I wish I could say this to every couple who's scared of things sliding back to the way they were.

This fear comes up with a lot of things, and money especially is a big one.

Couples can spend years and sometimes decades getting on the same page about budgets and financial priorities. 

It's a huge accomplishment, like finishing a marathon as a wheelbarrow team. 

And this is doubly true when partners grow up with totally different ideas about money.

So things can be going well, until one day there's a little extra cash in the bank. 

Then he says, "Maybe it's time for that trip to London." Or, "I've been looking at getting a truck again."

And her stomach drops.

Because she's the one who's always had to be the responsible one. 

She's had to be the bad guy and say, "No, we can’t do that. We have to stick to the budget." 

It took years to get him to understand, and then in one breath it feels like all that progress is poof, gone.

"Was I fooling myself?" she's wondering. "Are we going right back to how it used to be?"

If you've felt that sinking feeling, here's what I'd want you to know.

All that progress hasn’t just disappeared into thin air, and here’s why.

Some men grow up seeing money as something to enjoy. 

You work hard and earn it, and when there's a little extra, he thinks, "We did the hard part, now let's live our life outside of the spreadsheet."

The less obvious part is that when he wants to spend that money on the family, that's his way of taking care of you too. 

You might want to keep everyone safe by protecting the money. That's one version of safety. 

He feels like he's taking care of everyone by creating a life worth remembering. 

You're both trying to do the same job in different ways.

So when you see signs of his old spending habits, it's tempting to see it as the old him coming back. 

But him wanting a truck and actually buying the truck are two different things. 

Part of him will always want to get things, and that's never going to change. 

The progress is that now he'll say it out loud and want to talk about it instead of just doing it.

I run into this in my own marriage too. 

Sometimes I'll start to bring up going somewhere, and I can see my wife stiffen, already doing the math on our budget. 

Then we talk it through and decide on something like a weekend at the beach. It's nothing like what she was afraid of, and she can breathe again. 

Her fear kicked in before the details did.

When you feel that drop in your stomach, that's the old fear talking. It’s not proof that all the progress you've made as a couple was fake.

And I’m sorry to say this but that feeling is going to keep coming up. 

It'll happen with money, family, kids, the house, all of it. 

Anytime two people care about something and see it differently, there’re going to be tremors. 

Treat each one like an earthquake, and it'll start to feel like one.

But does it actually mean things are sliding back?

Almost never. 

Because being on the same page isn't a finish line. It's a decision that has to be made over and over again. 

Feeling a drop in your stomach is a sign that one of those decisions is coming up. 

That’s why it might feel like a relapse when he talks about splurging on a trip, but it's actually just the two of you doing exactly what it takes to keep a marriage on the same page.