How to Get on the Same Page About Money

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Hey friends, welcome back to the Naked Marriage podcast where Dave and Ashley will us and we're

so glad you're here.

And on this podcast, we uncover God's design for life-long love.

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Today's episode is a good one.

We are talking all about money.

Money.

Big, big topic.

So let's dive in to today's episode.

And they were called Naked, the man in his wife, and we're not ashamed.

Money.

Money is a stress point for a lot of couples.

I saw a study recently that suggested that money issues could now be considered the

number one or number two cause of divorce depending on what studies you look at.

But regardless, it's high up there.

A lot of couples that just don't make it, it's this issue.

We can't get on the same page.

And guys, it shouldn't be that way.

God wants you to have a financial plan that brings peace and unity to both of you.

And so we're going to talk about that in this episode as a couple who's gotten it wrong

a lot of times and we'll share some of the mistakes we've made along the way and then

some hard earned lessons that we've learned along the ways as well.

And then we're going to point to some biblical truth because God's word is the ultimate source

for everything related to your marriage, including your finances.

And there's a lot, a lot in the Bible about money.

In fact, Jesus talked more about money in his parables than he talked about heaven or

hell.

This is an area that he wants us to get right and if we'll get this right, it will make

a huge difference in the peace in your home and in the unity in your marriage.

Yes, because we all have feelings when it comes to money.

We say money, it's like.

Yes.

It's not usually neutral.

I mean, maybe there's some rare people up there where you just feel neutral about it.

But I would say for most of us, for various reasons, we either feel excited about money

and good about money and we're like, yes, it's a great tool.

Love money.

And then others where you're just like grown because it's always been the bane of your

existence.

You feel like you never have enough or maybe when you had some money, you felt like it

was all of a sudden you're seen differently and you don't like how people treat you differently.

Whether you have money or don't have money, I mean, there's just all these feelings

around it.

And I mean, it's been said more money, more problems, right?

That's right.

If you're not a fan of ninety sip off and know what we're talking about, that's okay.

Oh, ninety sip off.

You missed the glorious era.

That's right.

So, early on in our marriage, we made some dumb choices relating to money.

Now, to our credit, we were so broke that there wasn't a lot of wiggle room, actually

was still a student.

Yes.

Working, and the one income I brought in was barely qualified as an income.

I mean, we were broke.

We were rich in love, but what we found out is that you don't need actual money.

You can buy things on credit.

We had not heard of Dave Ramsey at this point.

He would have freaked out at the way we were living.

And by the way, Dave Ramsey's a great resource for what you don't know that day.

Ramsey show.

So check that out.

He could have saved us a lot of money if we'd have found him earlier.

So we got into credit card debt.

We needed a car.

So I thought, well, I don't have money, but I could finance a car, right?

And our parents were like, no, no, no.

They were like, oh, they don't know.

Or like, we know better.

You old bogies.

So we went and now we got a car.

We financed this brand new car.

And it was a Toyota Camry.

I mean, it wasn't.

But it was very practical.

It might have been a Ferrari.

It could have been a Ferrari as well, right?

Yeah.

And it stood out because we lived in a house that our friends affectionately called the

crack house.

Yeah.

So this was the newest car on the block by at least 10 years.

And it was our neighbors.

It was a nice car.

So we got this car because the salesman, we went to look for a new car, a used car.

But the salesman's like, no, you've got good credit.

You can get a new car.

The salesman was so nice.

I mean, I felt like he really wanted to be my friend.

We would hang.

He got me.

So we were having you guys this like party, all that little spirit.

Yeah.

It was a party.

There was ice cream.

It's like a, it's like an adult equivalent to a kid's carnival that was like really expensive

things to buy.

I know.

And we took the bait.

How could you not say?

I didn't even have to put any money down.

It was like, you're just going to give me this car with ice cream.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We'll send you a bill every month.

And so I got home.

We started doing the math and I realized because it was a lease.

Right.

It wasn't even a bunch.

Oh, you don't need to own it.

You need to lease it.

Yeah.

That sounded good.

Well, then we got home and really started looking to the paperwork we'd signed and realized,

oh my gosh, like there are all these overages we drive a lot.

We were going to end up paying a fortune to lease this car.

