Advice from Nashville's Financial Guru Dave Ramsey
Dave Says
By Dave Ramsey
Author of Financial Peace and The Total Money Makeover
7/19/2004
Should I pay for friend’s financial counseling?
Dear Dave,
I have some friends who need some financial counseling and I was going to pay for them to go. He wants to attend, but his wife does not. I don’t know if it would be worth the effort on my part to do this.
Brian in Oklahoma City, OK
Dear Brian,
The short answer is no. They don’t have a financial problem; they’ve got a marriage problem. There are several reasons that someone will not go to counseling. One is pride. They have the mindset that they don’t want to go sit with a financial person because they have it all figured out and know what’s wrong – it’s their spouse. Another reason they don’t want to go is they don’t want someone else to discover and confront them on what they already know they’re doing wrong. They know they’re out of control and acting like a four year old and they don’t want anyone to look at them and say that.
In other cases, they’re hiding things. There’s something going on no one knows about and they’re afraid it might be exposed. However, most of the time someone doesn’t want to go to marriage or financial counseling because they don’t have any hope that things are going to change. In other words, in this case she’s given up on him. He’s willing to go, but she’s probably so sick and tired of dealing with him being a control freak, a tightwad, a nerd or whatever it is - where she’s been beat up and beat down about finances. She doesn’t want to go to anything else where she might be submitted to that again.
I would suggest they sit down with a good marriage counselor or a pastor who will do some marriage counseling for them and begin this process of touching and healing this relationship issue that’s going on. There’s a breakdown of trust, respect or something between the two of them where she doesn’t want to work with him on anything - and money happens to be one of those things. And he can’t solve it by himself. So I think you’re wasting your money.
In fact, if you go to one of our certified counselors, they will not meet with someone who is married, without the spouse attending as well. It’s one of our rules. It’s a waste of time and money to do so and it makes everybody mad.
-Dave
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