The Sugar Daddy Podcast
Ready to normalize talking about money? Then welcome to The Sugar Daddy Podcast. Every episode will get you one step closer to your financial goals. Whether that is learning how to invest, budget, save, retire early or talk about money with your partner, Jess & Brandon have you covered in a way that's easy to understand, and easy to implement. Tune in as they demystify the realm of dollars, so it all makes cents, while giving you a glimpse into their relationship with money and each other.
Brandon is an award-winning, licensed financial planner, and owner of Oak City Financial, with over a decade of experience and millions of dollars managed for his clients all over the United States.
New episodes published every Wednesday.
The Sugar Daddy Podcast
115: Five Money Mistakes That Break Couples and How to Avoid Them
Most couples don’t break up because of infidelity — they break up over money.
And worse? They never saw it coming.
In this episode, we’re breaking down the 5 biggest money mistakes that silently sabotage relationships… and how to actually fix them.
We’re joined by Heather and Douglas Bonaparth, the real-life couple behind the new book Money Together: How to Find Fairness in Your Relationship and Become an Unstoppable Financial Team. From navigating breadwinner role shifts, to recovering from resentment, to building a shared financial practice — they’ve lived it and now teach it.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
- Why your childhood money stories matter more than you think
- The biggest mistake couples make with “fairness”
- What to do when one partner earns more (and tension builds)
- How to protect your relationship as life seasons change
- The money practice every couple needs — no spreadsheet required
Whether you’re dating, married, or running a business together, these insights will help you build a healthier relationship with both money and each other.
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Money, relationships, and the mindset to master both. Hosted by financial advisor Brandon and his wife Jessica, The Sugar Daddy Podcast breaks down how to build wealth, unpack old money beliefs, and have real conversations about love and finances. Our mission? To help couples and individuals grow rich in every sense of the word: emotionally, relationally and financially.
If you want to experience growth in any part of your life, whether it's your physique or your relationship with your partner, guess what you gotta do? You gotta get uncomfortable. And that's the thing that you can rely on being consistent if you want to get through seasons of life, whether your puppy dogs in love in college or you're navigating parenthood or retirement later on, whatever it may be. Um, how uncomfortable are you willing to get with your partner?
SPEAKER_00:Sugar teddy podcast go. Learn how to make them pockets grow. Finance for freedom, swear we go. Smart investments, money flow.
SPEAKER_02:Hey, babe. What are we talking about today?
SPEAKER_03:Today we are going on a double date. And I'm so excited because if you have been listening, you know Brandon and I are the weird ones, and all we do is talk about relationships and money. And guess what? We found another couple who likes talking about relationships and money. And so we said, you know what? Let's make it a double date. And it just so happens that they wrote a fabulous new book called Money Together. They beat us to it, which I'm not very competitive. We're we are here to celebrate them and their book launch of Money Together. And that's what we're going to be talking about today. So, Heather and Douglas Bonaparte, welcome to the Sugar Daddy Podcast.
SPEAKER_04:Thank you so much for having us. And I'm pretty sure that we will know by the end of this that we are the weird ones.
SPEAKER_06:Listen, we are Challenge accepted.
SPEAKER_03:Accepted, guys. We are here to be weird together and to normalize the conversations around money in partnership because we know it's still very taboo. We know it's still one of the leading causes of divorce. And so resources like money together are there to help guide people to make it less weird, to make it less taboo, and to really bring it into everyday conversation because that's really what you need. It's not a one-time thing. It really is an ongoing, maybe not, maybe it doesn't have to be daily, because that sounds stressful, but an ongoing conversation in people's relationships. So we're excited to get into this today.
SPEAKER_04:Let's go there.
SPEAKER_03:I love too that the subtitle of the book is How to Find Fairness in Your Relationship and Become an Unstoppable Financial Team. And I love the word fair because we know equal is not a thing in relationships. And Eve Rodsky, who is on the back of your book, I'm pretty sure, we've had her on as well. And so we know all about fairness and equity and how hard it is to achieve. So we're so excited to get into this. We're gonna get into your bios because even though this is about money together, you are individuals and you have your own stories that you're now merging. And so we want to make sure that everybody understands who you are and what you've done and how this has all come together. So let's get into it. Douglas Bonaparte is the founder of Bona Fide Wealth, a wealth management firm in New York City. Recognized as one of the nation's most influential financial advisors, Douglas serves on the advisory councils for CNBC and Investopedia. He has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and more. He is also a CFP board ambassador board ambassador for New York. When he's not making jokes on the internet, he enjoys brewing coffee, though he can do both at the same time. I love that. Heather Bonaparte is used to wearing many hats, as most women do. On her first maternity leave, because there's apparently nothing else to do on maternity leave. Um, she co-authored the couple's first book on helping millennials achieve financial freedom. I mean, could you not have just sat on the couch and like rested with just a beam spit on your shoulder or something? No, when you look back, none of it makes sense. Jessica. One point on the weird, on the weird, uh scale right there. Check. Okay. Since then, she has become a rising voice at the intersection of love, money, and family. She has written for CNBC, The Skim, Insider, Scary Mommy, and more. A lawyer by trade, she spent more than a decade in the insurance industry before joining the family business as Bona Fide Wealth's director of business and legal affairs. They met in college and consider themselves gators for life. That's for Heather and Douglas. And they live in New Jersey with their two daughters. So, whoo, y'all been busy. It's a lot going on. It's a little when when when vacation.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, when are we going on vacation?
