The Ramsey Show - App - Talking About Money in a Marriage (Hour 1)

Episode Date: June 26, 2024

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. The phone number is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Danielle is going to start us off this hour in Richmond, Virginia. Hi, Danielle. How are you? Hey, I'm blessed and favored. How are you, Dave?

Just the same. How can we help? I have a couple of questions real quickly. My husband is taking out all of his retirement, cashed it in, and I am stupid enough to have put my name on the taxes joint, you know, married jointly or whatever they call that. And so like a long story short, he is still going into debt. And every day for the last three weeks, at least four weeks, now um every day there's a collection agency they're calling showing up or putting notifications on our doors we've done an itemized statement um on a couple of them that he's been taken to court to my question would be

as a godly wife you know i've been doing your program for like 13 to 15 years. So thank you for all your help. I've got a house, a car and everything is fine on my end, but on his end, it is not. And I am not sure what is like my responsibility financially as a godly wife and what is how to get him to talk to me about finances. He won't do it with you. He just doesn't like you at all. I'm sorry. But what do I do? You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, it's okay. I'm not real fond of him either, so that's fair. No kidding. Okay, what do I do? He's not taking very good care of his wife, is he? No, not at all, sir. I'm sorry, but i'm a disabled vet i'm on a minimum amount of money and i feel like i keep bailing him out and enabling him to continue on

in the pattern that he is living beyond his means and i don't know where to stop that at i don't know and nobody's telling me they're telling me to combine pastors are telling me that you know we're in there for sickness and health and richer and poorer and stuff like that. That's what we took our vows for. I don't remember that part, but I was a little nervous. But my point is that I don't know what I'm supposed to do, what I'm not supposed to do, how I'm going to get him to talk. Do you have any words of wisdom for that? Because I don't want to share my accounts with him if he's going to continue to pull out

money and use it on whatever he's using it for because it ain't coming here. I don't know. Thanks for your service. What's the nature of your disability? Well, that's interesting. I have like PTSD

because I was traumatized in the military, if you know what I mean. So, yeah. So, yeah, I get to deal with that. And then you got traumatized when you got home. Yeah. Yeah, no kidding. That plays into this whole story, doesn't it? Yeah, it does, because it's really hard to trust him when I know that I've been betrayed.

So has he looked at you and basically told you to shut up, and that's the role of a godly wife? Yes. Okay. Yes. Well, I've studied the Scriptures for 40-plus years on the issues that we're talking about, and there's not one place in there that that is a godly wife. Not one place in the Bible is a godly wife defined as stupid doormat

that is not in there okay it's not in the bible so what do i do it's not in the bible okay what do i do it says the bible does say submit yourselves one to another me too that both of you but how do I submit to something that could be a legal and moral? He's not submitting anything to you. Right. No kidding. So he's not functioning as a godly man in that sense. My wife and I make decisions together, and she's been a full-time mom for 38 years.

Wow. And we don't do major stuff without i make all the money comes through my name but it's our money and we make all the decisions together she has an equal vote with me on it i've submitted to her she submitted to me and the reason i did submit to her by the way is proverbs 31 says who can find a virtuous wife virtuous wife a virtuous wife that'd be like a godly woman wouldn't it yeah a godly wife who could find a virtuous wife for A virtuous wife. That'd be like a godly woman, wouldn't it? Who could find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies.

The heart of her husband safely trusts her. And he will have no lack of gain. Isn't that interesting? So I've had no lack of gain once I started safely trusting the heart of my wife. Now sometimes my wife gets bad pizza the night before and blames it on the holy spirit okay she ain't perfect she ain't perfect so we do have to sit down and talk through stuff sometimes

we have a good hillbilly argument but but we at the end of it we're not moving forward with things that are destructive to our family against the wishes of the other spouse. So you have a pretty serious marriage problem, kiddo. I think you need to go see a good marriage counselor, and a pastor that tells you to shut up and go along with stupidity is not a good marriage counselor. That's what I said. And he's going through, he wants to, he's 64 years old, and he wants to go through bankruptcy to get rid of his debt.

