A Colorado woman who called The Ramsey Show said she and her partner are pregnant, deep in debt and still paying each other’s bills while both remain legally tied to former spouses. Rachel Cruze and John Delony told Grace to stop the financial overlap immediately and to start living as separate households on paper, even if they share a roof.
Grace said she and her partner decided last summer to combine their finances. By the time of the call, she said she was newly pregnant, living paycheck to paycheck, and carrying a combined $5,700 a month in after-tax income against $91,000 in debt. Her own income is about $48,000 a year and is commission-based, with a $2,500 monthly baseline that can rise to $4,000 or more when sales are strong.
Delony told her the couple had crossed into a setup that left them exposed. “You are roommates financially,” he said, pushing her to budget only from her own income and to stop covering his bills as well as her own. Cruze gave the same advice from the other side: stop paying his bills, stop letting him pay hers, and split expenses instead of treating combined cash flow like a marriage.
The broader problem is that Grace and her partner were pooling money without the legal framework that comes with marriage. He has two children with his soon-to-be ex-wife, but he has not started the divorce because he said he cannot afford a $5,000 attorney’s retainer. Divorce lawyers often review bank accounts, utility bills, retirement accounts and income, and shared payments can become part of that scrutiny.
That is what makes the advice more than a budgeting exercise. For unmarried partners, keeping separate accounts can protect both sides if the relationship changes, while treating one another like roommates financially limits the mess if a breakup or divorce case pulls in shared records later. Delony put it plainly when discussing the cost of the divorce: “You don’t have enough money to even be helping with that.”
Grace’s call landed in the middle of the practical and the personal. She is pregnant, his divorce is stalled, and their money is already stretched thin. The fix the hosts offered was blunt: separate the finances now, or keep paying for a arrangement that has no legal protection and little margin for error.
