Newbie to the Board

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-07-2003
Newbie to the Board
5
Sat, 06-11-2005 - 1:19am

I guess I should say Good Morning to All (even though I haven't technically gone to bed yet.)

I am a newbie to the board. I wish I had known about this board a year ago. I enrolled in CCCS in April 2004. After a little over a year of good payment history, I think things are on track for me! (yaaaaah!)
However, I am posting due to my on going frustration with my fiance finances. We recently became engaged after being together for 5 years. We met in college, and since graduation in 2002 we have been on a horrific financial roller coaster. He had a to take out a significant amount of loans to pay for his education and now all his loans are due, and have no more deferments left, therefore payments must be made. He is currently under-employed. He works part-time at a big box retailer and short-time (30hrs/wk with bene.) in his field of computer science. After rent, car payment and ins. and school loans, there is little if anything left over for credit cards, utilities, and food. I end up covering food and utilities, which are supposed to be split evenly. There is no end in sight for him/us. He can not seem to catch-up no matter how valient the effort. He has taken the step of calling CCCS, as well, but has yet to make the first payment, due to lack of money.

To me his major down-fall are his hobbies. I can not seem to convice him, that in order to catch he needs to sacarfice some things for a while. He becomes very defensive on the subject, and asks me, "do you want me to go insane; I work two jobs, I need a release!"

Am I wrong to ask him to give something up temporarily so that he can redirect the funding elsewhere? I understand that everyone needs a release, however drastic situations call for drastic measures. I want him to limit his hobbies to one (currently, he has three), and one that doesn't cost anything.(two out of the three cost something to participate in) Without getting into specfics, he plays an online video game, which supposedly cost $15/mo; and two fantasy games, one involving card collecting (which he does avidly)and tournaments (which he plays once weekly @$5/night, not including any card buying)and another which costs nothing, because he has all the materials already.

He believes that since none of his hobbies are not that expensive, that it doesn't matter.

I guess what I am looking for is some advise on how to approach this situation. He is aware of it, but seems unwilling to make the sacrafice to resolve it.

Of course, now that we are engaged we have a wedding to pay for, so that only worries me further. Fortunetly my family is making significant contributions; but I would like to be able to say that we contributed something to what should be one of the happiest days of our lives.

I love the idea of snowflaking, I think it great. I think that in my/his case, putting the snowflakes that he would have spent on cards and tournaments in a jar is a great idea.

Can anyone offer any advise? (thanks for reading the whole post, sorry it was so long.)

Avatar for cl_phocid
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sat, 06-11-2005 - 2:00am

Hello and welcome to the board!

All my best,
Danni

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-14-2004
Sat, 06-11-2005 - 1:26pm
It is very hard when one of you has taken good control of the your debt and the other hasn't. The problem is, once you are married, you will be making his debt payments as well as yours. Although your name is not on his debt, it really does become yours, as you want to keep the bill collectors away and have some money to spare. I really would wait until he has taken control of his debt and is actively paying it off. And the student loans, if unpaid, they will take your tax returns, garnish wages, etc. It isn't a pretty situation. Hopefully you can be patient while he deals with his finances and everything will work out well.
Avatar for mymartes
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sat, 06-11-2005 - 6:09pm

I too want to welcome you to the board.

I totally agree with Danni. I think you should hold off on setting a date for the wedding. Have you tried going into therapy together? It might be worth it.

Just my two cents.

MYM

Avatar for cl_beckymk
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Sat, 06-11-2005 - 10:16pm

Welcome to the board!!!

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2004
Sat, 06-11-2005 - 11:31pm

ITA Danni.

He sounds like my ex-husband. When I told him I wanted a divorce, he said it was unfair that I could just leave him. He said he had chosen a low paying career (one that required a lot of education) becuase he counted on me always taking care of things, and for that reason he should at least get a portion of my future income, he thought maybe 10%. He was wrong on that one, but he does get child support because he makes less money than me (we have 50/50 custody, he's a good father, I'll give him that) and I bear the burden of all dd's expenses, including preschool which is over $10,000 per year. My ex has an online video game addiction, and while it didn't cost much money to play the game, it was more important to him than I was. The only bill he had to pay while we were married was our mortgage (I thought it would be easier once he had finally graduated for him to handle one large bill than juggle a bunch of small ones) and his student loans. He paid the mortgage on time the first year or so, and then one day I pulled my credit report because I had applied for a job at a client and I knew they would pull it, and I was shocked to learn we had been behind on payments for 11 months, 30-90 days delinquent that whole time. He said he didn't want to tell me because he was embarrased. It was more important for him to avoid embarrasement than it was to protect both our credit ratings. Only after we divorced, did I learn that he had never begun paying his student loans. For three years he never opened one piece of mail related to them, just put them in the drawer at work so I wouldn't know. The school where he got his graduate degree sued him and he never knew it, because he never opened the mail, he found out the day his boss called him in to inform him that his wages were being garnished. It added $30k in debt to his balance for the cost of suing him and the extra interest and penalties.

You know what got him to face it all? Not taking care of it for him. If your fiance doesn't want to face giving up a hobby, he doesn't have to, because you are paying the other bills for him and he doesn't have to contribute as much as you do. That is called enabling. Don't do it. Don't make it easy for him or let him get away with not putting in his share. If he doesn't like his financial situation, it's up to him to do something about it. If you take care of it for him, and only nicely encourage him to do better, he really doesn't have to take responsibility at all. Ask yourself, what would he do if you weren't living together and he had to pay rent and buy food and pay the other bills himself. Could he do it? If he could, then why can't he do it when he's living with you? And if he can't, then why not and what would you do down the road if you have children and one day you can't work and all the financial burden is on him? That is one other thing that happened to us. I got a chronic illness and his big concern was not supporting me through it, his big concern was how freaked out he was that I might not always take care of everything and he just couldn't handle that.

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