My Wife’s Financial Mistakes Are Hurting Us

What this episode is about

The discussion revolves around a couple's financial struggles stemming from miscommunications and differing levels of involvement in money management. The husband realizes that despite initially trusting his wife to oversee their finances, a lack of transparency and understanding has led to losses in their savings, revealing deeper issues of trust and partnership in managing their financial responsibilities.

Key takeaways

• Trust is a two-way street; abdication in finances can signal deeper issues in a relationship.
• Money mismanagement isn't just spreadsheets; it mirrors emotional dynamics and roles within a marriage.
• Couples who budget collaboratively enjoy greater financial harmony—God bless those who check in often!
• Communication failures often outspend bills; a $400 divergence might cost more than just money.
• Running away from financial discussions can feel like being a spectator in your own life—get involved!

What is discussed, and when

1. 3:00 – 6:00: BetterHelp

Notable quotes from "My Wife’s Financial Mistakes Are Hurting Us"

• More help is needed. That's why I recommend people go to therapy. And if you're thinking about therapy, try BetterHelp. It's 100% online, so it's affordable and convenient.…

  about BetterHelp · at 5:06

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

Sponsors

• BetterHelp — Product · Sponsor · 1 mention · first at 5:06
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Full transcript with timestamps

0:06 the way we had set things up. Um, I had trusted my wife with just uh overseeing the finances. I I check in and everything, make sure everything's going and you know, I started a new job and we had this plan. We did everything. We budgeted, did that, and month and a half in, I checked, and I was, "Okay, things are good. Great. We've hit our marks, and we're going to keep doing it." And I took my hand off a little bit and then another month and a half later I looked and I saw less money in our savings than when we had started and I was like, you know what the heck happened? So talked to her and just um I texted her that morning. She comes down. She was asleep cuz we have two kids, another on the way and she her sleep's precious. She needs it. But um and comes down and she was like, "Well, I was trying to do this and do this and I I didn't care so much that we like I did care that we lost the money, but I

0:59 was more upset about that." She's like, "Well, I tried putting it back before you knew anything about it, you know?"

1:04 Yeah. And that that was the hard part cuz I was like, "Well, what you're portraying to me is you don't trust me with it or almost that you don't need me." You know what I mean? And it's like,

1:16 yeah, but she doesn't. Mhm. Do you get what I'm saying? What? Like you abdicated this response. I mean, you're s you're acting like her dad.

1:24 Yeah. Like you take care of all this. I'm going to check in on you and see how good you're doing.

1:28 That's not how couples handle money, brother. Like tell me about that. Well, I mean, the way we had set it up when we first got here, we've been married seven years now, and we've revisited this conversation a bunch.

1:39 Okay. But, um, she was like, I want to take care of this cuz that's how our parents do it. You know, when I was young,

1:46 what does take care of it mean? She wants to make her own budget and do all this stuff or she

1:49 she she wanted to do everything me not even look at it, not even concern myself with it.

1:55 Okay. Was she doing that out of a sense of control or a sense of she's a stay-at-home mom and she wants to have some purpose and value or she thinks you're

2:03 control? No, it was control. She doesn't think I'm dumb. She just that was like something I always struggled with and she tells me all the time I don't think or you know whatever you're not dumb.

2:13 Okay. And um she's like I I believe it's from control because it was just like it's something she could do.

2:20 And it wasn't this was even before we had children. So she wasn't a stay at home mom. She was working and that's just what she wanted to do. And I was like yeah I trust you. That's fine. Sure.

2:31 Okay. That don't ever do that again because money is too money is too much of a a like let me go all the way back. When I was doing my practicum, seeing counseling clients, it one big takeaway I had, and I'm talking about if I was talking to a single mom with multiple kids, somebody with special needs, or with a multi-millionaire,

2:52 Mhm. they would all tell me about their sexual exploits, their number of partners, their abuse histories. No one would tell me about their money.

3:03 It was that personal. And so a it's a very personal thing and more importantly it's a revealer of the state of your home, right? It's it's the state of is somebody out of control? It's a state of does somebody feel like they have a purpose and a role? It just matters a lot.

3:25 And so that would be a line I would draw. Like my wife hits the button to pay all the bills, right? Like so if it's like I leave it up to her like she hits the button, she writes the checks

3:36 but we get together every month and sometimes every other week and we talk about the state of things

3:44 and we make decisions and we we high-five each other and then we go forward. I deal with the investments and she deals with the like is the lights going to stay on and all that kind of stuff. Right. So but it has to come from a we're together on this thing. Yeah. And

4:04 so if she's requesting like, "Hey, I just want to do all this myself. I want you not to worry your pretty little head with it." I would tell her, "Hey, this is how couples break up and I it's too big of a deal for me."

4:15 Mhm. And for you to for you to feel like I think she just didn't need me, that was true because she was running the whole show

4:25 without you. You would just swoop in and judge her performance every once in a while. Mhm.

4:31 And let me challenge you on one other thing. Like, man, if there's a big issue in your marriage, like, "Oh my gosh, we're burning through savings and my wife didn't even tell me." That's never a text message.

