Is My Husband Getting Screwed Over by His Dad?

Summary

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Podcast Summary: EntreLeadership – "Is My Husband Getting Screwed Over By His Dad?" (May 13, 2026)

Host: Dave Ramsey
Guest Caller: Amanda, Office Manager and part owner at Arrow Construction
Main Theme:
Family business dilemmas, ownership vs. employment roles, and how lack of planning and family favoritism can create toxic business dynamics. Dave Ramsey offers practical, sometimes blunt, advice on restructuring family-owned businesses and resolving emotional conflicts.

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Episode Overview

On this episode, Dave Ramsey fields a call from Amanda, the office manager and part owner of Arrow Construction, who is struggling with fairness and dysfunction in her family-run business. Amanda’s husband partnered with his father to start the business, but an uneven ownership split, family favoritism, and unclear succession plans are causing strain. Dave breaks down the core issues and provides actionable (and candid) strategies for resolving them, highlighting real-world lessons for anyone navigating a family business.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Background & Family Business Structure

• Amanda and her husband helped start Arrow Construction with her father-in-law, running now with ~40 employees and $1.8M revenue in year two.
• Initial ownership: Dad has 51%, son (Amanda’s husband) has 49%. The son put up all the $100,000 in startup funds.
  • Quote [02:00]:
    • Dave: “You allowed a 51:49 [split] when you put up all the money...I wouldn’t have done the 51:49.”
• Sibling, Amanda’s sister-in-law, works one day a week and is considered for ownership, despite minimal involvement.

2. Original Agreement and Its Complications

• The family previously agreed that after three years, ownership would be split in thirds, with the sister joining as an owner only if her husband (Amanda’s brother-in-law) came to work for the business. He’s since moved away and is unlikely to participate.
• The agreement didn’t account for this shift, leaving Amanda and her husband unsure whether to stick to the original plan (granting one-third ownership regardless of involvement) or revisit terms.
  • Quote [06:00]:
    • Dave: “You did not begin with the end in mind.”

3. Advice on Ownership vs. Employment

• Dave urges separating ownership from employment:
  • Owners get profits.
  • Employees get paid market rates for their roles, regardless of family.
  • Family members can be owners without working in the business, but working members must earn their pay.
  • Quote [08:20]:
    • Dave: “If you separate ownership from employment in your mind, it clears up a lot of this stuff.”

4. Negotiating a New Deal

• Since the brother-in-law isn’t joining, Dave says it’s time to renegotiate.
• Use the leverage of possibly walking away, especially if Amanda and her husband are emotionally drained.
• Dave stresses the need for a clear estate plan mapping out what happens when parents pass away.
  • Quote [13:14]:
    • Dave: “You need to renegotiate this. It needs to include the estate plan as well.”

5. Addressing Resentment and Emotional Toll

• Dave calls out the family’s lack of fairness head-on, sensing Amanda’s hurt and urging honesty within the couple.
• He suggests Amanda and her husband might be better off leaving after recouping their investment, especially if happiness seems unreachable in the current family dynamic.
  • Quote [14:55]:
    • Dave: “It might be okay to collect your money and leave…and just go, ‘dad, it’s good, we don’t want to be in this family business and no harm done.’”

6. Lessons on Family Dynamics in Business

• Dysfunction in a family will show up in the business; one cannot expect a business to be more functional than the underlying family.
• Planning and boundaries are crucial when family and business mix.
  • Quote [21:46]:
    • Dave: “No family business is more functional than the family. Dysfunctional family, business will be dysfunctional.”

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On the initial agreement:
  • [02:00] - Dave: “You allowed a 51:49 when you put up all the money… I wouldn’t have done the 51:49.”
• On the importance of separating roles:
  • [08:20] - Dave: “If you separate ownership from employment in your mind, it clears up a lot of this stuff.”
• On daughter-in-law’s honesty:
  • [14:20] - Dave: “You have a lot of resentment. I think your husband needs to hear that from his wife.”
• On emotional costs:
  • [17:31] - Dave: “This doesn’t sound like a dream to me. It sounds like a nightmare the way it’s unfolding because nobody’s happy.”
• On functional families and businesses:
  • [21:46] - Dave: “No family business is more functional than the family. Family’s dysfunctional, family business will be dysfunctional.”

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Segment Timestamps

• 00:07–03:00: Amanda explains the company’s origin, ownership, and her role.
• 03:00–06:00: Discussion on the sister’s involvement and favoritism.
• 06:00–10:27: Dave breaks down the agreement flaws; Venn diagram of family/business roles.
• 11:41–13:55: Advice on renegotiation and estate planning.
• 14:20–17:31: Confronting resentment and emotional wellbeing; possibility of leaving.
• 17:31–End: Recap and actionable lessons for other family businesses.

