybe they heard our podcast for free, but I can’t go see someone in Arkansas, because I only have a state licensure. So the state licensure system is also a broken system. [inaudible 00:34:04] virtual.

Tori Dunlap:

So you’re telling me that you can’t work with me? Because literally, I’m writing down. I’m like, “Reach out after podcast, because need new”-

Emmalee:

No, I think we have someone. No, I’m pretty sure now we actually do serve your state.

Tori Dunlap:

Okay.

Emmalee:

But here’s an example, right?

Tori Dunlap:

Because I’m in Washington State. I’m in Seattle. But I’m literally like, “Reach out to Jen and Emmalee. Help them fix me.” Anyway, yeah, great.

Emmalee:

But last time we talked to you, we did it, right? So as now, we spend a massive amount of our time and energy getting our clinician licensed in extra states, because here’s an example. I’m currently in our Westchester, Pennsylvania location. I don’t have a Delaware license. Delaware is seven miles away. If somebody calls me from Delaware, I can’t see them, but somebody could call me in Pittsburgh, which is seven hours away, and I can see them. I don’t know shit about resources in Pittsburgh. I know a lot about resources in Delaware. So that’s what I mean about.

So we’ll have people call up, and I’ll be like, “Man, I’d love to take you on. We would love to help you. We’d love to, but we simply cannot, because we don’t have state licensure there.” That’s gatekeeping of money by the states, and it’s also why then we ha
ve therapists that are either giving up their licensure to become life coaches, or we have people that are saying, “Screw it. Why would I become a therapist? Why would I go to school? I can become a life coach for free with no ethical board.” But then who’s watching them, and who’s making sure people are having ethical, responsible relationships? Broken system.

Tori Dunlap:

This podcast is really called It’s A Broken System. We’re Fucked. That’s the title. That’s like Financial Feminist, Everything’s Fucked. That’s the subtitle. I do want to transition, though, into … so community resources, which is amazing. Let’s talk about finance-related anxieties. We have talked a lot on the show. I’ve spoken about this many times. We’ve spent the entire first chapter of my book talking about the emotions and the psychology of money, because really, you can’t learn how to pay off debt. You can’t learn how to navigate this until you start to understand what’s going on in your brain, what’s going on in your body. So we know from our research, and literally, I could walk out on the street right now and ask people, “How do you feel about money?,” and they’re going to say fear and shame and anxiety and all of those things. So what are some ways we can cope with or start to work to manage financial anxiety from two very qualified licensed therapists?

Emmalee:

So first, you’re going to buy The Financial Feminist, and you’re going to do the first chapter. Then you’re going to listen to this podcast. No. So do those things, and then after that, you’ll be like, “Oh, shit. Didn’t solve it all,” because at the end of the day, insight is not curative. We can have insight all day long, but what we’re going to look for is insight, awareness, and action. So the insight is, “Oh, man. I have a lot of anxiety around money.” The awareness is, “Oh, I tell my friends I can’t go out because I’m worried about spending the money, even though I do have that money to do.” Then the action is, “What am I going to do about it? How am I going to expose myself to the discomfort and learn distress tolerance skills to move past that discomfort?”

Jennifer:

When we talk about this kind of systemic nature and the way that this gets passed down from generation to generation, as we’re reiterating, insight is not curative, but it can help you understand when it’s coming up in the present and the ways in which it might not be helpful for you.

So for example, if your parents, grandparents experience some sort of financial trauma and the way in which maybe your parents have dealt with that financial trauma is to say, “Hold on to all of your money. Don’t spend any money,” so if our parents have experienced some sort of financial trauma, and the way in which they learn to deal with that trauma is to say, “I’m going to hold on to all my money. I’m not going to spend it. I have a scarcity mindset,” and you grew up hearing that in your household, right? You grew up hearing your parents talking about money in that way, and you recognize that in your life as an adult, that is still a message that you hold to be true. “I have to hold onto all my money so that I can protect myself from this intergenerational trauma that was passed down.”

So for you to understand that that was rooted in some family stuff that was maybe present at that time, but is no longer present now. The thing is, we take the things that maybe were once helpful for us or we understood in a very specific way, and we bring them into adulthood. We keep using the same lens, and so the question is is that lens still working for you in your relationships?