That's not taking responsibility. And I'm like, do not do that. I don't know if he's bankrupt or not, but what we've got here is a bigger problem. The debt and the out of control is a symptom of his arrogance and his pride and the two of you not working together. And those are marriage issues and really what you're calling us about is you know what to do with your marriage and i think you need to get some coaching from a godly counselor and you're a person of the book like we are and

so someone that's going by the book the bible and saying okay you know godly wife does not include abuse, and you're being abused. That's what I thought. And I'm not telling you to walk out the door, but I am telling you to not accept the shaming of someone saying, going along with your husband while he's doing cocaine is godly in the name of shutting up and being a doormat. That's not love, by the way. Loving someone is actually helping them not do self-destructive things. Ken? Yeah, I'm just listening to this, Danielle, and Dave's right.

You have a marriage problem, and I think this guy is exhibiting behavior of a guy who doesn't want to be married to you. And I do think the counseling is the way to go because we've got to get an objective environment where he can't hide and he can't bully with some statement. But I am afraid that he doesn't want to be married, period. And I'm not in any way trying to hurt you, but I'm going to speak to you like you were my sister. And I would do the counseling with eyes wide open to find out if this guy really does want to be married. And I'm afraid he doesn't.

And we're going to find out. And I think that, again, I'm with Dave. I wouldn't tell you to walk out now. I would go all in and try. But you get to a certain point here where this guy either has to decide to heal his destructive behavior because he wants to be married to you and at some point you guys are going to have to combine everything to finally be unified but that's

down the road this thing is this is a dumpster fire yeah and i hate that for you but uh i want you to at least know you don't have enough money to bail him out no stop it you there's not enough money to bail this guy out i mean he's he's like he's acting like he's in congress so i mean just money's going out the door like crazy that's so sad i'm so sorry honey you deserve better this is the ramsey show of The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. He's the number one best-selling author and host of The Ken Coleman Show on the Ramsey Networks. And one of his best-selling books is Find the Work You're Wired to Do. It's his latest bestseller.

It included in it is the Get Clear Career Assessment that we've sold almost 100,000 of, and it goes with the book for free. So not only do you get the assessment, you get the book to teach you how to read the assessment and what to take away from it. So be sure and pick that up at RamseySolutions.com. Jack is in New York. Hi, Jack. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Well, thank you very much, Dave. How are today better than i deserve what's up well i'm at the age now mid 50s to where you want to get to be conservative with your investments however for retirement however i don't have a retirement because of life choices that I've had to make throughout the years. So now that I'm finally in a financial position to where I can start making investments, I'm afraid to make liberal investments to make money to actually have a retirement because I'm at that age to be conservative. so I really don't know what to do. Well, let me help you with this. You're not at the age to be conservative.

I don't know who told you that, but they were wrong. Well, I don't have that many years left to live. You have plenty of time. You're only 50. Okay. I'm not conservatively investing, and I'm 63. So I'm investing in good growth stock mutual funds that are growing like a weed, and you need to be.

You're broke. Well, I'm not broke, but I have no retirement whatsoever. Well, I mean, how much do you have? How much money do you have? I got about $20K in savingsk in savings okay well you're broke i mean for 50 years old going into retirement that would scare the crap out of me you need like 250 right moving on and so i'm not trying to scare you i don't want you to panic but you do need to get with it um as you said and you recognize that that's why you called

so um what i would do is this i the thing i have figured out is there's two things that we uh are afraid of and fear is a positive thing in these situations number one thing we're afraid of is something we don't understand so the first time you sat behind the wheel of a car, I distinctly remember I was 12, and Dad said, move the car around back. I left no gravel in the driveway. No one told me you weren't supposed to press down on the accelerator all the way to the floor. And so I didn't because I didn't know what I was doing.

So driving a car, I didn't know how to do it. I was afraid and I was really afraid after I screwed it up, right? But now we all have been driving cars for decades and we drive and don't think anything about it. It's like muscle memory. So you learn how to do the thing and you're no longer afraid of it. The second thing you're afraid of is something that will legitimately hurt you standing in the middle of the interstate. You should be afraid an 18-wheeler is going to turn you into a bug right and so yeah that's a you know a bear is standing in front of you you should be afraid that's a good thing but the other is just

you're afraid because you don't know how and that's the investing thing that's wisdom but it's something that can be overcome i don't want to overcome my fear of bears they will eat you but i do want to overcome my fear of things i don't understand that can help me and the fear goes away with knowledge so sit down with a good smart vestor pro click that at ramsey solutions and let them let the guys that we recommend begin to teach you and gradually start to understand. And as your confidence builds, then you increase, you'll easily increase the amount of money you start pouring into retirement type investments. And you won't have to worry about the whole idea of conservative versus whatever bull crap, something you read on the internet, right?

