Podcast Episode - Ask Suze & KT Anything: Is This Financial Abuse?

Listen to Podcast Episode:

On this special episode Suze and KT review an email sent to Suze and discuss if the writer is being financially abused.

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Podcast Transcript:

00:00:33

Suze: January 19th...

00:00:37

KT: 2023!

00:00:38

Suze: 2023. Welcome everybody to the Women and Money podcast

00:00:42

KT: And everyone smart enough to listen.

00:00:44

Suze: Indeed. This is the KT

00:00:46

KT: and Suze

00:00:48

Suze: Ask us Anything podcast.

00:00:50

KT: Anything at all

00:00:51

Suze: You ask. I answer.

00:00:54

KT: I sometimes answer,

00:00:56

Suze: I know right.

00:00:58

Suze: And sometimes sometimes she actually gets it right. In fact more and more, I think this year, KT as we go on, you're going to get this more and more right. All the questions.

00:01:14

KT: Speaking of quizzies, I see you have something in front of you.

00:01:17

Suze: Yes, today, I want to do something different.

00:01:21

Suze: And I'm going to ask KT her quizzie question up front and in fact it is the only question that I really want us to ponder today

00:01:36

Suze: because it is a topic that affects one out of four women in the United States. It is a massive, massive problem and I believe from the bottom my heart it is not addressed enough in public. So we're going to start by me asking KT the quizzie question.

00:01:59

Suze: And when I ask KT a quizzie question, it is also a question for all of you. How would you answer this question that I'm about to ask KT?

00:02:14

Suze: Are you ready Miss Travis?

00:02:15

KT: I'm ready!  

00:02:16

Suze: All right. Hey Suze, I love love love your podcast And tell everyone, I know that they should listen. I've recently learned of this podcast and I am listening from the beginning trying to catch up. I am okay, financially.

00:02:33

Suze: I own my own home and have a ROTH 401(k) through my job, you might want to take out your Suze notebook everybody and write down that this person has her own home? Her ROTH 401(k) through her job. And she is working on my eight month savings. She says, my question is this I have been in a relationship for many, many years.

00:03:02

Suze: Our money is completely separate as we live separately. He has two homes. I spend every weekend at his house where he expects me to pay for half of everything there, including bills and home improvements as well as things like boat, golf cart, four wheelers etcetera

00:03:30

Suze: At the same time, although I know I haven't always made the best financial decisions, he feels like it's necessary and his right to see my credit card statements, bank statements and to tell me what I should and shouldn't spend money on. He tries to control how I spend my money.

00:03:53

Suze: I'm not supposed to spend any of it on my kids at all. And I never see any of his financial information.

00:04:03

Suze: If I didn't go to his house, I wouldn't see him. He is currently unemployed, although he calls it retired.

00:04:14

Suze: He is under 50. He has money in the bank, much more than me, but he has no retirement plan whatsoever.

00:04:24

Suze: I spend roughly $6,000 a year on his house. He does not contribute to any of my bills at all. So basically I pay mine, but I'm expected to pay half of everything at his house. I do love him.

00:04:46

Suze: But I do not like him.

00:04:48

KT: Oh boy...

00:04:49

Suze: Here is the question everybody: Is this financial abuse? All right. Have you all thought about it?

00:04:59

KT: Yeah, I've really thought about it.

00:05:01

Suze: All right. Let me hear what your answer.

00:05:03

KT: It didn't take too long to come up with a conclusion when someone says they love him but don't like him

00:05:12

KT: and Suze. We... I don't know his side of the story and you know, I'm a big believer about takes two to tango. But the whole point is that it sounds like he's a control freak, but I wonder if his controlling

00:05:27

KT: is to really help her stay on track because she did admit in her letter in her email to you that she hasn't been that good in the past with her finances.

00:05:39

Suze: She said that she hasn't always made the best decisions, right? But

00:05:43

Suze: that doesn't mean that she's not making them now. But KT, she has a retirement account. She's working on eight month of security saying

00:05:51

KT: she has a job

00:05:52

Suze: and she owns her home.

00:05:54

KT: She's spending 104 nights a year in his house and pays about $60 a night.