It was just some things that the salesman had not highlighted.

So we realized that there was a law that you had like, that he didn't mention by the way.

It was in Kentucky at the time.

Yeah.

You had like 48 hours to return it.

So the next day we took it back and I just said, hey man, I can't afford this car.

And that salesman who had been so nice the day before, he was not nearly as nice, but

we were able to take it back.

And that was one bullet we dodged, but we did end up still making a lot of bad financial

choices.

I will say like along the way, one thing that we learned the hard way is, is man, there's

nothing like the smell of a new car, but one thing that beats it is the smell of a paid

off car.

And right now we got a couple of paid off cars that smell a little bit like, I don't

know, spilled cottage cheese.

It's pretty clear, myself.

Mine smells good.

I was just hurt.

I'm a boss.

I'm a boss.

I'm a boss.

I'm a boss.

I'm a boss.

I'm a boss.

I'm a boss.

I'm a boss.

I'm a boss.

I'm a boss.

I'm a boss.

I'm a boss.

I'm a boss.

I'm a boss.

You could, yeah.

I like the dint because it helps me to spot it in parking lots really easily.

And the kids say to you, oh, there's the dint.

That's our car.

So it's practical.

I mean, there's that.

Yeah.

Anyway, like, we've just learned, there's a freedom and a piece of not having just this

financial pressure.

And that's why the Bible talks so much about avoiding debt when we can.

In Proverbs, it says, the borrower is a slave to the lender, meaning when you choose

to go into debt for something, you're giving away a part of your freedom.

You're given away to the lender, whoever the lender might be, and God wants us to live

in freedom.

Now, there might be times where you can't get around it, you end up with some medical

debt through a situation you couldn't have predicted or a debt like a mortgage, I think

could be really beneficial if that's the only way you can get a house.

We certainly still have a mortgage that we're trying to pay off.

And at this point, that's the only debt that we have.

And consumer debt as a whole is something that will just put a chokehold on the marriage.

So like the first bit of advice we can give as it relates to your marriage is to develop

a plan to do whatever you can do to get out of debt.

And we have some great resources here at Exo Marriage.

They can help walk you through that.

But it's the two of you getting on the same page as the first and most important step.

Because if you're on different pages with money, if you're hiding money from each other,

I saw it read something that now more than ever, couples are keeping separate accounts

like his and hers accounts.

And I'll just say this, like I've never, and this is going to offend some people, but

it is what it is.

I've never known a couple with separate bank accounts who has the kind of marriage that

I would want to have.

Is never a strong word, like is never the word or is it rarely?

Never.

Okay.

Okay.

And I've got family members, multiple family members, dear friends and others that I know

for a fact had separate accounts.

And as much as I love them, I would not want their marriage.

Okay.

So I'm standing by it.

It's a strong statement.

It is a strong statement.

But you know what?

Because it's not alone in this.

It's not just correlation and causation.

Maybe it's like if you have the mindset of we're keeping everything separate, that mindset

is wrong with your finances, but it can also bleed over into other parts of your marriage.

Well, and actually Rachel Cruz, who is Dave Ramsey's daughter, she's part of the Ramsey

network and she will speak on the Ramsey show from time to time.

I heard her share that they were doing studies on this.

And those who share a bank account have a higher level of what they call this measurable

marital satisfaction.

Here it is.

See?

As opposed to people who do not share a bank account.

Called it.

Okay.

I know.

And that's the people themselves saying, hey, I'm happy in my marriage.

It's not, you know, from somebody else's opinion, it's them judging their own marriage,

right?

And how happy they are at that time of this assessment.

But there is something to that.

And here's the deal.

And I know I get it.

I have family members where they're like, but we have maybe one little shared account.

We have this business account and all this.

We're not here to do that.

I mean, I get that the area isn't this thing.

You need a business account.

I mean, that's it.

That could be its own thing.

But the whole his and hers, you need to tell spouses telling each other, I'm going to

get this dinner.

They pay for this.

And I'm like, that is just dumb.

It just is dumb.

It's like you're married.

It's all in the same pot.

There's no longer like all this his and hers nonsense.

His and hers is the language of divorce.

Hours is the language of marriage.

So every part of your life needs to become ours.

It's our time, our hopes, our dreams, our debt, our money.

