Power Triad: Financial Wellbeing, Relationships, and Mindfulness
Financial well-being (FWB) has recently gained expanding consideration from scientists and researchers from various fields. Many researchers describe FWB as gratification with an individual’s existing economic standing and level of debt. FWB is feeling financially strong, pleased, and free from worry. There is an assortment of existing meanings of FWB, and most have been inferred hypothetically. However, it might be helpful to know that the definition of financial well-being (FWB) by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB; 2015) is as follows:
A state wherein a person can fully meet current and ongoing financial obligations, feel secure in their financial future, and make choices that allow enjoyment of life.
Joining two phrases, finance, and well-being, lessens one of the greatest hindrances to individuals concentrating on finances: the tendency to think about monetary matters as independent from or disconnected from the different lifecycle components. Studies have demonstrated a solid and constructive connection to the overall well-being of a person. A wise expenditure pattern and savings account balance are critical factors affecting personal well-being.
Relationships and Financial Wellbeing
Financial well-being is about a sense of security and control of an individual’s day-to-day life, which is also crucial to married couples' lives and affects marital happiness. Past contemporary literature has revealed that individuals who were satisfied with finances and engaged in financial behaviors are related to relationship satisfaction. Some researchers suggest that individuals who possess a low level of financial well-being tend to have more thoughts about divorce as compared to their counterparts. This finding has been supported by Aronson (2008), in which financial insecurity contributed to a high rate of divorce. Financial well-being remains one of the top contributors to the dissolution of marriages.
Mindfulness, Relationships, and Financial Wellbeing
Mindfulness may play an influential role in relationship satisfaction and well-being since mindfulness is the maintenance of moment-by-moment awareness of thoughts, bodily sensations, feelings, and the surrounding environment over a kind, nurturing lens. In fact, by practicing mindfulness, humans’ thoughts tune into what they sense in the present moment rather than reworking the bygone or imagining the upcoming. Thus, mindfulness is directly linked to positive outcomes, such as enhanced relationship satisfaction, partner acceptance, coping abilities, and stability. Equally important, in 1993, Kabat-Zinn highlighted that mindfulness could enable cognitive reappraisals of stressors and conflicts within relationships, help individuals to see them as a challenge, and increase the opportunity for better problem solvers. Other studies confirmed the crucial association between healthy relational behaviors and increment of mindfulness, healthy relationship skills, and relationship quality. Overall, the findings concluded that there is a relationship between financial well-being, mindfulness, and relationship satisfaction.
In Summary
Recent studies give new insights into how mindfulness, relationship satisfaction, and financial well-being impact overall well-being. This is particularly important as any shifts among them leave a growing portion of the population facing the burden of chronic disease in marital well-being, including relationships. This is equally important in today’s era for having quality and healthy relationship satisfaction since greater relationship satisfaction results in good health, emotional and mental stability, and well-being.