00:06:01

Suze: But that's only because because obviously she said other things, I shortened it,

00:06:06

Suze: he wouldn't come and stay at her house, they wouldn't be together if she didn't go there.

00:06:11

KT: Sounds very controlling. I think it's definitely abusive in a controlling

00:06:18

Suze: it here is the

00:06:19

KT: diplomatic

00:06:20

Suze: here is the question is he financially abusive or is she

00:06:28

Suze: allowing herself and in her own way abusing herself because she is staying in a relationship

00:06:38

Suze: with

00:06:38

Suze: somebody she loves but doesn't like this is very important. What I've just said. It's very easy to blame our situation on somebody else.

00:06:50

Suze: It's a whole other thing when you recognize what is happening here

00:06:57

Suze: and it doesn't matter the label that you put on something

00:07:03

Suze: right? So it's easy to blame somebody else. But you have got to take responsibility for staying in a relationship or staying in a situation

00:07:17

Suze: where you yourself are questioning abuse no matter where it's coming from because sometimes we have what I call self abuse. We allow it to go on, we have self disrespect for ourselves because we allow ourselves to stay in a relationship that we should have gotten out so long ago. It's not even funny.

00:07:40

Suze: So then the question becomes why do we stay in a relationship

00:07:48

Suze: when this has been going on for a long time and this person is questioning it. You know I always have a saying,  you never ask a question like this that you already don't know the answer to

00:08:04

KT: Everything you said sets the stage for absolute abuse. But I think it's self abuse and I think that he also is a very controlling

00:08:14

KT: abusive man but I think it's this is if you want my opinion. Honestly

00:08:21

KT: it's

00:08:21

KT: on her, she needs to to wake up smell the coffee and say listen sweetheart, I really love you but I don't want to spend the weekend here. Let's go to a hotel and split it. She's got to try some things to see if she has any power whatsoever or if he really loves her, what's he willing to do for her? And

00:08:41

KT: she sounds like she's really tired of the routine and it's his way or the highway. So guess what girlfriend? It's time for you to leave, drive off the highway, go to an open road and get out of dodge because she's allowing herself to go through a routine and ritual of

00:09:03

KT: abuse. But she's allowing it and she she has, she's smart. And the thing is she ended it with, I love him but I don't like him. Why would you ever want to stay with anyone? You don't

00:09:17

KT: like

00:09:18

KT: I like Suze so much, everybody.

00:09:21

KT: we not, we not only love each other but we really like being together. We like everything. We do. We like things about each other. There's very few things we don't like about each other. We we like each other. We're very compatible.

00:09:37

Suze: Are you sure I feel that way? No just joking with you.

00:09:40

KT: Oh, I am sure.

00:09:42

Suze: KT, how many times have I said to you? It's so easy to say I love you. It's so easy to say, I love you. See you later. Love you, bye. But the most important part of any relationship have I've not said isn't love

00:10:00

KT: It's liking.  

00:10:01

Suze: It's liking each other because it is our nature, especially when you're a woman.

00:10:08

Suze: It is your nature to nurture.

00:10:11

Suze: It's just our nature to do so. You have the ability to give birth. In most cases, you have the ability to feed that which you have given birth to. It is your nature to nurture. And you nurture everybody else in your life before you nurture yourself. You know, this was the reason everybody, I wrote the book Women and Money, which is what this podcast is named after.

00:10:41

Suze: Because women, all of us need to learn how to give to ourselves as much as we give of ourselves. And there is nothing more important in life

00:10:54

Suze: as Mika of Morning Joe would say, which is to know your value, to know your value, but not your value to others, know your value to yourself. Because in the end, what's very fascinating about getting older, KT, you and I talk about this all the time is

00:11:23

Suze: in the end, you kind of do end up all alone.

00:11:28

Suze: In many, many cases, like one of our greatest fears in life is please don't take KT without also taking me, don't leave one of us. God, you know, if you're gonna take one of us take both of us because I don't know. And I've said this to many people who have lost their spouses, who they've loved more than life itself.

00:11:53

Suze: You know, I don't know how you go through that, it's not easy, I do know that in time because I've seen it, people get through it, their hearts heal.

00:12:05

KT: You don't have a choice.

00:12:05

Suze: You don't have a choice.

00:12:07

Suze: But...

