Ed Coambs - The Healthy Love and Money Way: How the Four Attachment Styles Impact Your Financial Well-Being

The Healthy Love & Money Way: How the Four Attachment Styles Impact Your Financial Well-Being
Ed Coambs, MBA, MA, MS, CFP, CFT-I

Copyright 2021 by Ed Coambs. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For permissions requests, please contact the author at 1020 Crews Road, Suite M1, Matthews, NC 28105 or info@healthyloveandmoney.com.

Designed, produced, and published by SPARK Publications
SPARKpublications.com
Charlotte, North Carolina

Cover cloud background by robert_s/Shutterstock.com
with photo illustration by SPARK Publications

Printed in the United States of America.
Softcover, July 2021, ISBN: 978-1-953555-08-3
E-book, July 2021, ISBN: 978-1-953555-09-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021909879

Praise for
The Healthy Love
& Money Way

In The Healthy Love & Money Way , author and therapist Ed Coambs explores the complex influence of human attachment on our relationships to money and our romantic partners. Leading by vulnerable example, Coambs provides readers vital insights and tools to succeed at creating financial health and money intimacy.

Debra L. Kaplan, MA, MBA, CMAT, CSAT-S

Even after years of exploring my relationship with money, this book gave me a better and deeper understanding of my financial needs and those of my partner. Ed explains in such an approachable way why we struggle to achieve fulfillment in and outside of our relationships even when we have made sound decisions or achieved financial success. His experiences and insights helped me recognize and accept my own story and show up differently in my relationship with my husband and my clients.

Danielle Seurkamp, MS, MPAS, FBS, CFP, Founder of Well Spent Wealth Planning

Ed Coambs has a special passion around helping couples negotiate the minefield of money issues. In this book, he shows the impact that the patterns of connection we learn in early childhood have on the patterns we and our adult partners develop around money, then offers useful strategies to help couples build financial health.

Rick Kahler, CFP, CFT-I, CeFT, coauthor of Conscious Finance and The Financial Wisdom of Ebenezer Scrooge

Wealth building and financial tips will be of little use if you dont fully understand your money beliefs and attitudes. The same rule applies to intimate relationships and the importance of understanding you and your partners security-oriented beliefs. Ed is great at showing you the way to self-understanding, so you feel more comfortable in your intimate relationships while balancing your own needs with your partners needs. I highly recommend this book for anyone seeking a greater sense of security inside their relationships.

Leisa Peterson, author of The Mindful Millionaire

Ed Coambs has compassionately interwoven attachment theory and the impacts of childhood trauma with his personal money narrative to highlight his approach to helping couples navigate financial conflict. The result is an engaging and informative book that gives readers the opportunity to perceive themselves and their coupleship from a different angle when it comes to money.

Sarah Swantner, LPC, CFP, CFT-I

The Healthy Love & Money Way by Ed Coambs is a deeply personal and powerful exploration of our emotional attachment to how we not only understand but also process our relationship with money. Ed writes in such a conversational tone that you feel like you are right there with him discussing his and your own lived experiences and money attachments together. Those who are truly reflective and complete the activities in earnest will grow significantly with this book. I recommend this text for anyone wanting to take a deeper dive into their own personal emotions around money.

Bruce Ross, PhD, AFC, Assistant Professor at the University of Kentucky, Past President of the Financial Therapy Association

This book is a cathartic tale of a journey through the good and bad of life and how outside influences impact our daily money decisions. If you are struggling with your partner, reading this book is a good first step in discovering your own way with love and money.

Pam J. Horack, CFP, Founder of Pathfinder Planning LLC

In The Healthy Love & Money Way, Ed walks through the different attachment styles with his personal experience. His personal approach accentuates the different attachment styles and how financial decisions are more emotional than logical. As Ed demonstrates, connecting with your emotional truth helps you make healthier financial decisions.

Dave Jetson, author of Finding Emotional Freedom and Setting True Boundaries

Ed offers a unique perspective on linking attachment styles to money management within relationships. He got me to think not only about my own attachment style but also about the attachment styles of those close to me and helped me to understand them a little better. The stories helped to drive home the teachings and key points.

Julie Fortin, CFP, FBS, CeFT, Northstar Financial Planning, author of Integrating Interpersonal Neurobiology into Financial Planning: Practical Applications to Facilitate Well-Being

We are meant to have healthy relationships. Disruptions in the way we create and maintain relationships happen early on in our childhoods. Events, including traumatic events, can create stress throughout our lives, not only impacting our relationships but also affecting our financial lives. Most of the time, we arent even aware of its effects, accepting things the way they are. But by becoming aware of and relearning how to create and engage in safe, secure relationships, we not only improve our relationships, especially our most intimate ones, but also improve our financial lives. Ed bravely shares from his own experiences, teaches with expertise, and invites you to explore your own experiences, so that you can cultivate closer connections to the ones you love and create financial harmony.

Sarah Carr, CFP

The attachment lens is a much-needed perspective in the current literature and research in financial therapy. The Healthy Love & Money Way fills this void. It is a thought-provoking and profoundly helpful book for therapists, financial practitioners, and laypeople alike. This invaluable contribution to the burgeoning field of financial therapy offers a fresh and evidence-based approach to truly healing some of the more intractable dimensions inherent in the relational aspect of money.

Natasha Knox, CFP, Pax Planning

Acknowledgments

This book has been a journey that has unfolded in unexpected ways. I would like to acknowledge the tireless energy, love, and support my wife, Ann Coambs, has offered me up to this point in our married life. I am grateful I met you in that pool hall all those years ago. My parents and in-laws have loved me in ways I am only now really getting to understand. They have been the examples that I have looked to, to help guide my life. Your love, care, concern, and yes, practical support of helping to be so involved in your grandchildrens lives has given me the freedom to explore and try new paths that have led me to this wonderful place of being able to invest in other families.

Countless authors have shaped my own thinking, ability to feel new feelings, and capacity to create beyond my wildest dreams. To the authors who devote themselves to sharing themselves through the written word, I get it now. Thank you for being lights on my own path.