Yeah, I completely understand that. That's absolutely true. Ken? Yeah, I was just going to echo that, that right now you have no idea what you don't know and that it just paralyzes you. And so I think the quicker you can get seated with smart investor pros, interview several, figure out the one that you've got the best chemistry with, there's that teacher relationship going on, and you can make up some ground pretty quick, that you've got the best chemistry with there's that teacher relationship going on and you can make up some ground pretty quick but you've got to be aggressive and I would say Dave beyond just the mindset of aggressive I'd be doing some things if I were him to make some extra money and try to catch up where can I make an additional 10 grand an additional 15

to 25 so you can play catch up and start stacking some money. When you begin to see that momentum, by the way, that gets really, really exciting and you start doing more of that. A lot of people think that they got to have a side hustle just to pay off debt or just pay the bills. In this case, when someone is that age, to the extent that you can do some extra work and leverage your skill and experience to pour more money on top of the little fire the bigger that fire gets i would that would be a direct challenge in this situation for him that's very good and that reminds me you know when when they're walking around out there in the world people say these sayings that are just stupid right you know here's one of them what you don't know won't hurt you what you don't know will kill you that's a dumb butt saying you know a lack of knowledge knock you out man i mean it's

that's a ridiculous you know like you can just stick your head in the sand and i'm not talking about jack here i'm just saying in general but uh yeah it's a big deal to know new things all the time angela's with us in knoxville hi angela how are you hey dave i'm doing all right how are you better than i deserve what's up awesome um so today is actually my birthday happy birthday thank you how old are you like in a tip uh 42 oh okay just a pup yeah yeah so i actually met you in orlando a couple years ago in fact at one of your events um so i'm trying to get back on track dave i never did the the baby steps i purchased fpu at that event never did anything with it like a dummy. And so basically I'm in $30,000 of debt. About 18 of that is my car and another seven in credit card debt. And I owe five to a family

member. And so my question is, I'm trying to figure out the best way to go about once I get to baby step two, cause I'm going to be finishing baby step one next month. And then in August, I'm going to start tackling the debt. My car has about 250,000 miles and I use my car right now to make a living. And so my concern is if I start tackling the smaller debts first, and then my car breaks down and the transmission goes out or something and I can't fix it and I you know I don't know if I should be saving more in my step one for that or that's kind of where I'm stuck and I just wanted your input you owe eighteen thousand dollars on it yeah I had a paid for 4Runner a few years ago, and then I started a new job. You owe $18,000 on a car you have 250,000 miles on?

Yeah, because I was a courier. I ran the miles up on that thing. I was a courier for the last two, three years since I bought the car. I just racked it up. Okay. What kind of car is it? It's a 19 Dodge Charger. Okay.

A six-cylinder. It's a cheaper one charger a six cylinder the cheaper one yeah okay all right okay uh no i mean we're worrying about something that hasn't happened yet it's it's a reasonable thing to worry about because those things may occur but i'm not going to change the game plan here i'm going to um you know if you have a problem you may have to stop your baby steps and address the problem but until you do you were already broke before you started this and now you're just running broke trying to actually do some good and climb out right yeah i mean so yeah cut up your credit cards and let's start attacking them with a vengeance and work as many hours as you can and as as Ken says, always get an extra job. Let's do six things and do that written budget in detail and live on nothing and work all the time. And let's begin to get this cleaned up because this is a scary place to be for you.

It definitely is. I moved to Knoxville from Florida back just this last December, and I had a pretty decent job. I didn't pay too great, but it was all right. It was my first job since I moved here. I got laid off after three months. They just didn't need me anymore. And so I've been door dashing like 72 hours a week ever since. And I have another job that I started, but they're just trickling me in with work. I'm not full time

with it yet. Once I do, that should be about 72 a year. That'd be huge. That changes everything, Ken. Yeah. I'd love to see her really hustle through this quickly because that car is going to be a problem pretty soon. Yeah. Yeah. But i don't want to stop doing no no no in lieu of something that hadn't happened i'd let that be that extra motivator yeah exactly this is the ramsey show ken coleman ramsey personality is my co-host today selling a house the ramsey way buying a house the ramsey way makes home ownership a blessing instead of a curse the Ramsey way, buying a house the Ramsey way, makes homeownership a blessing instead of a curse. The Ramsey Trusted Program is the only way to find a real estate agent you can trust to keep you on track with what we teach here at Ramsey.

