"There's No 'Fun' In Your Voice"

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. So I've kind of gotten myself or my life into a big mess and I stumbled across your show and um I'm trying to take steps to to get out of debt um so I guess I would be in baby step two. Yes um the problem I'm running into is before I came across your show um me and my fiancee I was I was really big on trying to get us to kind of put our money together and kind of tackle this together um now that I've kind of came across that I learned it's a big no-no to put your money together before you are married um and I am the breadwinner of our house we have 10 people in my home so between we have five children and then I just adopted my nephew and I have his big brother at my house too so um I'm feeling all of this pressure I work two full-time jobs and I'm just trying to get control. He works a full-time job at the hospital working on hospital equipment. Okay um what does he earn? He annually probably about 50. I want to say when I look at um last year I made 160. Doing what now what do you do? I'm an ultrasound technician um I work I yeah I do full-time nights and then I do full I take calls full-time days so I pretty much the two of you and the two of you have five children? Um I had two from a previous marriage well not marriage just relationship um and then I put myself through school as a single mom and then I got my career and then I met him and uh we got pregnant quickly and and then since then we've been together for six years. Okay all right. And you guys have three kids together? And he's your fiance. We have three together. And when are you planning to get married? Well at first like we put it on hold because my father fell ill and I was his caretaker and then um we just haven't done it. One finances I felt like it was silly to spend money for you know a wedding. Well let me let me ask you this I'm just curious and I'm not trying to be um sarcastic or anything but you're you're functioning in every way almost um as if you're married now and have been for some time. So what's the difference in that and getting married this weekend for fifty dollars? Um I'm scared because. What are you scared of? You already have children you live together you support him. What is there to be scared of? My child from another relationship and my nephew that I just got custody of they're not big fans of him. They're not what? I don't know. Yeah like I feel like there's red flags they don't like him they think I deserve better. Six years. Yeah. Two children too late to ask some child their opinion of this guy. Yeah. They don't get a vote. We're in therapy together working on some relational issues. Do you feel like you'll with him long term? Do you want to marry him? Um I mean most of the time I do feel like that but it's more like we we go through the motions of raising our kids so sometimes I wonder like once the kids are grown up the longevity if that makes sense sometimes it feels like we're in this. You guys you guys are fabulous can kickers. You've kicked the can, kicked the can, kicked the can, kicked the can, put it off, kicked the can, put it off. All these reasons and and then still functioning as if you're married and the the reason I'm bringing all this up is it's not working for you. I'm listening to you and there's no fun in your voice at all. I think there's just a lot of fear and I tell a lot of pressure because he's coming to me now he's like okay let's put our money together and I'm like we're not. No we're gonna get married that's what we're gonna do or we're not gonna put our money together and also you know if I woke up in your shoes what would I do that's how I answer questions here okay. So my friend Henry Cloud is a famous psychologist and he wrote a book called Necessary Endings and he says you end any relationship whether it's your job, whether it's contact with an extended family who's toxic, whether it's a situation like you're in, whatever the relationship is you end it only when you lose hope that it can get better and be right. Does that make sense? And so I'm not going to be sitting here this time next year if I'm you in this exact same quandary wondering if this is going to be okay. We're going to get in there with this therapist and go look we're going to walk around this really really hard for 90 days and we're going to see some serious progress or I'm going to call this. Yeah that scares you even more doesn't it? It scares me because of the children I don't want a broken home just because we're not. But you need to decide don't you this pain or get off the ladder right? Yeah. Because you don't think the kids are suffering in this situation of course they're suffering they're suffering from all this ambiguity they don't know what the flip's going on because their mom doesn't know what the flip's going on and their dad doesn't know what the flip's going on and we're all just running around in circles trying to make enough money and throw it in the middle of a pot and we're running a little commune over here and it's not working relationally. Am I missing something? I think I'm just afraid to get married and then he's... You're afraid of not getting married? You're afraid of getting married? Yeah I just want to take care of my family and I think you know but here's the thing financial wise it makes sense for us to get married but no personal... No it doesn't not if you're not going to be married because divorce is I mean marriage is grand divorce is 50 grand. No we don't want to go through that. Yeah. So but you guys relationally need to make a decision okay are we the two adults in the household going to join forces and then take care of the little people or are we is it best for us and the little people to be separate but if we're going to join forces we need to get six years and you guys are dancing and dancing and dancing and dancing and dancing it's you know because the other thing is you put all of your financial dreams and everything on hold in the process too. It's very difficult to make progress mathematically in this situation. Yes and that's why I'm struggling with that. That's what actually prompted your call and then I got all Papa Dave on you so but I'm just... Yeah I just downloaded the every dollar budget app which is it's tough for me because my income fluctuates so I'm struggling with that. You'll be able to do that really really easy when the two of you are married you can put $210,000 in that puppy and start crunching through this stuff and you and him are on the same page and two grown-ups are running this house not the kids. The kids don't get a vote. Yeah well it's new for me because he's never wanted to put our money together before it's always just been very separate. You don't want to put your money together until you're married but you guys have got to make a decision about this marriage. You either need to make a decision we're going to start working very hard on the relationship and by this point and that's just for marriage to be the outcome the marriage is the outcome or we're going to call this we're going to break this thing up we're going to drop a grenade in the middle of it because you what you're doing you're telling us we're not telling you you're telling us what you're doing the way you're doing life right now doesn't work. I'm afraid to get married. I'm afraid to break up the house. I'm afraid I can't get traction with the money. I can't get control. This is what you called us and started saying. I'm just repeating it back to you and so you can't keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. That's the definition of insanity right? Yes. So that's what you're going to do. I'm going to beg you as my new friend that I love for the sake of you for the sake of him for the sake of these kids you two need to look at each other and look at this therapist and go okay we're going to make a decision and in the next 90 or 120 days we're going to see such significant progress in this relationship that it's not perfect there's always going to be some fear yeah that's normal but but we're we're seeing progress to where we have hope enough that we can call this what it is a marriage yeah and then you put yourself together and then you start managing those little people and you start managing those dollars and it all starts coming together in a much cleaner way but this you run around trying to mother hen everything from the outside with no connectivity doesn't work and no you don't combine your money with him until you're married create your free every dollar budget today the simplest way to budget for your life