Real Answers for Life’s Money Challenges
My boyfriend of two-ish years lives with me in my apartment.
We cohabitate very well, but were looking to move out of state together at some point.
The problem is, he has debt from credit cards from many years ago and owes the IRS taxes.
He always brushes it off like its a joke when I ask him about it.
How do I get him to take this seriously?
Money is a huge part of the equation.
But its easy to ignore just how important it is when youre in the early stages of living together.
If you were sharing your apartment with a roommate, you probably wouldnt care much about their finances.
Your mutual financial goals would be limited to paying rent and the electric bill on time.
But its different when you move in with a romantic partner.
Youre not just sharing a living space.
Youre sharing your lives.
The truth is, being in a relationship with someone whose finances are a disaster is exhausting.
Your money has to do twice the work when only one of you is concerned about money.
Every raise you get feels like half a raise.
you could reach a savings goal, yet youll feel like you only made it halfway.
The issue isnt so much about who contributes what.
But the problem here is that youre taking on the weight of worrying about money for two people.
Probably not as good as youd like.
It always seems like an uphill battle to build (and keep) a decent amount in savings.
But what if your car breaks down, or you have a sudden medical bill?
Ask one of these companies to help…
Unfortunately, I dont know of any surefire way to get your boyfriend to start taking his debt seriously.
But what it’s possible for you to do is show him that youre taking it seriously.
Id be careful not to frame this in terms of his poor financial decisions, though.
I dont know how your boyfriend wound up in this mess.
Really, the reasons for your boyfriends debt dont matter, though.
His past poor decisions arent what will spell doom for your relationship.
The real problem is that hes continuing to make poor decisions.
Building a future together will be impossible as long as he treats his debt like a joke.
Do you think your boyfriend knows what he needs to do and is simply putting it off?
Or do you think he has no clue what to do?
Did you know?
Pulling yourfree credit reportsat AnnualCreditReport.com can be a good starting point.
These are his problems, though.
it’s possible for you to offer to help him get on the right track.
But he needs to be the one to fix them.
Building a future with someone isnt worth it if the weight of it rests entirely on your shoulders.
Robin Hartill is a certified financial planner and a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder.
Send your tricky money questions to[email protected].
(Can you sense my millennial sarcasm there?)
You know which ones were talking about: rent, utilities, cell phone bill, insurance, groceries…