And is we're separating all that out of like his money, her money, his friends, her

is his time.

Not saying you can't ever have a friend apart from your spouse or a hobby apart from your

spouse, but the more you can share together, the stronger your relationship is going to

be.

So don't invent ways to separate things out because that's the language of divorce.

Divorce is all about dividing into his and hers.

Marriage is about unifying into the sacred oneness that God created us to have.

And the Bible says where your treasure is there, your heart will be also.

So where your money is, if your money is divided in marriage, then your heart will be divided

in marriage.

And I've just seen it play out like that.

Yeah.

You know, in working with couples for all these years, we've sat across from all different

kinds of couples, all different walks of life.

You know, some who had a lot of money, some who had a little money.

And I will tell you, there's been some where they felt convicted by, you know, this whole

concept of maybe having everything divided and they've tried to change it and put everything

together.

Because you would say, well, now we've got it separated.

We've married 20 years.

We can never put it together.

But I begged a differ because we've seen couples put it together and they will report

back.

You know, it took some adjusting, obviously, but they always say, at least in the ones

that we've worked with, okay, over time they say, you know what, why didn't we do the

sooner?

Like it takes all the guesswork out of it.

Like we have so much more peace, but the biggest thing I've seen lately in the couples

that we worked a little bit with finances is that they have shared goals when it comes

to not only their finances and like paying off things, but when it comes to giving, like

it comes to giving.

Yeah.

And you have to share the mentality that it's all gods.

Right.

And if you have that, then it makes it so much easier to combine because it's, well, it's

not mine anyway.

Right.

It's all gods.

It's not his and hers.

It's his.

He is being in the Lord.

And we're going to be stewards of it.

We're going to be temporary managers of it.

We want to do our part to be generous, to be kind, to be good managers of it.

But it's ultimately his, it's freeing to think that way.

And it also is freeing to not feel like you've got to hide from each other, bringing it

back to the naked marriage, how your finances relate to a naked marriage.

Naked marriage is about having nothing to hide from each other.

If you're keeping separate accounts, then even if you don't consider it hiding, your

spouse is walled off from, from certain things, from your spending habits, from what you're

buying, from what you're doing.

And that is secrecy.

Like that is a form of saying you don't have access to this.

And a naked marriage means you have full access to every part, every part of, of me.

I don't want to have any secrets from you.

And this is so true.

And that's why just putting it all together helps you to have that vulnerability that

honestly that transparency in every part of your marriage, but also in finances, right?

But here's a dynamic that I'm seeing more and more, is that a couple will put all their

stuff in the same pot.

They have the same account.

It all goes into one account, but only one spouse actually accesses that account.

So we've seen where they technically share the account, they've yetically share the credit

card or whatever, but only one of them is managing it.

And I don't know if that's necessarily because they just want to lure over it, or if it's

because the other spouse just doesn't want to fool with it, but here's the deal.

You both need to know what's going in and what's coming out.

One of you might be better with money and maybe have the primary kind of, like you're

stew reading it as far as paying the bills and maybe making that, you know, the budget

and all those types of things ultimately, but you do have to check in with your spouse

and get their input.

And that spouse has to be willing to give input.

Don't get lazy on this, okay, because you both need to speak into this.

And it also keeps that level of transparency that needs to be in place.

Even if one of you is kind of the one who's more in charge of the money, it's all gods

and you both are stewards of that.

And I've seen where only one is really, you know, making the decisions when it comes to

money or the only one really kind of managing the money.

It really can go sideways pretty fast when it comes to communication.

There can be secrets, all kinds of misunderstandings.

But then it can also sometimes lead to what is happening a lot now and there's a word

for it.

It's called financial infidelity where there's these secret places that money goes and whether

or not you're sharing the accounts, this can happen, like I was saying, like where one

spouse, even if you're sharing the account, just kind of doesn't pay attention, maybe there's

some financial decisions going on that they don't feel good about.

And that's considered financial infidelity where there's been mispending, mismanagement,

maybe even secret accounts that have been made where you're, you know, you have a gambling

problem or we've known people where they made a secret account because they had a pornography

addiction that even went further and now they're looking at only fans and they've spent

thousands and thousands of dollars on this only fans account, which is like live action

porn.

