The Ramsey Show - App - Your Husband Is Choosing His Mommy Over His Wife (Hour 1)

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

🎵 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. I am Ramsey Personality, Rachel Cruz, hosting this hour with my good friend and best-selling author, Ramsey personality, Dr. John Deloney. And we're here to answer your questions. It's a free call anywhere in the country at 888-825-5225. So call in and we'll chat about what's going on in your life. So first up, we have Tiffany in Vancouver. Hey, Tiffany, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you.

Absolutely. How can we help? So I have a question for Dr. John. I've been listening to the show, to his podcast lately, and just really finding his advice and questions helpful. And so my husband struggles with some mental illness, and that obviously impacts our marriage. We've been married for about 20 years, and he suffers with bipolar, depression, and anxiety. The first 10 years were pretty rough because he was just kind of being diagnosed and trying to find the right medication and treatment and all of those things. But there's been an improvement and continues to be improvement. But I'm kind of just getting to the point of really feeling the impact of it on our marriage, even more so because I'm in a, not, I don't want to say a better place, but like in a place where I'm realizing kind of what's important to me. So some of the ways that it impacts is, like, I'm very outgoing.

I'm social. I like, you know, traveling and doing different things. He does not. Like, he doesn't really leave our house a lot. He doesn't really enjoy socializing. He does go to, like, the important events that we have, which I really appreciate that he pushes himself to do that because I know he doesn't enjoy it and he kind of struggles to be there. But I guess I'm struggling

with feeling disappointed and resentment, even though I know it's not him that's doing that, it's the mental illness, but just kind of trying to figure out what's next almost. Like I can still do the things that I want to, but I want to be able to do them with him. And so he's struggling with how to work through that. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like you had a picture of what your life is going to look like. And for 10 years of it,

you were treading water and you're, or you're bailing water out of a boat with holes in it. And then you got the, the, a new boat, right? You figured out, you got the meds regulated and it sounds like he's worked his butt off and you have two and now you're kind of realizing oh this is

this is it yeah this is it this is as good as it's going to get well i i don't like to say that kind of that language because you're gonna you look at him and you keep saying he's got to grow but you do too but but this is what it is right now right and you see the trajectory of where you come and you see that you can you know imagine a trajectory of where you're going um like my hard question for you is i'll say almost always but in a significant number of of conversations like this you've met someone somebody and maybe you haven't like cheated on anybody or anything like that but you've met somebody that laughs at your jokes tells you that you're beautiful is hilarious shows up

seems a little more stable is that the case here no okay so you're just looking at this thing i love this man but i really don't love my life yes okay so what's your question well because i want to i want to well i want to i guess i i don't know if there's a like is there a way or do you have any suggestions of like how is this something that you can move past like feeling frustrated and disappointed that i don't get to enjoy these things with him because I want to enjoy, I want to, I want to travel with him and I can still travel. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's no way to get him to travel because he's too anxious. Well, there's some truth to that. And also I've had people that I love dearly that I've been in relationship with for years that have worked really hard. And, um, I I've said on the the show so i don't mind saying that my mom wouldn't fly my mom would not get on an airplane she i mean it was a it was an act of congress to

get on an airplane and in her 40s 30s 20s 30s 40s she just wouldn't do it and she just finished her she's in her mid-70s and she just finished her last summer at oxford and so she kept working at it and kept working at it and then started doing it more and more. And it was a work obligation. And then it was a, Hey, I'll do it for dad. And then a, Hey, I want to do this for me. And then it became an idea like, dude, she's been in Wales. She's been all over the world now. And so that's why I don't like to just cash it out. The bigger deal is this. So I love, love, love punk rock rock shows and i had this picture that my wife would always be this tattooed up person with me that would go to these punk rock shows if you've ever met my

wife she's not she is not that rachel's laughing so um she only could rock some tattoos if she needed to she yeah she's definitely gonna do tattoos but but here's the deal i had to make peace with that's not gonna happen that's not who I married and she had to go sit on the front row of George Strait with me but I want to go so I've got a group of buddies that I do that with.

