Love & Relationships

Relationship patterns of people who grew up in financially unstable homes

Dan Kauna 19th June, 2026 09:28 AM

There’s a particular kind of silence that falls in a relationship the moment money matters come up. Not the comfortable kind.

The kind where somebody’s jaw tightens, where a voice goes flat, where a question that should be simple (“how much did that cost?”) suddenly feels like an accusation.

For a lot of people who grew up in financially unstable homes, that silence is not about the present conversation at all. It is about a much older one.

Researchers have been mapping this territory for years, and what they are finding is both uncomfortable and quietly hopeful.

What growing up in financial instability actually does

When money was unpredictable in your childhood home (the lights cut off, a parent disappeared under the weight of debt, meals got smaller near the end of the month) your nervous system learned to treat financial uncertainty as a threat.

But the nervous system does not file those lessons neatly away once you become an adult with your own income.

A man sits alone on a matatu, anxiously clutching his wallet while lost in thought about money. PHOTO/Gemini

A study published in the Journal of Financial Therapy by Ross, Coambs, and Johnson found that adverse childhood experiences (including neglect, financial stress, and emotional instability) were significantly associated with less security in adult attachment styles, and that “insecure attachment styles were linked to increased maladaptive financial beliefs and behaviors which were significantly associated with less financial transparency in the relationship.”

In plain terms: how safe you felt as a child shapes how honest you are willing to be with your partner about money as an adult. The hiding. The secret spending. The refusal to discuss savings or debt. It often traces back here.

Three broad patterns tend to follow people out of difficult childhoods. The anxious type craves reassurance and may over-spend to keep connection alive. The avoidant type handles money alone and reads any money conversation as a threat.

The disorganised type, common in homes where caregivers were both comfort and fear, can swing between both, making financial communication nearly impossible to predict.

Why awareness changes things

It might sound dispiriting – as though the child who watched their parents argue about rent is simply destined to re-enact that scene in their own kitchen. The research suggests something else.

A couple works collaboratively and happily on a household budget in their home, illustrating healing and transparency. PHOTO/Gemini

A 2024 study in Frontiers in Psychiatry found that childhood trauma’s effect on romantic relationship satisfaction was significantly mediated by attachment style and levels of social support – meaning that neither factor was fixed. People who became aware of their attachment patterns, and who built stronger support networks, reported meaningfully better relationship outcomes.

Awareness is not a cure. But it is a start.

When you can recognise that the urge to hide a credit card statement from your partner is not about your partner you get to make a different choice.

That is where therapy, financial counselling, and honest conversation between partners tend to do their best work. The past stops making all your decisions for you.