Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. He broke all the time, couldn't wait for that next fund money to come, but I had nothing to show for it, so I couldn't figure things out. I guess it's a thing that people do.
He was trapped in it because I didn't know, so he couldn't tell me. He couldn't do his phone number. No, he wasn't trapped. He was willfully doing this on his own volition.
Nobody was forcing him to continue this weird prison pen pal relationship. How long was the relationship for? I'm embarrassed to say I didn't figure it out for three years. Is this a scam or is this a real thing?
It feels like a scam. It actually is a real thing that people are doing. I guess the purpose of it is to get people to get out and communicate. So who's making the money?
The prison? Exactly. So they use the money to put on their records or to buy things in their commissary or who knows what else. I'm not really sure, but it kind of funds their money while they're in prison.
Like commissary money? Yeah. That is wild. Okay.
Well, yes. Okay. So, I mean, from the financial standpoint, Caroline, are you guys, well, sorry, let me just back up for a second. When you found out, when did you confront him about this?
How long ago was it? It's been probably in the past, I would say, four months. Okay. Are you guys working on your marriage actively right now?
Are you seeing someone? Are you going to therapy? What are you guys doing? This is an ad for BetterHelp.
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BetterHelp is 100% online, so it's affordable and it's convenient. Visit betterhelp.com slash Ramsey for 10% off your first month. What are you guys doing? So I was going to therapy, and we also had the complication that we had a tree fall on our house, so we were dealing with a hole in our marriage, a hole in our house.
So even if we wanted to get divorced, sell the house, we couldn't because we have this massive hole going on. I was talking to somebody in counseling, and I was ready to get divorced, and I just said, hey, would you be interested in going to church with me sometime? And it was only because of his reaction of how excited he was to try to go to church and know that maybe there was a way that I was willing to try to go to church. Is he doing work on his own, individually?
Just through the church, and I know we're going to do a marriage retreat soon. I talked to him about counseling, he's willing, but he's just like, it's just so dark. And I told him, I need this in order to... He said it's just so dark?
Is that what you said? I'm sorry? He said, what was his response when you said that he needs to go to counseling? Oh, he's like, it won't be good, it's just so dark.
His story, what's in his head? Like all that? Oh, I think just maybe of the whole truth coming out, I maybe only know a portion of it. I wanted to know, what did this person go to prison for?
Am I safe? How long are they in prison for? If you guys can move forward, everything needs to come to the light. Yes.
It's a full disclosure situation that you guys need to sit down with a counselor to even move forward. There's no way you can move forward with half the truth of your marriage. And George and I are not marriage experts. I think he would completely agree with us on that.
So yeah, this is a rebuilding because of how deeply cut the trust has been in the marriage, right? I mean, for three years, in any given period of time, right? When a spouse steps outside the marriage, that is painful. And that is something to really, really be working on for both of you and the individual work for both of you.
You having to learn to trust yourself again, for him to face some of his demons and to understand what work he needs to be doing. I mean, yeah, there's a lot of repair that has to happen, regardless of if the marriage survives. So I'm just saying, individually, to be two healthy people, that's what you guys need. And then, moving forward out of that, if you get the whole truth and you still decide, yes, I want to be in this marriage, then yes, then there's all the repair work within the marriage.
But from an emotional side, it definitely takes some individual work. And then I would say from the financial, I would definitely have, I would be separating finances. Does he work and do you work? Do you both bring in a paycheck?
Yes. Okay, and were you all sharing an account at the time when this happened? We were, but because we were working the baby steps, he was doing it with his fund money. But where was the fund money?
Is the fund money in your checking account? Well, we would take it out cash. Okay, okay. So right now, we're at the point that I'm like, in order for me to trust, your fund money is going to have to be tracked.
It's tracked. 100%, yes. Oh, I think that's really fair. And I would also pull his credit report and then freeze his credit on top of that.
So we want to pull the credit report to make sure there's no outstanding debts that maybe you don't know about and get a clear picture of what's out there and then freeze his credit so he can't open any new accounts. And that's just one stock gap to make sure that there's no more financial infidelity outside of what's even in your checking account. Okay. But I don't have transaction alerts set up so you get a text message every time it comes out of that bank account, you get a transaction alert, even if it's just his account right now if you separate.
Yeah, because there has to be some steps and visible evidence for trust to be rebuilt in the situation, Caroline. So that's not you being over-controlling or like being his mom, right? Some marriages can function so dysfunctionally with money where like one person just has all the control and the other one doesn't know any passwords and all that. I'm not talking about that.
This is – there was broken trust within the marriage. Money was involved in it as it usually is. And because of that, in order to rebuild trust, I have to know exactly where the money is going. I need every account.
Just like his phone records. I need every account. There has to be a level of knowledge for you to keep moving forward in this marriage when it comes to building trust. Okay.
And I know I'm really tempted. I know he didn't – you know, I know he didn't steal money from you guys and all that because it was allocated to him. But I mean, there's almost a part of me, until you know that the marriage is going to survive this, I almost would just have my own checking account, Caroline. But I'm just scared that something else is going to come up and you're going to find whether there's more on the infidelity side with the relationship or even more financially uncovering some stuff.
Because you caught him and he still is not telling you the whole truth. And that's the scary part is we just don't know how much more damage there is. And so because of that, I would just be on the cautious defensive side right now to protect yourself. Okay.
And then action plus time plus counseling plus God. That's going to be the only solution to rebuild this trust and restore this marriage. Okay. Yeah, I'm so sorry, Caroline.
That is like – it's so heartbreaking. So heartbreaking. And what's wilder of these calls, George, we get pretty consistently, whether it's a marriage that, you know, one of the two have made poor choices. But even from the financial infidelity side of taking money and doing things that the spouse didn't know about, it's becoming more and more common.
So, again, yeah, the best line of defense, Caroline, is you work on you, he needs to work on him. And you guys, moving forward with all the truth out, decide what we're going to do. Create your free every-dollar budget today, the simplest way to budget for your life.