Should I call off the wedding?

[GoodBuyGirl]

To wait until after the wedding was planned and invitations set to tell you would be a deal breaker for me.
She might as well have told you she has a penis.

[gamecock43]

She might as well have told you she has a penis. LOL...you guys are cracking me up tonight.

[chad]

I'm not sure why she delayed in telling me. We never really got into finances much. She has a job that she really enjoys, but doesn't pay a whole lot. it seems to cover the bills she has now, but it isn't really putting a dent into her student loan debt.

It doesn't seem to be a big deal to her. When I asked why she didn't say anything about it earlier, she just shrugged her shoulders and said "I don't know." When I pressed it a little more, she said it didn't seem like a big deal.

I'm not sure exactly what I feel - just that I don't feel right. And that concerns me.

[jerminix]

Men, you should first talk to each other first before you get married, that a lot of debt

[sounderella]

DH had debt before we were married....and I found out he didn't have perfect credit when we applied for our home loan. The debt I knew about, all of the collections on his credit report, I did not. It kind of came outta left field for me, but it was ok. FHA let us just pay the collections and get the loan. Soooo we just sat down together and figured out how to tackle it. Most were just medical bills.

Point of the story here....if you loved the girl enough to be marrying her you should just sit down and talk about this.

Oh yeah, did you hear about the woman who sued her fiance because he broke up with her when he found out how much debt she had? It was down here in GA. She won $150K. I might keep that in mind
Woman Wins $150,000 in Lawsuit Over Being Dumped by Fiancé | wowOwow
11Alive.com | Atlanta, GA | Woman Sues Ex-Fiancé, Wins $150K

[SnoopyCool]

DH had bad credit that I found out about a year after we were married when we applied for an apartment that checked credit. Ouch! But we worked it out and rented a house from a private party that did not check credit.

I would have been angry, angry, angry (not to mention feelings of betrayal) if he had known about this before and had not told me. I can't tell you how to feel, but examine all of your feelings before you make a decision. This may just be the surface, or it may be it.

[cschin4]

earlier, she just shrugged her shoulders and said "I don't know."

I think you should believe what she is telling her. The truth to her is that it is no big deal and probably to her and everyone she knows probably has massive student loan debt. I really think you are going down the wrong path to make assumptions that she is being "deceitful", or "hiding the truth" or that "there are probably other bad things, etc". In her mind, it just doesn't register as a problem and therefore she probably only thinks about it when the payment comes do, sends off the payment and doesn't worry about it.
And, trying to force other people to fit into our mold is wrong as well. Some people really just take very little interest at all in finances and just don't care to worry about it unless they are having a problem. That does not make them bad people, just different. And, in many relationships, there is one who takes more of an active role in the financial planning.
But you do have to ask yourself why your reaction was to call off the wedding versus, we will just buckle down together and get this thing paid.

[Like2Plan]

Chad,

I heard this quote on Randy Pausch's Last Lecture on Youtube: "When an elephant is the room, you should introduce it."
I don't think it is too late for each of you to pull a credit report and have a discussion on financial matters. You could have a frank discussion on financial priorities and how you each feel about debt.
Once you have figured out how much the total debt is (yours and hers), you can figure out a plan of attack as to how you are going to pay it off.

If you go through with the wedding, you are going to have to go through the above steps eventually, it might be good to go in with your eyes wide open.

Getting married is a big step. Even though the invitations have been sent, you can postpone the wedding to give yourself some more time. ( Although, I think a lot of times a postponement eventually turns into a cancellation. )

[PrincessPerky]

IMO better to postpone than divorce later..but do consider no one will be exactly like you..so have a talk.

[cptacek]

To wait until after the wedding was planned and invitations set to tell you would be a deal breaker for me.
She might as well have told you she has a penis.

Awesome! I'm still laughing!

[FrugalFish]

You've gotta sit down and seriously talk about it...

Better lose face in calling off the wedding then to get married with a lifetime of debts...

Well said and ditto.

If this isn't a deal breaker for you, it would be an excellent idea to go ahead and pull credit reports as others have suggested already. If $90K wasn't a big deal, then how many other, smaller debts has she neglected to mention? Go in with your eyes wide open.

The fact that this is eating at you is probably telling you a lot.

[solo]

At the very least, postpone the wedding until all debts are paid off. Once you get a mortgage, the 90k debt + wedding expenses will overwhelm you both.

[DebbieL]

I'd also be a bit concerned that someone went 90K into debt then did NOTHING with the degree. Makes no sense to me. Especially if she's working a fairly low paid job. I'm a logical person, and this kind of move is just not sensible to me. I'd also be worried that someone considers 90K in student loan debt no big deal worth bringing up. See, this isn't just about the debt, but her mindset in general. I've never understood people who either get useless, expensive degrees or get degrees that could be useful and then don't use them.

[Seeker]

I'd also be a bit concerned that someone went 90K into debt then did NOTHING with the degree. Makes no sense to me. Especially if she's working a fairly low paid job. I'm a logical person, and this kind of move is just not sensible to me. I'd also be worried that someone considers 90K in student loan debt no big deal worth bringing up. See, this isn't just about the debt, but her mindset in general. I've never understood people who either get useless, expensive degrees or get degrees that could be useful and then don't use them.

Unfortunately, when we go to school and are asked to choose a "degree" or a field of study, often we're really not wise enough to know just exactly what we'd like to do for a career the rest of our earning lives. And sometimes things just do not work out in our field of study and/or the jobs are just not there or we find something we thouroughly enjoy and it just had nothing to do with the degree that we earned at college.

These two people sound like they just have not really talked out anything of significance. What what are their future goals? Do they want to raise a family? Own a house? You can only move forward at all time... no matter what has happened in the past... the future is the only thing anyone has to look forward to.

Unfortunately the younger people of today, do start their futures in great debt. And circumstances of jobs, health, and earning potential just don't always mesh.

If these two people do go on with the marriage, they should also consider that if life throws them a curve, they may even lose more. What if one of them loses work entirely? What if one of them loses their health. Nothing is permanent; nothing is guaranteed.

The title of the post is a worrisome one. When bad things happen, if the first reaction is to "run," what kind of future is that? Marriage is "teamwork".... because of love, honor and respect. These attributes go beyond $'s, but all these attributes rely on communication. Without communication and compromise ... there will be no future. At least not as a team.

[DebbieL]

I don't personally feel that someone who has 90K in student loan debt has the luxury of deciding they don't want to use that degree and then working in a low paying field. Once the debt is gone - fine, do what makes you "happy". I'm not exactly thrilled at my day to day job, but it pays the bills, gives me savings, and I can still go to school on the side.

PS - I think that huge debt may be a good reason to "run". Money troubles are the #1 cause of divorce. If they are very different in their styles and thinking about money, there will be many problems in their future. I personally wouldn't want to take on somebody with that kind of debt that wasn't working productively to attack it (or working to their full earning potential).