So it’s something you can bring to the surface constantly, to be able to say, “Okay, I realize I’m wanting to hold on to this money. I’m not wanting to spend any money, even though I know that I can.” So right? You’re checking yourself in the present to say, “Is this model of looking at money, how I feel about money, is this lens actually serving me in the present, in my relationships?” and to really take inventory on that over and over and over again.

Something Emmalee and I always talk about in our relationship, because we deal with money together, is that I very much have a scarcity mindset, and Emmalee is more of a spender. So we always have to have this conversation. We always have to talk about, “Where did this come from for me, and is this actually serving us in our business?,” because in order to grow in your business, you have to spend money. You have to be able to put money out there, to spend money to make more money. So we always have to have these conversations where we’re checking ourselves and saying, “Are these rules that I have for myself that I learned from my family, are they still working in my relationships?” If yes, then go on with your bad self. If no, you can continue to work on that over and over and over again and recognize that the anxiety that might be coming up for you is not about present day. That is passed-down intergenerational financial trauma.

Tori Dunlap:

Well, it’s a perfect transition, too. We get so many voicemails from people about managing money with somebody else, typically a romantic partner, trying to figure out how to talk about money. Can we discuss some common money miscommunications romantic partners have and then how to navigate that? Emmalee, if you want to go first.

Emmalee:

Avoidance. Everyone wants to avoid. So couples will come in, and they’ll be like, “And then he spends all the money.” They’ll do it under their breath. I’m like, “Ah, that means something to you,” right? So usually, it’s this thing that we fight about over and over again that never gets resolved or we avoid it completely, and I just am resentful. So you have to talk about hard things in your relationship. I don’t care if it’s money, sex, in-laws. Those are just the three most common ones that everyone talks about. But this is about you and I together, not against each other. So many people are really indoctrinated into their experience, growing up, that it feels like their partner is betraying them by it being different, right?

So Jen and I might not be in a romantic relationship, but we are so vastly different about money. We have to talk and deal with money every single week that we have to bring to it, and it is horrible. We didn’t do a good job at the beginning of our relationship. We tried to actually make it two business entities so we could keep it separately, because we were so uncomfortable. A lot of couples do that, and if that’s right for you, that’s great to keep it separate. Everyone gets to decide for themselves. But be aware of why you’re doing it. Is it because of discomfort, or is it because, “You want to know what? Double income, no kids. I’m living that DINK life. I don’t want to combine.” That’s great. That’s totally fine, but what’s the real reason behind it? So you watch people truly avoid.

So one of the things that is important is to say, “We’ve got to start talking about some stuff.” One of the things we have trouble is we have to get on the same page about money. It is okay if we don’t agree on all those things, because we get to make our own together. There are certain stuff about spending that I don’t care about, and there’s certain stuff that’s really important to me. You have to decide which to
let go and which to hold onto. You can’t die on every hill in your relationship. So what’s the way? “Hey, it’s really important for me to have this much money in a money market account.” Okay. You know what I mean? Or “It’s okay for me to have this,” and that’s going through conversations that are not one-time conversations. It is conversation again and again and again and again until the day that we die, or someone else takes over my money, I guess.

Jennifer:

So something we also like to talk about is how you boundary off those conversations from the rest of your relationship, right? Because there is a natural … No one likes to talk about this. Part of your marriage is a business, and so for you to be able to boundary off conversations in your marriage, your relationship, your partnership as a business conversation so that it doesn’t trickle into other parts of your relationship, right? So what happens is if we don’t boundary that off-

Emmalee:

Right, because what happens, Jen? Give an example of what every couple does.

Jennifer:

They’ll be in the middle of trying to connect with each other, and then it’ll get thrown out in the middle.

Tori Dunlap:

Or one’s leaving for work. That’s the other thing I hear.

Jennifer:

Yes, yes.

Tori Dunlap:

They’re leaving for work, and they’re like, “Hey, I think you maxed out our credit card, and that really bothered me.” It’s like, “I can’t talk about this right now. I can’t talk about this.”

Jennifer:

Right, and then they never talk about it. So to be able to boundary off those conversations-

Tori Dunlap:

Yeah. We call it money dates at Her First $100K, literally setting aside designated financial self-care, whether you’re single or coupled, that’s like, “I’m looking at my money.” Then if you’re managing money with a partner, it’s like, “Okay. What are we progressing towards, goals? How are we using money as a tool to build the kind of life that we want together?” Yeah.

