This weekend, restaurants in Glasgow’s Finnieston will be packed. Some couples will be gazing into each other’s eyes over candlelight. Others will be staring at the menu, desperate to avoid eye contact.
Valentine’s Day has a way of making us think about our relationships. But there’s one relationship most of us never properly examine: the one we have with money.
I was chatting with my good friend, the positive psychologist Anya Pearse, about something I’d been noticing with clients. Some seem so anxious about their finances, checking in constantly. Others avoid even opening their banking app. And it got me wondering – why?
She introduced me to this idea that made everything click: our relationship with money follows the same patterns as our romantic relationships. Same attachment styles, same protective behaviours, same everything.
I asked her to explain it properly. Here’s what she said.
Understanding your money attachment style
by Anya Pearse, MSc Applied Positive Psychology
So, you’ve probably heard of attachment theory. It’s basically about how we learned to bond with people when we were growing up, and how those early experiences shaped the way we connect with others as adults.
But here’s the thing that fascinates me: these same patterns show up in how we relate to money.
There are three main styles, and I bet you’ll recognise yourself in one of them.
- Anxious attachment with money
This is when you’re constantly checking your bank balance. Multiple times a day, sometimes. You feel panicked when bills arrive, even when you can actually afford them. You want reassurance that everything’s okay, but somehow the reassurance never quite sticks for long.
Every financial decision feels huge and high-stakes.
Should you buy that new laptop? Invest in that course?
Even when the money’s there, the anxiety is there too.
You might find yourself asking friends or your accountant the same questions over and over, seeking comfort that the ground beneath you is solid.
And when your accountant says “yes, you’re fine,” you believe them for about a day. Then the worry creeps back in.
If this is you, you’re not being silly. Your brain is genuinely trying to keep you safe by staying hyper-alert to potential financial threats.
- Anxious attachment with money
This looks completely different from the outside, but it comes from the same place: trying to manage something that feels overwhelming.
Maybe you leave envelopes unopened. Your business banking app sits there with that little red notification dot, and you’ve been scrolling past it for three weeks now.
It’s not that you don’t care about your business or your finances.
It’s that looking at the numbers feels too big, too much, too scary.
So you protect yourself by creating distance. You deal with it later.
Except later keeps getting pushed back.
Sometimes people think you’re being careless or irresponsible. But really, you’re trying to manage feelings that threaten to swamp you.
Avoidance is a coping strategy, not a character flaw.
- Secure attachment with money
This is what we’re all aiming for, really. It means you can look at your finances without spiralling.
You still worry sometimes. Of course you do.
But you can sit with the discomfort without it becoming a full-blown panic or a complete shutdown.
You can make decisions without agonising for weeks. You know when to ask for help, and you can actually hear and take in that help when it arrives.
The relationship with money feels manageable, even when it’s not perfect. You trust yourself to handle what comes up.
Here’s what I need you to know: none of these patterns is a moral failing.
They developed for really good reasons, usually when we were very young and had no control over the messages we absorbed about money, safety, and security.
The neurodivergent piece (because this matters)
Gillian works with loads of creative and neurodivergent business owners, and there’s an extra layer here that’s really important to understand.
If you have ADHD, autism, or any kind of neurodivergent brain, what looks like avoidance or anxiety might actually be something else entirely.
Your brain might be saying, “I need to calm my whole system down before I can even begin to process this information.” That’s not avoidance so much as your nervous system protecting you from complete overload.
Let me give you some examples. An ADHD brain might genuinely forget to chase that invoice – not because it doesn’t care about getting paid, but because attention got pulled to seventeen other things and the invoice just… vanished from working memory.
An autistic brain might avoid phone calls with HMRC – not because of social anxiety exactly, but because processing verbal information in that kind of formal, high-stakes context is genuinely, physically exhausting. It takes enormous energy that you might just not have that day.
There’s actual research on this now. What we’re learning is that for neurospicy folks, behaviours that look like “insecure attachment” are often about how your brain and nervous system process information and stimulation.
The problem isn’t you. It’s usually about the mismatch between what your brain needs and how the system expects you to operate.
So what do we actually do with all this?
Right. This is where it gets practical and, I think, genuinely hopeful.
There’s a therapist called Jessica Baum who talks about something brilliant: building an internal team of supportive people in your mind. You’re basically collecting the calm, wise, encouraging voices of people you’ve known – or people you wish you’d known – and making them part of your internal world.
So when you’re freaking out, you can tap into that calm voice. When you’re shutting down, you can access that encouraging presence.
You can do this with your relationship with money too.
Let’s say you’re feeling anxious about money. You could practise hearing a calm, steady voice in your head saying, “We can look at this together. There’s no emergency here. Let’s just take it one small step at a time. We don’t have to solve everything today.”
(I had to do this myself this morning, when my laptop died unexpectedly and I suddenly had an unexpected expense to deal with!)
Or maybe you’re in avoidance mode. You could imagine a really encouraging, gentle presence saying, “I know this feels massive right now. But we don’t have to look at the whole thing. We can break it into tiny, tiny pieces. Just one number. Just one account. You don’t have to do it all at once.”
And when you’re feeling secure and capable? You reinforce that; “Look, I handled that. I opened the envelope. I looked at the number. I asked for help. I can trust myself to figure things out, even when it’s uncomfortable.”
This isn’t just positive thinking or affirmations. What you’re doing is building what psychologists call “inner soothing” – creating your own emotional support system so you’re not starting from absolute zero every time money stress hits.
For neurospicy brains especially, this is huge. Because calming down with someone else’s help takes longer when your brain processes things differently.
And let’s be honest, you can’t always have someone available exactly when you need them. Having these internal resources means you have something to lean on until you can access external support.
The goal isn’t to never need help.
The goal is to have a bit more steadiness inside yourself so the wobbles don’t completely floor you every time.
Sometimes you just need someone in the room with you
When Anya explained all this, so much clicked into place about my clients.
The ones who email me three times about how and when to pay their tax aren’t being difficult. They’re anxiously-attached and seeking reassurance.
The ones who go quiet for weeks before their deadline aren’t being irresponsible. They’re managing overwhelm the only way they know how.
And here’s what I realised: building that inner steady voice? That takes time. Sometimes you need an actual person beside you first so you can make them a part of you.
Someone calm. Someone who’s seen it all before and isn’t fazed by what’s going on.
That’s what helps people start to find their footing.
You know, at Fearless Financials, we’re not just about the numbers (though obviously we do those too). What we’re really doing is helping people build a different kind of relationship with their business finances.
One where you don’t have to live in constant anxiety or constant avoidance.
One where you can actually breathe.
Our Guidance sessions are a space to look at what’s actually happening – not what you’re terrified is happening, not what you’re avoiding finding out – but what’s real.
We help you see your patterns without any shame about them.
And we stay calm when you’re not feeling calm at all.
Because here’s the thing: you don’t have to have it all figured out before you come to us. You don’t have to be “sorted” or “organised” or have your books perfectly up to date. You just need to be willing to look.
If you’d like to talk about your relationship with money in a space that won’t judge you for where you’re starting from, book an initial Life Coach Accountant session.
We’re right beside you the whole time.
Be you. Be brave. Build a better business.
Gillian x