SPEAKER_03:I mean, come come with us. Come with us. We'll be gone next week. Um, we're so excited to get into this because I think there's so much, even in those bios, that is going to, I know, go into the story of money together and the fact that you are working in this business now together, but had very separate lives before. But before we can do all of that, we need to hear about your money memories and then we're gonna let the conversation flow. So I'm gonna do ladies first. So, Heather, what is your first money memory?
SPEAKER_04:Well, if you want to know something interesting, even though we asked this question to every couple that we interviewed for our book, there was a memory that I unlocked in the process of writing this book and reading and reading it and editing it that I realized had a much more profound impact on my view of money and the world than what I had originally considered my first money uh memory to be. And um I was in a car with my father's parents and my grandfather, my late grandfather, when I was about seven or eight years old, maybe eight or nine. And um I we saw a a homeless person on the street, and I wanted to stop the car and give them money and food, and he screamed at me. And we had it was we had got into a big fight about what generosity means and personal responsibility means, and it was so um jarring for me as a young child with a generous heart and with a belief about people and and things and how you find yourself in different lots in life. And it just was the it was the perfect illustration of how differently I viewed the world, and I always viewed the world than my late grandfather, who um had very different views than me. And um those views, those diametrically opposite views in our family, um were a real source of internal conflict for me as I got older. So it's one of those things where we look back and my mom remembers it, and my dad remembers it too. They're no longer married, but at the time they were, and they remember it. They're like, oh yeah, we remember that day and how pop pop screamed at you, he pulled the car over, and you were devastated. And so it's sorry to start us off on such a heavy note. Dang, yeah. No, that's my first money memory. And and and you read in our book about all of my issues and baggage with money and where they come from.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Here's the start.
SPEAKER_03:Start starting point A. Yeah. But though that's so um well, it's devastating, I think. And clearly it has stuck with you. And I think in families when you have such opposite views on life and generosity and love and giving and all those things and empathy, I mean, that's when you're like, you know what? This is why people build their chosen family. And that's you know, that's right.
SPEAKER_04:And and you know what's interesting to this day, when we unpack what our values are, Doug and I still are both, we are both generous people, we're both philanthropic people. But the way that I feel about giving and giving as an obligation as part of a tenant of what I believe and who I am and my values, and like what I look at are the purpose of having wealth is, and about right? Like how how important is that to me? And I realized like I I I did not connect that until very recently. That like this maybe this is why this is so important to me.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, absolutely. That's I mean, now it's at your core, right? At the core of your being. Thank you for sharing that. Douglas with the good hair. I mean, my good hair.
SPEAKER_02:I'm jealous, so you know.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, over here got baldy.
SPEAKER_02:So I also I put it quick side note. The funniest part is that we actually found you guys separately. So like I've been following uh Douglas for a while on the financial advising side, and I even remember when like your logo was like the outline of your head.
SPEAKER_03:It was so good. As it should be.
SPEAKER_02:That's not that's not narcissistic or anything.
SPEAKER_03:If you got it, fly. That's right. That's right. All right, Douglas, what is your uh what is your first money memory?
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, so I, you know, uh, you know, stark contrast to Heather here. I I grew up the son of serial entrepreneurs. You know, my my grandfather and my father uh were in business together, business separately. Um, you know, we were always encouraged uh to be fascinated by money, not just because it's money, but because what it could do for you, right? There were a lot of qualities around it. This notion that if you bet on yourself and were resourceful enough that you could produce money, you could make things happen, right? Like my grandpa Shapp was a mover and a shaker, you know, he was always you know networking and and bopping around and making stuff happen here. And I'd learn a lot later on like what that meant for growing businesses and enterprise and things like management. So from a very early age, you know, my brother and I were fixing computers and making little businesses. And these little businesses meant we never had to work, you know, um, at too many, you know, places our friends were working at. We were capable of doing it ourselves. So we got a lot of lessons there, um, just in, you know, again, investing in yourself and and being able to produce. Um, that's served me quite well, you know, throughout throughout life. Um, and that I probably could never work for somebody. Um, is I guess the downstroke to that.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, Heather, who's been in in all We would joke so much, like in my my like decade plus as a corporate early, corporate we always joked about Doug having like what what do you call it, like CEO mentality. Just walk in there and tell them what you want.
SPEAKER_06:I don't care what level in the organization you want, from mailroom to you know SVP. You just gotta mentality.
SPEAKER_04:I'm like, you've never worked for anyone, right? There's so many politics, it doesn't work like that.
SPEAKER_06:This will this will get you fired very fast. I hope no one's taking this advice. And that's kind of the joke here. And we also joked about, you know, I'd be fired very quickly. Like I did not really understand why you couldn't go above your boss if they were like doing something that was just operationally inefficient. Yeah, that'll kind of get you in trouble. So for so for me, I had a really, a really good foundation. You know, it's it's not all uh rose-colored glasses. There are moments that I look back on where I remember my grandfather pointing his finger at me uh as my dad and him were having a conversation. And he said, This one over here doesn't know the value of a dollar. And I'm like, I didn't really know what it meant at the time, but I knew it was bad. And I knew I didn't want to be, you know, that looking up for my Game Boy, like, you know, what'd you say? Like, why, why is this a bad thing? But it it kind of folded back into this curiosity I have about just building business. And I also had an older brother that was into it too. So him and I got to kind of workshop ideas, and I give I give my older brother David a ton of credit for for being the one to actually take a lot of leaps and and go out there and be entrepreneurial and as his kid brother, you know, bring it up the rear and inherit a lot of the work that he did. Um so thanks to thanks to all of them for that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Those are great stories. I I love kind of the how separate they are. We always find that when people tell us their first money memory and now they're in a partnership, most of the time people did not grow up the same way with money.