In my heart of hearts would I love that? Yes. If there's a show that I really want her to come to will she do it? Yeah, she will but I made peace with it

and here's the deal. I have a blast. I have a blast. It's when I'm not sitting there having the time of my life with three or four of my close buddies with pete and blake and some of these guys that i'm not going i wish you look i wish my wife was here because then i'm choosing to bring misery into a joyful moment right so yeah man i wish you would travel wish you would do this stuff let's keep working on it and especially if you're if you're not saying hey i've got somebody else i

don't want this thing to be over. And also, Tiffany, and I don't want to interrupt you, but I'm like, I even think what you're saying, Tiffany, is that there's kind of disappointment even in the day-to-day, like maybe not the big, fun, exciting parts of life that he doesn't want to do,

but even the day-to-day kind of sounds miserable for you. So I'm like, even starting off at that level of saying, gosh, what are things we can bring into our lives that we both find joy in to get joy back? It just feels like it's completely kind of stripped from you in your marriage in general. Is that fair?

Yeah. Yeah, I would say that's accurate. And the only way to heal from anxiety is to walk right through it. And so sometimes there is a survival. It sounds like y'all were surviving for a decade, right? Which is very common with someone who's struggling with bipolar and people don't people around them don't know right and no one knows but okay now we know what it is and instead of saying you need to get up and do this or we need to go out it would really um i would really feel loved if in two weeks you could

put on your calendar that you go out on a day with me and give him some time to practice, give him some time to think through it, give him some time to be anxious about it, and then y'all practice leaning into it. Because does he want to continue to push to get better too, Tiffany? Are you wanting this more for him? No, he does too. He does. Yeah, he does want it, I think. Yeah, that's great.

I think sometimes the anxiety and the depression squash the desire. Yeah, it just gets heavy. It gets exhausting. It gets exhausting. Yeah. And then some nights, he's going to get up and go out, even though his body says, hey, dude, let's get under the covers and just watch another Netflix series.

And some nights, you're going to want to go out, and you're going to sit down and hold his hand and let him borrow some of your nervous system, y'all are going to watch a show together. And this is marriage, but this is also y'all continuing to practice and practice and practice. And then, dude, it would not surprise me at all if he begins to find joy and y'all get further and further connected. I'm going to ask you, don't continue to drag the, well, I wish and could be into a world where that's not possible. I'm going to ask you to bring positivity, but not just positivity, optimism about here's where I am. I really want to go to this concert.

I'm going to go do this. I really want to go on this trip. I'm going to invite some girlfriends. It doesn't mean my marriage is broken. It means I wanted it to be like this, but I'm going to do it like this. And keep walking alongside them. I think y'all can get there. I think you can get there.

Thank you, Tiffany, for calling. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Rachel Cruz hosting this hour with Dr. John Deloney answering your questions. Up next, we have John in New York City. Hey, or Jason. Sorry. Hey, Jason.

Welcome to the show. Hey, thank you. Thank you. Big fan of the show, guys. Thank you for having me. Oh, thanks for calling in. We appreciate it. How can we help? Yeah, so I retired from the Army 20 years active duty, and I've been retired for like five years now. And just to get where I'm at, I make about $150,000 a year now with my retirement. The only debt I have is my car payment. I have a rather expensive car that I should not have bought during COVID. It's a 2022 Acura RDX that I owe $49,000 on.

I know it's probably only going to get about $37,000 out of it if I tried to trade it in or sell it somewhere around there from what I've already found out. I don't have any credit card debt. I don't own a house I'm renting right now. I just married last year. I'm just trying to get on track, and I have the $1,000 put away. But my problem is I have $15,000 in cryptocurrency. And I know. All right. Bear with me, please. cryptocurrency. And I know I bought in, you know, whenever it was all the hype and I had 19,000, but it's down to 15,000. So I'm in the negative for 4,000 on it if I were to sell it right now.

Yeah. And my question to you guys is what would you recommend? I've actually listened to a lot of your, like a lot of your episodes and I'm just one of those weird situations where do I pay off my car, take all my extra money and pay off my car? Do I sell the car and get something cheaper? Do I sell my Bitcoin? Like I'm up for some advice from you guys. Yes. Oh my gosh.

Okay. Do you have any other money saved just the non-retirement? Yeah. I have about six or seven. I'm close to 7,000. Okay. Probably 7,000 in a liquid account. Okay. Good for you. um yeah yeah i have about six or seven i'm close to seven thousand okay seven thousand in a liquid account okay good for you um

man okay i'm gonna tell you so i'll tell you what i would do but you're probably not gonna like it no it's fine i want to hear i feel like the because what we do on the show i think the best is to help people get from point a to point b when it comes to building wealth and so you have a lot of pieces to these puzzles to this puzzle and I think if you choose to put them in correctly it's going to be a really beautiful picture it's probably going to look a little different than your life right now in a sense uh but it's it's what I would do so I would take the hit on the car. I'd sell it. And then I would take your $15,000 because you're still going to owe some because you're underwater on it.

