I am about 3 months away from being able to pay the final bill of my 6-figure divorce debt. For those who don�t know my story: my ex ran up my credit cards behind my back and committed many other acts of �financial infidelity� that devastated me. 4 years ago I didn�t know HOW I was going to pay these debts off but with a little discipline and a LOT of saying NO I am approaching the end.

Since I�m military and also have a side business I make much more than most men I�ve dated, and even guys who make decent money often also "divorce broke" so I haven�t judged them for not having their financial act together. But now that I'm about to pay off this debt I'm REALLY noticing a change in my mindset about men and money.

I�ve been seeing for about 10 months now a man who has significant divorce debt of his own. He has a plan to pay the debts off but internally I feel like he could be doing more to pay them off faster. I am a busy bee at heart and I�m trying not to judge him for being less aggressive in this area. While we get 15 hours UA time he still spends a significant portion of each night and weekend on the couch watching TV. This wouldn�t bother me if he weren�t in debt. I feel like he should (yes, I know this is a DJ) be spending some of that time earning extra money so that he can get out of debt and possibly save up for a ring or a down payment on a house.

He mentioned the other day how if things continue he can really see us getting married. That would be great except I don�t want to be married to his ex�s debt and I feel incredibly shallow for thinking this (so haven�t told him). The other problem is, he has always been �the man� in our relationship and has no idea of how much money I actually make. As I pondered the possibility of marriage I realized I didn�t WANT him knowing how much I made. I realized I would be the type of woman who changes my automatic deductions and hides her pay statement from her man so that she would never fall into the trap again of letting a man become a freeloader and spend all of her paycheck.

If you can�t be honest with someone, you shouldn�t consider marrying them, right? He is a very trustworthy man and has given me no indication he would �turn into my ex.� So I need to deal with this.

Have any of you (or someone you know) recovered from a huge financial blow from a previous spouse? How did you (or they) let go?

Full stop.


Radical Honesty.

If you aren't practicing it now, you aren't ready. If he's marriage-minded, he needs to know this.


Fish or cut bait.

You're bringing old baggage into this and already making plans to be deceitful.

If you don't want to be this way, don't be. It's that simple. If he's financially stable and whittling away at his debt, then it is disrespectful to think he should be working more.

You are not even close to being marriage material.

You recover from financial infidelity like all other adultery with a plan.

1) in that plan is radical honesty

I don't know if you remember Stella, she shared before she remarried her and her H both got their credit reports and went over them. This would be a great way to replace unknown with known information. Would something like this be honest to say?

"One of the things that I learned from my last marriage is that I feel really strongly about living below my means. This way I will have a lot of choices when it comes to retirement plans, and add a lot to my feeling of financial security.

I think there are some simple things you can do to set yourself up for financial success, too. I'd love to share some with you for you to consider, and see what appeals to you. What do you think?"

When somebody shows you who they are, believe them.

His drive to get rid of debt is not as strong as yours.

You know you have a high need for Financial Support...not in the give me money way, but the don't waste my money way. Say he had no debt. Would you be happy with his attitude toward money?

Like others say, if you were to want to marry this guy you would have to be on the same page financially. You would have to discuss your income, his debt, your debt.

I too would worry about him relying on your income to pay off his debt. Perhaps you could encourage him to read someone like Dave Ramsey to encourage him to get rid of the debt. Perhaps you could say that when he mentioned he could see you getting married, you could see that too, but only after he had retired his divorce debt, like you had. See what he has to say about that.