<prompt> Human: Throwaway because I dont want my co-worker or friends to find this.My wife 29 and I 30 sold our house in California and planned on moving to Texas with our two kids. We didnt live in a place we necessarily felt OK with having our oldest, 4 year old, going outside to play and all in all just always had the door locked at all times, even when home. In addition to that my wife is trying to become an RN but the schooling out here is ridiculous. So we felt the best decision would be to move to Texas where family will be nearby.We made 135,000 from the sale of our house in August, last month. I personally have about 5k on CC which I need to pay off but have 10k in the bank so I just want to make sure my ducks are in a row before I lose that cash for any reason. My wifes CC accounts are on the same login page as mine and I can see both of hers added up to 7k. I should also mention we both have 401k that we both contribute 10-12 into for the last 8-10 years so we have that at least buckled down.Now, yesterday we went into contract for buying a house in Texas for 220k. Last night my wife sits down next to me, completely terrified, and hands me a letter. I read the letter and in it she tells me that she wants to apologize dearly for hiding this from me but she has racked up 33k in CC debt across 8 accounts. She is asking to take 35k from the money we received from the sale of the house and use it to wipe her debt free so we can have a clean slate and is willing to forfeit all finances to me, even merging accounts and having me become the head for financial decisions because she is unable to manage money. She also mentions in there that she feels like an addict and that purchasing things when she is depressed makes her feel better. This apparently has been hidden from me for the last 10 years.I am so torn right now. I am going through my head trying to determine whether I should put 100k down and let her take 20K towards her debt and use the rest for moving expenses or to tell her she needs to pound sand and work herself out of this hole so she can learn to struggle being frugal with things so she can fix the bad habits. I know this is also my burden to deal with as well but ultimately I will be deciding on what is a necessity and what isnt from here on out.Scenarios going through my head:A 100k Down payment 25k Debt relief for her 5k for moving and household expensesB 125k Down payment 0 Debt relief 5k for moving and household expensesC 90k Down payment Pay her debt off 5k for moving and household expenses In each scenario I priced out 6 months of estimated mortgage would be 4200 so I want 5000 as a backup.The current rates we are looking at if it matters: 3.875 with no cost 4 with 750 credit 4.125 with 1950 creditI am not looking for anyone to make a decision but I am looking to see if anyone has any suggestions or input that would help resolve this issue and teach her some personal financial responsibility? I told her that I wanted her to start investing her time on frugalfinancial blogs and reading things on rfrugal and rpersonalfinance. I myself dont have the greatest knowledge on finance information myself but I do skim through this sub from time to time. I just would like some input on what she can do to start changing her mentality, i have suggested she read a financial book, like Dave Ramsey who I see around here, but havent the slightest clue which one she is to read. Thanks to anyone who read this far and hearing me out.EDIT: Thanks everyone who gave some kind of input. It will discussed over here shortly. I am going to discuss with her about wiping the debt clean and getting her to get a savings started for any reason she may need to dive into. I 100 agree that this is both of our debt and I never intended to make it sound that way, I was just wanting to make sure she understands that she needs to be more open about her finances, live a little more humbly and within her means,goes for me as well at times and to understand the importance of the sign on bills. EDIT 2: ok, I started by showing her this thread, I gave her the laptop when it was at 90 comments and had her read each and every comment. She agreed with me that there was a lot of things that we both didnt check on one another. We both read things that were signs we had never seen about the other. Yes, maybe 5050 isnt the way we should of lived after a certain point but it was what we were used to. She or I never thought it was a problem that if responsibilities were split that it would turn out like it did. The other thing we agreed on was the lifestyle needed to change. She says she left a household that had a significantly higher standard of living than the family I grew up in. She also explained that she was given everything she wanted by mom and dad because they were well off, which I knew already, but that she never really grew out of it and instead tried to maintain it. She also admitted that the CC has been a problem even since she was a late teen with her first CC, i had no idea. Why should I though, we were kids. There was no reason she had to report her financial status to me. We started dating at 16 and 17 then living together at 18 and 19. We lived this way since then. Apparently that iswas a bad idea. I have much more to say after our conversation tonight but after reading some comments about how this is apparently all my fault and how she is supporting me, that i was holding her back from seeing her family or accusing me of using this as some kind of gloating over her, I cant muster past the anger I have for just asking for advice. That actually angered me than the actual situation at hand. Yes the certain parts could be blamed on the both of us but I will say that things are going to get better. We both talked over all the ideas that were posted and we are going to figure this thing out. Tonight was successful. We got to speak about something that would of never really had any place to be started, I got her to agree to researching and understanding how much more attention she needs to pay to financial topics, and I taught her how to read Reddit. I may or may not created a new redditor just then...Thanks everyone!Assistant: Given you yourself have credit card debt and I dont see any mention of an emergency fund in here, plus you have two kids and nursing school ahead of you, I dont see why youre considering putting more than 20 down in the first place. At 3.875 theres no need to be putting yourself in a cash crunch for a smaller mortgage.You should be taking that 145k and following the steps in I Have X...Human: I dont see why youre considering putting more than 20 down in the first place. At 3.875 theres no need to be putting yourself in a cash crunch for a smaller mortgage.The plan was so we could make payments smaller for whomever was to be going to school at the time. We would move then Id get a job and she would go to school while i took care of finances with a smaller mortgage so to have more money to support the kids and her through schooling. Then rotate and it would be my turn.  <response>: But smaller payments are going to take a very, very long time to cause you to have more free cash than if youd just kept your money as cash in the first place. Youre trading 45,000 that will then have very limited liquidity to make 2400year less in payments. 