Daughter married a doctor, he’s pressuring her to pay off his student debt

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is something that should have been discussed before marriage; they are now a financial unit and need to work together -- unless she thinks he is doing this to get his loans paid off and then plans to divorce her. Did they not talk about this before the wedding?

And if she thinks that, then she should just run from the marriage now. Why wait it out?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It was debt before the marriage? She should let him take care of it himself.

In the meantime she should pay all the bills out of her income and let him focus on his debt? What's the difference? She's no better off.

They both pay their bills half-and-half, and he pays down his debt with whatever he has left.

If that’s your view of marriage, that makes sense. If your view is a team and partnership and all resources go for the good of the family then this is a violation of that agreement because there would be no separate money.

Thing about this type of relationship is that it leads to bean counting. So what if later someone sues her and gets a judgment for a million dollars or even just results in running up six figure attorney bills, is that hers is fit related to separate conduct/transactions. And what about time. That’s a relationship resource. A transactional type of relationship would t work for me but it probably does for others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like your daughter wants to have her cake and eat it too! She will get many benefits being the spouse of a doctor, but wants to balk at mutually paying down debt? Not a great start in a marriage to be so selfish.

That said, he should absolutely not be pressuring her. Spouses can and should have financial discussions, and if he's actually pressuring (rather than just happening to bring it up), that is a red flag on it's own. But the entire family benefits when debt is paid off, and that includes your daughter.

She’s not gonna get more benefits. She already makes way more money.

She’s just looking for somebody to act like an equal.

So.. whats the issue?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Doctor here. Is he still in training or does he have an attending level job yet?

How long will he be in training total after ned school?

Asking because if he winds up working in public service including at an academic hospital and if that plus his training period combined equal ten years it could all be forgiven through the PSLF program. Years in training count towards PSLF. So if he trains for even three years, which is they bare minimum (many train for 5-7 years), and works as a professor for another 3-7, then he will qualify for PSLF and paying it off of their current earnings would be the wrong decision.

The PSLF thing makes so much sense for most doctors, aside from a few very lucrative specialties that can make huge money immediately once training is done. Residency + post residency training gets you to
get you to at least 7 years of income-based repayments (on the low end!). Under the new SAVE plan, those payment will be very minimal during 4 years of residency.

Instead of jumping to private practice, making the absolute minimum income-based repayment and continuing to work as a W2 employee at a nonprofit public or teaching hospital for another 1-3 years will likely lead to a better net worth calculation if it ensure you get all your undergrad + med school loans wiped away (plus accumulated interest!). The numbers getting forgiven right now are huge.

https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/public-service-loan-forgiveness/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1665707240391923/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It was debt before the marriage? She should let him take care of it himself.

In the meantime she should pay all the bills out of her income and let him focus on his debt? What's the difference? She's no better off.

Use some critical thinking skills here. School loan payments are low, he can pay BOTH the school loans and contribute to the house hold bills too. Good grief! Having to spell this out!

No. I'm not going to ASSUme this is the case. OP has not even specified what this meant. Is she paying off a big chunck of his debt out of her savings or what? What does this even mean. If he's paying for BOTH then there is no issue. What exactly is he asking her to do? You don't have these answers do you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand the concern as the parent of a daughter who has zero debt because she chose a public education. Yet, unless finances are completely separate, the money is really coming from the same pot. If he pays directly out of his paychecks, he is depositing less into the pot. If she does, same thing. The pot belongs to both. Is she concerned about the health of the marriage?

It is very important to understand this about money. I don't know why so many are willfully overlooking this. All funds are fungible.

The alternative is some kind of absurdity. Like she has a beach house, but he can't come because he's still paying off his debt and hasn't contributed. He's driving a 1996 Camry, but she has a new BMW. She flies to Nova Scotia to see the total eclipse of the sun while he picks up more shifts. It's a sham marriage if you go this route.

Right? If he's paying off his student debt then he's not spending that money elsewhere be it for savings, contributing more to the bills, or whatever else. There is a finite amount of money and it has to be split some way. Weird that this debt just occurred to the married couple and how they planned on paying it off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is something that should have been discussed before marriage; they are now a financial unit and need to work together -- unless she thinks he is doing this to get his loans paid off and then plans to divorce her. Did they not talk about this before the wedding?

We as a family made very specific choices so she would have zero student debt. I can’t fault her, someone who’s never had student debt, for not gaming out how her future husband would deal with his student debt he racked up before they even met. Student debt is a foreign concept to our daughter. And now she’s feeling uncomfortable that he’s trying to soak her to quickly pay off his ritzy private degrees.

