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Solving A Marriage Crisis with Howard Dayton

Faith And Finance / Rob West
The Truth Network Radio
November 15, 2024 3:00 am

Solving A Marriage Crisis with Howard Dayton

Faith And Finance / Rob West

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November 15, 2024 3:00 am

“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” - Proverbs 15:1

That verse reminds us to keep a cool head when we experience conflict or crisis in a relationship—and maybe even more…when that crisis involves the marriage relationship. Howard Dayton joins us today to talk about surviving a marriage crisis.

Howard Dayton is the founder of Compass Financial Ministry and the former host of this program. He is also the author of several books on Christian Finance and Stewardship, including Money and Marriage God's Way.

Recognizing the Warning Signs of a Marital Crisis

Marriage challenges can emerge when stress or unresolved conflicts grow too intense for a couple to manage. Financial struggles, in particular, often go beyond “dollars and cents” and can breed emotions like anger, resentment, and frustration. This strain can lead to poor communication or even emotional withdrawal. A financial crisis in marriage becomes incredibly complex when both partners contribute to it, eroding trust in the relationship.

People handle crises differently; some respond with intense emotions, while others may withdraw and become more introspective. Howard emphasizes the importance of allowing each spouse to process the situation in their own way while offering mutual support. In times of difficulty, a marriage can either strengthen or weaken. Interestingly, the pain of a crisis can also spark positive change, prompting impulsive spenders to become more mindful or encouraging couples to deepen their relationship with Christ.

Practical Steps to Work Through Marital Conflict

To support couples facing a financial crisis, here are a few practical steps to guide healing:

  1. Pray Together for Wisdom—Begin by asking for God’s guidance and wisdom.
  2. Set Ground Rules for Communication—Agree on respectful ways to handle conflicts, including the option for a “time-out” to cool down and pray together if emotions escalate.
  3. Use Kind Words—Avoid hurtful language, as it can cause lasting damage.
  4. Write Letters to Each Other—Sometimes, writing down feelings can help clarify issues. Afterward, meet to discuss these letters, pray, and address the issues raised.
  5. Identify and Repent of Any Sins—Acknowledge any harmful behaviors, such as addiction, and take steps toward repentance and recovery.
  6. Seek the Source of the Hurt—Ask God to reveal the underlying sources of pain and disconnect.
  7. Work to Rebuild the Marriage—Each spouse should find someone to hold them accountable as they make better choices.
Seeking Outside Help When Needed

If these steps don’t resolve the crisis, it may be time to seek outside help. A qualified, mature Christian counselor can offer valuable guidance when a couple is unable to work through challenges on their own. Of course, there are situations where divorce may occur due to abuse, adultery, or addiction; however, many marital issues can be overcome with commitment from both partners.

The goal of financial unity in marriage is to make decisions together, listen to each other, and view finances as a shared resource. This oneness fosters trust, transparency, and partnership in every area of life.

For more on this topic, check out Howard Dayton’s book, Money and Marriage God’s Way, which delves deeper into building a unified financial and marital life.

On Today’s Program, Rob Answers Listener Questions:
  • I have cancer and will likely pass away soon. My husband and I have separate finances due to a prenup. I have about $700,000 saved, and I want to know how much I should leave to my husband versus leaving it to the Lord's work, as my husband would likely want me to leave it all to him.
  • I'm retired and have substantial savings that I transferred to an IRA. I've learned about the 'spend-down' when looking to enter a care facility as you age. Is it too soon for me to start spending down this IRA money, and how should I go about doing that?
  • I have some kids who haven't been very responsible with their finances. One is about 44, and the other is 32. I've been considering getting a term life insurance policy on them so that if something happens to them because of their lifestyle choices, I would have something I could give to their children. Is this a good idea, and how much coverage should I get?
  • I know you've said that identity theft insurance is unnecessary, but what about the $2 million coverage for stolen funds and expenses that some policies provide? Is that something I should consider getting, even if it's an expense?
Resources Mentioned:

Remember, you can call in to ask your questions most days at (800) 525-7000. Faith & Finance is also available on the Moody Radio Network and American Family Radio. Visit our website at FaithFi.com where you can join the FaithFi Community and give as we expand our outreach.