4:45 Mhm. That's like an imperson we need to have a hard conversation. Yeah. You get what I'm saying?

4:51 Yeah. Yeah. So, so what's your what's your what was she spending money on? This is an ad for Better Help. I talk to hurting people for a living and yes, I can help out folks in tiny chunks of time here on the internets, but often more help is needed. That's why I recommend people go to therapy. And if you're thinking about therapy, try BetterHelp. It's 100% online, so it's affordable and convenient. They've got over 30,000 therapists and they're great at finding just the right one for you. Visit betterhelp.com/deloney for 10% off your first month. What what was she spending money on?

5:30 Well, what what she said that money was spent on and I went and looked at all the records and everything was they were just bills. Like they were truly bills. What we had done was we had mis um budgeted and the numbers weren't lining up as what I was making to what we're spending.

5:48 Okay. And so we rebudgeted all that and now we are good. Great. But what it was was just like, "Hey, I need to take this out and pay this insurance. I need to pay this." And she had communicated that a couple times,

6:04 but then it was I was doing the math and I'm like, "Okay, there's still $400 that's not like accounted for."

6:15 Okay. And by no means do do I think that she's actually misspending money because but if if you saw like our house and how we live, it's like she's not buying anything for herself.

6:26 That's pretty smart. Yeah. So where did that 400 bucks go? She she she cracked it up to to the what is it? Um like insurance for our cars.

6:37 Yep. And then something about the phone bills because every everyone goes through like her and we we have like a massive f like her siblings and we all have like a massive group of um cell phone service and they just pay her their

6:53 Get your own plan, dude. Y'all are married. You have a house. Get on your own plan.

6:57 Pay the extra 20 bucks a month, but have your own household. Yeah. But again, otherwise or you'll just be dealing with this kind of stuff all the time. But let me ask you this. when she came to you and said, "Hey, we have to spend more money on insurance," what was your response to that? How'd you respond?

7:16 Um, I I trusted her and I was like, "Oh, okay. I guess that's what it is for insurance. That was about it. I I didn't think too much of it."

7:25 Okay. And the reason I'm asking is if she came to you and said, "Hey, we made this." And by the way, making a new budget usually takes about 3 months, 90 days to cycle through it.

7:34 Mhm. just because stuff comes up like, "Oh gosh, dude. I had the guys come work on the sprinkler three months ago and they just now sent me the bill and insurance comes out of nowhere and we thought it was in August, but it comes in June." Like, that's just part of getting into the rhythm of it.

7:49 Mhm. Um, and so it takes about 3 months uh to get it settled in. But if she came to you with one of those things and your response is, "Are you serious? Why didn't you?" Then what you're telling her is, "Don't come back to me with that kind of stuff."

8:05 Right? Or if you said, "Oh man, geez, that's expensive. Well, thank you for knocking that out. Um, we we'll have to we'll have to reimagine it next month." Then that's an encouragement like, "I'm a safe place for you to come with these challenges." You get what I'm saying?

8:18 Yeah. Um, I I think the path forward is, and again, you can do it how you want to. the path forward. It's similar to an earlier call we took on this show, which is I'm gonna give her the benefit of the doubt unless you tell me otherwise.

8:33 She was trying to do the best she could to be a team player and all of a sudden it got over her head.

8:41 And she made a call which is I don't want to bother him with this. I I don't feel like I can tell him. He's going to go through the numbers and start asking me all these questions about the spreadsheet and why didn't I do this and why didn't I do that? I don't want to fight it. and so I'm just going to pull it from savings and I'll fill it back next month.

8:58 Like, and so the path forward is a you can sit down and let her know all the things she did wrong. Or you can take ownership, full ownership of your part of this and sit down and say, "Hey, I dude, I should never have put this all on you in the first place, and I know you want to do it all yourself. That's not wise for us as a married couple. So, I'm going to sit here with you as we decide what's coming next with our budget. And if she wants to pay all the bills great.

9:24 But I want to be better about communicating. I'm on your team. I'm not your boss who's looking over your shoulder to make you sure you clicked every button, right?

9:34 Do you get what I'm saying? Oh, yeah. Yeah. But it's you it's you starting with I statements, not not uh you did these things statements. So, your original question to me was how do you rebuild trust? I'm struggling to figure out where trust was broken here. Where is trust broken here?

9:55 I don't know. I guess I more or less I think you're just right. It was more of just I should have communicated about how involved I want to be with it and it's not I cuz I try I try to Yeah. No, I just think you're right. I should have just made it very clear from them because like you're saying she was doing the best with what she could and like you know like how she approached me and maybe I mishandled it wrong cuz like that I don't want that in my marriage.

10:22 Yeah. You know I want I want I want that trust. Yeah. And I think it's more what she said with me than her.

10:29 Tell me about that. Like I don't want you to do the same thing to me that you did with her, which is I say something bold like you need to go go first and you're like you're right. I'm sorry. And the way she was like I want to take care of the money and you're like okay you're right. So tell me where you're being reflective here or how you're being reflective. I think I I think it's I think it's like when those like my wife had a hard time growing up with like watching her parents and I think and I I mean I know she has a lot of trust issues like with stuff. So, like you said, maybe when it was times to be like

11:15 how I should have responded cuz, you know, she doesn't open up like a lot about things.