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Actionable Takeaways

• Begin with the end in mind: Always establish clear agreements and succession/estate plans before starting a family business.
• Separate ownership and employment: Family members working in the business should be paid market rates, and profit sharing should be based on ownership, not who’s present.
• Don’t ignore family dynamics: The health of your family directly impacts the health of your business.
• Don’t be afraid to walk away: If the emotional or financial cost outweighs the benefits, consider recouping your investment and exiting.
• Renegotiate agreements as circumstances change: When original terms cannot be met (such as an intended owner not joining), be proactive in establishing new ones.

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Tone & Style

Dave Ramsey is blunt, practical, and sometimes no-nonsense. He mixes tangible business advice with hard truths about family dynamics and emotional health. He uses humor and metaphors freely, making complex ideas accessible.

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This episode is both a cautionary tale and a practical guide for anyone involved in—or considering—a family-owned business, emphasizing the need for clear agreements, healthy boundaries, and emotional honesty.

Transcript

[A]

From the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is Entree leadership. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host with over 30 years of experience leading in the trenches right alongside you. If you have a question you want to ask on the show, click the link in the description. We'd love to have you. Amanda is with us in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Hi, Amanda. How are you doing?

[B]

Good. How are you?

[A]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[B]

So I am with the Arrow Construction Company. I'm the office manager, I guess, part owner. My husband is part owner. It's in a partnership, I guess. I do bookkeeping. All that, all the work. HR, all in one person. We have about 40 employees and we ran about 1.8 million in revenue last year.

[A]

Okay, good.

[B]

So. And that's only our second year in business. So. So my question for you is I want an outside opinion that's not got any emotions tied to it. This is a family business and I'm bringing in another sibling that doesn't carry any of the financial risk or much of the workload. And I can give you a little backstory of.

[A]

I'm sorry, you just opened it. How is it a family business already?

[B]

So. No, it was a family business to begin with. My husband was the money man and he went with his father and his father ran the business.

[A]

So your husband put up the money to start the business for his dad.

[B]

Correct? Yes.

[A]

How long ago?

[B]

It's been two years. Oh, this? Yeah.

[A]

Okay, so your husband put up the money with it and he and his dad started a business.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

Okay. Now what was the arrangement between them on ownership?

[B]

Okay, so dad is 51 and son

[A]

is 49, but son put up all the money.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

Okay. Does your husband work also in the business?

[B]

He does it as. It's complicated. He works his 9 to 5. He will be coming over to the business full time this year, but he's more or less just done.

[A]

So he just put up money and got 49 and his dad was running a business and he was the money partner. Okay. That's how it started, right?

[B]

Correct. And then I am the wife of. So I'm the daughter in law and I. Correct. Yes. I ran the office.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So what. What it is, is there's backstory is there's a lot of favoritism in the family that leans toward the other sibling. And I kind of was the one that exposed that when I come along. And my husband always thought that that was the norm, that everybody was like that the girl was always favorite and just because he was the boy. And so I've kind of always just been the one that was kind of the grinder of the gears because I was like, that's not normal. You don't get treated like that just because you're a girl. So keep that in mind. Whenever my husband, whenever they started to do the business, my father in law was, went through all the other, other avenues to try to get the money for himself and it wouldn't, it didn't work out. And my, we knew that this was, this was before we found you. So we've been doing your, your, your principles for about a year, me and my husband. I were on baby step three. So I'm sorry, I'm a little nervous.

[A]

Okay. But the sister is wanting to come to work there?

[B]

No, not necessarily. She already is here as an employee and she works one day a week.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And I don't mean this, and this is why I want an outside opinion. It's not a lot of, she's not very competent in that area and it's kind of been thrown on her just because her parents want her involved.

[A]

And why do they want her involved?

[B]

Because they say this is, they, they, they say this is one whole family business. It's never me and my son. It's always, this is the family business. And whenever my husband approached his dad about, you know, here, I could give you the money to front this and, and we'll do, we'll do 50. 50 is what the original agreement was. And then his dad come back and said, no, it has to be 5,149. So we agreed to that. Or my husband and he agreed to that. But in three years it would go to thirds. To thirds. And his sister would be brought in once our money was all paid back.

[A]

Okay, has your money been paid back?

[B]

It's, it's been on track. We have another year and a half.

[A]

Okay, so it looks like you're gonna get, looks like you're gonna get your money back on schedule.

