My girlfriend is 200k in private student loan debt (about 30k is federal). She graduated with a ecological/wildlife sciences degree from an out of state school 2 years ago. She is currently making 48k right now and we are living together in a HCOL area. We do split everything evenly, except I pay double what she does for rent given my income (86k). We've been together 4 years now and pretty young (24, 26).
My girlfriend is a dreamer with goals. She wants to work in the field with animals/ biological sciences with assessing animal habitats and that kind of thing. Think of like biological jobs with US fisheries and wildlife type of stuff. The only problem is that these government jobs are very hard to come by and do not pay well. On top of that from what I gather, top prospects for these jobs most likely have been working many years doing un-paid or poorly paid fieldwork or internships, and most have master’s degrees. She has neither of these. The good news is that she currently does office work at least in the same kind of area. She is very determined to stay in this field and do whatever it takes regardless of pay to get her dream job.
She is self-aware of her situation now and understands her debt load I believe, but to what I extent, I do not exactly know. I've helped her setup a budget and track her finances which she has said helped a lot. She is not a spender and does not carry credit card debt. She is actually financially frugal, I guess out of necessity after realizing her situation.
She is the sweetest person I have met in my entire life, and carries her way through life with a smile and a bubbly personality. Lately I cannot stop thinking about her debt though. We have discussions about it that go absolutely no where because in reality there is nothing that can be done, only time to pay off the loans. So, I try to hide away my feelings and worries about these things only to have it bubble up again in a few months where we are fighting again about the loans.
The problem is that it feels like I am going to have to clean up this mess. I think about it this way because it doesn't seem to bother her that much. She wants to pursue her dreams, but I feel like they are supported by me financially in a way. Not only financially but emotionally as well. She wants to pursue these more lower paying "dream jobs" instead of maybe trying to find more higher paying work like working for environmental consulting firms and other less glamorous jobs. This is another reason why I just don't think she really understands the magnitude of the situation and is being selfish. It makes me feel like she is kind of using me by not doing what is right to take care of the debt she is bringing into the relationship in a responsible manner. At the same time, because of the debt it will make me have to worry about chasing money for many years instead of trying to find my true passions. So our situations are kind of opposites, she has a dream without means and I have means without a true dream yet. I feel like she is stuck in this state of mind that someone implanted into her head to "follow your dreams" regardless of any logic. I do not want to be the one to tell her that she needs to get more realistic and that not everyone can follow your true dreams and get paid well doing it. Especially when you are 200k in debt after the fact. It is very uncomfortable to be in this situation, but someone has to be realistic and tell the hard truths, which I have. It probably makes her feel like I don't support her dreams. The issue is that I wouldn't give one flying fuck about this if she didn't have the debt. But to me it seems she is not doing what it takes to fix this and probably relying on me to do that for her.
I just feel stuck in life right now, not moving anywhere. Mostly because I don't really know what to do about this. She keeps telling me it’s her loans and not to worry, but that is not who I am, and it bothers me not being responsible about the situation. I want to work towards a future and grow together with her, but yet I am stuck. I've communicated this to her. My last birthday felt a little different to me, and I started thinking more about what I might want my future to look like (kids, owning a home, early retirement possibly etc.) But then I think about the loans and know that these things might be very delayed. My early retirement plans would surely not happen. I'm trying to make sense of all this when it doesn't make sense. I am trying to live in the moment and just enjoy the here and now and our relationship, but I feel like it’s very difficult to do. I want to move forward as I explained earlier and build a life together. At this stage in my life, I do not see myself working in an office for the majority of my living years. Hell, 10 years working in an office sounds horrifying to me, but yet I know that I will have to work many more years in this environment to make good money to support this relationship, and possibly kids. I feel less like a partner and more like a parent or something having to find a way to fix this.
I just feel so fucked up about this, and it’s really dragging me down. It's like I’m looking for someone or something to blame. I do not want this to be about finances, it’s just so fucking stupid to me that this situation can even exist. I think I am expecting too much or that this will just go away quickly. I am not sure what I expect, I just know that the loans paint a bleak picture on the future. I had already been saving and investing for my future and already living a more frugal lifestyle, so this isn't exactly new to me. I know what it's going to take to do this. The only difference is that the money I would save and invest would be going towards fixing an issue that isn't exactly from my own doing. Which I admit is very fucked up and just hard to move from a 'me' issue to a 'us' issue given how I feel about her trying to pursue lower paying dream jobs given the circumstances.
Overall, I do sympathize with her a little bit knowing how she grew up and circumstances. Her mom is a spender and buys gifts all the time and loves to shop, which my girlfriend being a single child, led to some spoiling. The mom has terrible credit, foreclosed on a house years ago, and still buys lotto scratchers. The scratchers are a dream for her to overcome her bad financial decisions over the years, to retire, and to somehow help her daughter's student loan situation which she unconsciously led down the same financial path as herself. The dad divorced when she was young and was around, but not around if you know what I mean. He somehow co-signed the loans and not a single ounce of discussions happened on the money that was involved with this decision an 18 year old was trying to make for herself. This is just to give some context on how something like this might happen.
TL;DR Girlfriend in 200k debt and Its fucking me up.
Submitted March 30, 2019 at 04:23AM by liftyourcares https://ift.tt/2HRQ0au
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