The Ramsey Show - App - My Wife Is Spending Like Crazy...What Do I Do? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: March 9, 2022

Dave Ramsey & George Kamel discuss: Budgeting for sinking funds, A situation with a large tax return and debt collectors, What must be true for a struggling marriage to work. Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6  

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. He's the host of the very popular Ramsey Network podcast called The Fine Print, where we teach you to read the fine print, because you know the rule there is, if you don't, you get screwed. And George shows you all that. Episode, or season one is in the books, working on episode, or season two, coming out soon, before you know it. And man, we got some, there's a lot of people out there that need information,

so George is here to help. Today we're going to be talking about your relationships, your mental health, your job, your career, and, of course, your money. Open phones at 888-825-5225. The call is free, and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. Gary's with us in San Diego to start off this hour. Hi, Gary. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. Hi, George. Great to talk to you. Thanks for taking my call. Sure, man. What's up? I've got a two-part question. The first is about incorporating sinking funds into the EveryDollar app for budget when you do a sinking fund versus just having a fluctuating budget.

And the second is about market stability. So Baby Step 7, EDM, make way more than I spend monthly. My wife and I have been using every dollar unconsistently, but we're really focused now. And there's things like car insurance, things like that, property taxes that are several thousand dollars that I'm wondering, do you set those aside monthly in your budget? Or if you have the money, do you just do it every six months or every year? So that's the first part of my question. And then secondly, I know you're friends with Glenn Beck, and he's talking a lot about this great reset and everything.

I'm wondering if you have any concerns over the market and alternate strategies like he does. Do you have crazy friends? I've got a few crazy friends. Glenn's one of them. I love Glenn, and he's completely out on a plank. I mean, he does this every two or three years. He predicts the end of the world. And I made a rule when I went on radio, I'm, he does this every two or three years. He predicts the end of the world.

And I made a rule when I went on radio, I'm not going to predict the end of the world. And if Glenn's going to predict the end of the world, he and I are going to be friends that disagree. So, no, I don't think that the world is coming to an end. You know, if it does, then it will. But I'm not adjusting my investments, and I never have. In any of the crises and the geopolitical upheaval that there has been, I've always just kept investing and kept investing and kept investing, and the only ones that get hurt on a roller coaster are those that jump off in the middle of the ride. So, George, what about sinking funds?

Well, I was just going to mention on that part, on top of not getting hurt on the ride, you also kept your sanity, and that's an important part of this equation. You're suggesting maybe Glenn didn't. No, I'm kidding. We love Glenn. We joke all the time. He is a great guy. He's a wonderful person. I mean, I really like him.

But he gets crazy sometimes, man, and this end-of-the-world prediction stuff is one of those times. I sleep better at night without having to worry about that. He went off on the gold run a few years ago, getting everybody on the gold, and, of course, you know i don't do that so i got a lot of friends that i really love them and respect their intellect but disagree with their ideas and so that's all this is sinking funds let's talk about that i'll tell you how i do it my personal every dollar budget and dave can tell me i've been doing it wrong all these years but i have a i have a whole category called funds that's wrong

no i just list them all out, and I divide it by 12. So I pay all my insurance premiums yearly because it saves money. And so if it's $600, I go, all right, we've got to put $50 in that sinking fund category every month, and that's going to get set aside in my account so that when that time comes, the money comes out, and I didn't bat an eyelash. Here's the sinking fund, a little miniature savings accounts to cover Christmas because it comes every year in December. They don't move it, so you've got to get ready, right? It's the old Christmas club account. It's just built into your budget is all.

Now, Gary, that's exactly how I would do it 99% of the time. I want to acknowledge, though, that you said you're an everyday millionaire. You have a huge income. You're completely debt-free on Baby Step 7. So you've got substantial cash flow what's your household income so um it's different this year so i'm uh retired and my um take home retirement guaranteed income uh gross is 15 000 a month and i have a okay so if you have a if you have a four thousand dollar item that pops up once a year you just put it in your budget right so yeah you don't have to save up

do i need you don't have to save up for christmas making fifteen thousand dollars a month you can just go freaking by christmas right got it yeah that's what i was yeah yeah you put that in the budget that's what you do when you get to this level. Now, the purpose of having the sinking fund is not to nerd out on every detail. It's to not have an expense sneak up on you that leaves you without food money that month because you've got, oh, my God, I've got to pay my property taxes. I have no money, and I haven't saved up any to get ready, and they're due. But in my case, we're obviously baby step seven people too