[B]

Yes, yes, 100%. So all that's clear. But in the agreement it said that the thirds would be put into place if and when her husband worked for the business as well. Okay, here's the sticky part. They recently moved away and left for another calling in life. He took a leadership role at a church and he has another job. However, we don't know how to approach the situation. Do we let it go when the three years is up and still let it go to thirds even though they're not here and they're not really super involved or do. Because that Was what was said or do we offer her some kind of

[A]

file when the parents die?

[B]

That's not been discussed.

[A]

Okay. All right.

[B]

We don't know how to approach that. I want it. I want to do the right thing and I don't want emotions tied to it because it's not. There's not way more.

[A]

You guys are horrible at planning.

[B]

Yeah. I don't disagree.

[A]

I mean, you did not begin with the end in mind and you allowed a 51:49 when you put up all the money. How much money did you all put up?

[B]

100,000.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Wow. All right. Yeah.

[A]

And I was a gold makes the rules, so I wouldn't have done the 5139. And you have to lay it out now then to back up and say one possible way to solve this and your emotions as well is, is I think you've convoluted and this agreement is part of the problem. But I think you guys, the whole bunch has convoluted working there with ownership. So some of the famous family business writings are by a professor in Minnesota named John Ward. He's kind of the father of this stuff. Back in the 50s, he wrote this stuff and he did a Venn diagram. You know the three circles overlapp. You know what that is?

[B]

Yes, sir.

[A]

Okay. And one of the circles is family. One of the circles is owner, and one of the circles is employee. Okay. And they all three intersect. So you could be all three of those at this moment. The only one that is all three of those is your father in law. He's the only one that's an employee that works there every day and is an owner and is in the family. You are an employee and are in the family, but you are not an owner. Your husband is not an employee yet, but is a family member and is an owner. You follow me? Okay. And so if you separate that stuff, you could have owners that share in the profits equally that don't work there. But if you're doing that, the people that work there need to be paid market rate for the job they're doing. And so your office manager, HR of a $2 million company, you need to be paid for doing that, not profits. You need to be paid for your job. Little sister in law needs to be paid for working one day a week poorly. Okay? That's all she gets paid right now. Dad gets paid for being the president and the CEO and the founder and that works there every day. Your husband does not get paid. He doesn't work there except as an owner on Profit distributions. And so you cannot work there. So your sister in law, your father in law, your husband could own thirds and she could work one day a week and your husband could never work there. And that would work just fine as long as you were paid for what you're doing, she's paid for what she's doing. And then what's left over after everybody gets paid is profits. And the profits are split three ways. If there's three owners. If you separate ownership from employment in your mind, it clears up a lot of this stuff. Okay, now then you get back to the emotions of do I want to own a business with her with all this backstory and family dysfunction. And the answer is no, I don't 100%. And that's not an emotional thing. It's just she's really not interested, he's just interested in giving her some money. And so if she wants to go be a pastor's wife and move away three towns over and not work there at all, and you guys as a family decide that we're gonna allow that and change the agreement that was made, then they could get one third of the profits and sit over there and never show up at the office. And as an owner, they're a stockholder. So if you own stock in Home Depot, you get the benefits of owning stock without working at Home Depot. That's what I'm talking about. Okay, so it's very possible you could just change the agreement and say dad wants her to have a third. And can I ask this? But what I would do personally is I would just renegotiate the deal.

[C]

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[B]

Okay, let me ask you this. If we did or if she's brought in as owner, is it, should it be required that she should have some money to put in since.

[A]

No, you guys can decide to give somebody a third of the business.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

The next generation. Two of Ramsey's own one third of Ramsey each and I own 1% still. I own the only voting stock and none of them put in any money at all. And one of them doesn't work here and two of them do and they get paid for what they do working here and they get paid some percentage of profits, not a third. Cause we don't distribute it that way here. But anyway, so what I would do in this situation is if I'm going to stay in this mess, I don't want her in the building. She's only there to collect the third. It's the only reason she's there. Right. I would rather her go be a pastor's wife and get out of the way.

[B]

We have tried that. We've tried that and it's new.

