We're on to you by the every dollar app. Start budgeting for free today. And today's question comes from Heather in Wyoming. I'm a say at home mom, and this has been the most stressful painful past years of my life with my husband making horrible financial decisions that left this over $500,000 in debt.
He owns a tree service business, making $70,000 a year and is trying to start a mobile mechanic business and his purchase investment property. We have $163,000 more in some of our house. The rent is a total disaster. That's completely, the rent is all the rental and total disaster is completely valid.
And we have to make payments every month while earning a no income with it and no progress in our pairs. He also bought a brand new truck that we owe now $84,000 on and $18,000 on a loan on a bobcat for the business. A $20,000 home equity loan that he used to fix up the rental. Oh, and over $5,000 in credit cards.
He keeps saying he's working on it. And he is a hard worker, but has been a completely impossible situation that angers me and stresses me out every single day. I work on ours because we can't afford childcare nor do I want to give up time against the fix around that I did not cause. I feel so stuck and hopeless.
All right, can we just, listen, I wrote it all out because I'm trying to track with this. Okay, Heather, this is not a, you shouldn't be this way. She's very bitter. Yes, we can tell.
Very resentful. Which is valid. Is valid. The day deal like not only different pages financially, but they have been split now emotionally really separate.
She wants nothing to do with them. Yeah, and $5,000. Great. Yeah, it is stuck in hopeless.
She is not, not in good place. Which is what you put together. Yeah, all these decisions were not wise decisions made. The key decision is without obviously talking to her or working as a team.
So what do we do? Heather, what are we going to do? I'm seeking counsel. Number one, like I was talking about keeping her money safe Rachel, it's kind of like an acronym.
And the first thing to decide where you're at. So as is we're seeking counsel. Like if you're noticing trends within your money with your spouse, like what's going on here, I feel uncomfortable. I feel unsafe, actually.
I feel like there's something going on in the council. And then you're going to find this. There's things like addiction abuse. That's the A.
And then F is financial infillity, which is getting real close to falling under in my opinion. It is because he's going on spending massive amounts of money without your. I think you're in your. Yeah, and then that you have that is you need to evaluate your options.
Like so that's how you go through this. And I do think that this is sometimes people think financial infillity is like just how you money into the mattress. Or something like that. Like this is a lot of money.
And it sounds like we don't know Rachel, but it sounds like she has made her objections clear. And it sounds like we could be wrong. It might be something that he did in the fact she was like, how could you do that? But even still, you got this is your financial issues here.
But when I look at this, I go, this is a couple. We need to go to therapy. They need help. And yeah, and he's obviously not living in reality.
No, and there's people like that that we talk to. And I do like pinpoint people, but it's the dreamers. It's like, oh, I have an idea. And this is like, I have a new idea here.
Don't worry. This is surely. And it is a little bit dirty. You actually make decisions in those dreams.
And they don't come to fruition. You have to have reality that I can't do this anymore. So there's a safety here that I would want for you. Like a point where you're like, I can't keep putting myself.
There's a level of danger there. And this situation is a danger in my kids. And that is what it is. So that weight is very, very real.
And I just want him to wake up to the reality. And I think what's going to happen is a third party. You're probably not going to be able to do it. And I think it's a third party.
It's like, I mean, I'll go through that with ourselves. So that thing, this is a bit. And you can say it and it's not being magging. And it's not effective.
But when you actually sit down with a third party, usually it's coming from someone else. It's a bit that's it. The financial issues here are a symptom of where you guys are in your marriage. And again, I don't blame you whether it being angry but what are we going to do with that?
We can't just sit down and pretend you're going to be in that cycle. You either have to then grow and learn other boundaries. You put up now. Is that what you do now?
What are those steps? That's really hard. But ooh, this situation. Yeah.
That's right. Because something's got a change. And in a situation like this, not to belabor it. But there's very little you can do to control the other party.
Like there's nothing you can do to control the other party. But you guys sit down and figure out, OK, what am I going to do in order to try better this situation? I can see council. I can put these boundaries in place.
But then you've also got a kind of kind of kind of point of where you go, OK, where does this just get completely toxic? And that's up to you. And like Rachel said, we're party to this side. And we talked all the time about couples staying on the same page being on the same team.
All of this. But there's extreme situations. We talked about a lot. And I mean, head of maybe even with those for me.
There's a point that you have to protect yourself and your kids. Like if he's going to continue to spend, I mean, hundreds of thousands of dollars. Like I don't want my name on that. I don't want that.
And if you're headed towards, I'm not putting this on. I'm not putting this even on you. But if you're heading towards a point like listen, I don't know if I see it together in the future, the more he racks up, I don't want to be in part of that. Because if you don't stick together, I'm looking like that.
So first part of this is going to be on me. And so for the time being head of there's probably some hard boundaries. I would have to protect you and the kids. But working on your marriage gets off a lot of this.
And then my prayer is that they would get to a point that they are in agreement and realize, OK, he's not going to do X, and now as a team, if you get to that point, Heather, that's where you have to say, all right, we're in this together. What are we going to do? And it's right. And it's on both of you to just leave arms and get out of it.
Yeah. And it's great for we don't want this to slip. So this is the stuff that causes divorce and your just want to take responsibility decisions they made. and if you just haven't heard of these conversations, you've got to know the other person's philosophy on money at the end of the day.
And not just make assumptions and go, oh, they've got a good job. They probably have it together. Or not seem like they have a lot of that, like really being deeper and figuring out and just asking, you know, even when you dream together, which I know there's time time I will sit together and think about, oh, it would be cool to have a business like that one day. They get a little deeper and go, well, what do what extremes would you go?
I would never take out money for a business with you. You know, really ask the question, find ways to bring money into conversations where you really understand a lot of different facets. What their views are on money because as we see here, it can really be an issue such as such a distinction point. So it's a big relational wedge that's causing your exactly right.
And I think, you know, especially when you're dating engaged, we get a question a lot of, you know, we don't really have money on it. And, you know, we always encourage to be having hard conversations about everything. Right? And we talk to people that show that they're dating for six years and they don't know anything about their partner's financial situation.
And they think this or that, and I'm going to show you what time we're like, we talk about it. I know. So take this stuff seriously, guys. I'm like, don't like ask it before when came on the first date.
But that's a little extreme. But start, you know, understanding like, to be in the same value system with a person you're going to go with. And yeah, but in the market reveals a lot. Create your free every dollar budget today, the simplest way to budget for your life.