I'm not sure your opinion makes mathematical sense. I mean, let's say all things stagnant -- Thirty years of $500k salary plus $400k debt VS thirty years of $150k salary. Seems like a no brainer to take on the $400k debt. |
I never understand this suggestion. What would it say? And why would the person that it negatively affects agree to sign it? |
Um, I would happily pay off my DH's deb again so I could be married to him and not see him struggle. Paying off a spouse's debt should be between the partners. Not mandated by DCUM. |
Different poster, but my husband and I considered my engagement ring a major joint purchase similar to a car. The exact ring and when I received it was a surprise, but the budget was not. We agreed on the maximum amount and I contributed an amount proportional to my income to our joint account. I made 4x what he did at the time so I essentially bought my own ring. Some may say that’s not romantic, but it feels strange to me to enter into a lifelong commitment by one person making a unilateral financial decision. |
Who said mostly? |
OP never said they have separate finances or that daughter would be using premarital assets to pay this off. |
This should be between the wife and husband. I didn’t read the whole thread. Is the daughter bothered by this or the mom? I would be against taking an inheritance to pay off spouse’s student loans but if it is joint marital income, it is fine. We have doctor friends who met in med school and got married. The husband graduated med school with no debt and the wife graduated with a lot of debt. She had an expensive ivy college and med school and hundreds of thousands of debt. They had a baby shortly after she finished residency and she stayed home for a few years. I can’t remember if she got pregnant during residency. I remember Dh telling me the husband saying he doesn’t know how she is going to pay off her loans. He clearly didn’t think it was his job to pay off his wife’s college and med school debt. He seemed fine supporting her and their child financially but not paying off her loans. She eventually went back to work and is a practicing physician. |
OP never said it explicitly but couples with joint finances wouldn’t complain about paying the debt like OP’s daughter does. |
Until the debtor has paid off the loans, not really. The risk is that you're the sucker who helped debtor pay off their loans, then they leave you, and then their new girlfriend or wife enjoys the joint income that, it turns out, is hardly "joint"; after all, you're not the one licensed to perform surgery. |
OP, come back and answer the key question: what does it mean pressuring to pay ??
Is it that she uses pre-marital assets to pay a lump sum towards his debts? If so, that doesn't seem right. Is it that they have a joint budget and share expenses 50-50 including the recurring debt payments? That seems fair if she is planning to benefit from his future salary too. How we did it: i had zero debts, a higher salary and higher career prospects. He had student debts and an NGO career. He paid his debt on his own but we contributed to the family budget proportionally to our income (ie, post debt payments he was making half of what i made so he put half of what i put in the family pot). We didn't fully merge as i kept more savings than him but at the end of the day I still helped him pay his debts. And then for the last 10K i put a lump sum and paid them off. |
There’s no “weird rant,” it was detailing why his loans are sky high. He and his family chose let him attend higher status and the most expensive private colleges for both undergrad and med school, which resulted in lots of loans. His spouse attended humble and affordable public colleges her family could afford. Now you think the wife who was fiscally responsible should bail her husband out of debt he accumulated before they even met? This is nuts. Hell no. She shouldn’t pay a dime. |
The daughter is being played. |
The debt is a pre-marital asset. Or liability, to be specific. He brought it into the marriage. If they divorce, he'll take it out. |
Is this a joke? Doctors’ earning years are substantially lower because of the length of education and training. The ones who make 500k+ start earning 10 or more years later than someone who graduated college and started working. Plus, money saved earlier compounds and grows over the years, so the person making 150k, if they didn’t squander all their earnings, already has a nice amount accumulated by the time the dr starts making money. And the medical school debt has accrued a ridiculous amount of interest during training too. Unless the doctor is a smart investor, which they often don’t have the time or interest to be, they end up worse off than people who make less. |
This^^^ People who think in terms of "him" or "her" or "me" or "them" are not functioning as a unit. If your spouse has loans, they affect your entire family finances until they are paid off. Sure should you divorce, they are still the spouses loans, but who goes into a marriage assuming "we are getting a divorce". If you are not 100% certain in you relationship, then that is a issue you should fix before marriage |