SPEAKER_05:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03:Even if they grew up, you know, in similar socioeconomic statuses or levels, you know, if they are both college educated, like it doesn't really matter. It's that most people that come together and get married grew up very different when it comes to money. Is that your experience as well? Like, would you say you guys grew up very differently?
SPEAKER_04:Yes, yes. Um, socioeconomically, no. But yes, in the sense that my parents actually, so I'm an only child and grandchild on both sides of my family. I which is, I think, um, I think that plays into a lot of the money uh baggage that I carried into adulthood. Um, because my parents got divorced when I was 13. And so, like I said, like I was growing up in a situation where I've got basically now two families with two very, very different approaches to money, two very, very different views of things like generosity, identity, values. Um, you know, and and I was kind of put in the middle of those two things. And I lived with my mother, who was very afraid, and she was a stay-at-home mom for many, many years and had to go reinvent herself and find her career. But it was like this scarcity moment in the day-to-day of my life. And then I have my father's family where money was like, money is a means of of control. It's about buying loyalty, it's about being like very exacting with your wealth, and about like it's it's the opposite. Um, and and I think when Doug and I found ourselves together, like he's coming from the standpoint of stability and like you can bet on yourself and you can make things happen.
SPEAKER_06:And abundance mentality.
SPEAKER_04:And I was just so incredibly emotional about money because I really just didn't know what to believe coming into adulthood.
SPEAKER_06:Um, and and so I feel it got very much intermixed with the personal relationships that you had with, you know, people in your life. And those blurry lines created all kinds of things that you would have to navigate through.
SPEAKER_04:And to withhold money was to show that you disapprove or that they are are not enough. Yeah. Because the money was there and the choice to not share it with you was a statement about your lack of something. And that was always put on me. So imagine going into a relationship where you're kind of like even your family is kind of putting you to the test as to where your loyalties are and who to trust and things like that. It was really difficult. I feel bad for it.
SPEAKER_03:It seems like you came out on the other side and learned a lot in the process, though.
SPEAKER_06:I mean, luckily I'm built for it. You know, I think in many cases, whether that's luck or just a lot of the reasons that Heather and I work, despite being almost opposites in every possible category you can imagine. But the expression goes, opposites attract because you're you're filling in, you know, pieces of your partner that maybe they're not coming up well in, you know, their shortcomings here.
SPEAKER_04:So And that's the beauty of the idea when you look at money and trying to do money with somebody else. It's like it is yours, mine, and ours. Like, even though I carry a lot of baggage, I also carry a lot of wisdom and a lot of perspective from the experiences I had in my life. I don't lose all of those just because there were some bad things that happened too.
SPEAKER_06:I was able to help Heather navigate that component, not just with words, but with actions. And we talk about that in the book. But Heather back over to me too. My parents ended up getting divorced, you know, six years ago as an adult. And she said, Hey, I went through this, you know, at a very tender moment in my life, arguably brutal timing for Heather relative to me. It all stinks. But she was very good at saying, here's what I've learned here, and here's what you can take to help navigate this for yourself. So again, you know, being opposites is great, but when it comes to money and your partner, it's not a bad thing that you have different stories and different upbringings, culture, religion, whatever it may be that has created your own money story. Yes, I think nine out of 10 times you'll find that you are different. But in those differences is the opportunity to connect, which is what this book is about, right? How do you connect? How do you reconcile these differences so you can have that chosen family with its own chosen values to move forward in life? And that's the work that we want people to do because it leads to happiness.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. There's so many things that you've already said that are very uh similar to us because Brandon's parents got divorced when he was five. My parents got divorced when I was 28. So after 35 years of marriage.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, right, when we first started dating.
SPEAKER_03:So I had to like unpack a lot of that. Um, because obviously your your view of divorce when you're five is very different than when you're a grown adult with a whole life, you know?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um, and I mean, we take those into our relationship. So I went to a lot of therapy after that for a variety of reasons, but I do think that's uh partially and or maybe in in large part to the success of our relationship is like I worked all that out before bringing it into this set.
SPEAKER_02:I think there's also a difference, like you said that you guys had met in college. So ironically, we actually went to the same college. However, we didn't know each other in college. So we didn't start dating. I was 30 years old and 28 when we started dating, actually. So that makes a big dynamic, you know, difference in regards to we kind of had already become quote unquote adults and already lived certain aspects of our life separately as compared to obviously you guys, you know, went from like essentially, you know, children to uh two adults together.
