For many individuals who’ve been through high-conflict separation and the family court process, money stops feeling like a tool and starts feeling like a threat. They become afraid of wealth — afraid that if they build it again, it will be taken from them. Afraid that any financial success will just end up being spent on protecting themselves or fighting for their relationship with their children.
Here’s where the confusion lies:
We start to act and feel as though money itself is the problem.
“If I have money, I’m a target. If I don’t have money, I’m unworthy or not accepted.”
But none of this is true. We’ve projected our fear onto money, and in doing so, we’ve given it a false power over our sense of safety and worth.
Imagine for a moment that money was a child.
Would we blame the child?
Would we resent it for existing?
Would we say, “Because I have this child, someone might try to take it from me… so I just won’t have one to avoid the pain”?
Of course not. We wouldn’t hold the child responsible for someone else’s choices. Yet many of us do this with money — blaming it for the actions of others or for our own pain, rather than seeing it for what it truly is: a neutral tool.
Money itself doesn’t give us value. We create value, and that value attracts wealth. Losing money doesn’t mean we’ve lost our worth. What we often really fear isn’t money — it’s the effort, discomfort, and vulnerability of rebuilding after loss.
Some of us also carry unconscious beliefs that wealth is bad, or that wealthy people are selfish or corrupt. But this, too, isn’t true. Money amplifies character. It doesn’t make someone good or bad; it provides opportunity and magnifies who they already are.
It’s often fear, not greed, that drives conflict over money after separation. A partner who feels less capable of rebuilding often fights harder to take as much as they can, driven by a sense of scarcity. A person who trusts their own ability to rebuild rarely expends such effort trying to take from someone else.
Here are a few questions worth reflecting on:
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Do I have fears about money since my separation?
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Am I afraid of rebuilding wealth, afraid it will be taken or used up again?
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Have I tied money to hard work rather than to the value I create, forgetting that wealth can flow in regardless of how hard I work?
When we untangle these fears and rewrite our beliefs about money, we stop seeing it as an enemy and start seeing it as what it truly is: a tool — one that supports us in rebuilding, in providing for our children, and in creating the life we want.