Fiancé Debt

[hotpepper]

I have a really big problem that I hope I can get some advice on.

I'm supposed to get married in a few months, but I just found out that my fiancée has about $30,000 in debt that I didn't know about until just now. We have been going out for over three years and he just springs it on me now.

He was very apologetic when he told me about it and told me that he wanted to tell me for a long time but was afraid. I feel that I have been deceived all this time and I'm not sure exactly what I should do. I'm not sure if I can trust him anymore as I feel I have been betrayed in a way. Am I wrong for feeling this way?

He says that all the debt came from when he was in college and that he has just had trouble paying it off, but I'm not sure if that is true or not. I am really hesitant to get into a marriage where we are already $30,000 in the hole and none of it is for me.

I have talked to a number of my friends and they tell me that if I love him it shouldn't matter. I do love him, but I still am hesitant to take on that much debt which will become mine when I had nothing to do with it. I thought about telling him that I won't marry him until he pays off that debt himself, but my friends say that that's not the way someone who loves somebody else would act. Am I being totally unreasonable feeling that it's not my responsibility to pay off his debt even though we are planning to get married?

All this is made the wedding all that more stressful and I'm not sure what I should do.

[Frugal]

I also had debt around my wedding time that made it stressful, but I made it through. It sounds like I cannot really offer the kind of advice you need...you might want to talk to a financial or pre-marital counselor on the specifics.

However, I can tell you that looking back, what matters most is not money. It may seem like it is a horrendous issue at the time, but sometimes you manage to get through things, and look back and realize what seemed like an insurmountable obstacle was survivable.

Oh, and I had about $15,000 in school loans remaining when we got married last year, and my husband had basically no revolving debt that was not paid off in full each month. Some kinds of debt like student loan are manageable. It just depends upon the type. It was hard for us to think about paying it off, but I had no choice to take it out, as my parents could not help me like some could, and I had to graduate.

Hope that helps a bit...

[jpg7n16]

I would kinda come at this like so: reverse the situation. Imagine that you had $30k of debt built up, and were very ashamed of how poorly you'd done financially, and loved him a lot and didn't want him to think bad of you for your poor poor financial management.

But it comes time, where you can't really hide it any longer - so you told him about it. How would you hope he treated the situation? Whatever you wish he would do for you, that's what you should do for him.


I mean your reaction is kind of his worst fears about this all. He probably hasn't told you because he was afraid you'd think he was a failure and leave him.


Practically, if I had a fiance and she sprung this on me, I'd go through pre-marital counseling, and either see a financial planner or go through a personal finance course together. (Something like Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University) I'd prefer going through the course.

Cause I'd love her, but I'd want to make sure there weren't any other major things she was hiding, so the marriage couseling would hopefully help her feel that she could be open with me about it all. And then I'd want to make sure that we were doing something about the debt together. Taking the course would help us get on the same page with where to go from here.

When you marry someone, you take them faults and all. At least you wouldn't be under the delusion that he's perfect. Everyone has faults. Everyone's made mistakes. It's not your responsibility yet, but if you get married it will be. I believe that when two people get married, they become as one. Everything that's yours is his, and everything that's his is yours. For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer.

[disneysteve]

I think you are asking several different questions.

1. There is nothing wrong, or at all unusual, about one or both partners entering a marriage with debt that was incurred prior to getting together. When my wife and I got married, I had $102,000 in student loans. She had a car loan and might still have had a school loan (I don't recall now).

2. Once you say "I do" and you are married, all money is joint and all debt is joint no matter who incurred it. You then have to have a plan together to get it paid off.

3. Debt is not what should determine whether or not you marry someone. Trust, honesty, openness and willingness to work together toward common goals are all factors that should enter into your decision, though. You need to sit down with him and explain how you feel. Tell him that you feel deceived by him springing this on you at the last minute. He may not have withheld it with bad intent but rather out of embarrassment. The question is what else has he withheld or what else would he withhold in the future? You both need to feel that you can be totally open and honest with each other or this relationship is destined to have problems.