SPEAKER_04:We we we grew up together is the best way I I put it, and that we really uh were able to have a um a front row seat uh to working through some of these challenges. And I I I say this all the time that I, you know, it's not that he shaped the outcomes, it's not that he um he did help in many ways, but I think that it's important in our lives for the perspective that he's gained because I think that does give us a leg up in many ways. That's what people have a hard time talking about. We know the facts about our partners, but do you really know the stories? Do you know how it made people feel? Do you know the impact it might have on their life today? Unless you're having these deeper conversations, you might not understand why your partner behaves a certain way today. So, like the fact that it's it is a bit a bit of a cheat code that we've known each other so long. But to be clear, it wasn't sunshine and rainbows, like going from children to adults, like there were more, there was more than one occasion where it was all out on the line and we almost did not survive. So, like, I I try and make that point clear. This is not some college sweethearts and it was all sunshine and rainbows. We worked really hard to become adults and start our adult lives together.
SPEAKER_06:Two things can be true. You know, you can have an advantage by understanding and having perspective of one another from those earlier years that you bring into your adult years and struggle and find yourself in positions that you have to work hard on to prove your relationship to be durable for the long term. So um, I like the way Heather said that a lot.
SPEAKER_04:And, you know, thanks. But we talk a lot, yeah.
SPEAKER_06:But we also talk a lot about, you know, just when you think you figure it out, you know, there's been moments in our in our journey together where we thought we had it all licked, right? We cool, had a kid, bought a house. We did it. I mean, it life's not linear like that. You go through these seasons of life and find that there are challenges ahead of you. Um, and we did. And that's ultimately what brought us to what we're doing right now and the work that we have. We we thought we had it figured out, and then uh we didn't. And we had to find ourselves back to center, writing a book, working together, and you know, never leaving each other's side 24 hours a week, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I don't know. There's there's there's a lot to it, right? But um, it's it's through that journey and it's through experiencing that kind of growth that you're able to get through these seasons and start out on a new one.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I've I'm always amazed by people who met at such a young age and you know had to go through all those different periods of, you know, figuring out who you are as an individual, figuring out who you are as a couple and growing up together, because I think it's significantly easier to come together as, you know, quote unquote full-grown adults where you already know who you are, rather than like, because sometimes you see people that are together and they just end up growing apart. It's not a matter of anything either one of them did. It's just a matter of that's just how they evolved as people.
SPEAKER_04:There were times in those years, in especially in those early years, where it was incredibly I it I I wish I was clearer at the time. I did not, I made a ton of mistakes in our early 20s. And he stayed in Florida and I moved to New York um to go to law school. And I don't know if I don't know if what our whether we would have survived had we not given each other the space that we needed to grow up a little bit. Because we weren't at the same place at the same time. We weren't in lockstep, we weren't in agreement about how we wanted our adult lives to play out, where we wanted them to play out, what we were going to do. Um, I that you know, we definitely had to grow up as individuals and then figure out several years later, hey, this is the real deal, this is for the long term. We want to start our adult lives together and we're gonna do that. I think that's an important, I guess I'm with you 100%. And I think some people are lying to themselves when they don't, when they don't admit that.
SPEAKER_06:Well, I think human beings in general would like to avoid discomfort almost at all costs. We live in a world where obtaining comfort is easier than ever before, right? We don't have to do a whole history lesson, understand you don't have to go too far back in time to find out how miserable life could be.
SPEAKER_05:Right.
SPEAKER_06:Uh and we live in a very comfortable environment. The point I'm trying to make here is that if you want to experience growth in any part of your life, whether it's your physique or your relationship with your partner, guess what you gotta do? You gotta get uncomfortable. And that will happen, that's the thing that you can rely on being consistent if you want to get through seasons of life, whether you're puppy dogs in love in college or you're navigating parenthood or retirement later on, whatever it may be. Um, how how uncomfortable are you willing to get with your partner? Um, hopefully you don't take it to a point where the wheels are about to come off and you get good at this, but I think that is just such a critical point as you're doing this type of work or any type of work that is about self-care or growth or just improvement.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's a great call out.
SPEAKER_02:I have one question for Heather because um I did I did a year of law school and I distinctly remember after, you know, doing my one L year, I was like, this is not for me, but I distinctly remember um at the beginning when they were giving orientation that they said, if you are in a relationship right now with someone who's not also in law school, good luck. Did they give you that talk?
SPEAKER_04:No one gave me that talk, but it is true.
SPEAKER_02:I distinctly remember that.
SPEAKER_04:Doug, it it was by far the worst time for the two of us. By far the worst time. Um and and when I say like we really like we really almost didn't make it. Everyone I know that went in in a relationship, they either like took a break, broke up, it didn't work out, and then they all and and the few that figured it out figured it out like long after the dust had settled from graduation. Like it was truly the most pressure cooker, um insular experience. I also was in law school during the Great Recession. So like there was no like there, like any like positive, any positive vibes were gone. Like there was no abundance. It was like a true like cage match for like the three jobs that were going to be available to anyone. It was it was yeah, toxic. And I don't, and I don't use that word lightly. Like my experience in law school, like I'll give, I'll tell you, like, and I I had someone de-tag my law school in a post with my name in it. Like, and I and I I, you know, that's how I that's when I look back and I'm like, man.
SPEAKER_06:I think I think what was happening in the world at the time of what's happening in your life in Heather's case is just one of those compound fractures that make it that much more difficult to recover from. And I feel a lot of folks in our generation who started out their lives in 2008 and nine and ten as someone who primarily works with these folks uh in bit yeah, as as clients, um, you see the scar tissue, right?
