While financial pundit Dave Ramsey is sometimes known for being mildly caustic with his advice, the man clearly knows when to pull his punches.
Ramsey showed his skill at balancing empathy with painful facts during the July 24 episode of his daily program The Dave Ramsey Show when a 38-year-old man named CJ called in with a troubling problem: his wife had run up $50,000 in debt behind his back.
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While the caller said he was willing to forgive his wife "if she takes right steps to clean it up with me," Ramsey encouraged him to back up and focus on something more important.
"Having done with I do for 30+ years, what we've discovered is, uh, this is first and foremost a breach of trust," Ramsey said. "The money is secondary. The primary thing -- and that's why people in my world call this financial infidelity, because it's a deep breach of trust. Sexual infidelity is a deep breach of trust. And for most people, this activates the same part in your brain or in your soul that sexual infidelity activates. Because it's not sex as much as it is a deep breach of trust...your wife systematically lied to you for a long period of time."
Ramsey says he doesn't think the situation has to end the marriage, but recommended the couple see a marriage counselor, saying, "the way you repair trust -- first there is an admission of how big the trust being broken is."
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