4. Also sit down and open your books. Show him all of your personal finances - all accounts, all loans, all credit cards and a copy of your credit report and score. And he needs to show all the same to you. Have you talked about life goals at all? Kids, house, travel, cars, etc.? How about money management? Who will pay the bills? Who will oversee the investments? Do you share common thoughts about how to handle your finances? Does one of you think everything should be joint while the other wants to keep things separate? These are things that couples need to talk about early on, way before a wedding date is set.

[cooliemae]

I had no clue about the $30,000 in student loans my wife had when started dating. I will admit I was shocked at the amount mainly because I made it through college debt free. We manage the debt and it wasn't a big deal in relation to making the decision to spend the rest of our lives together and raise a family. Of course, you didn't mention what kind of debt he has.

I agree with jpg7n16 in putting yourself in his shoes.

[GREENBACK]

How has his behavior been in the years you've been together? Has he seemed somewhat frugal or is he a spending like there's no problem? If he seems frugal it may be just embarassment over debt, if he's a wild free spender there could be future issues.

Having debt is one thing but not addressing it is a whole nother matter.

[hotpepper]

I think the thing that bothers me most about this is that I see it as a trust issue. I'm not so mad that he has the debt is that he hid it from me and didn't trust to tell me about it. I know I have other trust issues so I think this is magnified.

The other thing is that it has crashed my ideal of a perfect day. Everything up to this point had been going so well and then this comes out of the blue. The thing that scares me the most is that I'm starting to doubt the marriage. I just really feel violated by the whole thing.

I don't know if I'm right or wrong, but because he hid it from me I feel that he should be the one who has to pay it all off. If he had been honest I would've been more than willing to work with him together as a team to do it, but since he decided to hide it, I feel that he now owns it. Does that make any sense? It's just a really tough thing for me to get my mind around and I'm still not sure what I should do.

[disneysteve]

I don't know if I'm right or wrong, but because he hid it from me I feel that he should be the one who has to pay it all off. If he had been honest I would've been more than willing to work with him together as a team to do it, but since he decided to hide it, I feel that he now owns it. Does that make any sense?

I understand you being upset and feeling misled, but as I said before, once you are married, it doesn't matter. The debt is no longer just his. It then becomes joint debt. You have to work together as a team to handle it. You can't have two separate budgets - one for him and one for you. You need to have one household budget that factors in everything including both of your incomes, all of your bills, all of your debts, all of your savings goals - it needs to be a joint effort going forward once you are married.

[snafu]

Only you can decide whether you trust your fiance since you hint of other trust issues. If you live in a "community property" state, there is a possibility creditors could attach your assets if husband defaults on student loans. A formal prenuptial agreement would help protect you from his detailed list of acknowledged debt.

It would be important to avoid all joint accounts until trust is restored. Use your own Social Security numbers for separate bank accounts set up so that funds can be instantly transferred as needed. Legally, his debts before marriage remain his responsibility but both credit reports are analyzed by all inquiries even though there is no merging of credit scores if you maintain separate accounts. Student loans have special circumstances which leaves you vulnerable.

I'd follow DS suggestions for full disclosure and a plan to clear the debt if you chose to move forward to marriage.

[jpg7n16]

I think the thing that bothers me most about this is that I see it as a trust issue. I'm not so mad that he has the debt is that he hid it from me and didn't trust to tell me about it. I know I have other trust issues so I think this is magnified.

The other thing is that it has crashed my ideal of a perfect day. Everything up to this point had been going so well and then this comes out of the blue. The thing that scares me the most is that I'm starting to doubt the marriage. I just really feel violated by the whole thing.

So would you leave him if I gave you $30,000 cash?

Really, just how important is that money to you?

Or if it's truly just about the trust issue - if he had hidden only $1500 of debt would you feel the same way? Same shame, same reluctance to tell you, same 'lack of trust' - just a lot less money involved. Would that change things? If so, why?


