My son lives in Iowa and is currently in a long distance relationship with a woman who lives four houses away from my daughter and son in law in New York; in fact, she (my daughter) was the one who got them together. He has grown tired of living so far away and has been applying for jobs closer to home. Their plan is to live together and contribute to the household expenses, including the mortgage, based on their percentage of income (she makes more than he does), while each maintaining a separate checking account for their personal use.
I became concerned when he said that they plan on helping each other pay off their student loan debt. His is about $55K and from what he told me hers is much higher. He said that they will start tackling his and then focus on hers once his is paid off. When I suggested that they should consider drafting some sort of legal agreement in regard to this he scoffed at the idea, saying that their relationship was strong enough that it wouldn't be an issue.
My concern is the obvious-----suppose they pay off most if not all of his loans and for some reason unrelated to this the relationship ends----would it be fair to her to have invested all of this money in their future and have nothing to show for it? What if they decided to start with hers first-----would it be fair to him?
I sincerely hope that he takes my advice and sits down with her for a frank conversation on the topic. She is a college educated woman who works in HR at a large regional hospital in Albany (NY) and he has his MBA and works for an aerospace company so it's not as though the two of them are going in to this unaware of the possible consequences.
I just don't want to see either or both of them hurt, financially or otherwise, if this thing goes south.
