Do I Need To Pay My Wife Back Because She Makes More Than Me?

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Is it normal, say, if one person makes more than the other, that's a big expense comes up, that the other person should go into debt to pay the other spouse back? Zero parts of that make sense. No parts of that sentence. Who told you that? Exactly. That's what I kind of felt. I mean, regardless of how the conversation's gonna go, I'd feel relief either way. We're square now, but for a couple years there, it's been pretty stressful on my part to pay her back. Okay, give me a real life example of something that's happened. Yeah, so she's had a much more stable job than me. I mean, she's about 11 years older than me, so much more... Setting her job makes better money. How old? How old is she and how old are you? She's currently in her 40s and I'm in my 30s. And when we met, I was in my 20s and she was in her 30s. And so I was in the mindset of like, well, I'm still building my career. I've made big career changes. So a lot of the jobs that I had throughout our relationship and at the beginning of the marriage, I was only making 40, 50K while she's making 130K plus. So big household expenses come up, solar, HVAC unit, big expenses, and she can pay that right out of her savings. She had like a hundred grand in savings and paid it in cash. But then it was like, okay, now you owe me half. I was like, okay. I was like, okay. So you don't have combined money. I mean, you guys' money's not combined. You're fancy roommates who cuddle on the weekends. Yeah. And I've actually used that same term with her. Like, I feel like I'm a renter at times. Well, you guys are making no shared decisions. You have no shared financial goals, no shared accounts, nothing about this screams we are married. Now, have you asked her about that? Because here's what I'm hearing. If you've been going along with this for all these years and haven't really said the words, you know what? I feel like we should be combined. Then she's kind of just doing what she thought is normal, which is I do my thing. You do your thing. We kind of split it 50-50. You're not holding up your end of the bargain. So it just sounds like a conversation needs to be had about you wanting to be closer to her and have more transparency and have less of a yours versus mine and more of an hours take on the money. Have you ever done that? Yeah. As of recent within the past couple of months, because now that we're square and I'm actually making just as much money as her because my job I finally landed pays really well. And then I started my own business that also did equally as well. So I'm like, okay. But my fear is, is like, if I lose that job again or business doesn't do as well, I'm not making as much that. Yeah. You making more doesn't solve the real problem here. For example, my wife stays at home. It would be insane for me. Like, well, Hey babe, since you make nothing, you owe me half. That would be, I'd be sleeping on the couch if I'm lucky. Post-holiday spending and tax season have a lot of folks tightening up the budget. So here's an easy win switch to boost mobile and cut one of your monthly bills without sacrificing quality. Keep the phone you already have and pay just $25 a month for unlimited talk data and text. And your price never goes up. No contracts, no gimmicks, no debt traps, just real savings that helps you stay on plan. Go to boost mobile.com slash Ramsey today. Restrictions apply. See boost mobile.com slash Ramsey for details. I'd be sleeping on the couch if I'm lucky. And so regardless of the situation, who makes more when it's y'all's money. Now we go, okay, we make $180,000 a year. What are we going to do with this money? What are our goals? Hey, we need to do this home repair. We want to go on this vacation. We need to pay off our debt. And so far it's been, well, Mark, it's every man for himself. Good luck out there. And there's also, it sounds like there's some gender roles playing out where I don't know if it's both of you or her, where there's this feeling of, since you're the man, you have to be making as much as her or more. I don't know if that's coming from both of you or just coming from you or just coming from her, but these are all things that need to be discussed out in the open very, very candidly so that at least you know where each other is coming from. And then you're able to bring up, Hey, I know that that's the way you feel, but that's actually not my viewpoint on it. And let's seek to learn about each other first, instead of changing each other first. That's what I would do. That'd be my first order of business. Let's learn so that we understand where each other's coming from. Then we can start to kind of make changes as opposed to today. I want to combine our finances. It's probably not going to happen. Yeah. And I guess another one with that is say mortgage and daycare for the kids. Because those times where I wasn't making as much, it was still expected that I pay the exact half, but I was like, well, that's going to not allow me to say, put as much into a 401k or savings. Yeah. The whole system is broken. How you guys been doing? Yeah. We're going to pull up the whole thing. So you can almost like forget about that because we're starting over. Has she been married before? No. Okay. I'm wondering, this is coming from somewhere where she's being very protective of what she's built and therefore doesn't want you involved. Yeah. I brought that up where a very strong sense of independence and all that with her. I'm like, I get it. Love that. But if it starts to get to a point where it's like, I don't need you. I've got this on my own, but kind of hold it against you is where I'm like, okay, that's kind of disrespectful. Well, you become one when you get married. And it's not to say that you forsake everything that you are. You just stand next to somebody else and you both be fully who you are together. And the foundation of all this is trust and respect. And it sounds like you don't have either of those things from her. Yeah. And that's what I've expressed to her over the years. And yeah, I've stayed consistent with that, but at the same time, I'm like... It sounds like you need a mediator, a counselor involved who can help you guys both hear each other and take what you're hearing from each other and actually convert it into some actions that are going to get you on the same page. Oh yeah. We've done that. I understand where her insecurities come from, but as far as say improvements on that over time, it's one of those things where it's like, I don't know if you're getting there to know that I'm on your team. I'm not a leech. What was the homework? Well, we're mostly just not getting into a cycle, like falling into our cycle with each other of the attachment styles, anxious or avoidant attachment styles and understanding where people are coming from, not jumping the gun and getting into your four horsemen, the old Gottman. And you're just saying you're just not seeing it. Well, as long as there isn't any... I mean, we've never been in destitute. We've never really been in major debt, nothing like that. So a lot of it to me is like, we're doing fine, but I don't know why your savings should continue to balloon while mine either stagnates or depletes. Because I'm like, what happens later in life? Retirement, are you going to retire without me? Oh, sure. That's the plan. Leaving you in the dust, Mark. I mean, part of it is you can choose not to... There's some of this you can choose maybe not to participate in, which is when she starts using the I versus me and versus you language. You can say, well, I don't want to participate that. I see myself together with you and not participate in that. And just say, here's what I'd like us to do. Here's what I'm thinking would be great for us, our money. And you can really start leading the charge in that as much as you can. And when she starts to make those comparisons, just say, well, I did not plan to pay you back because I feel like it's our money. And I don't like this feeling of power struggle that it's creating and really just hold your ground for a while. That's what I do. Create your free every dollar budget today. The simplest way to budget for your life.