and so i don't have a sinking fund for my property taxes i just write a check when it comes up because i can fit it into my income like you can gary and so you don't have to do the sinking fund but if you've got something that's big enough that you experience an ouchie you know it's like when that when that hits in your monthly budget then you probably should have saved up some to get ready for it with a little miniature named savings account we call them sinking funds and it helps to know when those are coming up because sometimes you're like i don't know when my premium comes out every year so it's good to have that and have the dates but like you're saying you've got a buffer in the checking account when you get to a place like baby step seven until you're out there like that i mean when you're in baby steps one through six and all and you're still fighting to pay off the house Step 7. But until you're out there like that, I mean, when you're in Baby Steps 1 through 6 and all

and you're still fighting to pay off the house, you're still, you're not running with big lumps of cash laying around. I mean, you're running it, all those dollars have names and they're going everywhere. You need to use sinking funds in that case. Absolutely. Always. And the classic one is, oh, I had to run Christmas on a credit card because I forgot it was in December.

You know, it snuck up on me. Like, they move it. They don't move it. So that's what that's about. But, man, you've obviously done a wonderful job. Congratulations, Gary. Very well done. Michelle's in Seattle.

Hey, Michelle. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi there. Thank you so much for taking my call. It's an honor to speak with you. You too. What's up? Well, we are going to retire in the next

seven-ish years. My husband's a firefighter, so we have a pension. We're very lucky. And we just had the opportunity to sell our house for about 1.1, which is crazy pants in this area. We only owe about 500. So we're kind of thinking that we should take this opportunity right now and even if we need to rent for the next five to seven years then at least we can pay off all of our debt which is about 120 000 what's your household about 175 000 and we feel like we have no money. It's really sad. Yeah. Well, then you get on a tight budget and get your debt paid off.

No, I wouldn't sell your house. I mean, a $1.1 million house is not a super expensive house in Seattle. I mean, it's a nice house, but it's not a $10 million house. It's not a hard house to sell. You'll be able to sell that house in seven years when you get ready to sell it, and you will have lost out on all the appreciation between now and then. I think you can pay off your debt with the income you have. Yeah, you can.

Stay the course. Get on your Titan budget here and beans and rice and let's get this stinking budget. You may need to sell your car, but I wouldn't sell my house unless you hate your house and want to move anyway. Now, if you want to do that, that's fine. But selling it because the market's hot, I wouldn't do that unless you've got a very unusual property and you're needing to walk out of it, and this is a great time to do that. But this is not 1.1 million in Seattle. It's not like crazy.

You can get that. I think you need to tighten up your budget, sell your car maybe. This is the Ramsey Show. In an uncertain world, being a good steward of your money is more important than ever. While some circumstances can't be controlled, there are items within your budget you can take charge of, such as your health care costs. For nearly 40 years, Christian Health Care Ministries, or CHM, has provided a budget-friendly means of sharing for medical bills when our members need it. Learn more by visiting chministries.org slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budget. Christian Health Care Ministries is a Ramsey Trusted Provider. Well, we all know time is important.

It's actually more precious than money. It's more precious than shiny toys or getting a certificate at work. And like spending money from an account when you don't know how much is in there, we never know how much time we have left. So if you could do one thing that would make the time you have left worthwhile, would you do it? Well, of course you would. You've got to make that dash between the two numbers on the gravestone count, right?

Hey, we get that. And we want to help you do. You got to make that dash between the two numbers on the gravestone count, right? Hey, we get that. And we want to help you do everything you can to be well. That's why we're partnering with BetterHelp. And we're going to give you a month of free one-on-one weekly therapy when you pre-order a copy of John Deloney's new book. Dr. John Deloney's new book is Own Your Past, Change Your Future. And your free month of one-on-one therapy is a part of pre-ordering the book. The book comes out in April, and we always have a bag of goodies that go with a book launch to get you to order them pre-order.

And we bribe you to pre-order them because it helps with our marketing. And this is the biggest bribe we've ever done. It's pretty incredible. It's a great deal. For a $20 book, you get better help for a month included wow and of course you get the e-book and the audio book too and the audio book the first chapter is out on deloney's uh podcast i listened to it yesterday yeah i released that for free as voiced by the author and he didn't do a bad job he's got a good voice he's got a he's got a

passable voice yeah yeah it's usable kind of a's usable. Well, he's always had a Batman vibe, but yeah, the voice worked out and you can listen to it. Some audio books read by the author shouldn't be. Yeah. You're looking at me like it was a personal attack. No, I'm not. I'm just having a conversation with you, George. My gosh.