SPEAKER_04:Um there was there was a lot of shame to go around, not just for me, for a lot of people I was in school with, because we've we made the decision to attend. And I went to law school in New York City, an expensive law school. I took out student loans, six figures to attend that law school. And it was not a willy-nill nilly decision. I sat there in the financial aid office, I looked at the employment charts. It was a bet that was calculated, it made sense, it was an investment in myself, and then it went belly up while I was there. They changed the rules of the game in the middle of the game. And I don't I don't say that to place blame, but so that people understand the kind of shame that sets in and you experience causes you to do all sorts of crazy things. Like, and and it it took like and and your decision-making ability is so clouded. It took me years to unpack that after law school. Um, it took years for me to feel comfortable um with money again, or to believe that I even deserve to make financial decisions, honestly.
SPEAKER_06:I also feel I also feel that that age, uh, call it 20, you know, mid to late 20s, is like adolescence 2.0. You know, I guess your body, I guess your body's not changing as much as maybe adolescence 1.0. But you're in a really interesting spot in your life where you know you believe you're an adult, and you're really not, you know, go talk to a you know, 50-something year old. They're looking at you like a child. And I think it's just for me, I'll speak for my own personal experience. It was it was just a very hard time to navigate, um, wanting things to work out so badly in my own relationship, having to leave Florida to get to New York to see that through, put a lot of risk out there, put it really all on the line, and just kind of feel like I'm doing all, you know, I'm taking all this risk. And, you know, the people younger than me, I know I'm not a kid like them, but yet I'm looking at these folks.
SPEAKER_04:A lot of 20, 20-something year olds still feel like that today. I mean, God, I feel like I'm I end up with unsolicited advice to that wasn't that wasn't privy to us in our mid-to-late.
SPEAKER_06:I think that's any mid to late 20-year-old.
SPEAKER_04:That's a good crisis is real. I feel I really feel for them. I I hated it.
SPEAKER_06:I hated that time. I really, really did. I could tell you throughout, other than maybe actual puberty in middle school, like that. That's a hard time. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Because you're like, you thought you were you thought you were gonna have it figured out, and then you realize you don't have it figured out. Oh my god. But you are now responsible for your things and your builds.
SPEAKER_04:And yeah, yeah. It's hard. I think I think also, generationally speaking, I presume we're all kind of in the same age cohort here, that the millennials grew up kind of being told by our parents you put one foot in front of the other, you do this, you do this, you'll get this, you do that, you do that. Doing a good job mattered. And you're not gonna do it. Working hard, having integrity matters. Get the degree, it'll all work out. Do the things you're told, and you'll continue to get your trophies for doing them, whatever those trophies, whatever form they take. And I think that um we realized that the rules were changing and that uh we a lot of the advice we were given was NA, no longer applicable to us. Maybe we had to figure that out on our own. And and and I really I I mean, in the same way, I that's why we ourselves have a lot of sympathy for Gen Z and growing up, coming of age in the in the age of AI and everything, and what an entry-level job is gonna look like.
SPEAKER_06:It's even harder for them without the appreciation of a non-digital world. Like we're the we're the last of the group to live in that space, which I think is a little bit of a superpower. But that's that's a conversation for another time.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I think it's interesting though, because I did want to touch on the fact that you did end up becoming like that corporate girly. You got the law degree. Obviously, it put a large strain on your relationship. And correct me if I'm wrong in any of these details, but at one point you were the breadwinner in your relationship, and you were basically making sure that everything stays afloat. So, Douglas, you could go on this entrepreneurial journey, which again is very aligned with Brandon and I, because I'm the corporate one with the steady income and the insurance that the whole family's on and all the things, so that you know, these men that we love can go and do what they love because they don't like authority. And they don't want to work for anybody except themselves. So walk us, uh, walk us through that because I know that that's a component of the book as well, because there's a lot of pressure in being the breadwinner, regardless of who you are. But I think there's that added notch that gets turned when you're the female breadwinner and you're really helping your partner get whatever they're working off the ground.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. You know, it was an interesting time for us when I had settled into a corporate legal role and kind of chose that path in commercial insurance. I was in private practice, different law firms for a couple of years, and I really hated it. Um, you know, so it was worth um kind of making this move from a stability standpoint because when you're when you like really one, when you really dislike your job, it's like every day feels like a like you never really know what the next day is gonna bring. But also um like we we we knew that this was sustainable, the hours were predictable, but it was also going to give us the stability of him knowing I'd still be. I I was set in doing this. This was a job I could have done for a long time and I did. Um, and what that gave Doug was the ability to take the risks to start the firm eventually and um really flourish without the fear that we wouldn't have health benefits, the fear that we could afford, you know, there's no ceiling and there's no floor when you're an entrepreneur. So I think it, you know, it cuts both ways. But in terms of the pressure that I felt, um I felt it, but I think also like he is so assured. Again, this goes back to like childhood where he comes from this long line of entrepreneurs. And I've watched him bootstrap and use the tools at his disposal to build forever. And so I was very confident that he would be able to do that. And he did. And it was working. I mean, it's a great problem to have that it worked out so well that I went from the breadwinner to being in a relationship where my husband was earning three times my salary in just a short period of time. How that dynamic played out, I mean, it just so happens, and this is like a whole relate related thing that I think many couples find themselves experiencing is that it was also the years that I was had that I had our children.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And um, I call them the Bermuda Triangle of my career because I really, you know, we thought I was stable, you know, again, you go back to this thing. It's lockstep, you keep moving up and up, but then like you go to have children and you start to experience some of the hurdles and the systemic things that face women in the workplace who are young mothers. Um, and I think a lot of the messages that I had told myself about what my place was, not only in our relationship, but in the workplace and what my identity was as a mother and a lawyer, really got called into question. And um that was really like the start of a major dynamic shift in our relationship. You want to say something? Yeah, one he's like itching.
