@Anonymous wrote:
While I believe finances are a huge part of a relationship in general I don't think anyone wants to be told by a boyfriend or how to spend the money they earned. My opinion is unless you plan on merging your money don't worry about how anyone spend their cash.
Though I do appreciate and respect your opinion, I offer the analogy of an addict who spends all of their money on drugs. Would you not try to help this person cease their drug habit and save their money?
My girlfriend still lives at home and has been all through the last 5 years she's been working at a dental office. In that time, she has amassed zero savings (other than the tax refund she just got, which I'm sure will get spent) and she eventually wants to go to dental school (expensive). I look at trying to get her to save on interest as helping her learn to save her money for decades down the line when it comes to retirement. Even if she doesn't get her finances in order with me, I feel that if I could help her understand the importance of not paying interest and saving her money, that equates to less burden on taxpayers as a whole when fifty years from now she retires. Otherwise, she would be relying heavily on the system to support her, which of course will come from taxpayer funds.
Starting Scores (lender pull 3/27/10): 759 (EQ), 752 (TU), 749 (EX)
I never thought that financial issues could really create an end to a relationship but I was recently proved wrong! I got married 3 years ago and quickly learned that my wife came with alot of debt and credit issues. I couldn't really judge because while I had less debt, my credit was pretty miserable ( about 7k in student loans and 5k in delinquent ignored charge offs with a credit score around 450.) Shortly after we got married, I realized I needed to grow up and manage my finances. I quickly paid off all delinquent debt and brought my credit scores to a 610 within 6 months of it. I got my first credit cards in years (Amex Zync, Navy Fed Cash Back 7.5k, and Military Star 2.5k.) I now have credit scores around 660 (not great but on my way) and no real debt other than student loans which i have been on time on for over 2 years now. Througout this time I was talking to my wife about what we could do to repair her credit and get her out of debt. I am not the ideal saver but I work at it. She, on the other hand, was constantly asking for money because she would run out before her next pay day (we made roughly the same income totaling 75k) and I simply caved. She consistantly made poor financial decisions even when she said she understood what I was trying to teach her and planned to change and take care of things. She never did. I enabled this behavior because I was financially stable enough to provide vacations and cars and other luxuries that she could not contribute to. In the end, I found out 4 weeks ago she was having an affair. I am in Afghanistan and can't even file for divorce yet. She said she had become unhappy in our marriage because I put such a pressure on her in the financial realm (realistically I offered to even take over fixing her credit and all finances.) She said she felt like she was not an equal and I didn't treat her as one when it came to that stuff. Needless to say, it has lead to us getting divorced and I never thought me trying to fix everything would. C'est la vie! In short, simply being the one who is willing and able to handle finances can cause a relationship to fail when the other can not do the same.
I feel for ya bvick. This may read harsh but do whatever I takes to separate financials now.
@bvick27 wrote:I never thought that financial issues could really create an end to a relationship but I was recently proved wrong! I got married 3 years ago and quickly learned that my wife came with alot of debt and credit issues. I couldn't really judge because while I had less debt, my credit was pretty miserable ( about 7k in student loans and 5k in delinquent ignored charge offs with a credit score around 450.) Shortly after we got married, I realized I needed to grow up and manage my finances. I quickly paid off all delinquent debt and brought my credit scores to a 610 within 6 months of it. I got my first credit cards in years (Amex Zync, Navy Fed Cash Back 7.5k, and Military Star 2.5k.) I now have credit scores around 660 (not great but on my way) and no real debt other than student loans which i have been on time on for over 2 years now. Througout this time I was talking to my wife about what we could do to repair her credit and get her out of debt. I am not the ideal saver but I work at it. She, on the other hand, was constantly asking for money because she would run out before her next pay day (we made roughly the same income totaling 75k) and I simply caved. She consistantly made poor financial decisions even when she said she understood what I was trying to teach her and planned to change and take care of things. She never did. I enabled this behavior because I was financially stable enough to provide vacations and cars and other luxuries that she could not contribute to. In the end, I found out 4 weeks ago she was having an affair. I am in Afghanistan and can't even file for divorce yet. She said she had become unhappy in our marriage because I put such a pressure on her in the financial realm (realistically I offered to even take over fixing her credit and all finances.) She said she felt like she was not an equal and I didn't treat her as one when it came to that stuff. Needless to say, it has lead to us getting divorced and I never thought me trying to fix everything would. C'est la vie! In short, simply being the one who is willing and able to handle finances can cause a relationship to fail when the other can not do the same.
Her issues are bigger than the financial. She's just using that as an easy blame and to put the responsibility on you. You don't have to buy into it. I'm not saying you had zero responsibility for the way this came about, but financial immaturity is a sign of immaturity in other areas of your life and decision making too. It took me more years of bad experience on my own than I care to admit to learn this. Hence my siggy line.
