The really weird thing is that they know where a lot of their problems come from. They call themselves out for using credit cards, letting kids get $15 Whole Foods takeout, going on vacations, etc. Yet they don't seem motivated to stop doing any of those things.
I imagine a certain amount of fatalism sets in. "Well, this $15 doesn't matter when I'm $500k in the hole."
Also--and I alluded to this upthread--people have a lot of emotion around money. My dad, for instance, grew in a poor family. As a reaction, he has always refused to give up luxuries or shop for deals even when our family was closing in bankruptcy. Doing so, I think, would have been an admission that we were not rich, that he hadn't progressed far enough up the economic hierarchy for his liking. ETA: in his defense, he also wanted to give us kids everything he didn't have and for us to not have a sense that our family was struggling financially. I think feeling financially insecure as a child affected him deeply, so he tried to keep things "normal" for us kids as much as possible.
In fact, this week, he was doing mental gymnastics to justify using retirement money to buy a Mercedes (he's 76 and my mom is 64). Fortunately, he's not buying the car, and they're doing well financially these days.
Sorry, everyone. Apparently, I have a lot of feelings about this thread.