And so that also is not only like a form of sexual infidelity, right, even though virtually,

but it also is financial infidelity because there's deep secrets, right?

And so don't find yourself in those dynamics either.

And one way you can make sure that you don't is by being honest about where the money

is going, you know, where you are spending, how you guys want to make these financial decisions,

it helps you stay on the same page.

It does.

And God wants you on the same page, like He wants you unifying.

I'm going to share a story of a couple of friends, a friend of ours who's a couple who've

really inspired and challenged us in this area.

It's our friends Gary and Sue.

And Gary and Sue are friends of ours back home in Georgia, part of our church.

They're also big supporters of exo.

In fact, their names are here, several places in the building just from donations that

they have made.

They're the most generous people I've ever known in terms of financial generosity.

But they it wasn't always that way, right?

So their story kind of in a nutshell is Sue is originally from Taiwan grew up extremely

poor.

His American had been been marine, eventually Sue moved to the United States.

They got married, were broke when they got married.

You know, she was working multiple jobs at like fast food places.

They were just doing whatever they could to make ends meet.

Over time, just through financial discipline and hard work and they were able to really

amass a lot of money.

I don't know like what their net worth is, but I know that they got is really blessed

in that area.

And for years, Gary was a hoarder as it related to it.

Like he wanted to keep every penny.

He was kind of Ebenezer Scrooge.

And Sue, guy got a hold of Sue's heart first as it relates to generosity.

And she really had this heart to give and wanted to give.

But she was also wanting to honor her husband's wishes and he really wasn't on the same page.

And she was really praying God would get a hold of his heart and she let him know like

listen, we can't take any of this with us.

Like let's bless, let's bless others.

Like let's not just wait till we're dead and people are fighting over this money.

Like let's live and see the good God can do with it.

And little by little, God got a hold of Gary's heart and he started giving in different ways.

And then he just absolutely hit his heart and his faith came to life when he discovered

the blessing it is.

When Jesus said it's more blessed to give and to receive.

I was just one example.

I was with him in Guatemala, our church supports an orphanage.

They're called Casas Shalom.

You can look up Casas Shalom.

It's a great organization.

They take care of about 100 kids.

You can go visit a wonderful place.

And we were staying there and my friend Josh and he and his wife run the place, was showing

us around and talking about their goals.

And he said right here, they started construction on a just a cinder block building they were

going to build out this whole building and make it like a vocational center for these

kids to teach them different kinds of skills, labor jobs so that when they kind of graduated

from the orphanage that they would have had these skills.

And he said, so just been praying for us, we need about $50,000 to complete this project

and that's why it's sitting here and complete.

We built the foundation and that's all we can do right now but we're believing God would

provide.

And I saw Gary and Sue just look at each other and smile and then Gary pulled Josh aside

without a lot of fanfare, without making a big announcement to the group and he said,

my wife and I would like to write you a check to finish this building for these kids.

And I just saw Josh walk over and he was weeping, like he was crying and I'm like, man, what's

going on?

And he told me what had happened and he just said, yeah, they didn't want me telling everybody

but they just paid for this whole building and man, it's going to make a life change

the difference to these kids.

And I look back at Gary and Sue and they just look so happy, like that they're able

to do, it's like it's brought them closer together.

Closer than maybe anything they've done as a couple is the shared generosity and the

blessing that comes when they can see God working through them with this unique gift

of giving and it doesn't take millions of dollars to be generous, by the way, because

a lot of the most generous people I know don't have a lot of money.

You can be generous with money, with time, with whatever you have.

Generosity is a mindset.

So it's start where you are saying it's all gods, we want to give to his work first,

the Bible calls that a tithe and then we want to be wise stewards of our money to grow

it God's way and again, scripture has a lot of what that looks like.

It means consistency, working hard, little by little, not just buying lottery tickets

and hoping you hit a big, but being disciplined and strategic with it, not being frivolous

with your spending.

That doesn't mean you never enjoy anything, I think, yeah, buy something just because

it's fun sometimes, go on that trip but it's not worth going into debt for it and then

carrying around that way.

But make generosity the goal, not just surviving, not just the quality of living, but the quality

of giving because there is nothing like generosity to bring you closer to the heart of God and

closer to you and your spouse together, being this world changing duo that's able to

help others through the gift of giving.

