My Fiancé Is Financially Dependent On His Dad

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. My fiancé and I recently moved into a house together. I am not on the mortgage, but I live here and he pays the bills. His dad helped him buy the house and my fiancé pays his dad instead of a mortgage lender. On top of that, my fiancé uses a credit card that's also paid for by his dad. His dad is a big fan of yours and a very smart businessman. Sounds like a raving fan. Loves us. But this is one thing he does opposite of what you advise. When I bring up getting rid of the credit card or buying a house the right way, he gets defensive and upset. I don't know who, if that's your father-in-law soon to be or your fiancé, what should be my first step to fix this problem? Rachel, I think this is as simple as you telling your fiancé that if we're going to get married, it's going to be our marriage. I'm not marrying your dad too. We have to put some boundaries in place right now. You're getting a very clear picture of what your future may look like if you go through with this, which is marrying a little boy in a grown-up man's body whose dad still pays his bills. His dad still tells him what to do. The shadow of his father leans over your house. If this is my sister, if this is my daughter, if this is my friend, I would say I would draw some real firm boundaries. Yes. Because if he can't handle it during engagement, he's definitely not going to handle it well getting married. Wait till you have a kid. Wait till you get a job in another state and daddy says you can't move. Even if it was a debit card and his dad's funding his checking account. That's the issue, the dad. Then also the fact that debt is being woven through this entire picture. If you're not okay with that, you guys have two separate values when it comes to money, which is a really big deal. I feel like a shallow person when I'm always like, oh my gosh, money can ruin the relationship because it feels like, no, that ---- and love should conquer all. The truth is when rubber meets the road and you guys day in and day out are dealing with your life, this is one of the biggest issues in marriage that can cause so much conflict if you're not on the same page. Can it be done? It can, but it's just an exhausting uphill battle. Sometimes you just fight and fight and fight all day long about it. It doesn't create peace in the household. In this situation, what churns my stomach is, if you go to a mortgage lender to get a loan for a home, there is regulatory bodies that monitor that. There's agreements, there's contracts. Those things guide your relationship. In this situation, your future father-in-law owns y'all. He tells y'all what you're going to do, when you're going because he is your bank, he is your lender. I'm not having that because there's no regulations to that relationship other than what he feels that day. I'll just say this on behalf of the dad in this situation. I have a 15-year-old. You know what? I'm going to tell the story. Josephine and I, my daughter, she's 10. We went on a date the other day. After we got done eating, she said, dad, there's this cool dress shop. She didn't know this. It's the dress shop. It's anthropology. Back in the old school, OG anthropology, I used to get my wife gift cards. When we had nothing, I would save up and save up and save up. That would be a Christmas present for her because I think their clothes are rad. They were back in the day. I don't pay attention. We went in there. There was a dress that was obnoxiously expensive. She lit up. She goes, can I try this on? I was like, you can try that on. I was 100% going to buy it. I mean, I'm buying that for sure. I'm totally buying that. There's no reason financially. She can't wear it. She has a uniform at her school. I'm buying my daughter that dress. Of course, it was 17 sizes too big. I get the sentiment as a parent of wanting to make sure I'm clearing the deck. I'm clearing the path for my kids as much as possible. I don't want them to struggle. I don't want them to have the same heartache I had. My dad wouldn't have had the money because he was a policeman. He wouldn't have the money to buy me something even if he wanted to. I get the impulse to want to do that. We as parents have to understand that that impulse, when taken too far, hurts our kids. It's walking into the weight room, taking all the weight off the bar, and then wondering why they're not getting stronger. Let me do the lifts for you. Yes. Well, that's what I was going to ask you because I read all this. Sometimes I blame the as much in the situation as the son. To this dad, how hard is it or how often do you see married couples? It is like an entanglement of the son or daughter continues to listen to the parents over the spouse. Is that pretty common? Super, super common. Not usually to this degree, whether you're a lender and they're financing your life, but even on things as strange as someone's been married 20 years and we have to go to Thanksgiving and do it this way because my mom's... In a weird way, your mother-in-law's still running your life. That happens all over the place. We probably have mutual friends that still have been married. They have three kids and they still hide the wine when mom comes over. There comes a point when you have to say, I'm an adult. If I'm old enough to ask the question, will you marry me? Dad holds the blame here, but now that this guy said, I want you to marry me, he has to stand up, take responsibility and look at his father and say, thank you for bringing me here. I have to develop the skills and muscle and grit and resilience and responsibility to take it from here. If his dad does a temper tantrum, then he's going to have a hard grownup decision to make, but that's the call of a new husband. Weirdly, if I'm her and he does that, and even if the dad throws the temper tantrum, why can't I say that word? There's something about if the fiance continues to push through though and continues to choose her, that shows even bigger of who he is. It is a little bit of this like, yes, yes, in it all. When you ask somebody, will you marry me? They go to number one on your list. Above your parents, above everything, that person anchoring into that person becomes priority. We got about two minutes, John. What'd you say from a relational standpoint? We're talking about parent-child relationship, adult-child, but child. But when it comes to marriage, when we're talking about them as a couple, what do you see on your show and other places? Probably one or two of the biggest issues that continue to drive a financially in a marriage. The biggest one, number one, is people have my money and your money. So you're 40,000. This is my 60,000. It's a billion dollars. But they're driving two cars down the highway right next to each other, trying to pretend that they're in the same car, and they're not. So that's the first one. The second one, without a doubt, is financial infidelity, secrets. I bought this and didn't tell him I'm going to buy this. Don't you tell your dad. Everything from a cup of coffee all the way to the new car, the new guitar. Or we took a call earlier about the, I'm trying to day trade with borrowed money, and I got myself. So it's secrets. It's lies. It's deception. Yep. Of continuing to hide. And what's so interesting too about that dynamic, because I've heard people say that, it's like, oh, just yeah, don't, yeah, put the shopping bags away before dad gets home so that he doesn't see it. Because that means dad isn't looking at the bank statement or the credit card statement. That's the other side of it, right? That's wild to me. Whenever people say that, I'm always like, but that's so, unless they have a hidden account, right, which is one thing. But the whole shopping is, I mean, this is, it's like a joke. I feel like among women, it's like, okay, if you go to Target, hide the Target bags kind of thing. Which whenever I hear that, I'm always like, yes, but doesn't that show up? And isn't someone looking at the checking account, right? And if just one person is, I give that a red flag of like, you both need to be involved in seeing what's going on. It's one reason I do love EveryDollar with all the transactions that come in. Because once in a while. Because it pops up on each other's phone. And sometimes it comes up a weird name. I did this yesterday. I was trying, and I screenshot and I text, I'm like, what is this? They go, that's insurance. And I was like, oh, shoot. Okay, there we go. I wasn't sure what that was. But it just keeps you in this rhythm and on the same page. So married couples out there, there are so many things with money that can drive a wedge. And it can be one of the reasons of divorce in America today, one of the top reasons, but it doesn't have to take your marriage, right? There are things you can do. You can work together, be on the same team, do a budget together, have a plan together, have goals together and be in one car, like what John was saying versus driving in two cars down the streets, be a team. Create your free EveryDollar budget today. The simplest way to budget for your life.