11:20 Sure. But it was like maybe that was like one of those times where it's like, okay, you can either handle this with like grace and like, you know, have your responsibility.

11:29 Mhm. And try to be like open or I can completely just over analyze, over criticize, and then it's like you said, well, not doing that again. Cuz that that was kind of what she said to me. She was like, "Well, I didn't want you stressing over it." So, she like, "No, I have stressed over things before." And she's like, "I'm just going to not bother with them cuz maybe that is like the

11:49 Oh, you like overcriticized and all these things." And Yeah. So, that's a that's that. Sorry. Go ahead.

11:56 No, you go ahead. You go ahead. That's something. It's always been hard to get my wife to like come out of her shell.

12:04 Yeah. And be like super open with things. Yeah. Like say say there's times, you know, in marriage where you get we have those arguments. It's like so often do I want to cuz like I forget things sometimes and I'm like I've gotten better about that. Like I'll count my fingers things I want to bring up like after she talks cuz sometimes when she talks I'll like jump in so I don't forget but then it's like pulling teeth to her to talk again. You know what I mean?

12:32 Yeah. And so, um, if this is the old quote from the movie Fight Club from Chuck Pollen Hook, but if a conversation with your spouse is you just waiting for your turn to talk,

12:46 it's not a conversation. It's a It's a competition. Mhm. If you listen to the thing beneath the thing she's telling you and you hear a wife that's exhausted, frustrated, has a new baby, doesn't know if you still like her or think she's pretty anymore. Or she grew up in a house that was just chaos and there was no trust anywhere. And trust for her, she has a lived experience of trust getting her hurt or getting her accused. And so she's trying and she gets the facts wrong, but the sentiment is, "I'm trying to connect with you." And by the way, conflict is connection. It's what it's it's one of the most the tension is the doorway in a marriage. That's what's beautiful about it if you can go through it. But it's you not just waiting for your turn to rebut her things, but it's in that moment of I'm a safe place for you to be sad with. I'm a safe place for you to be upset with. Go for it. I'm I'll I'll hold the weight of the

13:46 family right now. Not that you become a punching bag or get abused or anything like that, but

13:51 Right. But does what I'm saying resonate? Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah, it does. It does.

13:58 And maybe the next day or two days later, we come back and if there's two or three things that are still really heavy, like, "Hey, you said I never help. Um, can you help me because I'm trying to keep my eyes open about the laundry? I'm trying to keep my eyes open about the dishes and I want to figure out a better way that I can love you in a way that resonates with you. Can you give me a map?

14:18 Mhm. Instead of hold on, hold on right there. I did the dishes yesterday and I did the laundry 3 weeks ago. Like, you see what I'm saying?

14:25 Mhm. Yeah. And then what she's going to feel in her nervous system is that guy's not listening to me. Because this isn't about those isolated times. It's me saying I'm trapped in this house with a kid and I feel totally alone. I feel useless and purposeful. And and that's it's that's it's part of the wizardry of being married, which is what is the thing beneath the thing we're talking about right?

14:43 Otherwise, laundry becomes a proxy war, right? Yeah. All of this, I think, if you sit down and take her hands and you go arrange for a a sitter,

14:56 you call somebody and you sit down and say like metaphorically, I'm clearing the deck here.

15:03 Yeah. I I I want to I want to read you some things I wrote down about how much purpose you bring to my life and to this family. I want to read to you a couple things I wrote about how out of my mind in love with you I am and how beautiful I think you are. And again, I don't know what her things the things she wrestles with are, but go right at those things and then say, "I I gave you all this money. I'm not going to do that again. It's too big of a deal for us. It's too big of a radar system for the health of our whole family unit. I don't ever want you to feel alone again. And I'm going to work really hard to get some new tools in my toolkit so that the only tool I have isn't criticism.

15:49 Right, bro? Now you're setting the table. You're you're tilling the soil that she can start planting seeds that y'all can work on together forever and those will turn into a forest of trees. But dude, I think you're on the right track, brother. I'm proud of you and you got the next right move right in front of you. Um, it's time to do the courageous, masculine, brave thing and go do the next right move for your home, which is to take a knee in front of your wife and say, "I'm going to do this differently next time. I'm all in." I hope you will be too.

Questions about this episode

What is "My Wife’s Financial Mistakes Are Hurting Us" about?

The discussion revolves around a couple's financial struggles stemming from miscommunications and differing levels of involvement in money management. The husband realizes that despite initially trusting his wife to oversee their finances, a lack of transparency and understanding has led to losses in their savings, revealing deeper issues of trust and partnership in managing their financial…

What is mentioned in this The Dr. John Delony Show episode?

1 people, works and ideas are mentioned. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "My Wife’s Financial Mistakes Are Hurting Us"?

The episode runs 16 min; the transcript is about 3,278 words in 64 timestamped sections.

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