Now, we do not put real estate agents in our endorsed program unless we have vetted them and their high high performance high octane it's not your aunt sally who got her license last week and she was selling pampered chef right before that now this is somebody that actually sells a lot of houses okay they actually know what they are doing in order to become ramsey trusted agents so if you want to find out who we recommend in your area and get your place sold or maybe help you get something bought, check it out, Ramsey Trusted Real Estate Agent. You can do it for free, ramsesolutions.com slash agent.

Melanie is in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Hi, Melanie, how are you? Hi, I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can we help? Okay. So my husband and I have two rental properties. And my mother-in-law has lived in one since 2019. She moved in from Vermont, didn't have a place to go. And so my husband let her move in to that house.

2020 hit. My husband's in the Army, didn't get a certain something that everyone demanded they were told to get, and he lost his job. Said he was going to sell the house. She told him that God told her it is his job to take care of her because he is the son. So he bought a new house in the town down the road and she still lives currently in the same house. Um, we have, were you all married at this time when God told her about you? No, we, we were not, we were not, I was not, I was not around. Um, so he was, he was single and she lived with him. Um, so we have one child. We are expecting our second one in October. Um, and I'm self-employed.

My husband's still in the army. Um, but we came mutually to the decision that in August, because my job is pretty physical that I'm going to stop working. And then I'm only probably going to go back maybe one or two days a week. And so we are, we, it would be very helpful to have an actual income coming in from that house. She pays half of the mortgage. My husband pays four 50 and his one brother gives one 50 towards it. It's kind of a sticky situation.

There's six siblings between all of them, and everyone else has had their opportunity to grow and expand their family. My husband is the last one out of the six to be married and have kids. So we don't want to kick her out, but she is. Yes, you do. Well, I don't want to say i do but it would it would just be it would it would just be it would just be helpful um you're so sweet just tell me just say what you mean you want her to leave she's taking advantage of everybody and you're over it

yes and that's where my that's where my husband is at well then he needs to deal with his mom so so but this is the other thing she won't move into a senior high she will she's homeless anywhere she will if she's homeless so do you think that that's our option, give her like 60 days and call her like, okay. Listen, I can tell you how to get her out. It's two words, rubber snake. That's where I was going. I was going to ask, what is she afraid of?

Because we can make this really easy with no tension. Well, but that's the other hard thing is she claims PTSD. She claims all of these issues all the time. I think I claim that she's moving into assisted living if she can't manage her life. Okay. And we'll help her do that with a little bit of money, and we'll use some of the money from the sale of the house. You need to sell the house.

Well, that's what we ultimately want to do. And we'll use some of the money from the sale of the house to help her get settled and then unplug the cord, the umbilical cord. Okay. Okay, because my husband was just from the Christian perspective, he wasn't feeling very guilty from it. No, honey, there's nothing Christian about this. Let me just tell you.

I had a guy walk into the office here a while back at the front desk they said there's a guy down here see you and i walked down he said god told me you were gonna buy me a van and i said no he didn't he didn't tell you that he said what do you mean i said hey absolutely did not tell you that because if he had told you that he would have told me and there'd be a van sitting out there for you. But he didn't tell me. So I'm always interested as a Christian for people who play the God card with such authority, and all they are is a manipulator. This has nothing to do with honoring your mother. When they say honor your father and your mother, it doesn't say honor their misbehavior.

It says honor the office of motherhood the office of fatherhood if your mom does cocaine and wants you to buy it for her that is not a godly act okay right and your mother-in-law is misbehaving she's a travel agent for guilt trips she's got issues that's good i'm gonna use that to use that. I've never heard that before. Yeah, I know. That's a good one. Yeah, I like that. And your poor husband has been pushed around by her, and then she plays the God card, and God didn't tell her that. That's a complete load of crap. Okay?

Thank you. It's absolutely not true. What's your husband's stomach for all of this? Is he going to take her on so his thought was he was going to uh put the house on section eight and then we would register her for section eight no that's awful she needs to move you need to deal he needs to deal with his mom he needs to lovingly kindly go sit down have a cup of coffee and go mom we're done i love you and i'm going to help you move into some assisted living with some of the

money i make from the sale of this house but you have milked this cow and it is dry and you're not milking anymore mom we're done well no mom you're confused i said we're done and i wasn't kidding we are done you are moving you're either going to move gently and kindly with my assistance or i'm going to set you in the street with the sheriff now do you want to play this the easy way or the hard way? You've reached the end of my patience. I am done. I love you. I'm going to help you as best I can, but you living here is not going to happen anymore.