Jennifer:

Yes. Yeah, exactly. To be able to put that in your calendar, it also holds you accountable to have those hard conversations, because no one wants to have those conversations. It’s uncomfortable, especially if we have intergenerational financial trauma that just haunts us, right? That is going to be uncomfortable, and for you to know what you specifically do during those times, for you to know what your coping mechanism is.

So for me, mine is to shut down. Mine’s avoidance. I’m well aware of that. But the fact that I know that, I now that when I’m entering into a boundaried money conversation that that’s what’s going to be happening to me. I have to because of the awareness of that over and over and over again say, “Okay, I recognize I’m shutting down.” I also let my partner know that that’s happening, like, “Hey, I’m shutting down right now. Give me two minutes. I just need to process this, and then I can come back to the conversation,” because when you aren’t aware of it and you’re not communicating what’s happening to you, it’s going in one ear and out the other. You’re not listening at all, and nothing’s going to happen. You start getting reactive, right? So for you to know your specific way of reacting to a financial conversation is also really important so that you can share that with your partner and that your partner can be aware of that when that’s happening.

Tori Dunlap:

Yeah. I can’t say the impact of that. In managing everything with my now-partner, it’s like I am an external processor. I am telling him. I’m very direct. I’m like, “Here’s what’s bothered me. Here’s how it made me feel.” He is a very internal processor. So the early days of our relationship, he would just go quiet, and I would be like, “Hi. I can’t read your mind, so if you’re processing, that’s great. But I need you to tell me literally, ‘I am processing right now. Give me a minute,'” and I’m like, “Great.” I think he’s gotten better at doing that. But in the early days, it was very uncomfortable, where I was just like, “Oh, so you don’t care? What are you doing? You just don’t care?”

Jennifer:

Right, right. Right. That’s why just knowing, for him to just know that’s happening for him, and a lot of us-

Tori Dunlap:

And that he needs to communicate, because my anxious brain is going, “He is leaving right now, and he’s never coming back.”

Jennifer:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

“Everything is turned to shit,” and I’m like, “All right. Well, then I’m bailing.” I’m hitting the bail button really hard. I’m like, “Bail, bail, bail, bail.”

Jennifer:

Exactly, exactly, exactly. So for you to know that, no, he actually cares so much about this that he’s shutting down and he’s having an emotional reaction to it.

Tori Dunlap:

Right, and he needs to take a minute. He doesn’t want to say anything, because he’s one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. He doesn’t want to say anything that he doesn’t actually think or that he hasn’t processed and thought about, because he cares about me deeply. So it’s like he needs a second to gather his thoughts and then will give me what he’s thinking. Yeah.

Emmalee:

I think everyone has this idea that, “If I make more money, I’ll feel better around it.” But here is a great example. My husband is an amazing man. He’s a stay-at-home father, and I’m the breadwinner. I love that for me, but I’m also the person who has shame around finances, because I didn’t make great financial decisions in my twenties. We started this business on credit cards, which frankly worked out really well, but wouldn’t be my number one recommendation if I was going to do it again. But I had a tremendous amount of shame around money, because I always struggled with my relationship with it. I was a spender. I felt like I should always have more. So there’s this feeling of, “If I’m making more, then it’ll fix it.” That’s not true.

You have to fix your relationship with money no matter how much money you are bringing in. More money helps, of course. But you can have someone who’s making $500,000 a year and has less savings than somebody who’s making $50,000 a year. A lot of that has to do with what’s the mindset around it? Right? So Jen’s avoidant, and so hers is shutdown. Someone who’s shame, theirs is often defense. So I’ll go on the defense, right? “Well, you can’t control me and my money. I’m
the one who makes it.” What? No, that’s not accurate. We have a marriage. We have a relationship. We’re doing this together. But my immediate is defensive nature. When I’m defensive, what do you think that does to my partner? He’s like, “Fuck you. I’m defensive, too.” It goes on this thing, right?