And I would cash out Bitcoin, use that $15,000 for that difference. And you'll have about three left out of the Bitcoin. I would go and buy a car with maybe $6,000, take three there, take three out of the $7,000 that you have, be completely debt-free. Start building up my emergency fund with $4,000 that I have left over and continue on my way. I would personally just go ahead and take the loss on the Bitcoin because even though it hurts, honestly, there's no great track record that shows you're not going to continue to lose money. We may look up in a year, and if history serves me right, it's probably going to continue to lose money. You may, we may look up in a year and if history serves me right, it's probably going to be even worse.

So I would take it out now and let your pay the quote unquote stupid tax of losing the four grand in Bitcoin. That's what we always call is just stupid tax. When you do something, you lose money. You're just like, dadgummit, I'm never going to do that again. Take the loss and then see that 15 grand as,

I mean, this is key. I'm like, this is a really, this is a gift this is a this is a gift at that point to go ahead and you know take the loss of the car get rid of the car payment completely uh the car loan and continue on my way is what i would do but again that that puzzle that we just put together that picture that final picture looks different than you sitting with a nice what was it an audi and an acura uh sitting with a nice car and some cash over here you know and this and some bitcoin over here it's it's taken all that down to a life with no debt with a crappier car but some savings and

then continuing to move forward from there yeah and I that that's what I was wondering. I knew I would take a large hit on the car and I knew I'd take a large hit on the Bitcoin. It would put me, you know, somewhat in the net or at least in the positive, but then I'd be starting fresh with another car. And I had been looking at cars really cheap. It's just I didn't know what you guys recommended on that because I've been looking at cars around, you know, seven to ten thousand. It's like they have one hundred thousand miles. Right. Well, I know know and with them and worry you know yeah and when we look at cars in general if it's more than half of your annual take-home pay that's always a red flag or if you can't pay it off in 12 to 18 months so maybe you say yeah if we buckle down and finish

paying this off but gosh you still have forty nine 49 000 left on it yeah yeah so i mean if you guys want to but new york city it's going to be hard to i mean just the standard of living that you guys are in naturally it's it'll it'll you'll feel that you'll feel that pinch uh if you're going to try to sacrifice and just pay it off i almost would just get rid of it jason honestly yeah so let me ask you this jason what would would the number be? So you're a combat veteran, you've been active duty. What is the number? If I said, hey, for $10,000, not one person on planet earth will own you, Jason. You can do whatever you want. You can go to work if you want to or not to. You can sleep.

You and your wife can just go, your new wife, y'all can go on vacation. Like, nobody can tell you what to do. What would that number be, man? Gosh, that's a really great question. I don't know if there is a number I could put on it. So here's the other side. So you're looking at the loss, and psychologically speaking, our brains are designed to look for loss. That's why somebody can, like 500 people in an audience can say,

Jason, that was the greatest speech of all time. And one guy will go, eh, that sucked. And you won't sleep at night because of that one guy, right? That's all of us. That's how our brains are wired. You're only seeing i lost four thousand here i lost the accurate here i'm smart and i did something stupid i'm dumb right that's all you're seeing i want you to flip it around on the other side acura financial i don't know where you

finance that car from they usaa you whoever it is they demand that you go to work tomorrow because you owe them. They are your boss. If your boss says, hey, you're going to start selling this product, you're like, I don't believe in that product. Your boss is going to go, yeah, I don't really care. You're going to do this or you're fired. And then your brain sets off the little alarms because it knows, oh, dude, we can't live here.

We're going to take the car. We're going to lose this. We're going to lose this. We're going to lose this. And so for me, $4,000 of loss plus $10,000 on the car, $15,000 for my soul? Dude, I'll pay that all day long. I'll pay that all day long. And so you're already

married. You already are one of the toughest, bravest men on planet Earth. You've dedicated your life to public service and courage. You have nothing left to prove to anybody. Get an $8,000 car with 100,000 miles. Who cares? You already found somebody that says, I do forever, right? You've won. You've won. You're there. You have nothing to prove to nobody, man. Go choose freedom. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, I know. And honestly, honestly for me jason the car conversation

it is hard because if it's like a student loan you got to pay it right i mean like there's no getting around it there's no selling something the car it's such like an and i'm not saying this is you jason just our culture it's such an ego play of like this is a nice car and i you know and it's there's like a there's a part of all of us that our identity is so attached to our stuff. And that's what it is. I'm like. Not to mention, hey, I slept in like on two by fours, right? On plywood as active duty.

