This 25-year-old woman and her 32-year-old fiancé have been dating for six years, and they met back when she was 18.
All along, she thought her fiancé had his life together, as they lived in a home he purchased, and he spoiled her with incredible vacations that easily cost $5,000 to $6,000 each. He also recently bought her a $300 necklace.
It’s easy to see why she thought her man was rolling in the dough. He worked as a bartender and tried to start a real estate venture, but that didn’t pan out for him.
They went on to purchase a second home entirely in her name, as her fiancé had a business deal go south, so he claimed debt relief. She thought he was only around $30,000 in the hole for the bad deal.
They have a counselor they’ve been seeing together, and this counselor has been pushing them to work towards pooling their finances and being transparent about their money. However, her fiancé still never told her the whole story about his financial situation.
In the last couple of weeks, they unfortunately both lost their jobs, so she finally told her fiancé he needed to be honest with her about what kind of money he has or doesn’t have.
As if things couldn’t be more stressful, her fiancé admitted to her that he’s over $50,000 in credit card debt, which she still can’t begin to believe.
He spent $10,000 on her engagement ring, and he just purchased a brand-new car, so she doesn’t understand how he allowed himself to get into so much debt.
She is in debt herself due to some home renovations, which cost a couple of thousand dollars, and surgery, for which she owes $6,000.
MeganMahoneyPhotos – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
She has always made enough money to pay down her debt while being able to save for a rainy day.
Her fiancé is seven years older than she is, yet he’s not making more than the minimum payments, so he will never be able to bail himself out.
Given their age gap, she’s seriously worried. She thinks he should absolutely be so established in his career at this rate that he should be able to do better than she is financially, not worse.
“His own parents went bankrupt a few times in their life, and his dad spent his entire trust fund before he even got to college, and it ruined his family,” she said.
“His dad never really had a career, drive, or ambition. I worry that he did not see certain behaviors growing up and is soft and inexperienced with real life.”
“They sheltered him for as long as possible. Well, his mom did at least, paying his rent and giving him money until he was like 25/26. We are just very different.”
She’s been on her own since turning 17, and her parents were never there to help her out. She’s had to work exceptionally hard to get to where she is right now.
Also, she was raised in a family where her dad did everything possible to provide for her mom so her mom could focus on raising her and her brother.
She really wants to be able to live that same life, but she won’t be able to do that saddled with her fiancé’s level of debt.
“Is breaking off the engagement and telling him to move back into his home with roommates until he can fix his debts a mature response to this?” she wondered.
“I was hoping to get married and have a certain standard of living, be able to travel often, and have a home worth over $800k-1.5 mil to raise my kids in. I am hurt and starting to think the life I thought we might have won’t happen.”
Do you think she should stay by his side and help him figure out how to get out of debt, or should she remove herself from his life and wait to see if he can do this on his own?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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