[A]

So if she got to keep her third, would she leave? Yeah, sure. Because the only reason she's over there, she wants that third. So if dad wants to give her a third, that's fine. I'm not sure I'm going to negotiate that deal though. So. Okay, if brother in law is not going to work there, then the deal we made is over. So we have to negotiate a new deal. So what could the new deal be? It could be anything we want to dream up. Okay. And it could be that everybody gets a third and if your husband's working there, he gets the other third when your parents die. I don't want to end up at the end of the story. So number one, first thing I want to do is I want to renegotiate the deal because brother in law is not coming, so the other deal is not being done. And so we have to come up with a new plan and so we renegotiate. Number two, part of the renegotiation is we have to have an estate plan that when mom and dad die, we accept that. We accept that episode as well.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

What happens to their portion when they die as a part of the renegotiation? That has to be decided ahead of time. Okay, I'm not sure listening to you. You're Ever going to work there and be happy. You have a lot of resentment.

[B]

Yeah. I don't disagree. That's why I called to get an outside opinion. Yeah.

[A]

You've been hurt by the, by the lack of fairness in your mind. And it may be true. I think it might be true. But your perception of this is your family has been treated unfairly and you resent that. And you have to walk in every day and work for the guy that did that. That's very hard.

[B]

Very hard.

[A]

Yeah. So I think your husband needs to hear that from his wife.

[B]

He feels the same way.

[A]

Okay. It might be okay to collect your money and leave. Eighteen months from now, you get paid out and your husband, you guys gave 100,000, you got your 100,000 back and you leave and just go, dad, it's good. We don't, we don't want to be in this family business and no harm done. That'd be okay. And if he wants to give everybody a third when he dies or something, you know, we'll talk about it. But I really don't want to be an equal voting with whatever we want to name sister in law, you know, I mean, but because this thing has been pulled together and forced upon people, the players, none of the players are getting out of this what they want except the old man. And he feels like he's doing something good for the family, but in the meantime, he left muddy boot prints all over their living room.

[B]

Yeah. And it was addressed. I. And it, it would. Shouldn't have been for me, but it was addressed about the favoritism and, and they admitted it. They admitted that they have give her more attention and, and it doesn't make it right.

[A]

I would, I would never bring that up again.

[B]

Yes, sir.

[A]

I don't think that's, I don't think that's going to be helpful for your family.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I think you just have to accept that that's there and it's kind of becomes a joke and it's just, oh, well, whatever. But you've got to set your life up in such a way where that stuff doesn't matter much and it may be that you take this whole thing off the table. As a matter of fact, if you and your husband sit down, talk about it, and you emotionally are ready to walk away, that changes the tone of the renegotiation. At a minimum, you can say we're either going to get these three things out of this renegotiation negotiation or we're leaving. And we really probably should just leave.

[B]

He's talked about that. He's talked about, like, going and talking with his dad about when she comes in, if he could, since they're not here, you know, can we make it to where I buy her out and I offer her something since she's not involved, or do I just let it go? Because I'll be honest with you, I mean, my husband doesn't want out. This is his dream is to be an in, own his own business and do this.

[A]

No, he could own his own business. He just doesn't have to do it with this bunch.

[B]

I guess he just has to start over.

[A]