I deserve an Acura. And as somebody whose family benefits from your service, I agree. Yes. I hope that you. Get the Acura again. You solve for freedom and you get whatever car you want. You save it up and buy it with cash and buy it from some knucklehead in your same position who's underwater and who's going to have to get rid of it. Right.

So I just want you to be able to afford it. Cause I not only do I want you to have a nice car, cause I do think you've, you deserve it more than more than most. I want you to sleep all night. And I want you to sleep all night. Absolutely. I want you to have deep, connected, intimate moments with your wife and have not that little part of your brain going, we're not safe, we're not safe.

Acura owns us. I don't want that. I want you to be able to just plug in and do whatever you want to. See what I'm saying? Yeah. That's what I called. This is what I needed to hear. I've been trying to get ahold of you guys for a while, so I'm glad I actually got through. Yeah, totally. Go be free, bro.

Go be free, man. And not to go and jump in the numbers, but again, I just want to reiterate, Jason, that $7,000, because you already have your $1,000 saved up, it could take the car loan down to $42,000. And according to our standard math here at Ramsey, you could choose to sacrifice a lifestyle of a year or something and pay it off and do what you can. But is all of that worth it for the car, right? And the car would continue to go down in value.

Yes. Oh, yeah. And that's true. Yes, it continues to go down. So for me, I'm like, it's not worth the sacrifice for the car. Like, just get rid of the car and we're going to move on and have freedom, like what John's explaining. So I'm so glad, Jason, that you got through and we were able to talk to you.

We hope that that helps. I'm grateful for you, brother. Yep. And thanks for your service, for sure. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. We're taking your calls. It's a free call anywhere in the country at 888-825-5225. The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by Neighborly, your hub for home services. Neighborly is one place that brings together a nationwide family of locally operated providers

to help. I can never read these out. We're going to do the literacy segment. I got you, Neighborly. I got you. We're doing the literacy. Take care of your repairs, routine maintenance, and home improvements. Go to Neighborly.com slash Ramsey today to start

your search. I was up at 4 a.m. I'm going to blame that. You can probably go to neighborly.com to get lessons on how to read too. Just go to neighborly.com. All right. Today's question comes from Annie in Florida. My husband, our two kids, and I live with my husband's widowed mom who doesn't work. We pay all the bills, buy grocery, and pay her house taxes. She and I don't get along 90% of the time, especially when it comes to my kids. My husband and I are not on the same page with money, and I don't have control over the money unless he gives it to me. We have one debt left, and we could pay it off in one to two months if we work together, but there's just no urgency from him. My sanity is on the brink, and I'm tired of

arguing with my husband and being run over by my in-laws. I've talked to my husband and tried to lay boundaries but then I'm just a control freak, quote unquote, according to my mother-in-law. Sometimes I just want to leave and get my own apartment with my kids but I don't feel like that would be right

and would make things worse. I know I shouldn't let other people control my emotions but this is like a wound that keeps getting cut open and salt poured in it. Is getting away from my mother-in-law going to fix things or am I the issue? Good night. Well, I don't like that she can't get money

unless he gives it to me. No, thank you. I'm a control freak according to my mother-in-law. No, thank you. Yeah, it sounds like you are just breathing the air of a lot of gaslight yeah so i all we can go on annie is what you've written here and so here's what i would tell you um based on exactly what you wrote and i always want to hold in both hands there's there's two sides to a story you are not the issue yes getting

away from your mother-in-law would fix some things, but the bigger thing here is you have a husband who is over, over, overbearing, does not have a partner. He is much more interested in making sure his mommy's okay and his mommy's brought into all of your life than he is being married and building a life with you, co-creating a world with his wife. So yes, getting away from your mother-in-law married and building a life with you co-creating a world with his wife so yes getting away from your mother-in-law would for sure help and you got to deal with your marriage got to do with your marriage and it sounds like your husband has very little interest in dealing with your marriage and in fact when you try he um turns it over to his mom and she

lobs grenades at you so um rachel there's there's this idea that we're gonna take a for lack of better terms we're gonna we're gonna take a practice separation for a few days and it might be up to 30 days it might be for two weeks but it is a i'm choosing to step out because i'm not i'm becoming somebody that i don't want to be with my kids i'm becoming somebody i don't be with you right and anytime you do that it's important to have we're going to circle back at this time at this date at this restaurant to talk um we're going to bring this person with us you got to set some guide rules but this is one of those moments that continuing just to stay in this sewer um somebody's gonna end up doing something that you can't take back. Yep. And so, Annie, you're not crazy.

