Mar 15, 2026
An Indiana woman called into The Ramsey Show recently in severe distress: She’d just found out her husband had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Kate from Indianapolis said her husband of four years told her about a week ago that he had taken out $350,000 in loans and lost it all day trading. The previous night, she’d learned that this had been going on their entire marriage.
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Co-hosts John Delony and Rachel Cruze were shocked by the numbers and offered condolences before getting down to business about the steps she needs to take to protect herself.
A huge secret
Kate is a stay-at-home mom with a one year old, and is expecting another baby in the summer. Her husband has been running his own business for two years, and Kate said that because the business was doing well, he was able to get the loans. She said her husband pays himself a salary of $60,000 a year from the business.
Delony quickly figured out that if her husband had taken out business loans, using them to make short-term, risky trades on the stock market could constitute criminal fraud. Kate then said she wasn’t actually sure what kind of loans they were.
Kate said that they would be filing for bankruptcy, and had spoken to an attorney. She said she wasn’t sure whether she should try and find a job, but that her husband was against the idea because they file their taxes jointly.
“Dude, you’re so far past that situation,” Delony said bluntly. “The world you knew, as of like two weeks ago, doesn’t exist anymore. The integrity of the man you anchored your life to doesn’t exist anymore, and you owning that reality is really important.”
He went on to say that taking advice from her husband on whether she should get a job would be “like your spouse cheating on you and then giving you dating advice.”
Delony and Cruze told Kate her husband had committed financial infidelity, and that her first priority should be to establish her own separate finances and secure them from him (1).
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What is financial infidelity?
Financial infidelity is the act of intentionally keeping secrets from your partner about money. It includes things such as hiding debt, making large, undisclosed purchases, or keeping accounts, credit cards or investments secret (2).
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Signs of financial infidelity include unexplained charges on accounts and getting calls from collections when you are up-to-date on your bills.
Financial infidelity can have a serious impact on a relationship, as it is a breach of trust, and it can harm the financial wellness of both people in the couple. Rebuilding broken trust in a relationship after financial infidelity can be a long and difficult path. It requires having honest conversations about exactly what occurred and committing to transparency moving forward. Relationship counselling may be necessary to address underlying mental health issues. But not every relationship with this level of betrayal can be salvaged (2).
Protecting yourself
Kate is in a very volatile situation. Her husband has broken her trust and subject her to extreme financial harm. Realistically, in the near term she likely can’t make her own money to help remedy their situation. Daycare for her one-year-old would severely eat into any income she could earn. And regardless of her field of work, it’s going to be very difficult to secure employment while pregnant.
Delony also warned Kate that in cases of financial infidelity, it’s rare for the whole story to come out at once, and that she should brace herself for more potentially horrifying revelations.
Both hosts said Kate needs to take immediate steps to get a full sense of the situation and prevent her husband from doing any more damage. She should ask him to hand over all his financial log-in information, freeze his credit (and hers), and pull credit reports on herself, her husband and even their child.
Delony pointed out that people in desperate financial straits aren’t thinking clearly and often do things they would normally never do — like take out debt on behalf of their child or spouse.
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Cruze gave Kate one urgent action item: She should immediately open her own checking account and ask her husband to deposit 50% of each paycheck into it for the time being. That could help build a baseline of financial safety for herself and her children, so that she has at least some money she can access when needed and that he can’t touch.
Read More: Dave Ramsey says this 7-step plan ‘works every single time’ to kill debt, get rich in America — and that ‘anyone’ can do it
Figuring out next steps
Recovering from a major financial infidelity could include attending relationship counselling and making conversations about finances a regular priority. For the partner who has been deceived, becoming involved in the finances on an everyday basis can provide both peace of mind and protection against future indiscretions.
However, infidelity does cause the dissolution of some marriages, and if Kate chooses to go that route, she has a tough road ahead on her own with two small children. It’s going to be especially hard if her husband is eventually found guilty of financial crimes.
One thing Kate should know is that Indiana is a common-law state when it comes to marital property. That means her husband’s debt is not hers to pay. Debts are only shared in common between spouses if they are used to fund purchases that benefit both partners, like a shared home (3).
Divorce law in Indiana, like all states, starts from the presumption that an equal division of property is fair. But depending on the circumstances, a court may rule that a different division is appropriate, especially if one spouse mismanaged financial assets (4).
Kate knows she will be spending time in law offices over the next while, as her husband intends to file for bankruptcy. However, she could start thinking about seeking the services of a different type of lawyer — like a divorce lawyer who specializes in complicated financial circumstances. These are sometimes called property division lawyers. She is going to need help to navigate this mess.
Article Sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines.
The Ramsey Show Highlights (1); Psychology Today (2); Nolo (3); Vanessa Lopez Law (4)
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Rebecca Payne has more than a decade of experience editing and producing both local and national daily newspapers. She's worked on the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, Metro, Canada's National Observer, the Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press.
