Why Can’t My Husband Be Honest About Money?

What this episode is about

The discussion centers around a woman's frustration with her husband's dishonesty regarding money, particularly during the government's shutdown when he failed to disclose that he was still being paid. Despite their long marriage and shared commitment, she grapples with his repeated concealment of financial information, which she equates to financial infidelity, leading to a deep sense of betrayal and mistrust in their partnership.

Key takeaways

• Financial infidelity: not just a betrayal, but a partnership's silent killer lurking beneath household transactions.
• Communication in marriage isn't just about love; it's also about financial transparency to avoid emotional landmines.
• Hiding money? It’s not just budget mismanagement; it’s emotional sabotage disguised as fiscal caution.
• Couples can struggle with teamwork when money becomes a personal scoreboard rather than a shared goal.
• Anger often masks deeper issues; in finances, it’s usually fear of losing control or security together.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Dr. John Delony (Host) · 11 min speaking
• Unknown Caller (Guest) · 7 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 3:00: financial infidelity

Notable quotes from "Why Can’t My Husband Be Honest About Money?"

• I call it financial infidelity. You're you're 100% right to be freaked out, to be unsure.

  about financial infidelity · at 1:52

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

Concepts & topics

• financial infidelity — Concept · 1 mention · first at 1:52

Full transcript with timestamps

0:06 during the [snorts] um government shutdown um my husband wasn't getting paid right so I asked him several times during this period are you getting paid no money things would come up things to fix the house or whatever and I'd be like oh we can't afford it right now let's wait until the government shutdown ends and then I found out that the whole time he was getting paid.

0:33 Okay. He lied to me about Why was he lying to me about it? I don't I I asked him and he said, "Oh, every time he got paid, they said it might be the last one." I said, "Why didn't you just tell me that?" I'm like, "I'm over here scraping together, you know, money and and everything so that we can, you know, get by and this whole time you're getting paid."

0:56 So, let me flip this around. Okay. Mhm. How long have y'all been married? Almost 10 years.

1:04 Okay. Are you a wife he can tell stuff like that to? Uh, I thought so. Tell me about that.

1:14 Well, I mean, he is in our 10 years, he has hidden financial stuff from me that I have then discovered.

1:22 Mhm. And confronted him on it. and he always comes up with uh an excuse of why he did it.

1:30 Okay? And you know, it's come up before. We're still together. I tell him, you know, I thought we were just a I thought we were a team. You know, we'll do things together, but it keeps happening over and over again.

1:44 So, obviously lying and hiding money is is I mean, it's it's it's a form of infidelity right?

1:52 Yeah. I call it financial infidelity. You're you're 100% right to be freaked out, to be unsure.

1:58 Yeah. So, but I'm changing my tune over time, right? Like, because I guess it's easy to look at this guy and if he was calling me on the phone and be like, "Hey, dude. I'm hiding money from my wife, whatever." Of course,

2:12 just being husband to husband, dad to dad with this guy, I would say, "Hey, you're being a person who lacks character.

2:19 He's on the phone. You are." And so [clears throat] what I want to ask you first out of the gate is are you a person who teamwork is we have money to do what I want. We have money that I panic. I freak out and so I want to make sure we are saving. We're doing this the way I want to do. Are you a person that he can be open with? Because if you are, then it's a totally different trajectory. If you can look at at how you are as a teammate and say, "Actually, teammate means we do what I want." That's a different That's what I want. I want to be reflective about before I start throwing grenades.

3:04 I see what you're saying, but I Well, of course I feel this way because it's me.

3:09 Because it's you. Yeah, of course I'm right. But I feel like um for example when he started getting retirement I said it's your you know his first retirement from his first job. I'm like let's take some of that let's put a part of it into savings and it's not for me it's for him.

3:29 I I you but you're answering my question for me. Okay. What I would love the question to be is who do we want to be 10 years from now

3:39 and how can like I want us to paint a picture together and then accomplishing that picture is a simple math problem that you reverse engineer. I want to have a car that cost $20,000 in 5 years. Cool. How many months until then? 60 months. How many how many dollars do I need to put in account? But if he gets this check and you say you need to for you, then what what what you get is he's getting another mom.

4:07 Do you get what I'm saying? Oh yeah. And I feel that. But I feel like he puts me in that position.

4:13 Okay. Tell me about that. He's so He's so irresponsible with his money. Tell me about that.

4:19 Because now we're getting into contempt, right? Like I'm watching how he does his thing and

4:23 Yeah. Right. And it's not it's not good. Tell me about that. And you may be a 100% right. I just want to lean into the person on the phone with me, right? Not in a not in a not in a coming after you, but just make sure we're all speaking the same language.

4:38 No. And that's fine because Yeah. My need my knee-jerk reaction on emotions is anger. So I know and that's why I called.

4:45 Okay. Awesome. Like am I up? Because Yeah. It could be me. I Well, I it's usually a co-created dance,

4:55 right? So sometimes somebody like if I'm dancing with my wife, she's wanted me to take her dancing our whole marriage.

