Should a Certain Amount of Debt Prevent A Person from Marrying? How Should It Be Handled?

In terms of marriage, not that I married but watching others marry and both having to find somewhere to live and then finance a home I think realistically the couple would have to sacrifice something, often couples do NOT have weddings or a honeymoon or year off work to get to know each other they are both working. If they are working TOGETHER in the same jobs then ok but if they are apart and have totally separate jobs I dont think thats ideal for the marriage if their work schedules clash or they never get to see each other. surviving on one income is very tight as well but I think a lot of wives, especially when they become mums start their own homebased businesses.

But I have seen a lot of mothers have to give up well paying jobs or jobs they liked so they could be mothers otherwise they would have to pay childcare on top and that doesnt work out often. Though you can have a ceetain number of hours free childcare, its not ideal as childcare and preschools are often understaffed and you never get the bonding you would for under 5s that is essential for their development of having a mother or caregiver there ALL the time. Unfortunately many men dont seem to think they can give up THEIR jobs for their childrens sake and be hands on dads.

I have seen marriages implode when the dads decide they just cant handle being a dad or the mums who just dont want to be mums. and the children suffer.

The bible says that any man that doesnt look after their own household is worse than an infidel. I dont know what it says about women who abandon their own children though. It does say women will be saved in childbearing.

If you are in debt be prepared to work to pay it off. Seriously. If you marry someone who is in debt they are going to be working a long time. Dont expect marriage to be an eternal honeymoon where you never have to do a days work!

NEVER, NEVER GET MARRIED WITH EXISTING DEBT!!! that's 1 of the 1st rules, wipe out debt BEFORE you get married.

The problem is, these days, the average amount of debt for the average person (listed in the original post, close to $70,000) is way too much for almost anyone to wipe out before getting married.

And that's not even counting medical debt.

In one of my posts, I talked about the time I racked up $17,000 in medical bills in out-of-pocket costs -- and that was WITH "brand name" (Blue Cross) insurance.

Living without debt, or with debts that could be cleared was possible at one time -- but for many people, it's become less and less of a possibility now.

think of the opposite: the higher the debt amount, the more responsibility when married. minds change their way of thinking after matrimony. people start thinking, "oh no, what did i do"? unless a spouse is super rich, getting married is a huge no-no when pre existing debt is in question.

I understand what you're saying.

But I also think that some things that were possible in the past aren't as possible now.

This also might be a stretch, but since you also wrote a post in another thread about most people not liking to read long posts... I'm wondering if you read the entire original post or are just answering from the question in the title.

And it's fine if you only read the title -- many people do that -- but much of what's being discussed in the thread now is the actual reality of being able to pay down debts before marriage.

If I meet a lady who is the nicest and coolest person I've ever met, and she has $20,000 in debt, I'd rather marry her now than wait until she pays it off alone.

Sometimes bad things happen to good people and debt happens. You might be missing out on a hidden gem.

While there's likely a certain level of debt that would make me pause, what kind of debt, is it growing or shrinking, and the individual's attitude toward money and budgeting and current financial behavior are more significant.

Realistically if both are keeping up with their debt, and living independently before marriage, then the act of getting married might well free up some income rather than cost more per month once they're married and need to maintain only one residence for both of them. But approaching marriage as a solution to your financial troubles just invites marriage troubles to piggy back in on your money trouble.

Considering debt is similar to marrying someone with kids. Both come with costs. One cost is already set; the other yet to be incurred. Each person has their own level of things acceptable or not to them. It's not a question of right or wrong, but what someone is comfortable with.

you may end up paying her debt. lots of people find ways to manipulate situations in marriage. anyway, pastors & lawyers will stress not to marry with existing debt.

That's why I said she'd better have a plan. She can't get me to pay her debt with money I ain't got.

When my wife and I got together she had a lot of school loan debt...I had no debts at all.
She quit her job that was going to retire her debt soon and got another that would but at a much slower pace. Her potential income has always been really high vx her debt and her skill set is off the charts as well.

However we have retired her debt and don't have vehicle payments....just a mortgage but the house is worth more than we paid for it.

I do remember when I was single and dating....some of the women I met were heavy into some consumer debt and nothing to show for it. Clothes, trips, and dinners out created most of the debt. I knew one woman who thought that her disease was going to kill her so she wracked up a ton of debt...but then she got better...no escaping her debt now and it's a crushing weight she can't get rid of.

Then there's the guy who got 90,000 of school debt for acting classes. Then couldn't get a job acting even for commercials. So he tried to be an electrician and wasn't great at that either. So he couldn't get top wages as an electrician either.
He too had issues paying his bills.

Then there's those who have huge child support payments. Each baby mamma gets ⅓ of gross wages. They are desperate for help just living.

Lots of reasons for people working but broke and desperate for help paying bills.