So one is what is my partner’s style? What is my style? How do I … What we call is catch the bullet. If I know that I’m going into that mode, I can see it for myself. I can feel the activation. I can usually feel tension in my hands. My chest feels a little bit tighter. I start to sweat a little bit. That’s my body reaction, right? So I have to catch the bullet and say, “Whoa. I’m sorry. I sucked the way I just said that. That was not communicating that well to you. Let me try again. Hey, I’m feeling overwhelmed by how tight the finances are. I want to feel like we can use it a little bit more. I want to go on vacation. I want to do this. Let’s talk about doing that together.” So whatever your style is, you have to learn to catch the bullets. So whether it’s saying, “Hey, I can feel myself shutting down” or “Hey, I can feel the last thing I said sort of sucked, and that wasn’t my best relational move.”

Tori Dunlap:

Yeah, that’s so powerful to also acknowledge and not be then ashamed that you are feeling ashamed, of just being like, “Hey, that wasn’t my best moment. We’re going to try that again” or “I do need a minute. I need a minute. I need to take a walk around the block. I want to have this conversation with you, right? I’m not bailing. Give me an hour, right? Or give me a half hour,” or whatever.

Jennifer:

Yes, and the thing that we hear a lot, we’re couples’ therapists, and we hear this in couples’ therapy, is that partners in and they’re wanting to change their partner and the way in which their partner’s reacting. We always talk to them and say, “Listen, you have no control over the way that your partner’s going to react to this. The only thing that you have control over is understanding yourself, your reactivity, what’s going on for you, and how you’re communicating that to your partner and what boundaries you’re setting up, too.” So it’s a huge mindset shift and, once again, aligns with being a systemic therapist, is knowing that if you can take responsibility for your actions and the way in which you go about these conversations, it can completely change the nature of the dynamic in and of itself. So you have more control than you think that you have, and we often go into relationships thinking, “The way in which I’m going to gain control is try to change my partner.” But really, it’s about taking acknowledgement and being able to take responsibility for your own actions.

Tori Dunlap:

Yeah, and one of the things I’ve seen that is really helpful for people, I already use this language, is money doesn’t have to be the barrier. It can actually be the tool to be able to afford you the life that you want. So when I do counsel couples, what I tell them is to start with the life goal and then work backward. So if it’s like, “Okay. We want to travel internationally together, because that’s important to our relationship,” that’s exciting, right? That’s exciting to plan. It’s exciting to think about, “Okay. How do we use money as a tool to get there? Okay. If being a parent is really important to us, we want to have a kid in three years, how do we use money as a tool to get there? If we want to buy a house” … Right? You can do all of this, as opposed to, “Money is the reason we can’t.” Rather, “We want this thing. We want this thing together. We want to build a life together. How can money be used as a tool to be able to acquire that thing or to progress towards that?”

Jennifer:

Love that. It’s such a beautiful way of being able to look at it, as opposed to, “Money is controlling my life” to “Here’s what we want. How do we get there together?”

Emmalee:

Tori, I think you have a second career.

Jennifer:

I think you should.

Emmalee:

If you ever want to become a therapist, we’re hiring.

Tori Dunlap:

Thank you. Also, oh, man.

Jennifer:

Calling. It’s your calling.

Tori Dunlap:

That’s going to send me in an existential … I am such a little feeler that anytime somebody’s like, “I’m not good right now,” I’m like, “I’m so sorry.” I cry.

Emmalee:

That’s Jen.

Tori Dunlap:

I cry.

Emmalee:

Jen cries everything.

Tori Dunlap:

I probably cry once a day, truly. I probably cry about something every day. Yeah. It’s either like, “This is the cutest puppy on TikTok that I’ve ever seen, and he’s getting adopted,” or it’s like, “This mean person on the internet said that I was mean,” and I’m like, “I don’t know how to cope with that.”

Jennifer:

Well, and you know what? We always say becoming therapists was the best, most expensive therapy that we’ve ever gotten in our entire lives, because-

Emmalee:

Yeah. It’s a quick 50 grand.

Jennifer:

… it, yeah, completely changes the way in which you see the world. But I think, and this is why it’s clearly translating through this podcast, is that you are so empathetic and feeling and that there’s such a need for that as a therapist and that you can do that in a way that allows you to really empathize and be there with your clients. So this is not a pitch to get you to be a therapist, but if you want to, come on over.

Emmalee:

I think it turned into one, but I also think what we’re talking about is that there can be grace, kindness, and softness in any realm. For so long, finances have been, “I’m scared to go to a financial planner. They’re going to yell at me about all the stuff I’m doing wrong.” The amount of people that are scared to get help because of how they’re worried about being treated, if you knew you were going to walk into a room filled with safety, where a financial planner or someone’s going to help you and say, “Hey, this might help a little bit. This will alter it. No, you didn’t fuck up your whole life,” everyone’s fear is like, “I’m going to feel so horrible if I look at this.” So what if we just stop being so horrible to each other?