5:02 And so when I show up to dance or and by the way, I am to say I'm bad is the understatement of the century. I'm literally the worst dancer that's ever existed. My hips for sure do lie like badly, right? Okay, so here's the thing. when I do dance with her, I want to do it so well

5:24 that I completely lose the fact that I'm with my best friend and my my quarter century mate, my girlfriend still who happens to be my wife. I lose all of that and I turn into a performance and I try to get every step right and so I step on her feet. I go too fast, too slow because I'm trying. You get what I'm saying?

5:42 Uhhuh. And so it's a it's a world we've co-created together. And so I you're it's rarely I mean you listen to the show sometimes it's 100% one person right but sometimes it's a co-created you need to you need to why aren't you which then somebody begins to slowly shrink their shoulders and drop draw their arms around okay this is mine then and that doesn't make what they're doing right but it makes it it's a context not an excuse I understand it right [clears throat]

6:14 okay so tell me like you're you're watching him do his stuff with his money. Tell me about that.

6:22 Well, when there's been a couple times where he said things were going to happen, he volunteered it financially and then it just never happened.

6:31 Like what? Give me an example. Sure. Um he paid off his car and I had a little bit of credit card debt and he's like, "I'll give you the money for the, you know, what I was paying for my car. I'll give you that to help pay down your debt." I'm like, "I didn't ask for it." I was like, "Oh, that's awesome." Never saw it.

6:48 When he started getting his retirement, he's like, "Oh, you can quit your job or go part-time to your job and you can do this, you know, this dream project I had." And he's like, "And and and cuz my retirement money is more than you make in a month." He volunteered that. I was like, "Oh, well, yeah, we can talk about that." Never happened. M

7:10 I said, "Let's save a little bit of your your retirement check just for savings, you know, a cushion." He said, "Okay." Never happened.

7:20 So, it's just over and over again. And this time lying to my face and saying that he was not getting paid is just again,

7:31 yeah, it happened again. And I just feel used like how can you lie to somebody's face like that and carry on in your life? Like everything's normal, you know, there's no problems here. And when I confronted him with it, he said it was uh he had faulty logic.

7:49 What's that mean? I don't know. I was like, that's not faulty logic. That's lying to my face.

7:56 And and you know what? You're right. And you're you are totally right. And and you know, you've listened to my show long enough. If he was on the phone with me, I'd wear him out on that. Right. And the way you're describing y'all's interactions tells me in no way, shape, form, or fashion are y'all a team.

8:16 Right. Y'all are using team language, but you're saying his car, your debt, his retirement.

8:26 It's y'all's debt. It's y'all's cars that you happen to drive every day. It's y'all's retirement. And until you get there, there will always be,

8:39 going back to the dance metaphor, somebody vying for I want to lead the dance. My wife has her own small business, okay? And the way we've set up in our house is that's a small ecosystem that lives within itself. Meaning when she sells one of her books, it goes back into her little world. Okay? And it's awesome. I love that she's like we have sat down walked through all of it together. So at the macro level in our house, she has not worked like her income has not dumped into our family pot. And yet so all the income that we spend on our home, on our investments, on our whatever actually comes from a check with my name on it. But make no mistake, it is ours.

9:33 We have cars. We have a house. We have groceries. And so we decide how we are going to co-create this amazing picture that we both have. And by the way, part of that picture down the road is our kids um not having to carry the the education burden that her and I had when we graduated.

9:59 Part of that vision is a gigantic hunting ranch for me and any of my friends that I want to bring in and people who are struggling in their marriages who want to come fly into Nashville and just get away for a bit.

10:11 That's part of our thing. You get what I'm saying? And it's a thing I really want. So, I put it on the table and we decide, is this a thing that we want to do? And how are we going to get there?

10:25 Mhm. And when you're vying for power inside your own house, it makes let me say it this way. Power the the the scratching and clawing of power, and we're watching it happen at the government level. We're watching it happen at the local level, and we're watching it happen in our homes. When you're vying for power, it exposes what you are most scared of. And so if your husband was on the phone with me, I would a first question I would ask him is where did he get burned with money in the past?

10:55 Do you have an answer to that? Yeah, I think so. And and I've told him this. I think he grew up broke.

11:01 Okay. And so did he was he responsible for taking care of some of his parents' needs?

11:07 Oh, his mom. Yeah, for sure. And so you see how you've recreated that with him.

11:14 Yeah. or he recreated it with me. Exactly. It's a it's a figure eight. It's a figure eight.

11:20 Yeah. Okay. And so here here's the you've heard me say this a lot and I'm trying to do a better job because people ask me what I mean because I throw some of these things out and I want to break it down as far as as granular as I can.

11:32 Somebody has to stop that dance. But how do I Well, how do I stop it? Here's how.

11:40 Okay, you stop dancing. You can't make him stop dancing, but you have to turn the lights on and turn the music off. What do I mean by that? I want you

11:51 to make him his absolute insane, even if you have to leave the house before he gets up and go get it, his favorite cup of coffee.