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What's most important to you when it comes to choosing your financial advisor? Someone who's aligned with your biblical values. How about someone who will take the time to explain your options? Certified Kingdom Advisors are professionals who meet high standards in competence and integrity, and have been trained to offer biblical financial advice.

To find a Certified Kingdom Advisor in your area, visit faithfi.com and click Find a CKA. A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Proverbs 15, 1.

Hi, I'm Rob West. That verse reminds us to keep a cool head when we experience conflict or crisis in a relationship, and maybe all the more when that crisis involves the marriage relationship. Howard Dayton joins us today to talk about surviving a marriage crisis. Then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Well, our friend Howard Dayton is the founder of Compass Financial Ministry and the former host of this program, so it's always great to have him back with us. Howard, welcome back. Great to be with you, Rob. Howard, let's start with the warning signs of a marital crisis and your experience.

What are they? Well, it typically occurs when there's a lot of stress or unresolved conflict that become too intense for a couple to manage. A crisis brought on by finances usually involves more than dollars and cents. Anger, resentment, frustration often control the relationship, Rob, and their communication becomes increasingly strained or the two emotionally withdraw from each other. A crisis can even be more challenging when the husband and wife contributed to it, especially when trust has been broken.

No doubt about that. And what in your experience is the typical response that you see to this type of crisis? Yeah, Rob, people react differently to a crisis. Some people react quickly and emotionally.

Others are more introspective. And it's really essential for spouses to give each other the freedom to deal with the crisis and to support each other in every way possible. And times like this can be huge in a relationship, either for bringing couples closer together or pushing them further apart. Now, this may surprise some, but one of the biggest potential benefits is that when people experience a high level of pain, they'll often change. Impulse spenders can become careful spenders.

Credit cards are paid off. Couples begin to communicate at a different level and some even become serious about their relationship with Christ. And that's certainly the outcome we're looking for. All right, let's get real practical here. I know you have some steps to help couples deal with a marital crisis.

What are they? Well, first, pray together for God's wisdom and direction in your situation. Then agree together on the ground rules on how to deal with a crisis. Include an opportunity for either spouse at any time to call timeout. To pray together and to cool off if the meeting becomes too intense.

And this is really a huge job. Agree to use kind words to communicate. Unkind words can really damage their relationship. I found it's also helpful to write a letter to each other expressing your feelings and identifying the issues, then meet to pray together and discuss the letters. And don't forget to identify and repent from any sin.

For example, if somebody is addicted to gambling, repentance would mean getting help to break that addiction. Then look for the real source of the hurt between you and your spouse. You may not know exactly where to look for it, but God does.

So ask him to reveal it. And finally, work to rebuild the marriage. Each spouse should find someone to hold them accountable to make really good choices.

Wow, that's really helpful, Howard. And if a couple does all of those things, but the crisis still remains, what then? Well, couples experiencing acute meltdown in their marriage need intervention because they may be unable to work out the problems without the assistance of a professional. So find the right person or organization that can help best. And I would encourage you to select a mature Christian who's really a trained counselor.

Now, I realize that there are some circumstances where divorce may occur because of abuse, adultery, or addictions, but most problems can be solved if both partners are committed to resolving them. I love it. Howard, I know that you have taught for so long that oneness is the goal in the marriage relationship, and that includes this area of finance and just our few seconds remaining.

Give us a quick vision of what that could look like. Well, it means that you don't make independent financial decisions without really communicating and listening to your spouse, that you view the resources that you have as both of yours, not just one of yours. I love it. Howard, my friend, always great insights and wisdom. Thanks for stopping by. I love it, Rob. Thank you.

All right, Howard Dayton's been our guest today. You can read much more about this important topic in this book, Money and Marriage God's Way. Your calls are next.

Stick around. Each account is insured up to $250,000. This institution is not federally insured. Faith and Finance is grateful for support from Sound Mind Investing. For more than 30 years, they've offered financial wisdom for living well.

SMI provides step-by-step guidance for do-it-yourself investors, from those just getting started to those getting ready for retirement. More information, including a short video webinar on profit and peace of mind, no matter what's happening in the market, is available at soundmindinvesting.org. So glad to have you with us today on Faith and Finance. Well, we're ready to take your calls and questions here in just a moment.

The Carl's have started coming in, but we've got room for a few more. So if you have something on your mind financially today, we'd love to hear from you. That number to get in on the conversation is 800-525-7000.