He needs to have the backbone to say that. And you don't need to be in the room. Well, that's, yeah, he has a lot of animosity. You don't need to be in the room you'll get blamed for all this so we can you'll be the you'll be the wicked stepdaughter if he's got animosity towards her this actually should be a little easier because well you just got to be careful to be kind yeah but i mean as far as disappointing her i mean look you guys have got to tell mama couldn't give a crap left as she's disappointed i agree it's not he's not disappointed he's not afraid she'll be disappointed him and his brother are best friends and his brother

is the one that that sometimes also guilt trips him to keep well i mean well then let him let him write the checks you you guys got to cast a little amazing how everybody's got an opinion about what you guys should do with your money that's's the key. Oh, I know. This family, they put the fun in dysfunction, don't they? Wow. You're coming home with a new baby, and this is a financial asset that will help you all live the life you want to live. I'd stay in that lane to where they are painted in a corner. Multi-millionaire, and you want to put up with this crap, and you want to just write checks just to not have to deal with it.

That's fine, but it's not good for her. She's going to continue up with this crap and you want to just write checks just to not have to deal with it, that's fine. But it's not good for her. She's going to continue to do this crap the rest of her life. Yeah. And it's not good for you guys. It's, you know, you're losing respect for your husband. He's losing respect for himself because he won't stand up to this, you know, this mom that's out of control.

And it's not biblical. Automatically, you have to write checks for somebody who doesn't do stuff. I mean, I want him to take care of her to the point he can. That'd be sweet. It's a charitable act. But it is not a biblical mandate. God did not tell her that he was to furnish her a house. That's an absolute load of religious crap.

That's what that is. And, man, I love my brothers and sisters in Christ, but some of you people are over-saved. This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. We can use your help, folks. If you want to help us out, we need your help. Click subscribe where you're listening or follow where you're listening

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we know you're doing it because our numbers are way up so thank you thank you thank you thank you for the movement and the spreading of the word we're here to help you it's what we do and the more people we can help the better we like our. And so thank you so much for that. And of course, leaving those five-star reviews, those are helpful too. Valentina is with us in Atlanta, Georgia. Hi, Valentina. How are you? Hi, Dave. Thanks so much for taking my call. My question is, do I keep my home and it's on the market right now? Do I keep it, continue to try to sell it, or do I just try to get more income in order to better afford my house? I did not buy it the Ramsey way, so I only put 5% down. And so I have a PMI and then, so I didn't pay the 20%, so that's basically my question.

Okay. How much is your house payment? Everything $3,500. And what's your take-home pay a month? It is $9,700 total take-home. Okay. So you're at about 33% of your take-home pay. Yes.

So your house payment is straining you, isn't it? Yes. Yeah. You have other debt? Yeah, my car. I have $22,000 in that, but currently my husband is going to take out $8,000 in investment that he had. He's going to cash it out. Oh, wait a minute. You make $9,000 or you and your husband out $8,000 in investment that he had. He's going to cash it out. Oh, wait a minute.

You make $9,000 or you and your husband make $9,000? Both my husband makes $9,700. Your husband has an investment that is not in a retirement account. Yeah. And how much is in that investment? $8,000. That's the total. He's going to cash the whole thing out.

Okay. Put that towards the car, and then you're going to try to get the car paid off as fast as you can. Getting rid of the car payment will make the house payment much more bearable. And what kind of a path are the two of you on with your careers? If I visit you three years from now, are you going to be making a lot more, a little more, or no more? I would say a little more. What do y'all do? For both, both. I'm an HR manager at a 500 company, and then my husband is a machine operator, and he's working towards getting moved up there as well.

Getting his what? Getting moved up in his role as a machine operator. Oh, moved up, moved up, okay. Yeah, then a supervisor and so on. Well, both of you probably will have reasonable increases. So if you'll stay out of debt, live on a tight budget, save money for an emergency, and even if you did some things to create some extra income until your income comes on up, your house payment's probably manageable.

Is there another reason you're selling the house other than you feel like you didn't put enough down or the house payment's straining you? I don't want to stay in Georgia forever. Well, where would you move when you sell it i i would just go back to renting just so i don't have to stay in georgia sorry right now you're in georgia if you rent so i don't understand when are you leaving georgia i don't plan to but if i do. Well, you would sell the house then. Okay. You're not selling the house because you're leaving is what you're saying.