SPEAKER_03:He's like, let me let me say something about it.
SPEAKER_06:Um now I gotta figure out what it was. I think that, you know, as much as we set out and and knew that the stability that Heather was providing was to feed the risk that I was taking to build what we now have today. Um, even though we knew the goal was to, yeah, to out-earn Heather. That wasn't, you know, that was by design. What you don't know is what's gonna happen when you get there. And back to this thing about you think you have it figured out. This is really the moment in which, you know, all these things kind of happen at once. Now you're in a new season, and you have no idea what those, and then those feelings come rushing in. And Heather was very good at being, because she's a deep person, was very capable of identifying them and seeing what would happen if they were left unchecked to then come to me and say, Hey, Doug, and I'd be like, What? Everything's great. No, it's not working here. And then I love you enough to say, well, if it's not working for you, we got to figure out how to get this thing right, because the last thing we need to deal with is, and I do not blame her for feeling resentment uh over the fact that I'm over here continuing to grow and live out this dream, and she's plateauing in her own career. And Heather is not someone who wants to throttle her ambition.
SPEAKER_04:Well, so if you couldn't tell, because I wrote a book on our first maternity leave, the type of person that I am, that I don't know how to sit still, I'm motivated AF. I always have to do it.
SPEAKER_05:She can't sit still either. I can't nap.
SPEAKER_04:And I had taken this corporate job and kind of built this security blanket for our family because it made sense, it was sustainable. It was kind of like me taking that defensive role for us, right? Like it was like so that he could run. But and it made sense. And so this is this is a very important concept in our book, not just about like the dynamics that that are constantly changing and the fluidity that that comes with life, because it made sense, but that was always with the unspoken, which was I think where we probably messed up for too long, the unspoken truth that there would come a time when I wanted the chance to run again. I wanted the chance to swing for the senses again. And when would that time come? Because in the years of early parenthood, especially for mothers, a lot ends up falling on your shoulders. And you can really, really get lost in it.
SPEAKER_03:And that identity crisis that you go through, I think. Yep. Especially you went from being the breadwinner to having your first child. And then, Douglas, your practice took off. And then it's like all these things are now shifting for you, Heather, right? Because you're a whole new person, the hormones are crazy, you're sleep deprived, you're not the breadwinner anymore, and your career has kind of stagnated. So there's a lot going on for you.
SPEAKER_06:And COVID. Don't forget her, don't forget a pandemic. And a global pandemic and a second child in the second child in there as well.
SPEAKER_02:We had two under two.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, it's it just gets it just gets to an overload point. And you know, the dam's gonna burst if you're not careful enough.
SPEAKER_04:We talk about it is because it's like, yeah, it was unexpected. And this this disin, but that's what this is all about. Like a decision that we made years ago when we agreed I was gonna stop going for the highest earning job at a private law firm. I was gonna take this stable corporate job so that he could go out and do all these things. Um, that decision made a ton of sense at the time, and it came from an amazing place and it came from this collective idea of ambition, like my win is your win, your one is my win, which we still believe is like the way that couples should be viewing their careers and their lives. However, that only works when you acknowledge that us investing in him is inherently me making sacrifices. Yeah. Yes. And that there is gonna come a time where that coin, you gotta flip it over if that matters to your partner. You've got to be willing to flip that coin when they say, hey, it's time. It feels like it's time for me again. And I think that we were missing that nuance. Um, and you know, like life comes at you like it was no, there was no, there was never any ill will, or there was never any like nefarious decision to like keep me down. Like life happens to people, like omissions can be just as damaging to your relationship as conscious decisions.
SPEAKER_06:I want to pick up on that for a second. And that's, you know, whether it's the work you're doing to improve your relationship stemming from our book or other sources, or just your desire to live a better life with your partner. I think that, you know, the difficulty factor is always pretty high. And we're not asking people to be so good at this practice. And this all is a practice that you can avoid everything that life will have to throw at you. First of all, that would spoil all the, you know, amazing things you'll discover on your own life's journey. But we just want you to be in a position to be proactive enough so you don't sink your ship, that you don't put damage to your relationship, your health, your body, whatever it is that you're trying to be proactive for. So, you know, have some grace and take some of this with a little bit of, you know, space to allow yourself to step into those uncomfortable situations, but hopefully feel confident enough that you can navigate that. You can have that conversation like Heather was able to have with me at that critical moment.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I was gonna say that's the thing that you either get right or you completely gloss over it and then you go another year and another year and then you'll be back to haunt you. And it will come back and it'll cause an explosion, right? So I think there's something really, really important and special in the relationships where you can say, I'm overwhelmed, this is how I'm feeling. Hey, when is it gonna be my turn again? Like whatever that is, and it's gonna change over time, depending on your seasons of life, but I think being able to say that to your partner and then Douglas, what you said, I loved her enough to hear what she said, and then we we pivoted, right? So I know we can go into those stories in detail and we could have another 20-hour conversation. And I love that in the book you spoke to dozens of couples. This is not just your point of view. You actually were interviewing couples about all different situations, but the one thing that it always comes back to, and I really love because it aligns with our dream framework for couples to have better money conversations. It all comes back to the stories, right? Heather, you said it's it's not about the money, it's not about the numbers, it's about the stories. Where did it start? What is your money mindset, right? And I think you can learn so much from your partner when you really go back to those first money memories, what you remember about money and all of those things that really shape who we are. And so I I know that you made the pivot into bona fide wealth. So now you're a true partnership in love, in life, in in business. I mean, that's like a lot of togetherness. All the things, all the things very together, very together with Douglas and Heather. Yes. Oh my gosh, I love that.