You are not messed up here. It sounds like you have tried to do what's right, and you are just getting dragged underwater. And I think that's one of the hardest parts of marriage when you hear a situation like that. Because for so many people, I think learning to balance, how do I take care of myself, but also take care of this relationship, this lifelong relationship that i'm in right

but taking care of yourself is the key to then having a healthier marriage and i think sometimes we mix those up and think i gotta just fix my marriage fix my marriage but it's actually getting you making sure you're okay taking care of yourself in these moments right especially well especially if this sounds this almost sounds like absolutely this is not good i was gonna say abusive but yeah anytime somebody gives their wife an allowance, that to me, I classify it as abusive. That is controlling nonsense behavior, right? For two adults.

For two adults, right? But often in this situation, and it's usually wife playing, trying to please husband, right? Not always, but often. It is the way I'm gonna try to fix my marriage is by cutting off parts of me yes so that i can make this this thing that we're quote unquote doing together all right and what often people find after they've cut all their toes off

and all their fingers off is that oh he's just gonna keep moving he doesn't change it yeah he's gonna keep moving the finish line it was never about us healing our marriage. Right, right. It was never about me healing and him healing and us making this new thing. It was about he's just going to keep doing whatever he wants to do, right? And you find yourself with nothing.

Yes, at that point. So that's why I like someone to step out. And the language I use is somebody's got to turn on the lights, turn off the music, the party's over. I'm going to step out. I'm going to move into this place with my girlfriend. I i'm gonna move into this place with my mother-in-law i mean with my mother and the kids what do you i'd bring him if you can yeah and often you learn a lot if he doesn't fight you on it then that tells you what you need to know right but me and the

kids we're gonna move over here for a couple of weeks and i gotta breathe because i can't have your mother-in-law doing this i can't have you blaming me for all this and if he goes i'm about to lose my marriage and he gets a quick dose of reality then that's beautiful if he goes fine get out of here me and my mom are that's he's really telling you what you need to know yeah right yeah oh so hard annie thanks for i hate this for you i hate this i hate this i you. I hate this. I hate this. I don't have a psychology. And this is a bias. And I know it happens all over the place.

I don't have a world where if I sat down with my wife and I said, hey, I need this. Her first response would be, sucks to be you. I just don't live in that world. Right. Right. And so these things break my heart. That's right. hey i need you to to help with i'm not doing that man that's tough that's tough tough tough tough that's so hard so so hard all right let's go back to the phones we have uh brayden in memphis tennessee hey brayden welcome to the show

hey rachel hi john hey john how's it going? We're doing great. How can we help? So I'm getting ready to lock in my rate. I'm building a house and my banker got in touch with me. And I know that you've always said to go with a 15 year fixed, but on the 30 year, I got quoted at a 6.6. And on a 15 year, I got quoted at a 7.25. And I didn't know if that has anything to do with y'all's decision. Yeah, the decision's less about interest rate and more about just urgency of getting it paid off. And that when you have a 15 year, you're obviously naturally going to pay it off half of the time that you would in a 30-year, but also with the plan that we encourage people to pay off their house even sooner than that in the 15-year.

So that's why that principled rule is in place when it comes to mortgages. It's really less about the interest rate, which is so interesting because usually it's flipped. It's almost never like this. Is it an adjustable rate? She said this is the first time she's seen it do that. Yeah. They're both fixed rate, a 30-year and a 15-year fix. I wasn't really worried about it and was leaning towards going with the 30-year just because my last house I paid off in seven months and 20 days. I'm pretty intentional about it, but I'm definitely not putting on doing that with this one

just because that last one killed me. Where are you guys, Braden, financially? But I'm definitely not putting on doing that with this one just because that last one killed me. Yeah. Where are you guys, Braden, financially? I'm just curious. You guys out of debt and have savings in your building and all of that? Zero debt. I've got $35,000 set aside for an emergency fund. Good for you guys.

