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When you finally find the person with whom you are ready to spend the rest of your life, the last thing you probably want to think about is their credit history and debt-to-income ratio. However, the truth of the matter is that your future partner’s financial profile can impact your life in some pretty dramatic ways — especially when they’re drowning in debt and have a poor credit history.
“Marrying a spouse with poor credit and a large debt comes with responsibility,” relationship coach Casandra Henriquez told MadameNoire. “I recommend Financial Peace University to all my clients before they get married. Your money mindset will affect the day to day flow of your relationship. Uncovering how you feel about money, your relationship with money, and what makes you feel secure and verbalizing it to your spouse– it will assist in avoiding many fights once you get married.”
Here are some potential challenges of marrying a spouse with poor credit and sizable debt.
Buying a home
One of the more obvious challenges to marrying a spouse with poor credit is that it will present challenges when purchasing a home.
“Applying for credit jointly may be problematic unless the debt-free partner has substantial income,” Morris Armstrong, Founder & Owner at Morris Armstrong EA LLC, told MadameNoire. “I have seen that in the past, where a mortgage application gets rejected because one spouse has a lot of debt and poor credit, and the other spouse does not have the resources to stand on their own.”