It really is.

And Gary and Sue, and we've known them for years, they've been dear friends of ours for

years.

We challenged us on this and just thinking bigger and thinking because it doesn't always

have to be a big grand gesture like that, I mean, even just, you know, being in line at

Chick-fil-A and with your kids and you order your meal and then you ask, you know, when

you're going to pay for it, the person behind you are like, well, how much is their

meal behind me and paying for their meal?

Like we do that sometimes, our church does like a love week where they encourage people

to pay it backward, I think is what they call it where you pay for somebody's meal behind

you.

And just even little things like that, it just not only reminds you of the joy of giving

but it also teaches your kids the joy of giving.

And then you say, this isn't just us giving, this is, it's all God's anyway, this is God

blessing that person through us.

And I think just, you know, thinking outside of the box in little ways and in big ways

and in ways that you dream about, like how do we want to give some day?

Like I know in our family, you know, we, I don't know why, I'm trying to think when this

first came to mind about, we just learned about how around the world there is just this

epidemic for lack of a better word of, of not having clean water.

You know, we take that for granted being in America, like it's, it's nothing, but there's

a lot of places in the world where they would give anything for clean water and there's

kids dying just because they don't have clean water.

It's just from waterborne illness because they're drinking from a place where the only

water they can get is infected with disease.

And we, you know, just had this burden for this and then we had a friend start a ministry

where they go around the world and build water wells and, and I was like, oh my gosh.

And I went up to her, you know, and I was like, this, this girl at our church and I was

like, how can we get involved?

And so that was something as a family that God had had long before she ever started

that ministry had put on our heart and then he provided a way for us to, to do that.

And that's been, you know, something really cool to see, not only for us but for the kids.

So like just think about that.

Like Lord, how do you want us to give?

Because when you think about that and pray about that, you come to God with open hands.

They say it's all yours anyway.

It keeps your heart in the right place and it's just a beautiful place to be as a couple

to because you're in alignment with what money really is and you don't let money be your

master because that's where we get, you know, we get in trouble and become miserly, right?

And we want to just hoard our money and hold on to it and, and we, we miss out on the

joy of giving.

Yeah.

So don't feel like you got to be bougie or impress people like actually yesterday or whatever

day we were traveling here.

She got so many compliments on her outfit and she would just smile and say, thank you.

You looked adorable as she always looked.

Nothing signed.

But it was 100% like consigned.

It was so excited.

It was like all used stuff and you looked, well, I get joy from it went into a thrift store.

Goodwill.

Like I'm so excited.

One of my favorite stores is either a goodwill on a good day, you know, because you do have

to kind of go through it or uptown cheap skate, which is a consignment store.

And so a lot of my closet, I trade in my clothes to get other use clothes.

You literally, I like don't spend any money and I call it, remember when I got to college

where I got some new blazers and I was like, what do you think I spent on these blazers

today?

I had to pay $3 because I went a little over, but I had like $100 worth of clothes I had

turned in and I got like really nice, all these blazers, like really nice ones.

So I get joy from that because it makes your money go first.

Yeah.

Say no money.

Make it like a game.

I'm trying to win.

Like I'll go into Costco, which is one of my favorite places because you know, this is

what happens.

Guys, when you start getting old, you get excited about things like Costco.

It's not getting old as becoming a dad.

It's dad life.

Dad life.

I'm like just all in on dad life.

So Costco, I'll go in there and like if I got to go to get an oil change, so like

jiffy loops, the oil change place in our area, well Costco has $100 gift cards for

jiffy loop that you buy at Costco for $75.

So for $75, I get $100 to jiffy loop.

So I'll go buy that gift card.

Then I'll go buy my $1.50 hot dog and soda meal at Costco, half a pound of all beef refillable

drink, a buck 50.

You just feel like you're winning it life.

Then I'll get online and I'll Google like jiffy loop coupons and you can always get at

least ten bucks sometimes up to like 25.

So you get a $25 coupon plus you know $25 off because of what you got on this gift card.

And so for $50 out of pocket, I can get $100 worth of service there.

It's just trying to be like creative without a stretch, stretch money.

You know, don't pay more than you have to.