You're so sensitive. I like to listen to your audio books while I read them. You're so... Yeah. Thank you, George. And I'm highlighting every word. And you do everything exactly right. a gold star including brown nosing so uh yeah ramsey solutions.com own your past change your future mike's in buffalo hey mike welcome to

the ramsey show hi dave thank you so much for taking my call. I greatly appreciate it. Sure, man. What's up? Well, I'll try to make this as quick as possible. Big fan of yours. I wish my life looked like I was a big fan of yours. Basically, the nuts and bolts of it right now is that we've got a, uh, a credit card judgment against us. The original debt was about 15,000. They're coming after us for about 20,000, um, after fees and interests. Um, this is from a discover and, um, I'm trying to figure out what to do. They're trying to, well, they're mistakenly saying that I'm earning about four times what I actually earn in order to try to take 10% of my income.

We've got a friend who's an attorney who's trying to help us sort through that and, you know, stave that off, but that's kind of a bandaid. We just recently got our tax return, which is about $5,000. And, um, you know, we're trying to figure out what's the best thing to do with that given our current situation. Okay. What's your household income? Um, well, my, um, my wife brings in, um, I forget exactly. it's around $50,000 annually. I'm currently the stay-at-home dad. I do work a couple of part-time jobs that don't make a ton. It's just basically to help with essentials and bills and little things here and there.

I've got three. One is eight, one's five, and one's three. How'd you get this far behind? Oh, boy. So a while back with that particular card, we had run some things up on it, like our honeymoon, traded off with a refinance on our house how long you've been married was uh close to 10 years now okay we don't need to go all the way back to the honeymoon how'd

you get behind on your discover card in recent history okay well i mean it wasn't recent it was several years ago now okay okay that's fine here's what that's what i was trying to that's the number i was trying to get so we're good okay all right so here's the deal um number one the discover card problem is not the problem it's the symptom of the fact that you're all's income is low in this house you're gonna have to make some different decisions on careers long term yeah i'm trying to figure out how to do that yeah you're gonna have to you don't have it's time it's past time to figure it out and this is a great time to be

looking for a job and a great time to be getting a job both of you maybe your wife gets a better job maybe you get a job i don't know but we're gonna have to do something here because you got three little kids and you're living uh considerably below the average household income in America in Buffalo, which is not a cheap place to live. Yeah, I mean, we did get lucky on our house. We live outside of Buffalo. Don't try to talk yourself out of this, dude. You have an income problem.

No, no, yeah. Okay. I don't care how lucky you got. You didn't get lucky enough to pay your bills. And part of it is you got three mouths to feed and you don't have a lot of money coming in. So we've got to get that going. We've got to get organized and get on a budget we'll help you do all of that as well um now as far as dealing with discover here's the thing are you sure you're

dealing with discover how you're probably not they probably sold that debt haven't they uh i think so we were getting calls from some ah okay agency that's what i thought a debt that hasn't been paid on in this long and they actually did sue you and actually did get a judgment you're saying that's that's what it looks like yeah unless they're sending us just flat out and false you know information uh but it looks like it's stamped by our local county sheriff's office. Okay, probably is, and I doubt they'd go that far. So debt buyers on old credit card debt pay about a nickel on the dollar. Okay, and so they probably paid $1,000 for this $20,000 debt.

So I would offer them $5,000 of settlement in full in cash. I don't have any more than that. I'm broke. I have three kids. We don't make any money over here. This is my tax return and I will give it to you, but I will only give it to you. There's other people wanting this money. I'm behind with everybody. I'm getting ready to go bankrupt. If you people, if I can't work this out and I'm in, you know, and just really whine and play a bad country song in the radio right there in their ear about how bad your life is because it is. And I got $5,000, and you guys better take that while the getting's good. And you get it in writing from them that this is settlement in full, and then you wire them the money. No electronic access to your checking account.

Do not give them any numbers of any kind do not give them where she works don't give them any information make them find everything the hard way but they'll settle this because they probably got a grand in the debt they'll probably take the five and walk they're not going to in one conversation you're going to bow up up and have a little gravitas. All right. But you can do that. I can handle that. Two rules.

