<prompt> Human: Hello there, been following this sub for some time now and figured I would start here. As you can tell, I am thinking about asking for someones hand in marriage. In addition to all the emotional weight this entails, I am also looking to consider the financial aspect of it, and how it would integrate, should we do get married, and what some of the consequences would be for our combined debtassets.A little bit about us, we are both in the medical field, I work in surgery making in excess of 90k this year, first time I have ever made this much in my life. She works as a PA in surgery, unsure of how much she makes as I have never directly asked her never knew a polite way of asking whats you tax bracket?. I currently rent an apartment, have about 15k in student loan debt still, about 16k in a previous companys 401k and just took out an auto loan this year on a new car for 26k. She doesn;t have any student loan debt as far as i know, but recently bought a house for about 300k and drives a 2 year old SUV. We currently live in TX.I can see myself being very happy emotionally with this woman for the rest of my life, at the same time i really don;t want to go into this situation financially blind, because i only want to do it once, lol. Right now, i am trying to find out what questions I should be asking here, or anything I should know or do in the meantime. I am very much so a planner, although I really don;t have too much of a financial background at all never really had enough to worry about planning for until now, so anything I can do or read up on now would help. Thanks  <response>: Some basics for you - others will assuredly give you more detail on certain things...You both need to be fully aware of the others financials. That includes income, every penny of debt, spending habits, etc.You need short and long term financial goals that you plan together. That could be getting out of debt short term, buying another house short term, and investing long term.You should discuss how and through whom you handle things like health insurance, life insurance, a will, etc.You need to plan a monthly budget together. Dont let one of you be in charge of the finances. Do it together and avoid major money fights. Minor, monthly disputes in the budget are normal.The pattern Im trying to convey here is doing things together and with purpose. But do it together. You may want to talk about some of these things prior to asking her to marry you. The number 1 cause of divorce in America is finances and I would love for that to not be you. 