FWIW - I don't think there was any lack of trust on his part, really. I think it was more just an overwhelming feeling of shame for letting his debt get that out of hand.

When would have been a good time to bring it up?

Obv he trusts you now, since he told you before the wedding. I've heard of people who didn't discover the debt until after the marriage.

I don't know if I'm right or wrong, but because he hid it from me I feel that he should be the one who has to pay it all off.

I agree. He should pay it off by writing checks from your joint checking account. (see what I'm getting at?)

What difference does it make if he pays them, or you both pay them? Either way, your family will not have the $30k needed to get rid of the debt.

In marriage, what's yours is his, and what's his is yours. It'd help if you quit thinking of 'his' and 'mine' and started thinking in terms of 'ours.' Our home. Our cars. Our income. Our expenses. Our assets. Our debts. Our future.

[jimmyrules712]

The other thing is that it has crashed my ideal of a perfect day. Everything up to this point had been going so well and then this comes out of the blue. The thing that scares me the most is that I'm starting to doubt the marriage. I just really feel violated by the whole thing.

This isn't really a financial question for a forum like this. This is a question for a pre-marriage counselor.

I will tell you this though; I am currently engaged and my fiance and I have been going through some stuff not related to finances at all but causing similar emotions (doubt about the marriage, etc.). One of the big reasons I began doubting the marriage was I didn't believe that a good marriage would involve those kinds of problems. In fact I didn't picture a "perfect" marriage involving and big problems. We've been going through counseling and one thing I'm starting to learn that there is no such thing as a perfect marriage. Behind the curtains every marriage has big problems, the only difference between the good marriages and bad ones is in the good ones both people are willing to accept each other's imperfections and are willing to work on improving themselves. Even if this particular issue didn't exist something different would probably happen sometime soon that would cause the same fear and doubt. The sooner you accept that the sooner the feeling will go away that your marriage is doomed because of this issue. Now that still means he needs to show a willingness to learn from his mistakes and work at being better, but you also need to show him that you accept him for his issues.

I don't see any reason here to think you're marriage isn't going to work out. At worst I think you guys need to spend more time in counseling even if it means delaying the marriage, but there's certainly nothing here that needs to be a deal breaker.

[Seeker]

I think the thing that bothers me most about this is that I see it as a trust issue. I'm not so mad that he has the debt is that he hid it from me and didn't trust to tell me about it. I know I have other trust issues so I think this is magnified.

The other thing is that it has crashed my ideal of a perfect day. Everything up to this point had been going so well and then this comes out of the blue. The thing that scares me the most is that I'm starting to doubt the marriage. I just really feel violated by the whole thing.

I don't know if I'm right or wrong, but because he hid it from me I feel that he should be the one who has to pay it all off. If he had been honest I would've been more than willing to work with him together as a team to do it, but since he decided to hide it, I feel that he now owns it. Does that make any sense? It's just a really tough thing for me to get my mind around and I'm still not sure what I should do.

How did he "hide" it from you?

Did you both sit down and talk about #4 in DisneySteve's post?

That is very important, because you need to know whether or not he will handle the money thing correctly and you will trust him to do so, or if you will need to do so and whether or not he's okay with that?

A marriage is a partnership. The dollar side of that partnership means a lot to you -- and it obviously does to him too (he is/was embarrassed).

Everyone has pros and cons to them, the determining factor to your marriage will be whether or not the two of you can work together on the financial aspects of the partnership as well as all the other aspects of living with another and sharing both the positives and the negatives to life.

Also, if "he" pays it all off himself, then you as a family are also already paying it off as well. When you're in a partnership, whatever he does affects you, whatever you do affects him. So "separateness" is an illusion for the most part.

[Pansori]

I have to admit, if my SO sprang this on me at the last minute I would feel very much the same way as the OP. It would bring up trust issues for me. I would try to be open minded about it, but I think I would be really hurt that he didn't trust... or feel comfortable enough with me.... to say something earlier.