Yeah. So you would just sell it when you get ready to leave. Is there any other reason you're selling the house? Is there any other reason you're selling the house? No, that's it. Because I did have a job offer last month, and I did choose not to take it because I could not sell the house, and I would be losing, like I wouldn't be making nothing

because I've only owned it for a year. So I feel like it's tied me down to new opportunities for more income. No, it didn't. If you made nothing but you left and made more income you weren't tied down you chose not to do that but the house didn't keep the house didn't keep you from doing that your husband didn't want to leave did he yeah yes yeah where where was the job offer? In Miami, Florida. I've always wanted to live by the beach, but we decided to stay. Yeah, he doesn't.

Yeah. Okay. So let's not blame the house for decisions you all made. He doesn't want to live by the beach. You didn't take the job because your husband didn't want to leave and then you turn around while the house the house kept me the house didn't keep you there you could have sold the house and left if both of you were jacked up and jumping up and down and you know fireworks going off and you're so excited you get to go to miami beach life is great

that house would have been gone and you would not look down the rearview mirror once yeah okay so i think you all got to decide those kinds of things and then that'll dictate when to sell the house but just putting the house randomly on the market um trying to force him to leave when he didn't want to probably not a good plan yeah it feels like this is a dinner conversation. And here's the reality, Dave. Rent is very high right now. So I'd run these numbers anyway,

and I don't think if we were to run those numbers, it would make any sense for them to sell and just move into renting. No. I think that's actually a bad decision. It is. So you're not lowering your cost, your budgetary items. So I like the advice you gave there.

I think that's a better play, allows them to continue to build equity. Yeah, get the car paid off, stay there until you actually are going to leave. And then if you don't make a lot of money on the house, so what? Sell it and leave when it's time to leave. But both of you need to be excited about where you're going and quit looking at jobs in areas he's not going to go to. So the two of y'all ought to talk about it before you start talking about interviewing for something. Don't interview in a city that he says, I'm not going to.

So the two of y'all got to talk this through. Something's got to give here. And you've got good possible career moves that you can do in Georgia or not in Georgia. And, but you got to get on the same path here. There's a lot of um wandering around in this conversation well you know dave we you have counseled people for decades and and couples specifically over money issues but this is an interesting situation here we don't get a lot of this but this is not a money issue per se i think the bigger red flag here is that we've got

two people who want two very different lives. And I think that's really challenging. And I sit there and I go, now money becomes a factor here. But really, when you dig beneath this particular call, we've got two people who want two different paths, and we better figure that out pretty quick. Because that, to me, turns into a lot of tension, a lot of resentment. And the money tension, the lack of margin, makes all that worse. It's kind of like pouring a little kerosene on that leaf fire out there to get it to go up. And that's what I'm concerned about in this particular situation. Because it's real.

So what would you coach someone to do that wants to live in a different city and is looking for a position? Well, we're going to sit down. I would coach them to sit down first, and let's both write out, without each other's input, separate sheets of paper, what do you want life to look like 15 years from now? I'd start there. Because I think it's important that they get it out of their head, and they write it down, and they see it themselves. And then the two of them sit there and look at it and go, we're this far apart. We start there. Then I think a godly marriage counselor, a pastor, or an actual therapist to go,

we have two very different futures in mind, and now we've got to figure out what life looks like when we want to be together, how we get there. Can we both get there at the same time? Probably not. But this is a piece-by-piece walkthrough. Okay, we decided to get married. We love each other, but we both want different things. And so how can we meet in the middle here and actually get both of those things? So is it Miami? We put that on the list. He's going, no, I want to be in

the Georgia mountains. I'm making that up. And we go, okay, what are we actually talking about here? Well, she wants to be near the ocean. You want a rural situation. How big of a deal is it? Who's sacrificing on what? What are our professional goals? Where do we want us to put our money? How do we want to invest? What do we want retirement to look like? I think you got to get all that on the same page and see how far apart you are and then go, all right, where are we going to give a little bit? Because both people have to give something. Yeah, absolutely. Now that sounds real simple. It is simple to lay it out, difficult to work through. Yeah, that's the trick. And working through it is essential

to making a decision on selling the house and on taking another job, and the order that we do that. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be right back.