It's 800-525-7000 you can call right now. Let's head to Sarasota, Florida. Hi Margie, go right ahead.

Hi. Yes, my husband and I were married about 12 years ago and he insisted on a prenup and that his money would be his money and my money would be my money. And since we've been together for 12 years, you know, we both are increased in value, our net stake, and he has a nice lump sum and I have about $700,000.

Well, I have cancer and I'm going to die probably in the next year. And you know, we don't have any children. We don't have any debt. We've got about 450,000 equity in our house. He's got plenty of money for himself.

We're about 60-62 years old. And I wonder how much of my nest egg should I leave to the Lord and how much should I leave to him because obviously he would like me to leave it all to him. But if he dies, if he got ran over by a bus the day after I die, he doesn't have a will.

All his money would go into probate or go to his sister, his one sister. And I want my money going to the Lord as much as possible. So how do you determine how much to leave to a spouse and how much to leave to the Lord? Yeah.

Yeah. Well, that's a great question, Margie, and I appreciate your call today. You know, normally what we would do is we would say, listen to become one with a first marriage and you know, that includes everything including our finances and we bring it all together and we say it's now not yours and mine but ours and we want to honor the Lord and finding his heart for how we plan and make decisions in light of our values and where God is taking us as a family.

And then there's no question. Now when you come into a second marriage and you bring in some cases children, but also you bring to bear wealth that was created prior to that marriage and especially where there's kids where you might say as a part of and I love this term. There's a ministry called Family Life and they have a division called Family Life blended specifically for blended families and they have kind of what they would call a Christian version of a prenup and they call it a togetherness agreement. And the name of it is togetherness because the idea is to drive and foster togetherness and trust, not division and separation, but out of a recognition that there was money created and there was family units that existed prior to this marriage. And so perhaps the wealth that was created prior to because I've got an ex-spouse, I've got kids, I want to keep the money, you know with those but then from this point forward everything that the Lord entrusts to us, we're going to handle together. And you know that these are now our assets but we recognize there are other assets that we had prior to the marriage.

I realize there's not a right or wrong answer there. That's a matter of discernment and conviction. But I think because you all made that prenuptial agreement and there was there was an understanding of how this was going to be handled and that was agreed upon by both of you. I think you're now in a position where you can say just before the Lord, Lord, what would you have me to do? I am the steward of these assets that I had prior to this marriage and where are you leading me? And the Lord may lead you to give it away. The Lord may lead you to leave it to your husband and you're just going to trust that he is the next steward whether he lives a day or two decades after the Lord calls you home. You're just going to trust that it's the Lord's anyway. It's not yours.

It's not his. It all belongs to God. You just have to decide who that next steward is and you need to use discernment and prayer to make that decision. And then it's out of your hands and the key. I think idea here is that once we recognize it was never mine in the first place and it's not mine today everything I have belongs to the Lord. He's just entrusted it to me. And so he you need to say Lord, what would you have me to do with your money? And then you make that decision with confidence and I think as you seek the Lord, let's just ask him to make it clear to you what he would have you to do given everything that's transpired, which is you all came to this second marriage making a decision about how you were going to handle this via a prenup. In fact, it was your husband's decision to do it.

And now you all have to decide. Okay, if in fact the Lord is calling me home and maybe he's not but if he is, you know, where is he leading me with regard to this and if he's put it on your heart to support causes in the name of Jesus that are going to perpetuate the gospel to God be the glory and if he's going to lead you to give a portion or all of it to your husband, I think that's great as well. But give me your thoughts on all that.

Oh, no, that makes so much sense. Thank you so much for explaining it that way because you're absolutely right as what the Lord puts on my heart is I need to follow what the Lord wants me to do. And you know, I think that maybe the best thing would be, you know, a certain percentage to the Lord and a certain percentage to him, you know, so I think that's great advice. Well, I think the ideal situation and I obviously don't know anything about kind of just how you all approach finances to this point. But for me, the ideal scenario would be the two of you would come together and just say let's decide this together how much we're going to, you know, and you could put the whole thing together and decide how much does he need to because there's also a financial finish line involved here for each of us, right?