In writing, no electronic access to your checking account. Okay? Right. Now, that solves the immediate fire in the kitchen, but now we've got to figure out why we've been cooking with grease like this and what's causing this, right? Yeah. And you've got to get down under this and fix the whole thing because you guys have been wallowing around in financial stress and it's affecting how you feel about yourself it's affecting your

relationship and your marriage unless you're not a human unless you're psychotic it's affecting all of those things it did when i went broke sharon i about killed each other yeah mike do you have any other debt other than the credit card uh yeah i mean we both have student loans uh we have a mortgage we have um one other card that's in collections for a much smaller amount um it's closer to like five or six thousand um but uh they you know they haven't mentioned anything for us on that um and then we have a car loan that's around i think there's something like seven or eight thousand left on it okay well we're gonna get we're gonna put you into financial peace university and sign you guys up you and your wife need to go through this together if you can find a local

church that's doing it jump in there if not just do it online with us and get in some of the groups embrace every detail of that and assume like i did when i went broke when i was 28 many years ago assume that everything you're doing right now is wrong and you should be doing the opposite because your life sucks man but i don't want it i want you to win the last 10 years yeah i want you to win and you've got to turn this around yeah so you hang on we'll get you signed up and and you call me back if you need some more help george and i'll be here we're gonna be here for you we're gonna walk with you because it's scary as crud where you live right now and i don't i don't want you to be there anymore i remember it it's it's not fun and you

can get there you can win you can turn this around check out a local church and get plugged in get your marriage going make sure you're getting your bills paid get this settled and get it out of your life you can turn this around we can show you how you George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. This is The Ramsey Show. Brian and Jamie are with us in San Bernardino, California.

It says on my screen you guys are debt-free. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Cool. How much debt did you pay off? We paid off $325,000 in 29 months. Wow.

And your range of income during that time? We started out at about $225,000, and last year, Brian doubled his income, so that's what... You broke up. Brian doubled his income in what? Brian, we started about $225,000, and then last year, Brian did really well. He's in fifth. So he did really well and doubled his income last year, which helped us pay off the debt. So, I'm sorry, your household income last year was to what then? It went from $225,000 to $450,000?

Yes. Okay. All right, so Brian is the only income. I'm getting it. Okay. That's what I was trying to figure out. Good. Way to go, guys. What in the only income. I'm getting it. Okay. That's what I was trying to figure out. Good. Way to go, guys.

What in the world do you do for a living, dude? I'm in sales. Actually, Jamie's in the medical industry, so she also has a career. Her occupational is in medical. Oh, okay. Okay. So was your household income $450,000? Did I get that right? Yeah. Wow. So what kind of debt was the income $450,000? Did I get that right? Yeah.

Wow. So what kind of debt was the $325,000? So we had two cars that we had to pay off. We had a truck, my car, and then we also had an RV. And then our house was paid off as well. We just paid that off this morning. Whoa! Talking to weird people.

So what is this uh california house worth what's the house worth so right now um maybe 800 to 850 okay wow very good how old are you two uh we're both 40 way to go and how much to get do you have in your nest egg in savings? So we did, that's where we did do Financial Peace University, and we had savings. In order to pay off the house, I wanted it paid off today since we were calling you, so we did pull money out of savings to pay that off this morning. How much do you have in your 401ks and your retirement and that kind of stuff? Oh, all of that together uh maybe 400 000 so you're 40 year old millionaires way to go way to go i'm proud of you just figure that out please tell me you do that

millionaires $150,000 house 400,000 that's, that's $1.2 million. Net worth, way to go. That's funny you say it that way. Yeah, well, that's the way it's said. Well done. Proud of you. Way to go, you guys. Amazing. And you make incredible money. You're doing so well.

Congratulations. Thank you for a financial piece. Okay, what started you on this whole? That's a huge lifesaver for us. Okay. What started you on this whole Ramsey journey thing? So, Dave, I've listened to you for 10 years over the radio, but I've always told Jamie, hey, we should look into this.

You know, it'd be fun to kind of hear how to invest as millionaires going forward and getting that lifelong goal. So this came up with our church, and I said, you know, we should do it. She was hesitant at first, and I said, you know, we should do it. And she was hesitant at first. And I said, I think it was $60 when we did it. And anyways, we ended up doing that. And I kind of drug her through it. And the first day that she was in there, she was like, why are we doing this? We're not in debt. Oh, I was so mad. I said, we have no credit cards. We don't have any debt. All we have is our house and our cars.