SPEAKER_06:Self-aware, very self-aware of how this is not for everyone. We we know.
SPEAKER_03:Well, but I want to get into where this book came from. Because you guys, you're doing all the things, you're parenting, you have a thriving business, you have a wonderful newsletter. You could have just stopped there, but you needed to write another book. So, where did Money Together and the importance of that? Like, where did that fire come from? And why did you have this story to share now?
SPEAKER_04:It came from the humbling experience that if we, a financial professional of 20 years, someone who is educated, motivated, engaged, could find themselves in the place that we did, what's everybody else doing? Couple that with the fact that Douglas sits across the table every week from many, many couples, and he has for many years, who are not having the right conversations about money. It is clear that there's more going on when couples find themselves in conflict, and we've observed that over time, and even in your own life, in your peer circles, in our own life, um, that there was more going on underneath the surface. And um, you know, we wanted to know what that looked like. And so when we embarked upon the journey of this book, we didn't have all this figured out. This was truly a project and an exercise from day one. I want to understand what couples are really, what's really going on beneath these surface level, these proximate week-to-week bickering arguments that you hear your friends talk about. Oh, so-and-so says I should spend less. Oh, we were arguing about where we go on vacation in the springtime, whatever.
SPEAKER_05:Um it's all surface level.
SPEAKER_04:It was all surface level. There's obviously a lot more going on because I know because I lived it, and I know how hard it was for me to find the words to articulate the way that I felt. And I wanted to create something that one, make both partners feel seen in ways they've never felt seen before. Two, create some conversation openers for couples to have deeper conversations. Look, we would never put ourselves out there as saying, here's the 10 steps that you need to take, and you take them once and you're done. And you're gonna be happy forever, just by my guide, and it's all gonna be fine. If only was that easy. That was not what we set out to do. We want to help couples have greater empathy for one another, greater curiosity for respect, perspective for the joys and abundance that they already have in their life, and just be able to navigate uncertainty as a team. And and yeah, money has a huge component of all of that, right?
SPEAKER_06:If you, you know, like health, money, like these are things like you don't have to care about them, but they care about you, right? And I I think that we don't get to opt out, you know, of money in our lives. Um, and because of that, um, we're just forced with having to wrestle with this. Why not provide, you know, some good guidance and some great conversation starters and stories to share with people to get there.
SPEAKER_04:Well, and I'll I'll just throw one more thing in. Sorry, this is like one of those questions. I'm like, well, there's four million reasons why we wrote this book. Um I I I think it was really important to me for the equity and fairness component to be brought into financial conversations more. Um, I think the industry needs it. I think individuals need it. And this notion that time is a currency you must solve for in your relationship. It is not just the income coming into your household, it's time. And who has the time to pursue their career, who has the time to pursue their individual interests and things that also support the family and how we view what it means to contribute. And I wanted to offer thought leadership that moved us in a better direction, that helps women advance in the world, because I think a lot of that begins at home. Preach.
SPEAKER_02:From all the you know, various couples that you had interviewed for this book, did you ever come across interviewing a couple where you just saw, like, from your perspective, like, hey, you guys are not on the same page, and I don't think you're ever going to get there.
SPEAKER_05:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Whether it was appropriate in the interview to get like the interviews weren't to give advice. The interviews were to gain stories. Had they been clients or seeking out advice from us, that may have been a different story. Um, but there were multiple occasions where we saw some real struggles. We saw some sometimes some bad behaviors, and whether they made it in the book or not and hit the chopping, you know.
SPEAKER_04:I'll get racy with it.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, Heather, Heather is just tell you.
SPEAKER_04:There were a couple times I felt that the power dynamic was really, really off.
SPEAKER_03:There were situations, like where you're like uncomfortably off, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Uncomfortably off. Um, and what bothered me the most and what actually um inspired the chapter about religion in the book was that I did not like when I felt a man was exhibiting financially controlling behavior, was making mistakes, was running a million miles a minute, and just was like, well, like, like brought faith into that part of the conversation in a really like disingenuous way. Like, I that's the best way I can say it. I know this is like a little racial.
SPEAKER_03:Like using religion as an excuse to make bad things.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, that's the shield to be to not be challenged on the things that they were doing by tying it to something that should not be challenged, right? You can't you can't go there.
