Help! New wife has crippling debt.
Throw away for hopefully obvious reasons. I just got married yesterday, and last night my wife drops the bomb on me that she has $160k in debt between school, judgements, cars and credit cards.
I have 120k in investments and 30k in savings. She's pressing really hard that it's “our” money now and she's expecting me to withdraw everything and put it towards her debt, per Dave Ramsey who she's been apparently following for years.
Not gonna lie, had I known this I wouldn't have even thought marriage to be an option. How should I approach this? We're filing with the court later today if that makes a difference. Admittedly, I was incredibly pissed when she told me last night and we haven't talked since then.
Edits
News was broken, she left in a firestorm. Broke a lot of things on the way out, and was telling me things like she plans to sue me for wasting her time and pain and suffering 😂 it's shitty, but onto the next I guess. Thanks to everyone for giving me advise on this!
alright, I'm not going to file with the court. I'm gonna break the news and I'll keep you guys posted! Thanks for the help!
Lots of questions asking why we didn't discuss finances before getting married. We did discuss them a year ago when I first proposed, and she told me she was debt-free.
lots of questions about her judgements. I don't know what they're for, but there's 4 of them totaling 55k
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There's absolutely no reason to combine finances in current year. Either formalise the s*x for money arrangement or leave his bank account alone.
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If you're serious about being married for life and everything being one pot it makes perfect sense. But it only works if everyone is on the same page, honest about debt and goals, and with similar spending styles. If you don't match with those you're asking for a world of hurt even with separate accounts.
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Keep your own bank accounts and split the bills as you go is probably the best solution. Being serious about being married for life doesn't compute since you have no idea how you'll feel about the person going into the future.
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If you have no idea how you'll feel about the person going into the future why the frick would you marry them at all?
Do none of you sad fricks believe in love?
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well yeah marriage doesn't make much sense in current year, and historically is more about security than it is about emotion
you can believe in love while still being realistic about relationships and their tendency to end
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That works until life happens and one of you is out of the workforce for awhile. Say she doesn't work for several years to raise the kids, or he has a health emergency and is out of a job for an extended period. Then you both are just going to end up pulling from the same pot anyway. Honestly it's just easier to merge. But, to each their own. Like I was saying, the truly important thing is being on the save page regarding debt, saving, and spending.
We will have to agree to disagree about the wisdom of entering into marriage as a lifetime commitment.
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