<prompt> Human: So, Ive always owned up to being the less responsible one in our marriage. My wife makes significantly more than me shes an RN, Im working on a second degree and she manages all of our bills, until recently about a year after our wedding we didnt even have a joint checking account.Weve been talking about making some financial leaps recently financing a car we can depend on, preparing to buy a house in the next two years. Thing is, every time I started to get into specific time frames and strategies for getting us there, Im met with I dont know, my credit is pretty bad. She had been telling me about owing on medical bills, and she just didnt seem to have much faith that we could turn her credit around and get on track to being able to put on our financial big-boy-pants.So, I did our taxes, and I figured a good next step would be to review our credit reports to see if there was anything on hers that we could close out and put behind us. Its way worse than I thought. She has one medical bill on her report that is in collections, but its not a huge amount; however, it turns out she has 3 student loans I never knew about, all 3 of which are CO. Also, her last semester of school was never paid for and is in collections. To make matters worse, her student loan debt has been channeled through 3 different offices, on each of 3 different loans, resulting in a total of 9 defaults listed on her report.Now, my score is in the mid 600s because I still carry about 50k in student loans that are currently deferred. Hers is in the low 400s. I think I can literally hear my plans for home ownership fizzling away into the air. So, what happens now? Should we try to consolidate? Declare bankruptcy? Should we just give up? Im at a loss.I should note, I havent talked to my wife about this. I really think it would benefit me to have some idea what I think we should do before we have this talk. Also, Im a little shaken and I dont want it to turn into an argument. Please help?TL;DR: I checked my wifes credit report and it turns out we are in way worse shape than I thought. We really wanted to buy a home in the next 2-3 years, but I dont know how to broach the subject with her, much less where to start picking up the pieces.EDIT: This has to be the most helpful response Ive ever gotten to a question I posed to reddit. I want to thank you guys for offering words of advice. In the last few hours, Ive gone from shock and panic to some measure of hope and resolve. Ill still welcome any advice you guys have since its proving to be very helpful but, truly, thanks again, redditors.  <response>: If they are federal student loans, bankruptcy does not matter ever...you can not discharge federal student loans. She technically would not qualify for income based payments, however IF she meets certain criteria total student loan debt, family income, and family size she may qualify for Reasonable and Affordable Rehabilitation program payments. It sets her up to apply for IBR once her loan is out of default 9-10 months, and will clear her credit report of negative information regarding these loans when she gets out of default, and will remove her collection cost penalties, so its basically the same thing just a different name since she is in collections.. In fact you can determine yourself what her qualifying payment would be on myeddebt.com and searching for IBR calculator, which is how federally contracted collection agencies determine the payment amount for this program, at least thats how my company was instructed to do it. However, you must make the arrangement official by contacting whatever agency holds her loans to make sure they report your payment plan. DO NOT CONSOLIDATE. Most companies will capitalize interest and consolidate her fees into the new balance, and it will show the debts as still negative on her credit report and also add the new consolidated balance to the report as well. Its a terrible idea. Ive worked at a collection agency for 3 years, I have never spoken with anyone who said after the fact that it was a good idea to consolidate. 