How to Talk About Your Debt While Navigating the Dating Scene
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Here's your Money Briefing for Thursday, February 6th. I'm Arianna Aspuru for The Wall Street Journal.

Navigating the dating scene can have its highs and lows. Tack on hefty credit card balances, student loans, and other financial obligations, and finding someone special can become complicated. If you're dating casually, if you're just getting out there for fun, it's okay to not disclose your debt. But if you're doing it and you are hoping to find that forever person, it's important to talk about it at some point.

So how can you discuss your money problems without souring the mood? We talk with Wall Street Journal Senior Platform Editor Julia Munslow after the break.

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Wall Street Journal Senior Platform Editor Julia Munslow joins me.

Julia, what kind of financial problems can weigh on a person when they're dating? There can be a lot of different financial problems when you're dating. Really, my story is about debt, but there are so many different kinds of debt that someone can have, and they can be perceived differently by the people you're dating. A lot of people have federal student loans, for instance, but there's also credit card debt, consumer debt, and even medical debt. And on top of that, dating comes at a price. Dinners, bars, drinks, all these things.

How expensive can dating be? When you're getting to know someone and you're paying for drinks, you're paying for your outfits, you're paying to get to whatever place you're meeting, it can really add up. I spoke to one 29-year-old in San Francisco who told me he went on 57 dates last year and spent $17,000. Now, that's including travel and accommodation, but that's still a pretty high price point. Even if you...

are not footing the bill for the date necessarily. You're still having to figure out if you want a new dress or you want a new outfit and makeup and it's time. And that time could be spent on that date or that time could be spent picking up an extra shift at work to help you pay off the debt. So it does get expensive and it can add up.

Why does debt specifically feel like a heavy secret when you're dating? A lot of people can feel shame about their financial health, especially if they're carrying a lot of debt. I spoke to one woman who has $69,000 in federal student loans and $19,000 in credit card debt. That's a lot. And for her, she struggled with the idea that she had all of this debt

And as a woman, oftentimes men would offer to pay and she would feel guilty about having men spend their hard-earned money on her. And when you're just starting to see someone, having a conversation about money and who's paying for what, especially if you feel guilty like she did, can feel super uncomfortable, completely uncomfortable. When is the best time to share your financial situation with the person you're dating? So

So it really depends on the person. Different people have different habits here. For the woman that I was just speaking about, she would ask people when they were still on the dating app, before they had even met, you know, like, hey, what are your expectations for who is handling the bill? And she told me that oftentimes people would tell her, like, oh, I got it. I'm the one who invited you, so I'll pay.

But obviously not everyone is comfortable doing that. For her, it actually helped her assuage a lot of her anxiety. Other people will wait to talk about it until they're getting more serious with the person, getting into the actual relationship. But 27% of Americans have waited until after they've gotten married to talk about debt with their partner. I spoke to a licensed marriage and family therapist who said that a lot of couples feel really uncomfortable

talking about their finances, but it's really, really important to understand how the other person acts around money, how they manage their money, their spending habits. But she also says if you're dating casually, if you're just getting out there for fun, it's okay to not disclose your debt.

But if you're doing it and you are hoping to find that forever person, it's important to talk about it at some point. Once you've found someone, you've dated for a bit, you talked about it, they have debt. What are some ways to support a partner with debt? I talked to this one couple in Texas and they're

when they met, the woman had a lot more debt than her partner does. But even though she owed $15,000 across credit card debt, $35,000 in loans, and $27,000 in a car loan, she started to pick up extra side hustles and extra jobs and extra shifts. And she was throwing every single dollar that she could at this debt. Now,

Now, this meant that they weren't able to spend as much time together. But her partner was really, really understanding of what she was trying to do. He supported her. He told me that he, you know, felt really proud to see her working really hard to pay down this debt, even though he didn't have it himself. And I think all of this connects to the idea, too, that

it really can depend on what type of debt you have, whether it's federal student loans or whether it's consumer debt and how you're managing it. One of the experts I spoke to said, when you find out someone has debt, what you really need to do is try and remain as neutral as possible about it and then investigate, figure out why they have it, figure out if they have a

plan. And that's going to tell you so, so much more about their money habits and their financial health than just looking at someone and saying, oh, you have thousands of dollars in debt. You must be financially irresponsible. Someone who has a lot of student loans but has a plan to pay them off and is working to pay them off has very different money management skills than someone who has debt from something like gambling. And it's just

continuing to increase and they don't really have a plan to pay it off. Why is it so important to have these conversations? They definitely can be really awkward and uncomfortable for a lot of people. One of the experts I spoke with told me that a lot of couples who she sees as clients struggle to talk about this. So if you're listening and you're struggling to talk about this, you are not alone. But money matters because it's such a huge part of life. And if you're trying to build a life with someone,

Their relationship with money is going to affect you and your relationship and the life that you build together. And if you're able to have a really clear picture of where they're at and where you're at, you're able to build a much stronger life together and a much stronger foundation. So bottom line, don't be scared to bring up that debt. It'll be okay.

That's WSJ Senior Platform Editor Julia Munslow. And that's it for your Money Briefing. This episode was produced by Jess Jupiter with supervising producer Melanie Roy. I'm Mariana Aspuru for The Wall Street Journal. Thanks for listening.