It just makes a difference.

The same like how can we save, save a little bit of money here and that money that we

say we can do something else with it.

It's not.

It's just being resourceful.

And so look for ways to be resourceful by by used instead of new all the time.

Like we used to cash, we would always look on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace or

wherever to buy something used instead of new to save some money if we needed a new

appliance or whatever.

There are ways to just save some money and you can get creative about that.

There are a whole YouTube channels and everything else that people just given you.

I dig about that.

I dig about that.

I don't want to be labor at that point.

But the main things here are the principles of saying, God, we want to realign our thinking

with what you say about money.

We want to make sure we're on the same page.

We want to make sure that everything is yours first, then ours, not his and hers.

We want to live a spirit with a spirit of generosity.

And I think that could be really, really good.

One episode of the Nicki Minaj podcast I'd encourage you to go back and listen to on this

is we interviewed our friends, the Lodix seed time, which is a great British and Stewardship

ministry and they've done a lot with XO.

We've got a previous episode with them on the Nicki Minaj podcast.

If you listen to that, they share some really great tips and how they went from being completely

broken in debt to within a matter of less than 10 years, not only getting out of debt,

but together, they'd given away over a million dollars.

Over a million, yeah.

And they're still doing.

Yeah.

It's amazing.

So the spirit of generosity.

It's a great story.

So check that out.

Mm-hmm.

And we are going to pivot into today's question of the day.

So thank you guys so much.

Not only for listening to this podcast, but for those who send in questions and stick

around to the end to hear the question, it's often my favorite part of the episode because

the questions are so good.

If you want to send in a question, you can always do that by writing us on Instagram at

Dave and Ashley Willis, or by going to nakedmarriagepodcast.com.

Today's question says this, we are saving money for a house by living temporarily with my parents.

My husband hates this living arrangement, and it's starting to take a toll on our marriage.

We have no privacy.

He feels emasculated having to live there.

I'd move out and get an apartment, but then we're no closer to getting a house of our own.

No option seems good.

What should we do?

Wow.

Yeah, it's a great question.

And with what we've talked about today, and no matter what you choose, you're giving

up something.

That's right.

It was super hard.

What are you going to give up?

Man, we had to live with Dave's parents temporarily, okay?

We did.

And I'll just explain it.

And I love my in-laws dearly.

I'm very close.

I was just talking to my mother-in-law before coming into record.

We have a really close relationship, and it's a blessing.

But I will tell you, that was a stressful month.

And this is with people.

We really went along with their loved.

It was an apartment attached to their house.

But we did kind of have some of our own space, though we could not, for some reason, the

way the house was.

It had this apartment, but all of the temperature controls were on your parent's side, and they

liked things a lot warmer than I liked them, and I was pregnant at the time, and I was

sweating it out, December and Kentucky, with sleeping with the windows open and snow,

because I was so burning at it a lot.

But I think that was the pregnancy hormones, so I know that stress of feeling like, and

I feel like it was stressful on them too.

And that's something to think about is, I know it's stressful for you as a couple, but

it's probably stressful on the parents too.

So think about that, and get each other all positive, a lot of grace, a lot of grace.

And if you're living with them, and you know, also, even if it's not comfortable for you,

still have a spirit of respect and gratitude, that they don't have to let me live here.

True.

And this is generosity on their part.

This is an inconvenience on them, and I want to honor their house as best I can.

No one, it's not mine anymore.

It's their house, and they're letting us stay here.

If you're the parents, opening up your home, you know, just saying, yeah, we're, by saying

yes to this for whatever time period, we're saying make it, make it your home, like make

yourself at home here.

But it's going to take a lot of patience on everybody.

You know, we've got a, we've got a really fun book with exo called Married into the

Family that's all about in-law relationships.

I love the audio book of that, and you can find that on Amazon that has some great insights

on how to navigate.

In-law relationships as a little sidebar, but coming back to this question in particular,

you and your spouse just have to get on the same page.

You have to decide, is the temporary discomfort of being here worth the value that we're gaining

by saving money and what that saved money is going to help us do for our future, or is

the cost we're paying to our sanity to buy a price to pay right now, where we would rather,

we would rather step backwards in terms of our financial goals to just breathe the

air of freedom a little sooner as it relates to our marriage.