And to your point, he's got more than he needs for the rest of his life. And so why are we holding on to it? Why not get it into God's Kingdom? Now, if you all are misaligned with regard to your faith values, well, that's getting, you know, not necessarily going to be an easy decision. But I think at the end of the day, just start with the idea that this all belongs to God and we had clear communication about how we were going to handle things and for what God entrusted to you prior to that marriage specifically, there's an opportunity to present that to the Lord and follow his leading with regard to what you'll do with it when you when the Lord calls you home and let's just trust him for the outcomes of that.

And we know he can be trusted with that. Margie, thanks for your call today. We appreciate it. Hope that was helpful.

Let's go to Ohio and welcome Larry to the broadcast. Go ahead, sir. You've been very helpful to me in the past and for some reason these questions keep popping up and I had one today that popped up and I'd like to ask you, I'm retired, been retired for five years and I had a substantial savings that I transferred over to IRA and through experience I learned that there's a spend down that they talk about when you know, you're looking to go into a facility, you know, you age and that type thing. Is it too soon to start a spend down on this money that that we have invested in the IRA and how should I do that? Yeah.

So are you talking about in order to be able to earn Medicaid? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So what assets do you have Larry currently other than this IRA?

Anything? Just my Social Security and the IRA. Okay. Yeah, so an individual retirement account asset can be counted as a part of your assets for Medicaid eligibility purposes, but it depends on a number of factors including the state you live in, whether the IRA is in a payout status and then the Medicaid rules in your area. So each state has its own rules regarding how IRAs and other assets are handled. So are you familiar with the limits for Medicaid? I am not, no.

Okay. Yeah, so, you know, there's income limits. So in 2024 for a household of one, it's 20,120 and then there's asset limits and that is for a single individual. You can have $2,000 in countable assets for a married couple 3,000. And so, you know, there are certain exempt assets, primary residence will be one, a vehicle, one vehicle, personal belongings and then certain retirement assets. So I would suggest you connect with an advisor, Larry, who can look over your financial situation. There's just too many moving parts for me to say definitively whether it would make sense to start spending this down.

My inclination is no, let's try to fund it out of the current assets and then rely on Medicaid down the road, but you can connect with a CKA at faithbuy.com. Thanks for your call. We'll be right back. Every day is a nightmare for girls being trafficked and abused. It's an evil that must be stopped. That's why India Partners rescues girls into safe houses so they never have to worry about this again. Because I was young I was in high demand.

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Take control over your healthcare costs with a program from CHM that could save you up to 40%. Learn more and enroll today at chministries.org slash faithbuy. That's chministries.org slash faithbuy. Hey, thanks for calling today on Faith and Finance. We've got a lot of calls here and thanks for listening too. By the way, if you have a question, still room for you. 1-800-525-7000 helping you navigate your financial life in light of biblical truth. Let's go to Arkansas.

Hi Doug. Go ahead. Hey, yes, I'm married and I have multiple kids mixed family and I have a couple of kids that just haven't been responsible in their life. One's about 44 and the other one's like 32 and I was wondering I've been thinking about getting like a term life insurance policy on them. So if something should happen to them because of their lifestyle and their choices, I would have something that I could give to their children and that's my question.

Interesting. Well, you know yet I don't know what you were referring to in terms of the lifestyle choices depending on what they are. It may make them uninsurable or it may make those policies fairly costly. But regardless the idea that you would get a life insurance policy on them that you would be the owner of that would be on their life and then paid to their kids is an interesting idea. Are you concerned are these minor kids that you're wanting to provide for just until they reach the age of majority or what are you thinking here? Well, two of them are 19 and two of them are you know younger like one's 10 and one of them is 14. Yeah, okay. Very good.

Yeah. I mean so you can if you have an insurable interest and you have their permission. So you need the person's consent then you would be able to do that.

And basically what you would say is listen, I want to make sure that if something happens to you and none of us know the day or the hour that the Lord is going to call us home. And so therefore I'd like to take out a policy on your life payable to your kids as the beneficiary. So that they're provided for you know, obviously ideally this would be something these children would do on their own. But to your point if that's not the way they're thinking or they're lacking some spiritual or financial maturity and you've identified that they've not taken that important step that we should all do for our loved ones then you're stepping in and doing that assuming you have the ability to do that financially and again you have their consent and what the insurance company calls an insurable interest which these children certainly would as dependents then absolutely you could do that. Okay, what would be a good amount, you know, because like nowadays a hundred thousand dollars ain't what it used to be.