00:12:08

Suze: many, many people in the end we kind of end up alone, KT, Are you afraid of ever being alone?

00:12:15

KT: No,

00:12:16

Suze: Why?

00:12:17

KT: I told you something different about me. I don't ever know or have experienced alone. Tell everybody this is an interesting phenomenon and and I'm curious if it is not just me, but other twins

00:12:34

KT: when you're born into this world with another person, whether you love each other, you don't like each other, whether you're best friends, not friends, you're born with another person. And in most cases you grow up in those very early stages and years of life through adolescence through teenage until you're you know, out and about on your own path. You grow up with a best friend with another person

00:13:01

KT: and being an identical twin. My sister and I have gone through every life phase together. So I don't know, I've never went to school on the first day of school, scared to be alone and make friends. I never went on my first date alone. I was on a double date with my

00:13:22

KT: twin, which is interesting.

00:13:24

Suze: I have a question to ask you.

00:13:26

Suze: Tomorrow you get a call

00:13:29

Suze: and you're told,

00:13:31

KT: oh don't don't even say it, then I would be devastated.

00:13:34

Suze: Alright. So in the end it is possible that your sister could pre decease you and if that happens

00:13:45

Suze: one of you, whether it's you or her most likely will end up alone. Are you not afraid of that?

00:13:52

KT: Yeah, I'm afraid of that.

00:13:54

Suze: But you just said you're never afraid of that

00:13:56

KT: Because I don't know what that feeling is until I've actually experienced it for the first time.

00:14:02

Suze: What's interesting, everybody is that I feel like I've spent almost my entire life alone.

00:14:09

Suze: I do. It's I love my mother, I love my father. But they were struggling always so much for money and struggling with my father's health and my brothers were much older than me and there I was and I just have always haven't I, KT,

00:14:28

Suze: I'm

00:14:29

Suze: a loner. And even to this day, you may not know this about me,

00:14:33

Suze: but I'm.. still

00:14:35

KT: She's still a loner. Like, Suze gets total joy

00:14:40

KT: out of sitting in the same place the whole day long without moving sometimes. Well, of course she's doing, you know, she's on her phone or she's listening to something or reading or you know, she's just not sitting and doing nothing, but she isn't moving and she's often alone.

00:15:01

KT: Now we're on this big old island with only very few people and you know, I am very busy and I have a million chores and projects and things that I do. But Suze, for the most part is sitting in the same place and I always fight where I leave her? I find her? I always say, are you okay? I shout out from my garden. Suze, are you okay? Do you need anything, nope. I'm good, KT and she's by herself. Very happy

00:15:30

Suze: The first time that I feel like in my life, KT, that I ever truly experienced love and now I know what we're off the topic of financial abuse but we will come back there the first time in my life

00:15:43

Suze: that I felt like I had true love

00:15:47

Suze: from a person was from you, KT.  

00:15:52

KT: Me too!

00:15:52

Suze: You know, I've had so much love for God and spiritual teachers and things like that.

00:15:56

KT: And friends...  

00:15:57

Suze: Yes, friends but on a personal every day level. And the truth of the matter is since KT and I met almost now 22 years ago, we never really

00:16:09

Suze: for more than a day or two or three at most maybe left each other's sides. So we're constantly together.

00:16:17

KT: Yeah, we work, eat, sleep, live love, we're together all the time. We're at 24/7

00:16:23

Suze: and we still we

00:16:24

KT: like it and we like it though.

00:16:26

Suze: And then there we come back to:

00:16:30

Suze: Love is not as important as like because I know many many couples that love each other deeply. No way could they be together 24 hours, 12 hours five

00:16:45

Suze: hours a day. No way. And you can't count sleeping together at night because you're sleeping!

00:16:52

KT: Read that last sentence one more time.

00:16:54

Suze: I do love him, but I do not like him.

00:16:57

KT: Alright. What does that tell you?

00:16:59

Suze: Here's what it tells us

00:17:01

Suze: when

00:17:01

Suze: we hear an email like this, It's very easy to pass judgment on somebody else. It's easy to say this person's an abuser, this whatever. And there are many abusers out there,

00:17:18

Suze: but we don't have to, in most cases take their abuse, we don't have

00:17:27

Suze: to.