And the two of you have to decide that.

You need to get on the same page with that.

But if you're going to stay, then you, you, you got to just embrace the discomfort for

whatever time period you've agreed to.

And if you're going to go, then you need to embrace the, the freedom you have, but also

understand that well, we're, we're taking a step backwards financially.

You give up something either way, you just, I have to decide what you're willing to

give up.

That's right, because it sounds like, you know, it's costing them some peace here, because

you don't want to live in this situation to the detriment of number one, your marriage,

but also number two, your relationship with your in-laws and his parents.

And so I think it's, it's, it's really taking a long, hard look at that and really praying,

like God make it clear for us, like really seeking the Lord, both of you.

And really speaking openly about where you are, because I don't know if this wife has shared

this with her husband quite yet, how miserable she is, he may have no idea and he may be

much more comfortable because it's his parents.

I mean, he's used to their idiose sequences, like he knows.

And maybe for you, it's, it's like this huge learning curve because, you know, knowing

and loving people is so different from living in their home, you know?

And then I think too, it'd be really nice and I don't know what kind of relationship they

have with the parents, but if you all could agree on just some basic ground rules, when,

when a family can come together and just say, how are we going to, you know, this is

temporary, what, what would make this work best?

Is there certain times of day certain things need to happen?

Are there certain chores where we take over this, you take over that?

What can we do to serve you as you're letting us live here in the home?

That may change the temperature a little bit, but having some, some basic ground rules

can bring a lot more understanding because I think right now she feels like she's walking

on eggshells and doesn't know when this is ever going to change and it just feels like

she's trapped.

And whenever we're trapped, we do not make our best decisions.

And so I think just getting some understanding about where you are, being real about it,

and then talking to your husband first about those ground rules and then maybe possibly

if you have that kind of relationship, bringing it to the parents and just saying, how can

we make this be the best situation possible for as long as we're here because we really

appreciate your hospitality and we just want this to work for all of us.

We know, like, like, level with them.

We know this is probably stressful on all of us, you know?

I mean, just level, be kind, but I think that you living having to push down these feelings

and just constantly being frustrated is not doing you any favors or your husband and family

extended family any favors.

So one one last tip related to that is have a spirit of gratitude and entitlement.

Yes.

When you leave, whatever point you leave, do something that's generous and is a token, not

not trying to like repay all of it because it was a gift on their part to let you stay

there.

Right.

Generous and thoughtful as a gentrific doing and what that looks like for us when we

stay with my parents for a while while we were renovating another house is after we moved

out, you know, we had a contact who was who was an artist and we hired him to do an oil

painting of them based on their wedding photo and so they got this this oil painting of

themselves from their wedding photo and they were so surprised and they were so just taken

back.

They they loved it, I think I mean, it's been common in a prominent place in their house

for the last 20 years and when I walked by, I just I smiled and I was so thankful that

we were able to to do that for them and well, and I mean, it's just a small, I mean,

what they did for us was much more.

Oh, yeah.

It was a more than just a thank you.

It was like we value you.

We appreciate you.

We want to honor you.

Right.

And here's a token of that.

And so.

Exactly.

It did because there were hiccups, like I remember there was one time where there had

been a miscommunication about when the carpet cleaners were coming and we needed to make

sure things were on top of the bed or the couch or whatever so he could clean and we've

somehow got the day mixed up and it really upset your mom because it felt like disrespect

but really it was truly just a mix up in the day and we had to work through that.

So like there were every family goes through stuff like this.

There's not something wrong with your husband's family or I mean, no family's perfect,

right?

It's like these situations just tend to bring stress and just level with each other and

know that and then find a way to show that gratitude that Dave is talking about and appreciate

this temporary, okay, temporary being the key term season and then finding ways to find

peace in it if you can and like Dave said, if you can't, that's okay too.

That just means it's maybe a little longer to get to those financial goals but that is

an option you are not trapped.

I mean, just remind yourself you're not trapped.

You have options here.

So good.

Friends, thanks for the great question.

Thank you.

Naked Nation.

That's all of you who listen.

We appreciate you guys so much.

Write us with your questions.

Also write us just to let us know what kind of topics you would like to hear us talk

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God bless.

We'll see you next time.