"AITA for asking my fiancée to show me her debt before I marry her?"

My fiancee and me both have decent paying jobs and together make over 100K a year. I do make more than her by about $10k. We've been planning our wedding for the past 3 years because when we started, we were just scrapping by living month to month.

About 1.5 years ago, my fiancee told me that besides her student loan debt and car loan (both of which I knew about), she also had multiple 1,000s of dollars in credit card debt. This came to me as a shock, because I know credit card interest rates are steep. She did not tell me how much any of those were because she didn't know off hand and she absolutely shuts down when I try to take finances with her.

I understood it was a potentially scary topic for her. I asked if she needed me to help as I do not have any debt and she said no that it was her responsibility.she assured me that that the amount she paid was greater than the amount that was building due to interest. I'm extremely frugule with money while she is kind of the opposite. She did agree to disclose that information with me before the wedding.

Upon hearing that information, I started paying about 70%+ of our rent and other bills so she was able to pay more towards her bills. Many times I asked to go over her finances with her and it always turned into a heated argument. A few times I even offered to pay for her to see a financial advisor. It seems to cause her so much anxiety and I want to help her but I don't know how.

About 2 months ago, I bought a house. I saved for years and had enough for a house down payment, and the wedding costs. I've also bought nearly all our furniture paid for her car repairs, and other large expenses. She was unable to help with the home purchase because her credit score was so low which was also a shock to me.

I don't have a credit card but had built up enough credit that I could qualify on my own. Then the pandemic hit. Our wedding is a month away and she is stressed that we have to cut people, stressed out about things she still wants us to have for the house, and about her bridal shower.

Then yesterday the topic of finances came up as she mentioned we both might have some large bills coming as both our cars need to be inspected and how she was concerned about having enough money. I said we can sit down and look over her bills and see if their are subscriptions we can cut and she got very angry at me and said she didn't want to do that.

And I brought up that she agreed to do it before we got married. She lost it and started freaking out on me calling me a jerk for trying to make her go over those things a month before the wedding and in the middle of a pandemic.

Am I in the wrong? Ive given her a year and a half of time, reminded her about it multiple times, helped out where I was able, and have tried to be supportive, but I just don't know what to do. Seeing that information won't make me reconsider my decision, but I do want to know want I'm getting into and it may make me change my goals or priorities. What do you guys think?

What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:

VirtualEconomy said:

I'm sorry dude but you are going to have an absolutely miserable marriage. Finances are one of the biggest causes of divorce and she can't even talk about it with you. It guides your entire life and it's not a discussion she's willing to have.

[deleted] said:

NTA, and OP, this is a MAJOR red flag. Do NOT marry this person unless you fully know the situation at hand. With her not showing you her finances and the way she spends, she could drag you down into massive debt or bankruptcy. This is absolutely a deal breaker. Either she comes clean, or she can’t expect to have any respect in the marriage if she gives you none. NTA. I'm sorry.

And toress__ said:

NTA, it sounds like she got something in her debt she doesn’t want to show you.

He has since shared this update on the situation:

Update: I appreciate everyone's comments. It was an overwhelming response. After thinking about it long and hard, I decided to bring up my concerns and explain that I wanted to help her out of love, not to be a jerk. And that how when we get married, her debt would become mine and as a result, the house could be in jeopardy.

She had pleaded that we wait to do it until after the wedding, but I explained by that point it would be too late. After a teary eyed conversation and a realization of the full extent of what I was saying, she agreed that a prenup would probably be the best option to ensure the safety of assets. I still told her that we are going to go over her finances next week. We are going to make it a date night.

She is currently only paying the minimum payments, so we will need to see if we can work with a financial advisor to see about how to best address this and maybe change our lifestyle a little to see if we can work to resolve this promptly. For those of you asking, her name is not on the house at all. Not on the title, and not on the contract.

So hopefully with that and the prenup in place, it will ensure that her debt won't impact us losing the house. As far as the wedding, we are still planning to have it on the same day as it's very difficult to move at this point, but I assure everyone that a prenup will be in place beforehand and we will be going over her finances next week.

Thank you for all your support. It really gave me the motivation and confidence to bring this up and I believe our relationship will be stronger because of it.

Good luck, OP.