Tori Dunlap:

Right. What if?
Easy peasy. Stop being terrible to each other. That’s the takeaway. Perfect.

My last question, Jen. We found some in our research about you that you’re very outspoken in your desire to remain child-free, and I think that’s something that myself, good friends of mine are going back and forth about right now. There’s often this feeling of just not a lot of support about … There’s not a lot of support for women, period. You end up realizing you can’t win no matter what you do. You want to become a mom, you can’t win. You want to be an uncompensated working mother and stay at home, you can’t win. You want to not have children, well, suddenly you’re a shrew. So I feel like all of it, so it ends up just being like, “Do whatever the fuck you want to do.” But can you talk about your journey of being child-free, and how did you manage expectations from family and even partners around this lifestyle choice?

Jennifer:

First of all, thank you for asking. I think it’s such an important topic, and I would love to talk about it, because also, I talk a lot about this in terms of whenever you’re doing something that’s counterculture, you do get a lot of reactions to it. Something that I talk about a lot is that it was very much a journey in some ways to get to this point. I think that people believe that, “Oh, you know this for a fact,” and you’re in that decision, and it doesn’t change. You don’t waiver, and you’re 100% on it.

So for me, becoming a mother was never something that I really gravitated towards. When other people would talk about it, it was never something that felt right for me. Then I met my husband, and he was in the exact same boat. So we were very much on the same page, which I know is not always the norm, and that’s not always what happens in relationships. So that is where it becomes a little bit more complicated, when your partner maybe isn’t in the same boat as you, and it becomes more of a conversation. So I want to acknowledge that it was an easier decision for me because my partner was very much on the same track.

But one of the things I really recognized is that as I got older and my friends started to have children, that is when I started to once again feel pretty solid in my decision, because I always had a concern that when my friends start having kids that I was going to feel left out or something was going to happen and that was going to change for me, and at that point, I would have to have a conversation with my partner about the fact that my mind was changing. As that’s happened, I’ve realized that, no, I feel more confident and solid in my decision. So I just feel personally very settled in that feeling.

The thing that comes up a lot is other people’s reactions to that, because everyone has this internal model of, “Here’s what your life should look like, and you need to be on this very specific path. If you’re not on that path, it’s going to bring up discomfort for me.” I mostly get that from an older generation, where people will say to me, “Oh, when are you having kids?” or like, “Oh, when are you guys going to start trying?,” whatever it is.

Emmalee:

Or I’ve watched people say to you, “Well, why don’t you just freeze your eggs just in case?”

Jennifer:

Yes.

Emmalee:

Everyone says that. You get that one.

Jennifer:

By people, she means my dad.

Emmalee:

Other people have said it, too, but your father also. Yes.

Jennifer:

Yes, yes. So yeah, people are always, “What if you change your mind and you can’t go back?” I get a lot of that. I think because I feel so settled and confident in my decision, I feel very comfortable responding to those things and say, “Listen, we’re not having kids. It’s not in the cards for us, not something we want.”

Tori Dunlap:

I’ve heard that, too, and it just occurred to me that no one asks people with children, “What if you change your mind?” “I’m shipping them off somewhere. Bum someplace else,” because that’s honestly the amount of conversations I’ve had with friends, where they do have children, and they have been very honest, which is lovely, or I’ve had friends of friends who have told my friends, “I’m very happy, and I love them very much, but it wasn’t the right call for me.”

Jennifer:

Yeah. I think that there’s a lot of vulnerability and honesty in that answer, too, right? To become a parent is a very specific decision, and it’s something that it does. It changes your life. It alters your life in a lot of ways, and I think it’s incredible. Watching my friends become mothers, watching Emmalee become a mother has been an incredible experience, because you just see such a strength and a different part of them that is brought out from becoming a mother. I so respect people who become parents. I think it’s amazing. Also, from becoming a therapist and just work that I’ve done, I know myself, and I know how important my independence is and how hard that transition would be for me if I would ever anticipate having children.