Yeah, that's right. I don't know what a good amount would be. Well, it comes down to what it what type of income are we trying to provide for them? So normally for somebody who's you know, a working breadwinner and a family we would say you'd want to take their income and get life insurance equal to 10 to 12 times that. So if somebody's making 60,000 a year, we'd want to get somewhere between 600 and 750 thousand dollars worth of insurance. And the idea is that you know, if you have that 700,000 in death benefit at 4% a year, you could pull out 28,000 a year, but you know, you'd probably pull more than that.

You'd probably pull more like 8% and that's not sustainable. But the idea is you just want to get through the working years. And so you're okay if that money runs out, but I think you know, the starting point is to say not just what is that lump sum I want them to receive.

But what is the income that I want them to receive off of the lump sum and for how long and then it just becomes a math equation to determine the lump sum needed to generate an income stream for a fixed period of time. Does that make sense? Yes.

Okay. I just want to have something where their kids can have something, you know, from their parents. I believe in, you know, giving to my grandkids, you know, my kids and grandkids.

I want to bless them when I die. So, you know, even though they haven't lived that way, they should I'm willing to step in there and kind of help. Yeah, I think that's right. And I think thinking in terms of what you'd like for this to cover.

So for instance, if you want to get it enough to cover a college education, you could solve for that amount if you want to make it an income stream to get them in through their 20s. It could be that as well. Thanks for your call. Let's finish up today in Indiana.

Hi Esther. Go ahead. My question is I know you have said that identity theft is not necessary. But what about identity theft insurance coverage that provides two million dollars for stolen funds and expenses?

Yeah, you know, if this is provided to you free of charge, which where would that happen? Well, I just got a notice the other day from AT&T, which is who handles my cell phone service that there was a breach and as a result of that, they're going to pay for a year of identity theft protection and credit monitoring and it gives me three million dollars worth of coverage. Well, if they're paying for it, you better believe I took advantage of it and I think that's generally what we would say, you know for most people you're not going to collect on this and if it's an expense out of your pocket, I would rather you just follow best practices around not using public Wi-Fi not clicking on links and emails and given, you know information over the phone to people, you know, using long passwords and changing them regularly monitoring your credit report freezing your credit, you know, when you're not opening new lines of credit.

I mean, those are the kinds of things that I would encourage you to do just regularly and we all need to be doing them. But again, if you're offered this free as a result of a security breach doesn't hurt to take it now does it hurt to have added protection in the event that you ever claimed against that identity theft, which is a very real thing and affects millions of Americans. No, I don't think so. I think what you'll just find is just based on the low percentage of people that ever take advantage of that is just what I would consider an unnecessary expense, but it doesn't mean that, you know, if you're looking to offset as many risks as possible as a steward of what God has entrusted to you and that gives you some peace of mind to know that you have that I wouldn't say that's a bad thing.

I would just say, you know in the average most people don't collect on it and therefore that's money you could keep in your budget. Does that make sense? Okay.

Yes, it does. Thank you. Okay. Do you have a time for another question? I've got about 45 seconds. So if we can do it quick, I'll be happy to I don't think so. This is the question is how much does a person need for retirement? I'm concerned about high inflation and if my spouse should die.

Yeah. Yeah, I certainly understand that I'll give you a rule of thumb since we have just a little bit of time here. I mean typically what you will hear is 10 to 12 times your income now, you might say Rob, you know, we make $60,000 a year and you know, that's 720,000. There's no way and I would say okay, but you know, that's just a starting point that just gives you a goal.

Where does that come from? Well, the way that we get that is remember Social Security was only intended to cover about 40% of your pre-retirement income and most people live on 70 to 80% and so if you take a 4% withdrawal rate off of 10 to 12 times your income. It's basically going to be equal the other half of what you're going to need to maintain your current lifestyle alongside Social Security at the end of the day.

It comes down to how much are you going to spend and so I think the next step beyond that rule of thumb is just to run a retirement budget and then back into what's coming from Social Security and how much do we need to have in savings to be able to generate the rest. Hopefully that helps. Thanks for your call Esther. Thanks to my team today. Amy, Dan, Taylor and Gabby T on our phones. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye. Faith and Finance is provided by Faith Buy and listeners like you.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-11-15 04:22:10 / 2024-11-15 04:32:33 / 10

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