SPEAKER_04:Right. Like, like, yes, I did these four things and I bankrupted my family two times, but we believe there's in faith and a higher and a higher you know, purpose and a higher being, and I was supposed to do those things, and that's why I did it. All according to the But there was like no level of personal accountability there. Made those decisions, right? Like that was that was you. And and that that is what that is what caused me to want to write about this hot potato, about the difference between faith and personal responsibility and how you need a combination of both to really do this.
SPEAKER_02:I a hundred percent understand that because I do like, you know, to everyone else, you know, your your religious beliefs, your faith, whatever that may be, I do feel as though that often as a society, we tend to use religion as a means of not taking accountability. Way too often.
SPEAKER_04:That's right.
SPEAKER_06:It's it's it's the proverbial double-edged sword. Like it either absolutely helps you take responsibility and and and find, you know, greater meaning, or uh it's the coper excuse.
SPEAKER_04:The truth is no matter what your faith is, how you practice it matters, right? You still have to swim. Like, and that that's what we keep saying. Like, it's it's yes, yes, and it is it cannot, it should you should not be, like you said, hiding behind it as an excuse for the behaviors that you've that you've done or that didn't work out your way, or it were in it felt in many of these instances like it also created a dynamic where their wife could not question the decisions that was being made. I really didn't like that either.
SPEAKER_06:It wasn't a conversation starter or opener. It was very much to close down the line of communication. And you whether it's religion or anything else that causes that effect, not gonna move you. No, no, it's 99% of the time.
SPEAKER_03:No, it's not. There's a line in the book. Um, it's one of my favorites, and it was it's love, not money, build the legacy you want. And money isn't a team game. You win once, you have to play it forever. If you, aside from people needing to buy your book to have better relationships with each other and with their money, what would you leave our audience with? And I know it's a lot of that conversation and communication, but if they got anything out of your book, what would it be?
SPEAKER_06:Build a practice around this. It's it's not a one and done ever. And if you do it too infrequently, you're never going to get to the result that you want. Build a practice around the type of conversations, reviews, we call them money dates. You can call them whatever you want. There is a formal setting in which Heather and I sit down, not just to go over numbers. As a matter of fact, it's probably the worst place to start. So you get in with your goals, you do it at a time and a place that works for everyone, activities you love to do. Start with your wins, not with your losses, and then do this every quarter, every however often, probably not too soon, to where you don't see any meaningful change and not so long apart, that you actually don't build any consistency. Figure that out. Do this for years, years, and you will find that you have a rhythm, you have a cadence, you have a forum in which to really get there with your partner, not just about what you spent your money on, but where you want to go and the risks you're willing to take.
SPEAKER_04:I'll be a little less prescriptive with mine. Okay. Um I I I don't I want everyone to realize that they are still their own person and they deserve to be seen for all of what that means. When we talk about fairness, we talk about making room for your spouse every day. And so I just want to leave people with the idea for the idea that they should always feel empathy for their spouse. They should always be curious about them, they should always want to know how they're feeling, they should always want to know what they want in life and whether they feel like they're getting it. Um, and if not, what can we do to make more room for you? Because a great relationship is yours, mine, and ours. It's not just one conglomerate mushball of the two of us. It's it's who we are as individuals and the power that we have when we come together. Um, so I that that's where I would leave people.
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely love that. Where can people find you, Heather and Doug, as a team and as individuals?
SPEAKER_06:Sure. So if you're interested in learning more about money together, you can go to do moneytogether.com for anything having to do with our firm, that is bona fidewealth.com. And of course, do not forget to subscribe, subscribe, or subscribe, that works, to our weekly newsletter on love and money. That is the joint account at read the joint account. Wow. Wow, no, read the joint.
SPEAKER_03:It's a Monday, guys. It's a Monday. Read the joint account.com.
SPEAKER_04:And as and as individuals, I'm really fun on Instagram. I have to say. Average Joel. That's my middle name.
SPEAKER_03:You're so far from average, but it's a cute name.
SPEAKER_04:Thank you. And and he's Doug Bonaparte everywhere on social. Come get a laugh.
SPEAKER_03:Come get a laugh from Come get a laugh. Thank you guys so much for being with us, for sharing your story. And this beautiful book, which we discussed at the very beginning, matches my outfit, matches my office. Great color screen scheme.
SPEAKER_02:Color scheme.
SPEAKER_03:Wow, we are all struggling today. This has just been too much fun. We can't even talk. I know. Thank you guys for being with us. Congratulations on the book. Much success. And the next time our double date needs to be in a restaurant and not on a podcast. How about that? 100%. It's a date. Perfect. We can't wait. Thank you so much. Thank you. Don't forget, Benjamin Franklin said an investment in knowledge pays the best interest. You just got paid. Until next time.
SPEAKER_00:Sugar Daddy Podcast Go. Learn how to make the pockets grow. Fundamental freedoms where we grow. Our investments, money flow.
SPEAKER_03:Thanks for listening to today's episode. We are so glad to have you as part of our Sugar Daddy community. If you learned something today, please remember to subscribe, rate, review, and share this episode with your friends, family, and extended network. Don't forget to connect with us on social media at the Sugar Daddy Podcast. You can also email us your questions you want us to answer for our past the sugar segments at thesugardaddypodcast at gmail.com or leave us a voicemail to our Instagram.
SPEAKER_01:We should take independent money to advisor reliance professional and connection with or independently research and verify any information you find in our podcast and we need to rely upon whether for the purpose of making an investment decision or otherwise.
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