I think it’s a personal decision. I think that when you’re once again doing something that is different than what people expect that you’re bound to have reactions to it. So in terms of managing expectations, I just come out and say to family, to friends, to anyone who asks, “I’m not interested in having children. Here’s why. Here are all the reasons,” because I just feel so settled in that decision. I think sometimes where it becomes harder to be able to have that conversation is when you’re not as settled in that decision and where you’re back and forth, because the question can bring up insecurity for you, insecurity that you’re already having about the decision.

Emmalee:

Could we give everyone an activity to do? Would that be helpful?

Jennifer:

Yes.

Emmalee:

Could we give people a take-home? Maybe we could tell them about parental scripting, Jen.

Jennifer:

Yes, go for it.

Emmalee:

Okay. Well, so parental scripting, we talk about this in terms of everything, sexual scripting, everything. “What is the point of why I’m doing this?” If you sit down and take the space and say, “Why am I choosing to have a child?,” because if it’s, “I’m scared of missing out,” that’s not a good reason, right? To really get very serious about why we do the things that we do. For Jen, if she was to have a child, once we really talked through this for so many times, it would’ve been about other people or fears or FOMO or some stuff.

So for y
ou to sit down with yourself individually and then with your partners, why would we do this? Because bringing children into the world is a really big deal, and for us to understand why, right? For me, it was that I think I could raise someone who I want in this world, and I’m going to be honest. I’m too worried about some of the type of people that are having 10, 11 kids and some of their beliefs that I disagree with that I was like, “I better at least get one out there.” So for me, it was about another generation. But you have to be very serious about, “Why am I doing this thing?” So it’s called parental scripting. Take some time to do it for yourself, make space for yourself, and then bring it back to your partner. Do the activity separately and then together, and get real about why we do the things we do.

Tori Dunlap:

That’s so helpful. Thank you both for sharing. So tell us more about your hopes for ShrinkChicks and your therapy practice and where we can find you.

Jennifer:

Our hopes for ShrinkChicks.

Emmalee:

Jen’s hope is people stop listening, and then she can be less anxious.

Jennifer:

Truly. I’m telling you, I have been on this ride for a long time. But the thing that I love about ShrinkChicks, the reason why I will continue to do it is how accessible it makes the conversation around mental health. That is part of the reason why we keep doing it. We’ve been doing it since 2019, and we’re going to keep on going probably until the day we die, is to really destigmatize the conversation around mental health, making the conversation around mental health way more accessible, and to also talk about our therapy practice. The therapy group, once again, we have two locations, Westchester and Philadelphia, and we have a bunch of virtual locations across the US. So if you are interested to see if we do practice in your state virtually, you can feel free to reach out at thetherapygroup.com. If you’re interested in listening to ShrinkChicks, you can find us on any podcast platform, or you can check us out on Instagram at ShrinkChicks.

Tori Dunlap:

Amazing. Thank you both for being here and for your work, and we are so thankful. I speak for everybody hopefully on planet Earth. We are so thankful for our mental health professionals. You are the reason that we’re able to stay alive and thrive and do all of the good things. So especially in the last couple years, we see you for your work and we thank you for your work and appreciate you being here.

Emmalee:

[inaudible 01:03:08].

Jennifer:

Oh, thank you, Tori. We appreciate it.

Tori Dunlap:

Thank you so much to Em and Jen for joining us for this episode. We’ll make sure to link their podcast called The ShrinkChicks in our show notes, alongside links to their therapy practices and additional resources we put together for this episode. If you loved the show, please rate, review, subscribe, and if you’re listening on Spotify, you can interact with the little questions down below. If you just do a swipe up, it’s going to be something like, “What’d you think of this episode?” We would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you for joining us, Financial Feminists, as always. Thank you for supporting our movement, and we’ll catch you soon.

Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, a Her First $100K podcast. Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap, produced by Kristen Fields, marketing and administration by Karina Patel, Cherise Wade, Alena Helzer, Paulina Isaac, Sophia Cohen, Kahlil Dumas, Elizabeth McCumber, Beth Bowen, and Amanda Lephew. Research by Ariel Johnson. Audio engineering by Austin Fields. Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton. Photography by Sarah Wolfe, and theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound. A huge thanks to the entire Her First $100K team and community for supporting the show. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First $100K, our guests, and episode show notes, visit financialfeministpodcast.com or follow us on Instagram at financialfeministpodcast.