00:17:28

Suze: And so for those of you

00:17:31

Suze: that find yourself in a situation where you're asking this question. And again, remember I started this podcast by saying one out of four women in the United States are in a financially abusive relationship.

00:17:52

Suze: And what that means is that you're in a relationship with somebody who is controlling the money, controlling your actions, controlling who you can see controlling what you spend your money on controlling when you get a paycheck that you have to give it to him or her. They are

00:18:11

Suze: absolutely controlling your life in every possible way. And financial abuse eventually leads just so you know, to emotional, psychological and physical abuse. It becomes very, very dangerous. So therefore in this particular situation, I don't really care about this person that she's in a relationship with,

00:18:39

Suze: I care about her and I cared about her enough to actually respond to her many, many times personally.

00:18:49

Suze: And the end of our communication was

00:18:54

Suze: after I've asked her many other questions

00:18:58

Suze: was this: Get out and get out now and I can only hope that she cared about herself enough

00:19:09

Suze: that she simply said she has her own house. He has two, they don't live together. I hope she cared about herself enough to say, you know what, I'm not spending weekends with you anymore. In fact, I'm not spending any time with you any more.

00:19:26

Suze:

So 00:19:28

Suze: if any of you are out there listening and you're just even wondering,

00:19:33

Suze: are you in a financially abusive or any type of abusive relationship, I want you to reach out to the National Domestic Violence Hotline and you can do so by going to the hotline dot org. You can also reach out and call 800-799-7233 .

00:20:02

Suze: You can also send a text that says START on it to 88788. Just do that. Because if you're even questioning it like this email, the fact that she was even questioning it

00:20:22

Suze: normally, what I would have said to her, you need to reach out to the National Domestic Violence hotline.

00:20:31

Suze: So that's was the quizzie, KT. Now are you wondering what I'm gonna do? Am I gonna? Ding Ding Ding you.

00:20:40

KT: Yeah, I think I was right.

00:20:42

Suze: Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding. And really all of you, the question that we just asked and answered

00:20:50

Suze: maybe one of the most important questions that are ever asked on the women and money podcast. However many of you who watched the videos on the women and money app showing us loading up the airplane getting

00:21:11

Suze: on the airplane, having the airplane land on a really tiny strip. Getting off the airplane, getting in my golf cart to drive us home, driving up the driveway and seeing the chickens, you have so many questions. So in the time remaining, KT,

00:21:32

Suze: let's answer some of those questions for people. Right,

00:21:35

KT: Okay. So the first big question is Suze, do you own this island? Can I answer this?

00:21:41

Suze: Of course.

00:21:41

KT: Everybody know we don't own this little island, but we are part owners with a number of other members that live here as well. There's, and just F. Y. I, I love trivia. There's 700 islands that make up the Bahama coral reef chain and only about 30 of them are inhabited.

00:22:01

KT: So this is one, but I would say that at any given time there's only maybe a couple dozen people on this

00:22:09

Suze: island also. Just so you know, we are residents of Florida of the United States, but we spend

00:22:18

Suze: the majority of our time here in the Bahamas. So in our hearts, this is our home and where we live. Next question, KT, what was it?

00:22:29

KT: Okay, so we drove up the driveway and in the video, if you go on the app and take a look at show Suze saying hello to all our chickens, we have these little like yardbirds I call them. These chickens that not only were born on this property, but they continue to expanding the family.

00:22:48

KT: So the little chickens came up and people said, well why don't you eat the eggs, especially Suze since the price of eggs now for organic eggs is like $10

00:22:58

Suze: On the podcast that I did last Sunday. I told them how you freaked at $10 a dozen.

00:23:03

KT: So why don't you eat the chicken?

00:23:05

KT: Why don't you eat the eggs? So these are more like pets? And some of our neighbors. Actually, we have Peruvian neighbors that do collect at least two eggs every morning from their chicken.

00:23:17

Suze: And there are many, many workers on this island

00:23:21

Suze: that are from the Bahamas and Haiti and the Dominican Republic. They actually do eat the chickens,

00:23:30

Suze: but

00:23:31

Suze: they know they are not to touch any of our chickens at all. They're like our little pets. So

00:23:38

Suze: we don't care about their eggs. We care about them having babies and us raised there.

