Marry Someone I Don't Trust?

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. My fiance and I have been engaged for four years and we have two children and we are trying to navigate through paying off our individual debts and keeping things separate until we're married while also trying to handle medical expenses for one of our children and saving for a wedding. So I'm looking for some advice on how we can work through the current debt and our financial responsibilities while also paying for a debt-free future when we also have some financial distrust involved in our relationship. Holy moly. That's a lot going on. Tell me about the financial distrust. Yeah. So about three years ago, I discovered that my fiance had accumulated almost $20,000 of debt from a period of time that he was off of work. The field that he's in sometimes has influxes and thankfully he's moved on from that job, but that really caused like a huge amount of distrust in our relationship when it comes to the financial security of our future. So we spent a lot of time working through that, almost two years actually, where we got to a point where bills were being paid on time. We felt like we were establishing a savings again. I got a little lax in some of the accountability on the financial side. And then I actually found out about six months ago that he had gotten into gambling. And some of those debt payments on his side had kind of gone to the side because he had started gambling with the extra money that he had. So we're kind of facing just this, you know, additional lack of trust that I thought we had resolved. And I'm thankful that there's transparency now, but it doesn't necessarily take away the hurt that comes from that distrust that happened again. So the words I use here, Grace, I'll own them, is financial infidelity. He's cheated on you twice. yeah and this time um it wasn't just scrambling to cover debts and pay for dinners with credit cards this time he went a professional route right right and so i don't want you to gloss over like it shakes the foundation of your relationship yeah 100 all right and so getting on the same page with money here that to me is uh like if you're looking at a picture of an iceberg floating in water that's above water below water you have to ask yourself about are you with somebody have you have you created humans with somebody that simply is more interested in doing what they want to do when they want to do it or dealing with their own demons and not interested in building a life with you because it sounds like like even the words you use like i i got lax in my accountability you're not his mom you're his you're his fiance did you know your personal info is getting bought and sold to people right now who use AI to target you with bizarrely personal scams and spam. Like, hey, George, are you interested in selling your house at 253 Sprague Street? Well, lucky for you, there's Delete.me. Delete.me, as the name implies, goes to hundreds of creepy data broker sites and deletes your personal info over and over all year long. I use and love Delete.me because I can't stop scammers from using AI, but I can make myself much more difficult to target. So go to joindeleteme.com slash Ramsey and get 20% off an annual plan or click the link in the description that's join j-o-i-n delete me.com slash ramsey his not making bad decisions is not your fault because you weren't checking every every you know every balance statement and every you know i mean like you have to have somebody you can anchor into yeah and so i i mean i'm i'm worried about tell me about being engaged for four years yeah so um That actually is one of the biggest reasons that the engagement has lasted so long. So I found out about the debt about a year and a half after we got engaged initially. And that was just like way too big of a setback for me to be like, yes, let's move forward. Let's continue planning. At that point, you know, we hadn't even gotten to the point of selecting a venue or any of the vendors for a wedding. So that was like our biggest setback. And the other thing that really contributes to that is one of our kids has a pretty complex medical diagnosis. And so just the, you know, emotional side of that, a lot of our time and attention has gone towards, you know, our child's care. So it's kind of just been put on the back burner, which I hate to say, but, you know, the wedding and getting married, like for us, it was just like, how do you come up with enough money or planning or, you know, emotional capacity to even think about getting married when you have so many other things that you're also trying to do? trying to juggle. And then obviously the distrust added onto that. There's, I mean, you're talking about marriage as though it is the party, as though it is a celebration. Right. And that's different than I want legal protection for me and my children. And if you say you're in to the point that we've made multiple kids, then let's go to the courthouse. We'll have a party later. We can't afford a party right now. Great. That's jillions of couples take that route. That's all good. Or we're going to have a tiny little ceremony with some friends i've married somebody in my yard right like you can do it the man i don't want to pile up on this guy because he's not on the phone i don't like talking about people when they're on the phone but but how dare you take borrowed money and go gambling with it when you have a special needs kid that you're struggling to pay for how dare you kind of dad does that right right and if if you're my daughter if you're my sister i would tell you to run from this guy And I know that's easier said than done because you've got kids with him. But how dare you do that? Forget him not honoring his fiancée. You have a special needs kid. What are you doing? Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. I do. And I think that's where a lot of my, you know, anger around it comes from. It's like not necessarily the betrayal to me, which obviously hurts, but it's like I've, as a mom, always worked to protect my kids. um and one of my kids is actually from a prior relationship you know when i was young and um so it almost hurts more also because like that was a position he chose to step into like he chose to step into a parent position before we even had our child together um so it almost feels like kind of a double slap in the face totally but but also man you and i could talk for two hours on this here's the thing i don't think your challenge right now is getting on the same page financially. The challenge for you is, do I want to continue to pursue a long-term relationship with somebody that is willing to lie to my face, put me and my special needs kids at risk, and who is then going to take that and add to it the potential for addiction that George and I see are destroying men's lives and families all over this country in real time. So we're not at the hey how do we budget together we're at the you have to do some soul searching and say i'm gonna call this thing or here is the 100 percent ironclad path for you to regain trust with me and for what this is gonna look like going forward and i can't be your mom and i'm not gonna be your accountant i'm gonna be your partner in this thing otherwise otherwise you know what i mean it's never gonna work out that way yeah where is he at with the gambling addiction yeah so um after he had come clean about it because actually he came to me and said like hey this is weighing on me really heavy which was a really big step for him um he we together sat down and ended up blocking him from like all of the sites there's the way you can go in where if you re-enable it you have to wait a year before you start depositing money so it was all like online gambling has he gone to gamblers anonymous is he seeking treatment so that is something that he's working on there's a service that his employer offers that he's doing for that so yeah he got to a point where you know he admitted that it was a problem he recognizes that's an it's an addiction um but i i yeah it's like the step after that i think i'm struggling with because you know i very much am the type of person that doesn't want to stay in a relationship that's very unhealthy for me that could impact you know my financial security in the future um you say that you say that and i say this with all love my heart you say that as a declaration but you've done it for five years right right yeah i hear you and so you're the one that has to look in the mirror and say what am i worth what's the safety of my kids worth and what's the path to that worth yeah and then if if you want to if this guy's all dude i wouldn't i wouldn't do this job if i didn't believe in redemption i wouldn't right i believe i've sat with people who've changed everything and it's why i do this job but man oh man oh man yeah you're in a vulnerable vulnerable spot and you know that you wouldn't be calling um right now it's keeping the finances separate you attack your debts make sure all the bills are paid make sure the kids are okay and make sure i mean to the best of your ability that he's he's doing what he says he's doing right that's all you can do right now until you guys get to the point where you can tackle finances and goals and life together. And continue to give him a clear path about what earning trust looks like. Create your free every dollar budget today. The simplest way to budget for your life.