Some Thoughts

I've been thinking recently, what with the (what K likes to call) "quarter-life crisis" edging on me, and with a lot of my friends having babies and husbands and wives and homes and such - the biggest question I have floating over my head is the following:

What happens if I fall in love/marry someone who has mounds of debt and/or no idea how to manage the finances?

I take great pride in the fact that I have never gone into debt to acheive anything (yet) in my life. Of course, I've never owned a car or a home, and don't pay rent. Yes I know I've got it easier than some. But I also think that I have been able to manage my money well. I rely (and always have) on a 90% cash-only spending option. I enjoy spending cash more than credit or even debit.

But, what happens down the road, should I meet and marry a man who has, lets say, $50,000 in student loans. His debt becomes our debt. I don't like that thought at all. It actually makes me not want to get married! Hah.

My friend H (yes, the camera one)'s parents recently got divorced. H said that when they got married, her mom had no debt, and her dad carried about $50,000 worth of various debt - a debt that they (as a couple) carried with them until they got divorced and split the assets. H speculates that her mom felt bitter about having debt, blaming H's dad for bringing the debt into the family.

I would imagine that it's tough, for the debt-free spouse to accept (all of a sudden!) a huge debt load into their lives. I agree when people say that you must, must must must! talk about money before getting married. What do they say? That most marriages break up because of money problems.

The scary thing is, that I forsee many of my friends (some married, some unmarried, all my age range - around 23) having money problems in their marriages. I base this purely on how they handle money now - most of them think that their money problems will go away when they make more money...

What I'd really like to do is pick them up and shake them around a bit. But here in Canada we call that "aggravated assault" and given my line of work, I don't think a Criminal Record will help me at all. Hah.