I assume many responses are from people my age. College costs and loans were much more manageable in the 80s and early 90s. Her husband took out a mortgage worth of debt to attend pricy colleges. His debt would be much more manageable had he gone to less expensive public universities as she did. I don’t know how married kids their age are dealing with this, but it feels unfair and almost coercive to anyone in my daughter’s shoes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand the concern as the parent of a daughter who has zero debt because she chose a public education. Yet, unless finances are completely separate, the money is really coming from the same pot. If he pays directly out of his paychecks, he is depositing less into the pot. If she does, same thing. The pot belongs to both. Is she concerned about the health of the marriage?

It is very important to understand this about money. I don't know why so many are willfully overlooking this. All funds are fungible.

The alternative is some kind of absurdity. Like she has a beach house, but he can't come because he's still paying off his debt and hasn't contributed. He's driving a 1996 Camry, but she has a new BMW. She flies to Nova Scotia to see the total eclipse of the sun while he picks up more shifts. It's a sham marriage if you go this route.

Right? If he's paying off his student debt then he's not spending that money elsewhere be it for savings, contributing more to the bills, or whatever else. There is a finite amount of money and it has to be split some way. Weird that this debt just occurred to the married couple and how they planned on paying it off.

That all makes sense. The issue is if they ever got divorced, she should get that money back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is something that should have been discussed before marriage; they are now a financial unit and need to work together -- unless she thinks he is doing this to get his loans paid off and then plans to divorce her. Did they not talk about this before the wedding?

We as a family made very specific choices so she would have zero student debt. I can’t fault her, someone who’s never had student debt, for not gaming out how her future husband would deal with his student debt he racked up before they even met. Student debt is a foreign concept to our daughter. And now she’s feeling uncomfortable that he’s trying to soak her to quickly pay off his ritzy private degrees.

I assume many responses are from people my age. College costs and loans were much more manageable in the 80s and early 90s. Her husband took out a mortgage worth of debt to attend pricy colleges. His debt would be much more manageable had he gone to less expensive public universities as she did. I don’t know how married kids their age are dealing with this, but it feels unfair and almost coercive to anyone in my daughter’s shoes.

tl;dr Daughter married a poor person. He has potential but it's going to be a while. We are not amused.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It was debt before the marriage? She should let him take care of it himself.

In the meantime she should pay all the bills out of her income and let him focus on his debt? What's the difference? She's no better off.

They both pay their bills half-and-half, and he pays down his debt with whatever he has left.

If that’s your view of marriage, that makes sense. If your view is a team and partnership and all resources go for the good of the family then this is a violation of that agreement because there would be no separate money.

Thing about this type of relationship is that it leads to bean counting. So what if later someone sues her and gets a judgment for a million dollars or even just results in running up six figure attorney bills, is that hers is fit related to separate conduct/transactions. And what about time. That’s a relationship resource. A transactional type of relationship would t work for me but it probably does for others.

your relationship is transactional… you are only married to your partner if they give you their money.

If you think a relationship is only strong if you get their money I’m not sure I care to be in a relationship with someone like you and I hope my children find partners instead of children like you to marry

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It was debt before the marriage? She should let him take care of it himself.

In the meantime she should pay all the bills out of her income and let him focus on his debt? What's the difference? She's no better off.

Use some critical thinking skills here. School loan payments are low, he can pay BOTH the school loans and contribute to the house hold bills too. Good grief! Having to spell this out!

No. I'm not going to ASSUme this is the case. OP has not even specified what this meant. Is she paying off a big chunck of his debt out of her savings or what? What does this even mean. If he's paying for BOTH then there is no issue. What exactly is he asking her to do? You don't have these answers do you?

He doesn’t wanna pay slowly he wants her to pay them off. He wants all his money, going to fun stuff instead of his loans. He wants to spend more money on himself.

[Anonymous]

Seven pages but OP has not responded to questions. Why is anyone still bothering?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seven pages but OP has not responded to questions. Why is anyone still bothering?

She did. 15:30

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does she expect to eventually share in/benefit from his peak earnings as a physician? Thought experiment: What if he declared those monies "his" and walled it off from her/the family?

Exactly. "Hey hubby, you get the debt for the training. I get half of your rapidly increasing income." Sheesh.

It’s borderline misogynistic to assume her corporate career will plateau and he’ll rapidly out earn her. Who knows what the future holds. Most doctors have normal upper middle class careers, very few become multi millionaires.

What “corporate career?” OP never said anything about a “corporate” career.

[Anonymous]

Yes. They are married. All income is joint now. Don’t get married with someone with debt if you want to avoid this. How did you miss that marriage is a financial contract?