12:01 And then I want you to show up and say, "Hey," and I want you to have pre-planned this. I need an hour together. And then you have to put on the table, here's what I have brought to this dance. So to use my house as a metaphor, my wife saying, I have made wanting to dance with you such a big deal that I realize I put so much pressure on you that a you don't want to do you you won't do it with me very often and b you get so nervous when we get there, it's not a pleasurable experience. So instead of waiting for dance lessons and waiting for the opportunity at we're at a party to dance, could we just dance in our living room to like old '8s metal song? You get how the invit how there's an invitation

12:48 and then we're going to get some reps. And so what my wife has done for because what she wants is to go dancing. What she has done is she has taken quote unquote the lead in not forcing a dance class on me, but she has taken the lead in turning the temperature so low that dancing now sounds fun again. It's an invitation. So you saying, "Hey, I here's what I have contributed." And then that is an invitation to I have to ask myself, have I created a world where you have to lie about your money? Our money.

13:26 I want us to put our debts on the table. I want us to put our future on the table cuz we have been together for a decade and I'm hoping we got one or two decades left. And then here's the scariest part about that. He may say no.

13:42 Well, he's uh he's a sweet guy. He'll say yes, but then how do I believe him? Y'all have to wait.

13:50 Nope. Y'all create a plan. You should know all the login to his retirement accounts cuz they're y'all's retirement accounts.

13:59 He should have all Y'all should have a single checking account that y'all live out of.

14:05 But he does like everything is like PayPal, PayPal, PayPal. I don't know what that is.

14:10 Okay. Then you say, "I want you to teach me about PayPal." because it involves our money.

14:17 Oo. Do you get what I'm saying? You're trying You're trying to play team You're trying to be teammates, but y'all are in different dugouts wearing different uniforms.

14:27 Uh-huh. And that's I'm very combative. So, and and that's why I went back to the original question. Is it even okay for him to say, "Hey, I did get paid. we may not get paid next month because y'all are so united that you can see that he's carrying a little bit of shame, a little bit of guilt, and a ton of rage because the adults in the room, the government officials are using him as a pawn in their little games.

14:53 Oh, I know. I would get so mad. I would get Yep. Yep. But but but but if you walk in and you y you all sit down, it's kind of the old um interrogator trick. If when you all have conversations, your seat, you instantly go six feet above him and you're looking down at how he's spending his money and is he doing this and is who

15:13 I'm not saying he gets a pass. He's being a man who lacks character cuz he's lying to his wife.

15:18 Mhm. But if I were to dig into his situation, is he is he created a world where he has to do that?

15:29 He feels very judged by me. Because I I guarantee you because he is you've judged him on this conversation with me now.

15:35 Oh yeah. He I I would judge him. I would hold him accountable. And that's what I'm trying to do to say like I call you on your and it's maybe that's the wrong word, but like I see

15:48 No, that's the right word. I'm still here, but he doesn't have permission to call you on yours.

15:54 I mean, he can. I I know he can. And you you've told me your default is anger is explosion.

16:03 Mhm. You get what I'm saying? And here's what I'm trying to get to. If you want to be right here, you you can be. He's lied to you. If you want to be married, and more importantly, you want to have peace and safety inside your chest, which you don't feel right now.

16:17 Mhm. Then the only path forward is the most courageous um [clears throat] scary thing you can do which is to say I want to own my part of the dance that we're in. I'm a judgmental, angry person and I think I've pushed you into a way that you're reacting poorly and you may have to swallow your pride and ego and your anger.

16:45 Mhm. But it it's it's the path back to connection. Okay? Do you get what I'm saying? I'm not saying become a doormat. I'm not saying once you put this on the table, if he lies again,

16:59 I want you to tell him not you shouldn't be lying to me. He shouldn't get hear me say, "But I want you to say, when I don't know where our money is, it terrifies me."

17:08 Mhm. I can't I can't breathe. I can't sleep. And then you throw And he knows that's a he knows that's a big issue for me because my previous husband did all kinds of crazy financial stuff.

17:21 There we go. And so Murray, head straight straight into it. Own what you have. Go with his favorite cup of coffee. and they just say, "Hey, we've co-created this thing. Here's what I've brought to it. And also, I can't be in a relationship with somebody who lies about our money. I want our debts to be ours. I want our money to be ours. I want our future to be ours." Are you in? And then hold your breath because he may say, "Absolutely." Or he may say, "Nope.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Why Can’t My Husband Be Honest About Money?"?

Dr. John Delony (Host), Unknown Caller (Guest).

What is "Why Can’t My Husband Be Honest About Money?" about?

The discussion centers around a woman's frustration with her husband's dishonesty regarding money, particularly during the government's shutdown when he failed to disclose that he was still being paid. Despite their long marriage and shared commitment, she grapples with his repeated concealment of financial information, which she equates to financial infidelity, leading to a deep sense of…

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

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

How long is "Why Can’t My Husband Be Honest About Money?"?

The episode runs 18 min; the transcript is about 3,205 words in 73 timestamped sections.

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