This doesn't sound like a dream to me. It sounds like a nightmare the way it's unfolding because nobody's happy. You know, you. You guys are not getting from this what you want. And I don't think the price you're paying emotionally is worth the. The juice that you're getting out of this. I know it's not. So, anyway, so let's, let's recap then on that. So I want to renegotiate in the context of I'm willing to walk away and you guys need to talk seriously of if you got everything you wanted, would you still want to come to work there every day? You might not. Or maybe he goes to work there because he loves it and you go work somewhere else. Yeah, because you're burnt on both ends. I mean, it comes through in your voice, and that's not wrong. It's just there's a lot of hurt here. And to get through that's going to require you guys to spend a lot of time on relationships. So the healthiest thing might be for you to not work there anymore at a minimum. And if he goes to work there, that's fine and that. But. But you need to renegotiate this. It needs to include the estate plan as well. And we need to separate what you get paid for. You get paid for ownership based on your percentage of profits after the people that work there get paid market rate for working there and being an employee, even if they're family members. So you work one day a week, you get paid for one day a week and so on. So, hey, thanks for the call. I'll give you a 10% chance that this works out where you're happy if you stay in this, because I don't think all the people are going to move this around enough that you feel that. That you feel right about it. Okay, so what happened there? If you're a family business and you're listening to this. What's your takeaway? What's going on? Well, first thing is you have to separate ownership, the splitting of profits from the roles inside the business. The roles inside the business, you get paid for what you do. Rachel Cruz is my daughter. She gets paid on the same schedule of commissions and royalties on books and speaking percentages and everything else that Dr. John Deloney, who's not a family member and another Ramsey personality gets paid. She gets paid the exact same. Now, she doesn't make the same money because sometimes she sells more or less books or more or less speaking gigs. Right? But they get paid the same percentages. So she's paid like any other Ramsey personality. My son, Daniel Ramsey is the president of the company, and he gets paid to be the president of a $300 million business. What's that worth? That's what he's paid. Okay? My daughter Denise does not work here. She runs our family foundation, and she gets paid by the family foundation to run the family foundation. Each of the three of them are owners, and they get a percentage of the profits for being an owner, whether they work here or not. So Denise gets the same amount on that that Rachel, and Daniel gets exactly the same because they own the same percentages. Okay? So that's how that works. The second lesson that you need to take away from something like this is begin with the end in mind. Dr. Stephen Covey talks about that or talked about that. And that means that you need to say, okay, the end is when the old man dies. What's going to happen? That's the estate plan. Okay, so there are four stages then to this business of theirs. There's the entry point with the money. And are we going to be okay with 4,951? Don't recommend that ever. Okay? I'm not putting up the money. And someone else has control. Not a chance. Okay? I put up the money. I got control. If it's 51, 49, I'm the 51. If I put up the money, you work for me, by God, I'm the guy with the money. You didn't have the money to do it, so all you had was an idea. Everybody's got a dadgum idea, okay? So, no, but you got to negotiate that stage and then you go, okay, then what's going to happen then? If you sign up for when brother in law comes, that's what you signed up for. Shut up. That's what you signed up for when the deal started, that's what you signed up for. And he didn't come so that's what he signed up for. He got called by the Lord to go be a pastor. Cool. He didn't come. You get nothing. That's the deal we signed. You don't want to do that. Well, I guess the judge is going to have to tell you we're going to do that, because that's what the deal says. You don't get to just change this. You can give away some of your percentages if you want, but you can't just divvy up my third. I own 49%. That's the deal. He didn't come. I still own 49%. That's the starting point for the renegotiation here. Lastly, no family business is more functional than the family. Family's dysfunctional family business will be dysfunctional. Whatever weaknesses there are in the Ramsey family will show up in the Ramsey family business. Whatever strengths there are in dealing with and mediating conflict will show up in the Ramsey family business. Strengths and weaknesses are all going to show up just exactly that. So you can't take a bunch of crazy people and have a functional business. So if your family's crazier than a bean and you go in business with them and you think that it's going to be anything but crazier in a bean, you're going to have crazier in a bean. I hope you sell beans, because you're going to have a lot of them. That's what you're getting into. So you're not going to be more functional than your family is. That's how this works. And so in Amanda's case, they've got this weird thing where they treat the little girl like a princess and like she walks on clouds and the little boy's got mud under his nails or whatever it is. I don't know what's going on. But they're treating her unequally among the two children. And that dysfunction now shows up in a stinking partnership agreement. Well, no kidding. Of course it did. So this is what you can expect. So if your brother has always been treated the best because he was the golden child, and you want to go in business with the family, expect your brother to always be treated best because he's always been the golden child. Don't expect the family to suddenly change its stripes. It's who they is. And you just gotta go, that's what's going on. That's what we're walking into. Or you gotta talk about it ahead of time and go, look, you guys have always treated her a Little different. We're not doing that in this business. In this business, here's the numbers and here's how it's going down and nobody gets any sidekicks or side bets or nothing else. This is what's going on. Or we're not going to be involved. And you cut that deal on the front end and then you go, okay, I do. I want to be in business with her and her pastor husband when the old man dies. And you decide that up front before you start the business. And that's what you're getting into here. So, yeah, this is two guys who, a guy who had a little extra money and he always wanted to do something with his dad and they went and did it and they didn't think it through. And then all this other stuff shows up and she's in there running day to day ops. So she's seeing every bit of it and she's getting, getting hurt and hurt and hurt and hurt and hurt. And that, that this is how this thing goes down. So, you know, you've got to back up and say, this is how it, this is what we're going to do. So, work ethic. We have one brother that doesn't work much. He smokes pot. So we'll put him in shipping, right? No, you wouldn't hire him because he doesn't work much and he smokes pot. He doesn't need to be on a forklift. Hello. You know, I mean, drug test, you know, so no, he doesn't get a job at all. Just because he's family doesn't mean we overlook his drug use. So. Well, somebody's got to give him a shot. I hope it's us. No, you don't. No, you don't. You have to separate these things and go. You have to pull your weight in your role in order to get paid like any other team member or you get what's known as fired. And that's how this works. So those are your takeaways from that call. If you're a family business person, something to think about. So if you enjoyed today's episode, be sure and like, share and subscribe for more real world leadership content. I'm your host, Dave Ramsey and this is Entree Leadership.