00:23:43

KT: So you see Suze on the plane that's packed with provisions. I mean, we probably had hundreds of pounds of weight of provisions.

00:23:52

KT: And what you do is you clear customs, you have to actually bring receipts for anything you've purchased to bring on the island and you pay duty on it. So you bring provisions when you need to about every two months, we bring a plane, a whole cargo plane full

00:24:10

KT: of provisions. And these things are usually what we cannot purchase on the island like any kind of medical supplies. Or if we have,

00:24:20

Suze: Well, the truth of the matter is there is a little market on this market

00:24:25

KT: but

00:24:26

Suze: they are so expensive. Truthfully it's not even funny. So we bring everything ourselves. I just have to say something else. Somebody questioned

00:24:38

Suze: you have customs on this tiny little island. Oh you

00:24:41

Suze: bet we

00:24:42

Suze: do. There are customs agents that are stationed here full time.

00:24:48

KT: Okay. So Suze, a lot of people wanted to know about the jacket that you had on.

00:24:52

Suze: I love that jacket.

00:24:53

KT: That is one of its like a sweater jacket and she bought that. Can I tell them that is from a market, an open air market

00:25:01

KT: and a gypsy actually made that

00:25:04

Suze: in Spain. We were in Spain,

00:25:06

KT: we were on the camino and

00:25:08

Suze: we were in Santiago Spain

00:25:10

KT: and it was

00:25:11

Suze: Like $50. It was maybe even less than that

00:25:13

KT: less than that. But it's one of her favorite favorite pieces of all times.

00:25:18

Suze: And the last time I got to wear it because it's been so hot was when I went to see Oprah in

00:25:26

Suze: remember that and Oprah to my surprise, calls me on stage and I had that jacket on. I love that next question, KT!

00:25:36

KT: Okay. And then some people are asking so KT, where is your garden? I did not show you the garden which we had just built because we are ready. We're preparing now for spring planting. So it's completely empty.

00:25:51

KT: All it is is a massive space...

00:25:54

Suze: She pulled every plant before we went to Florida.

00:26:00

KT: And now I'm preparing it for spring planting which will take place probably in about six weeks.

00:26:06

Suze: Also people asked that it said it looked like I was driving on the sidewalk. Well we don't have sidewalks on the island.

00:26:14

KT: But we drive on the

00:26:16

KT: British side of the road.

00:26:17

Suze: Yeah, we drive on the British side of the road. However, we don't have any sidewalks. So yeah, I'm driving on this little tiny thing that's like a sidewalk.

00:26:29

KT: It's our road. But we, we only have golf carts. It's not like you have lanes and pain

00:26:34

Suze: we have like and

00:26:34

KT: you drive on the opposite

00:26:36

Suze: And there is one van that comes to the plane to load all of your stuff that

00:26:41

Suze: you brought and brings it back in that if you look at all the videos, that's Juice, who unloads the planes.

00:26:48

KT: His name is Justin But everyone calls him Juice. We don't know why, but he's really big and strong and he takes all of these provisions back to our home Colo unloads everything. We color code where the different bags go the garage, Suze's room.

00:27:08

Suze: Those are a few of the answers to your questions. But I hope you had fun and you liked seeing a little bit of our life

00:27:20

KT: a little slice of life

00:27:20

Suze: yes, slice of life. Alright,

00:27:22

Suze: what do you want to say, KT, anything,

00:27:25

KT: What are you doing Sunday?

00:27:26

Suze: Sunday,

00:27:28

KT: She has a look

00:27:30

Suze: Sunday. Listen everybody what's really important is that you all tune in this Sunday. We have two surprises for you, one that I'm just so touched to be able to even say happened

00:27:47

Suze: and the other is something all of you have needed to know how to do and you didn't know how to do it, but very shortly. Oh you will so tune in,

00:28:01

KT: listen up.

00:28:02

Suze: But there's one other thing that you need to know and it is this today, wherever we go, we

00:28:11

KT: will create

00:28:12

Suze: a peaceful,

00:28:14

KT: joyful

00:28:15

Suze: and loving world. Now. You stay safe and secure. Bye bye

00:28:22

KT: bye. Everybody see you Sunday.

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