You Have a Problem!

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Abigail is with us in Charleston, South Carolina. Hi, Abigail. How are you? I'm all right. How are you? Better than we deserve. What's up? Well, it's a bit of a financial question as well as a relational question. My husband and I got married three years ago. We've been renting for quite a bit and then we went up near family and they offered to sell us a house. Well, my mother-in-law is very controlling, which is the relational part of the question. She controls everything and has the codependency issues where she will go and she will buy something for you, even though you're going to buy it yourself and you didn't want her to buy it. Or, for instance, the house that they were trying to sell us. So she bought it. Now we're working on it. Which is absolutely bad. Wait a minute. Stop a minute. Did you guys buy this house or not? We were going to. Okay. So you've not bought the house? No, we haven't. She has. Okay. So you're not getting that house. What are you going to do? Well, right now we're working on it. Why are you working on her house? Because we're supposed to be buying it from her. So you agreed to buy it later? Yeah. Is this in writing or is this just a handshake agreement? It's a handshake agreement, really. Okay. When you buy it from her, what does that look like? You go get a mortgage and you purchase the house and then you're the owner, right? Yeah. From what I was wanting to do was I was trying to get my husband to agree to get a mortgage and then some on top of that to do repairs. Well, we'd need a contractor for that. My husband's bucking and kicking to not get a contractor because he's supposed to get his contractual license soon and he doesn't want to put us further in debt. What does that have to do with your mother-in-law? I don't know how to approach her. Why does she need to be approached? Well, because we're living with her right now or she's living with us. We're both living with her mother and she has her own home. She just refused to go home. What do you guys make? My husband started a new job in June doing HVAC and right now it's up to $2,000 every two weeks. So $4,000 a month. And how old are you guys? He's 39, 23. We've got two kids. And you're staying home with the kids? It sounds like the first order of business to create some reasonable relational boundaries is to create some physical separation and you guys need to go get an apartment tomorrow. That's what I was thinking, but I don't know how to talk my husband into that. Well, then you don't have a mother-in-law problem, you have a husband problem. Maybe the mommy's boy needs to take care of his family instead of his mommy's wishes. She's got three sons, she does this to all of them. I'm sorry? She has three sons and she does this to all of them. She didn't do anything. Are they all living there? She didn't do anything to him that they didn't let happen. I don't think she's the problem. I think your husband is. Any boundary you try to set, it immediately devolves into yelling. Move out! Tell your husband, I'm leaving, I hope you come too. Me and the kids are getting an apartment. This is untenable. If she chooses to end the relationship over this, that's on her, it's not on you. But this is not a relationship anyways to begin with. This is not your mother-in-law's fault. This is your husband's fault and your fault. You agreed to move in with her and you knew this before you moved in with her. Yeah, I thought she'd go home. No you didn't. You knew exactly what you were dealing with and you chose to ignore it trying to make a financial deal. We're trying to save $2 and in the middle of it we're putting up with the Wicked Witch of the West to save $2. You guys need to go have a life. You and your husband go build a life and you can love her. She's a lot easier to love from a distance. Yeah, that right. Yeah, she needs some distance. But she's not the problem. You and your husband are the problem. You guys just stepped up into a bear trap and then you're bitching about bear traps. Yeah. So play this out. You get an apartment. She's mad. I don't even care about her. That's it. She's not relevant in the discussion. You guys need to decide we are going to do things that are smart relationally and smart for our future and not put ourselves in untenable toxic situations to save $2. Whether it's working on the house without a contractor's license or buying a house from this woman who's controlling. Why you enter into a deal, why you go along with entering into a deal with this woman to buy a house from her is beyond me. These are people that are best kept at arm's length, not right up close. You know this. Now you're only 23, so I shouldn't fuss at you, but you call me and you're all torqued out about her and I'm telling you, you and your husband can solve this. Yeah. But she's still mothering him and he likes it. Yeah. She pays for just about everything. Well quit taking her money. I'm not taking your money anymore and you're not controlling my life anymore. You don't have to be mean about it, but just be kind and just go, listen, you know, we've made some mistakes by setting up our relationship with you early in our marriage and we're going to have to change that. So here's the thing. We're going to have a little physical separation of financial separation and a real estate separation from you. So mom, you need to get that house on the market and get it sold. We're not buying it. We're going to go rent an apartment and we're going to save up some money and get us a house. Yeah. It's completely clean and she's not going to like it, but I'm not taking a poll here. She doesn't get a vote. The problem is you all gave her a vote. Yeah. Again, you don't have to be unkind. You just be very firm and just say it. And if it devolves into yelling, that's on her, but I don't put up with people yelling. That's ridiculous. Yeah. I mean, what husband is going to let his 23 year old wife get yelled at? Come on, man, tell him to run down to Walmart and pick up a backbone. They're on aisle three. Abigail, this is not going to be fun. And what's going to happen when you say all of this to him? If he watched this callback, what would his response be? Would it be, they don't understand, it's not like that, she doesn't give me an allowance, it's different. Is that what it would be? He arguing with the recording saying, well, we shouldn't get an apartment because we're getting it from my uncle. And what's he going to say? Stop taking things from your family. They're strings attached and it doesn't end well. Start your own life. Don't back out of this deal. Stop taking an allowance. And if you all need to go make more money, then go do that. The financial incest in this is unbelievable. I know. I mean, really. I don't know what to do, you know? What you do is you have a marriage problem. You and your husband need to separate from these people far enough that they don't have any apron strings or wallet strings controlling you. Get an apartment. There's apartments in Charleston, South Carolina, nice ones. Go get you an apartment and you go get a job, he go get a job, whatever we got to do to make it on our way. We're a young married couple. We don't have any money. We're trying to get started. But you don't have to live under the thumb of the control of these toxic human beings. Really, it needs to stop. You asked, hon, and that's what I'm telling you. But really, you can't blame her anymore after today. If you want to blame somebody, get you a mirror. It's your fault after today. Those are also at Wal-Mart. Yeah. Aisle A4. Yeah, they're right over next to the Backbone Aisle, the Mirror Aisle. Yeah. And you guys got to make some decisions here. Mama don't get to control you unless you allow her to. You're like grown people and stuff. This is the Ramsey Show.