Just a quick example for any reader who might think I'm being harsh and want to justify an anthology degree.
This professor teaches at the University of Pittsburgh, PA.

Differences between male and female skeletons

If a person goes to an out of state college, the final bill can easily exceed $300,000 for 4 years of classes and room and board. I experienced those numbers with my youngest child.

Wealthy people have as much difficulty managing their finances as folks that scrape by for a living. Often, the more wealthy dig even deeper financial holes for themselves than us regular folks simply because they aren't capable of smartly managing their finances and end up with more overhead than they can handle. That's probably why we see lot of older actors/actresses pushing cheesy products in commercials... they blew millions and now need to work to eat.

Money, spending, and debt are conversations I don't think enough Christians have -- at least, not before it's too late.

I don't know if it's a case of opposites attracting, but one of the reasons I'm single is because I generally attracted guys who spent a lot more money than they made. Women always get a bad rap for shopping or wanting a life beyond their means and then using a man as an ATM, but somehow I wound up in the opposite situation, and people often wouldn't believe me.

There's also the double whammy that in the Christian mindset, the man is supposed to be the head of the household. But that doesn't mean he's automatically good with or should be handling the money. And that causes a lot of friction, because in the few relationships I had, it usually boiled down to, "I'm the man, so there's no way a woman is going to be in control of the finances. Sure, I know you're paying some of my bills for me because of my irresponsible spending and refusing to change, but I'm the man, and I'll dictate my finances -- and yours." No thank you. I know of at least one case in which the guy had to file for bankruptcy, and I thank God I got out when I did.

And I'm certainly no financial genius. I just had parents who said NO to a lot of things when I was growing up (I always tell them one of the most valuable lessons they taught me was delayed gratification,) lived under their means, and always stressed saving and investing for the future.

It's an interesting -- and hazardous -- phenomenon in the church as well. I was raised in a church where since the pastors were the spiritual authority, they were always seen as the financial authority as well. It didn't seem to cross their minds that people can be great in one area but have absolutely no skill in another. All the church seemed to know how was to make big plans, continuously ask the people for more money, and then say it was to get more people saved -- with the unspoken side effect of bringing in more money (to make bigger plans, to bring in more people, to get more saved, who bring in more money...) And so the merry-go-round went on and on.

Now to give them credit, they were always open about where the money was going. It's just that there never seemed to be any talk of paying off debt before taking on more.

These days, one of my criteria for a church is how open it is about its finances and how much it prioritizes paying off debt (because how can they teach people about this if they're not doing it themselves?)

In my young adulthood, I started attending another church that had a lot of community involvement and was seeing a lot of growth because of it. I remember the day when, instead of asking for money, they asked regulars if they would be open to attending church on a different day or time to allow room for new people during the more traditional service times.

The pastor explained that the church had no debt, and so instead of taking out a loan and building an additional sanctuary, they first wanted to try getting more use out of the space they already owned by offering more services. I was floored. My original church would have just started planning an addition -- the cost would have been an afterthought because they would say that "The Lord will provide" (via expectations that members would just give more.)

I'm certainly not saying there isn't a time or place for each of these strategies, depending on where God leads.

But I remember calling my parents right after the service and telling them, "I've found a church that doesn't have any debt! Isn't that... Some kind of sin?!?"

But all I had ever known was churches swimming in masses of debt as the norm.

It's funny how something can be so ingrained into your mindset that even when you come across a better, healthier way -- somehow, at least at first, it still feels wrong.

If I may ask, how was your family able to manage this expense without any debt?

Did you find that there were enough grants, scholarships, etc. to cover such an astronomical price tag?

I had a family member who wanted to go to college out of state, but was prohibited from doing so because of the additional cost (compared to in-state.)

What tips and advice would you give to someone else wanting to go to college out-of-state?

I never made a lot of earned income in my life, but at age 12 had started investing and over the decades I made more than I lost as a long term investor. I was prepared to pay the way for all 4 of my children to attend the college of their choice, but 2 of the 4 used Army ROTC to pay for most of their schooling. Another actually made money while going to college because she had so many overlapping scholarships, and the 4th, who was the first, had most of her education paid for with her scholarship money that she earned. So I was prepared to pay the way for all four but in the end didn't have to chip in a whole lot compared to the final bill. In one case just room and board wasn't too far away from 20K the last year.

Thank you so much for sharing this.

It gives others hope!

God bless you and your family for prioritizing and working so hard for their futures. ♥️

You went to a church with no debt when you were visiting here. =^.^=

There were some lean times when I was a kid, when we made bear suckers and had soup and chili dinners to pay the light bill. Peanut brittle too. But we always got by. And we don't have to try near as hard to get by as a church nowadays.

The kind of churches you describe, always charging headlong into debt because "God will make a way," that would make me more wary than a church with no debt made you. That's just irresponsible, from what I know of church.