And the financial piece totally changed our mindset. And then you start looking at your bills, seeing how much you pay in interest. It was shocking. Jamie, I'm confused. You got two car loans, and you didn't see that as debt, even though the payments were going to lenders every month. Talk to me about the mindset there. Correct. Because a lot of people say that. They call and say, Dave, I don't have any debt except for my cars.

Yes, that's what we said. Yeah, way to go. You guys. So how many classes into Financial Peace University, Jamie, before you flipped and said, okay, I'm not mad anymore? Oh, it was probably the third class. Because the first class, I still said, why are we doing this? This is such a waste of our time. Yeah. And it wasn't until they made us write down our debt, start a budget, when you really start looking at numbers.

The reality hits you, and you go, oh, my gosh, he's right. We're broke. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, when you write down that you have $140,000 in debt, it's shocking. And 29 months later, house and everything is paid for. Yes. Way to go. How's that feel?

Oh, we're in shock still. We recorded us making that last payment this morning. I love it. That's awesome. I love it. Well, congratulations. We're very proud of you guys. What do you tell people the secret to getting out of debt in 29 months is?

What do we tell them, you said? Mm-hmm. Oh, you've got to take financial peace. You have to do that snowball effect. Ah, okay. Cool. And also be on a budget. You know, I don't think we realized how much money was going out the door on a monthly basis

versus what we were bringing in. And we were living, you know, as we considered comfortably, but the mindset that that class gave us to change our viewpoints and just roll it down has now put us in an extremely good position going forward. Yeah. Wow. Pretty amazing. Way to go, guys! Thank you!

I love it. So proud of you. You're incredible. Very well done. All right. We're going to send you a copy of Baby. You're incredible. Very well done. All right. We're going to send you a copy of Baby Steps Millionaires because you are one. Maybe you can pass that on after you read it and inspire someone else to do what you've done. I'm so proud of you.

How Ordinary People Built Extraordinary Wealth. Now, you can, too. It's the number one bestseller. We'll also send you the number one bestseller, Total Money Makeover. So you give that away and disturb someone's life. Let's create a holy ruckus together. Well done, you guys. I'm proud of you.

Very, very cool. Well done. All right, Brian and Jamie San Bernardino, $325,000 paid off in 29 months, making two and a quarter to over 400. 100% debt-free, house and everything, baby steps millionaires by the time they're 40. Count it down.

Let's hear a debt-free scream. One, two, three. We're debt-free! Yeah! Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo! I love it! Well done, well done. Absolutely incredible. Very cool, you done. Absolutely incredible.

Very cool, you guys. Very cool. That is how it's done. Man. Three lessons in. Just for everyone to know, if you're taking FPU, the first lesson. Sometimes I hear the first lesson turns them around. She was hardcore.

If you've got a bad attitude, it might take two or three. She's hardcore. I mean, she had the arms folded, you know? And the old body language that says, I'm pissed and I don't want to be here, right? And you start to let the hair down, the arms start to spread out. Yeah, we can do this. Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

We can do this. I love it. That's so good. What a great story. Very, very well done, you guys. Michelle is with us in Miami, Florida. Hi, Michelle. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hi, Michelle. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Well, thanks to everything that you've taught, I am now on the E-Step 4. I have a fully funded emergency fund, and I'm saving 22% towards retirement, and my house is paid off. Yay! Wow!

But like George said to that last couple, I'm out of debt except for my car. Whoa. How in the world do you have a paid-for house and debt on your car? I know, I know, I know, I know. Don't beat me up for that. But the lease term is up in December, and my payoff amount is $22,000. I just learned that the Kelly Blue Book trade-in value is $27,000. So I'd like to know, should I pay off this car at the end of the lease

term, or should I just cut my losses and go find another car? I'm sorry, I thought you said you could buy it for $22,000 and the value is $27,000. Yes. That would not be cutting your losses. That would be gaining. I guess. If you turn the car in and bought one just like it, you'd have to spend $27,000 or you can pay this one off for $22,000. Is that right? That's right.

Therefore, you're getting a $5,000 discount, which is unheard of in this market in that sense. So do you have the money to buy it? Well, I'd have to eat into my emergency fund. Well, we're going to do that. What's your household income? Okay. I make $41,000. Oh.