And the house appraised to be worth like $890,000, $900,000. Yeah, that's amazing. Congrats. Have you run the math on it just to see at this interest rate, if I paid it off in $15 versus that interest rate, if I paid it off in $15 or paid it off in $30? Which one will come out ahead? I haven't run the math because basically on either one I was going to do, I was planning on paying it off in no more than probably two years

because I only borrowed $80,000 on it. So it's not very much of a mortgage. What do you do for a living? I just run my own business. I really don't make a lot. I've just always done y'all's plans since I was probably eight. But you're going to pay off a $900,000 house in two years? Well, you pay most of it with cash, is what you're saying.

I only borrowed $80,000. You only borrowed $80,000. That's impressive, Brayden. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, you know, we stick with the principle of that 15-year. Because it doesn't matter for you. Yeah, at that point, the interest rate isn't even that big of a swing because you're going to be paying it off so soon.

So the principle, again, is to pay it off as soon as possible. Braden, fantastic job. Incredible, man. Well done. Either way, you're not making bad decisions in life. You're doing really good. So keep up the good work. So one thing we say around here a lot is that money is not a math problem usually and most always it's a you

problem it's a me problem it's us that are handling money that is creating uh the stress and the buying and everything else and so jade warshall one of our ramsey personalities just came out with a money's not a math problem quick read the real reason you're broke and what to do about it so make sure to check it out you guys it's really good so oh it's actually it's on pre-sale for just 10 bucks and you can also access a live online q a with jade that she's going to do but she's going to talk about the five lies that we believe about budgeting and really unpacking this idea of how much our behavior is so crucial to us winning with money. So go to RamseySolutions.com for that. And then our other great friend, George Camel, Breaking Free from Broke, The Ultimate Guide

to More Money and Less Stress is also at RamseySolutions.com. And you can pre-order that book. It is coming out in January. Andorge does a fantastic job being george and funny and great stories and all the things uh really walking through this approach of building wealth and getting out of the system because there's such a system financially that people get stuck in and it's like a ferris wheel just over and over and over and over and so getting out of that and actually winning with your money breaking free from broke by George Campbell. Make sure to pre-order that at ramsaysolutions.com. We have all of your holiday shopping. For your crazy aunt, you can give them my book, 20 bucks.

Yeah. For your grandkids or your kids, you can give them your brand new book. Yeah, $12 for some of these. Yeah. Own your past, change your future. You're an incredible salesman. Own your, whatever your book's called, John. a uh uh toyanda is it a toyota or honda it doesn't matter it's a car it's a great own your past change your future twelve dollars but you

could buy um like money's not the problem for all of your friends and breaking beef like we got you dude yep yep so make sure to check out all that stuff you guys some good money content we're putting out into the world to help people get that hope back. All right, let's go to David in Colorado Springs. Hey, David, welcome to the show. Good to talk to you guys. How are you doing? Absolutely. We're great. We're glad that you called us, David. How can we help? Okay. Make a long story short. My stepdaughter has really been into figure skating since she was about six years old. And about a year and a half ago, she decided she wanted to start competing. So we're like, well, we'll give it a year, see if she sticks with it.

And she really has. And she started competing last year and is doing great. The issue is that we are kind of on the low end of spending for this sport and it's costing us almost a thousand dollars a month. And it just goes up from there. Having more coaching, working with a physical trainer, starting to travel, having to pay for the coach to travel to competitions. And we really are probably over our budget with what we're spending now. But at the same time, she really loves this.

And we're kind of trying to figure out how do you balance her loving the sport and us not going broke. Man. How old is she now? She is 14. Okay. man how old is she now she is 14 okay i've got some unpopular opinions on this that i always get in trouble for can i just put them out there is that cool john stirs the pot i mean very few things do i get in more trouble from the internet people than this but here we go um i would suggest that we've grown up in a culture,

we've created a culture where the kid is the star of the family show. And ultimately, where do you want to eat? What do you want to do? Who do you want to become? What do you want to be when you grow up? What college do you want to go to? What's your dream school? We dump all of these things in our kids' backpack.

Think of them as rocks. We just drop them in our kids. And what happens without meaning to, and this happens like us trying to love and honor and give our kids opportunities that we didn't have. They end up carrying the weight of the whole house. And dude, I'm a product of sports. I played sports all the way through.

