<prompt> Human: Hi there. I currently live with my girlfriend who I adore and will marry in the near future and we are swamped with debt. We both have decent paying jobs, combined 100k, but it always seems like we are living paycheck to paycheck. I want to convince her that its necessary to pay down our debt to start living the way we want to. She doesnt think its a burden and just lives in the moment believing that its just money and whatever happens, happens. No kids, no car loan, no home ownership. I Our combined debts are as follows:CC debt: 10,774.96Personal Loan: 1,886.64Student Loan Private: 57,237.78Student Loan Public for lack of a better word: 52,593Medical Debt: 3,731TOTAL DEBT: 126,223.38We want to get married and buy a house and all that good stuff but she says my obsession with paying down my debt is unhealthy. Is it really? Is she missing the picture? Any help or any guide to paying it down would be appreciate or even a kind word or two.Cheers!Assistant: She is either dillusional, or is aware of how bad the situation looks and is ignoring it as a coping mechanism, definitely missing the picture, depending upon interest rates debt can be ok, but it is usually bad, I would probably start with paying down the smallest ones first and snowballing those payments into bigger ones personal loan, medical debt, cc debt. You are fortunate enough that you have decent paying jobs and if you buckle down and make some budget cuts you should be able to get out of this in a couple of years.Human: Shes not dillusional, she just grew up poor and with nothing and her experiences in life, her love, her art, her friendships, are just much more important. I want to strike a balance of paying off the debt in a timely fashion but its just hard not being exactly on the same page. She has given me free reign over paying everything off and I think we can put roughly 1,250 a month into our debt. Snowballing that would pay off our CC and personal loan debt by the end of June and then if we keep it it up student loans by 2017. Its just a matter of where she came from and where she is now.  <response>: I think that you have correctly identified the problem: growing up without much or in a home that lived paycheck to paycheck has been shown to foster poor financial habits once more money is available - not necessarily because of fault, but because savings and debt reduction are essentially foreign concepts. There was never the chance to even make that a choice.If you came from a history of being forced to live in the moment can we eat today and then the increases typically the response is two camps depending upon how the new came about- either continued extreme frugality money hoarding or continued extreme in the moment irresponsibility multi million dollar athlete who is broke 5 years after retirement.All this to say, understand why her past has shaped her habits and communicate with her using language about values, principles, and priorities rather than personal attacks on specific actions why did you buy those shoes?. These are suggestions, I dont get the sense that you are attacking or condemning. Be clear that you arent faulting her for wanting to enjoy friends or the luxuries that may be available now, but that a priority for you is financial freedom. Can you describe your wish for paying debts as a principle you hold? Eg for me, a debt is a promise give me this loan of now and I promise I will pay it back. Paying back debt then, is closely tied to my sense of personal ethics - I value my honestly and that I keep my promises. This is a large part of my self respect. If I miss payments or cant keep my word to payback , I lose something essential to my sense of self. If you can articulate why saving money and paying back debts is important as a principle or value that you hold as self respect, she cannot confuse your requests with a power-grab or a controllingoverly aggressive relationship maneuver. That aggression would obviously make her defensive and less likely to see the truth of the situation. 