No, I would buy the car and I'd turn around and sell it. Get something cheaper. Make you a $5,000 profit and then get something that's less expensive. Making $40,000, you don't need to be driving a $30,000 car. That's a lot of car for that income. That's too much. Too much of things going down in value. I know they're not going down in value at this moment, but they will be soon again.

It's used cars and they always go down in value. So, no. No, I would make the five grand on it, though, and flip it, and then move into another car at that point. And then never touch that again. Yes, ever, under any circumstances. This is The Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Adam is with us in Toronto.

Hey, Adam. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, how you doing, Dave? Good, man. What's up? Oh, nothing. Well, I shouldn't say nothing quite a bit, but just a little bit of a recap. Back in 2016, my wife and i did as you say

stupid with zeros on the end of it spent a lot and 2017 paid off about 65 000 bucks of debt in 11 months and i never did it i'm getting down for a debt-free screen but anyway um fast forward now in the last i guess a couple years covid has kind of destroyed my industry there i'm a pilot in Canada here. It really took a bad hit. It's just kind of recovering now. And so with the stress that that kind of brought about, we brought some marriage issues along with it. And life is in a really bad spot right now.

I guess we both kind of are. And it's not sure if she wants to work on the marriage or what she wants to do. And we're kind of in this stalemate. But in the resulting aftermath is that she has decided that she's going to spend however she wants to spend and kind of go back to, you know, she's saying we make too much money. There's no way I should have to have any restraint. And so kind of spending about, oh, I'd'd say about two thousand dollars a month over what we make and as a result of kind of depleted our emergency fund almost down to nothing

she signed up for an elective surgery to the tune of about ten thousand dollars and when kind of questioned on the timing of it she just said well i'm either either we fund it somehow through us or i'm just going to look at my own credit card and do it myself. And so, but every time I bring up finances to her to talk about it, she says, you're obsessed with money. You've got to stop being so obsessed. I'm trying to just bring her to the reality that we're spending more than we make and we're kind of gradually bankrupting the family. We've got four young children and trying to put money aside for them as well. And retirement now that we're kind of both kind of getting back on our feet, we do make good money, but the reality is we're just spending way too much.

And she has no desire to even talk about it. She'll stonewall me every time I try to bring it up. And I'm worried that I'm going to tip her over the edge in the marriage if I talk too much about finances. Your marriage is already gone. Well, yeah, it's the thing. I feel like I'm kind of giving the drunk a drink. No, you didn't hear me. You didn't hear me. You didn't hear me. finances but if i your marriage your marriage is already gone well yeah it's the thing it's if i feel like i'm kind of giving the drunk a drink no you didn't hear me anyway you didn't hear me

your marriage is already gone yeah well i mean she she doesn't give indication that she doesn't want to make it work no she doesn't no she's not ready to do it right now no no no she doesn't people that do the things and say the things that she's doing have no desire for this marriage to continue. Yeah. When you say things like, if you don't pay for this $10,000, I'm just going to put it on a credit card. Screw you. You don't have a vote. This is not someone that has a marriage anymore that wants to work at all.

And so what I would do if I were in your shoes is you would say, I'm going to go see a marriage counselor, and it's either going to be with you on how we learn to get back on the same page and we have a future together that's going to include us both being grown-ups. And if you want to go with that, that's fine. If not, the marriage counselor is going to instruct me on how to bring this marriage to an end. Yeah, we have done some counseling. It didn't work. A couple times, trying to get her to come back to it is the hard part, and she's very reluctant.

Yeah, you're begging this woman to do stuff, and she has no desire. She's obstinate. She's angry, and she's done. She's done. The marriage is over. I mean, it's tough to say that because she does say that she still does want to make it work. She's lying. What she says is not what she's doing, and so that's the problem.

Yeah. And again, it depends on the day. People that want their marriage to work do not behave the way that she is behaving. Yes, I would agree. Okay. So she's lying. Yes, lying. Elective surgery for $10,000 when you're broke and the family's in financial stress?

That's so selfish and asinine i can't even put words to it yeah i know that's that's kind of my thought too and no no it just is it's a fact it's not an opinion that that is her screaming in your face that she's done yeah yeah i know i don't really like to think of it that way, obviously, because it's not a nice outcome for anybody in this mess. I'm not sure you did it. I think you're just the one that's going to admit it. Yeah. Now, I would agree with you going back a couple months that she was done.