I was a two-sport letterman. I ran in college i did mma with professionals like i'm all about sports and teams and workouts and discipline all that stuff's great and the greatest gift i can give my kid is not mortgaging my soul and our future and literally a second literally a second mortgage that some people do to pay for this stuff yeah to let them quote unquote do whatever they want or do whatever they're passionate about do whatever they what feels right the greatest gift i can give them is a stable at peace mom and dad that's the greatest gift and so before i get down a road where i'm paying

for private coaching, I got to fly the coach in or drive the coach in. Now we've got to do this. It just starts building. And like you said, a little bit of success breeds this. And if you try to back out, it's like a timeshare salesman, right? They're like, hey, but we see really a bright future with your daughter. And if you do this, then it can lead to this and it can lead to this. And your daughter's just sitting there looking at you and you feel like the antichrist pulling some of the stuff away and so i always think it's best to not follow the rabbit down the rabbit hole on this but it's to start all the way at the beginning with your wife and say hey what kind of home do we want to have

and we're going to reverse engineer it that way. And what can we actually afford? So it takes ice skating away and input Lexus. If she was really passionate about a Lexus and really a good driver and you couldn't afford a Lexus, you wouldn't buy her a Lexus. But for some reason, sports have become the altar that we sacrifice our families on and that we allow our families and our kids to worship. And I think it's beyond madness. It's gone to pathology now. And at the same time, dude, I get it. I can't imagine having a daughter who's starting to excel. You're a stepdad. You're building relationships and connections. And then you're going to sit down and you're going to take this away. I get that. I can't think of something that would be harder to do as

a parent um i just am seeing family after family mortgage their souls for sports and travel sports and the sake of whatever my kid wants to do i'm gonna i'm gonna do it and the kids can't carry that weight. We end up burying our children. What do you think, David? Yeah, that's kind of my thinking. It's, you know, more we draw a line in the sand and it's like, this is what we can afford. And I'm sorry. Yep. And David, honestly, too, if you don't do that nobody else is this ice skating community isn't going to the the trainer's not going to the the championship tournament places aren't going like no one else is going to do that you literally could spend and spend and spend and spend and there's nobody in the world that's going to be like hey david you got to stop so that's when date that's when you and your wife together have to say we have, we have to put a boundary up.

Because there's nobody else on planet Earth that puts up boundaries for us. We have to create those ourselves. And if you don't, especially these little microcosms of life, and kids sports is one of them, you can just go down a train, just like John's saying, and you look up, and you guys have spent your retirement. I mean, you've done all of this. And I know, I just am so so cautious especially and i would say this too david even if you guys had the money it would be an interesting

conversation too the urgency may not be there like like with the money there's a little bit of a fine night we just we don't have the money like we can't do that and we're not going to stress ourselves out and miss a mortgage payment for ice skating like that's that's like that's that's insane we can't do that. We are adults. She's 14. And we have to make adult mature decisions in our household and run our household. And then what comes after that is what we have to decide. But we're not going to put ourselves

in a financial bind for this. We can't, we won't. And so you draw that line. But even if you had the money, I think what John's saying is interesting. I know it's so controversial. Well, here's the deal. I've got friends that are athletic trainers at universities.

Yeah. And they continue to tell me that they're bringing 18 and 19 year olds with joint overuse injuries that they see in geriatric populations, shoulders and knees and hips that were not designed to do the same sport. Yes. Day after day, week after week, year after year,

since someone was a child and all the way up through, their bodies can't handle that, right? So if there's like a, and I don't know, David, what your options are, but my encouragement would be hopefully to be able to find

a group to play in, whether it's a rec and not competition. I mean, I don't know what it is for ice skating, but like where she can still do what she loves, right, and enjoy it, but it's just not at this high specific level that is so narrow and intense for 14, you know? If this is my house, inexpensive, I would sit my son down. Who's 13 almost here. And I'd walk him through our budget. And then I would say, here's what it costs for rent. Here's what it costs for electric water,

all that food, what we spend. And then here's what we got for this. And this is our cap. Yeah. And then I'm not just going to say it in a vacuum, but I'm going to show him here's what we can afford. That's right. David, thanks so much for calling. And thank you, America, for listening.

John, you've always been a great co-host. And all the guys in the booth for making the show happen. This is The Ramsey Show.