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I've been in a financially abusive marriage for the last 23 years. I am facing prison time. I'm
actually supposed to be checking into prison on the beginning of June. We have four children.
They're all amazing, smart. I stayed at home with them for the last 20 years. I'm going to prison
for, it's called a conspiracy to commit bank fraud. During COVID, my husband put my name down
on documents showing that I was the owner of a couple of companies. He gave me different people
to put down on these companies. I'm sorry, you knew this was happening when it was happening,
though? No, no, I didn't know that it was. How are you being held accountable for someone
fraudulently using your name? I'm confused. That's a good question. I mean, that's a good
question. We had federal agents come to the house and ask questions like, is this your signature?
And I said, yes. Like I said, I had been a stay at home mom for so long. I know we have back
taxes due. I sign those. I've never had my name on an account. Anytime my husband would put my
name on a bank account, it would be closed due to overdrawn funds. So I've been in a position that
any money was his money. I never had a say in anything we did with the money.
He had a bad gambling problem. So I mean, yeah, that's sad.
Let me, can I push back on this? Because this is a big thing to drop on us here.
You've already been convicted. And so that means the government went through trial and proved
to a jury that you did, in fact, participate in this. And so when Dave asked you the question,
no, we didn't go to trial. My attorney told me that who has not been paid. My attorney told me
that I would probably not win at a trial. So you pleaded. Yes, I pleaded. Yes. Yeah.
How long are you supposed to be incarcerated? Three years.
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Ramsey. That's joindeleteme.com slash Ramsey. Three years. So they let him go in first.
Oh, so he's already in prison. He was. And now he's out. Out of three years, he did one year.
During that time, I had gotten a job. I had I have a graduate degree I got before I started
having children. How old are your children now? 22, 18, 17 and 12. Okay. So I'm afraid to ask,
but apparently he's taking care of them. Yeah. Yeah. Are you divorced yet? No, he won't. He
won't give me a divorce. He doesn't get the option of giving you a divorce. You live in Florida. You
can file for divorce and it will be granted. He takes my kids if I try to leave. He's let the air
out of my tires. He's. I don't care. Obviously, you can't stay married to this guy. I just don't
have anywhere to go. I don't know where you're going somewhere in three months. So that's not
an issue. We already know where you're going. But in the meantime, you need to get an attorney and
get divorced. That's my plan is the second I set foot in that prison that I'm filing for divorce
at all. Yeah, absolutely. I have somewhere to go after and I'll have a better plan. And yeah,
good. You get to start over fresh after living in an abusive, horrible situation for way too long.
Right. Okay. Yeah. So now that I've worked for the past three years at a job,
I know I have like a 401k. What do I need to do anything with that before I go away?
You can sit down with a SmartVestor Pro and roll it into an IRA because you're
probably not going back to that job, I suspect. Right. I don't know. Possibly.
I'm kind of betting on that. Yeah. So what were you doing? What was your career
for the last three years? I did epidemiology for a clinic.
You did everything for what? For a clinic? Epidemiology, track diseases.
So that's what your graduate work is in? Yeah.
All right. So you think you can land that when you come out?
Probably not. No. I've so much resentment toward my husband. I'm probably never going to be able
to do anything. I'm sorry. Why would you not be able to land that again? Your husband has
nothing to do with this. He's not your husband anymore at the end of the story and you are
starting fresh the other side of a jail term. Why could you not go back to this career?
I think because I have a felony. I don't believe that I am very marketable.
Well, let me jump in here to try to encourage you. You have three months to tie up some loose ends,
obviously. And one of the most important is to get your story out there either to your
existing company. They probably already know this, but this is a situation where you have to
try with everything you have to get out the correct narrative and look people in the eye.
And some people are going to say things to you because they don't like tough conversations.
Some people don't even want to consider anything. But I would be trying to shore up what re-entry
would look like. Because if your husband got out in a year, hopefully you're going to get out sooner
than him. You're not in a situation where you're handling money in any way. So it's a medical
situation. So having a felony is not necessarily going to keep you from landing a job. Especially
if you tell them when you go in for an interview, when you do the research, when you do the
background check, you're going to find a felony. I'm out. I'm clean. I'm innocent. Here's what
happened. I'll give you the short, give me the thumbnail sketch version of that. Not with a
bunch of shame and not with a bunch of drama, but just a little bit of information for the
person doing the interview. And if you don't need to call me back, you can go ahead and let me know
now. Or if you want to give me a shot, I'll be the best employee you ever had. I think you'll land
something when you get out and you start your life again, kiddo. This time without the baggage
of an abuser hanging around your neck. The year he was away was the best year of my life.
Welcome to the rest of your life. He's away forever now.
Lay the groundwork now. I can't say this enough with your community, lay the groundwork now for
when you get out that you have a job or at least possibilities or people who will champion you.
That's going to be very vital.
Plug into your local church, let your story be known. And you've got two things to work on
when you come out. You will be divorced unless you really are dumb. You really need to be
divorced. You needed to be divorced 20 years ago, but now you really need to be divorced.
And then you've got to deal with a career, restarting your life and taking care of a
12-year-old and how old that 12-year-old is when you get out. But if he got out in a year on three,
you'll probably get out in a year or six months on three. I think that's a reasonable
set of assumptions. So you need to get this divorce done.
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