However, she's had some influential people in her life in the last month or two that have helped bring her around. Her attitude has changed. Well, then that would involve you guys getting with a good marriage counselor immediately. Yes. But that attitude needs to turn into action. Yes, and she has admitted that that is an option. I did confront her about it a couple weeks ago, and she has.

I said, this is what I want to do. I had some referrals to focus on the family, and she said, yes, that is an option. And so I'm just kind of trying to not push her because she doesn't want to. No, I am going to push her. It's not an option. It's time to push her. It's time to push you. The house is on fire.

It's burning down around you. Get out of the house. Push somebody. Yeah, I am. I definitely am. I bring stuff up fairly regularly, but you know kind of teetering on the edge of not wanting to push her over one side to get her her emotional side to engage i want to honey what you think is being nice is not nice you think you're you think you can beg and be

sweet and cause this to happen and it's i'm not asking you to be mean to her but you're acting like that you can beg her into wanting to do this. She has to stand up, square her shoulders, and say, I'm going to re-engage in this marriage and re-engage as two adults on how to run our household. And she has to do that under the heading of a therapist, and the two of you learn to work together again. You cannot beg her to behave. Yes, I agree with that totally. I can't change her.

She has to decide to do it and it's a matter of you know we're trying to get you know obviously lots of prayer and other friends of influence who had to get around her absolutely change her heart what they're saying is this is an emergency i'm just saying around you guys need to be sitting with a counselor and and she needs to be going and if she's not going, then we need to know what that, we need to admit what that says. Yeah. Okay? But all this, there is not a financial technique that's the problem here.

The financial problems and the financial spending are all about her obstinance, and you trying to talk your way around it to where it's all somehow okay. It's not okay. It's not okay. It doesn't work that way. And so if Whitney decided to just start telling George what she was going to do, George would have a thing. Here's what we're going to do.

I don't tell Sharon what to do. She doesn't tell me what to do. We sit down. We talk about it to adults. We devise a plan on how we're going to do the calendar, how we're going to do the budget, how we're going to live our life. We work together towards common goals. This is called a quality relationship in your marriage.

But when people start throwing it around, they're just like, I'm going to do whatever I want to do. And they get all head bobbing thing going. And you shouldn't have got married. Then it's, you know, you've got a mess on your hands and you've got to go back and try to try to learn how to be married. And that takes both people. And you can't beg someone to behave you cannot control someone else's behavior your behavior is the only thing you can control and you put it in a situation to

go if you do this then you're choosing to opt out if you do this you're choosing to opt in but i can't make you choose. That's the only thing you can do is present options to her. But this idea of I'm going to let her go ruin our family and bankrupt us so that by being nice and letting her do stupid butt stuff that's going to ruin our family, then that causes her to go to counseling, that's a false narrative. That doesn't work. If the auspices for her going to counseling is because that's a that's a false narrative that doesn't work that's if the

auspices for her going to counseling is so that it's because she got bribed by you you're putting up with a bunch of crap then that no that is not how you start rebuilding this thing so now you guys need you desperately both of you need to sit in the counseling counselor's room immediately or you're not going to make it and the spending stuff is just i'm not we're not going i'm not going along with it and if you don't like it i'm just part of what we can talk to the counselor about or it's part of what we can talk to the divorce judge about one of the two it's one of the two but i'm not going along with this because it's not right and i'm not suggesting you leave today i'm suggesting that the two of you get into the counselor's office four years ago but right

now for sure that's the only best option best time to plant an oak tree 10 years ago next best time is today oh yeah that's a great quote she sees him as basically a doormat at this point because she knows well i'm just going to do what i want he's not going to tell me off yeah he's not going to have the conflict you have to stop being scared that you're going to cause the marriage to end by pushing by pushing the marriage to succeed that's that that's that is not going to work it's not going to work you're going to end up nowhere but bankruptcy court and divorce court at the same time oh man sorry what a horrible thing you're going through i sure hope she comes around i hope the two of you get in counseling, and I hope it saves your marriage. But, you know, you participating in crazy is not going to make crazy go away.

This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, it's John Deloney, co-host of The Ramsey Show. Did you know over 18 million people listen to The Ramsey Show every week? A lot of those people listen on one of our 600-plus radio stations across the country. To find a station near you, go to RamseySolutions.com slash show.