Relationships are built on trust and if you can’t trust the person who you are with, you don’t have much of a future together.

What would you do if you found out that your girlfriend had been lying about money for a long time, and she actually has a huge amount of debt?

That is what happened to the boyfriend in this story, so he broke up with his girlfriend and now his friends and family are telling him he is a jerk for doing it.

AITAH for breaking up with my girlfriend after I found out about her debt?

Last week I (28M) broke up with my girlfriend(26F) of 14months. The relationship has overall been the best one I’ve ever been in.

We barely argue with each other, align on our hobbies, family expectations, politics and morals (or at least I thought so).

Proposing can be very exciting, if it is to the right woman.

With me finishing up my masters degree, I intended to go for the next step in our relationship and was already looking at rings to propose.

I’ve dropped hints of that throughout the last few months, made the expectation of wanting to get married young and to try for a family after I start working, clear from the start.

One evening, about a week and a half ago, my girlfriend sat me down and said that she had to tell me something.

That’s where she admitted the truth about her financial situation.

She has large amount of private student loan debt and has wrecked up a large amount of credit card debt throughout her time in university.

So, she lied to him about it. This is not okay.

We have talked previously about our finances and this is the exact opposite of the picture she painted.

In our past conversations she mentioned that she is getting student financial support like most students in our country and is also getting some smaller support from her parents so she can focus on her studies without working.

This was apparently all just a lie.

That sounds like a very good system.

In my country you only pay back half of the amount of money you get as an interest free loan and the other half is basically just there to support you and doesn’t have to be paid back.

This makes private student loan debt kind of a big deal for most people.

Due to her father’s high income, she doesn’t qualify for any government student loans in my country and she was unable to obtain any scholarships, which have forced her to take out private student loans.

When she was younger, she was enrolled in a business program and had full financial support from her parents.

After only 4 semester of that, she dropped out though, claiming that the program or the work associated with that degree wasn’t for her.

Ahh, the story is starting to come together now.

Her parents were very much against her dropping out and cut off financial support when she did.

Afterwards she then enrolled in her current program with the goal of getting a communications degree.

While she was getting support from her parents, she had her fathers credit card and put anything she wanted on to it.

She got food delivered near daily, went clubbing on weekends and didn’t cut back on that lifestyle even after being cut off.

Wow, that is a lot of debt.

Now she has about 70k in private student loan debt and another 25k in credit card debt with the interest rates on the credit card debt being especially bad.

After maxing out multiple cards and her bank refusing to issue any more, she went to other special services that give credit cards to basically anyone and the rates on those cards are basically at the legal limit permitted in my country.

She is not in a good position at all.

In my country the average net income is only about 2.5k with 1/3 to 1/2 of that instantly going in to the cost of living.

She doesn’t have any work lined up for once she graduates and can expect to only make about 2k net a month while working unskilled labor.

As I see it, her only option is to declare private insolvency.

I took some days think things through and then decided to break up with her last week.

The fact that she hid all of this from me for so long, makes me lose all trust in her.

It takes time to move up in any job.

Once I start working, I will make decent money but it won’t be very good for another few years till I get actual experience in my field.

Paying off that much debt would basically set me back an entire decade of investing and building wealth and make having children or buying a house impossible.

It is easy for friends and family to say he should help her. Why don’t they do it?

Nearly every single one of her friend, every mutual friend and my parents have been haunting me since then.

It seems that everyone says that breaking up due to this is an AH move and that paying off the debt together won’t be an issue to me as the career I’m perusing is well paying.

This entire situation is very much weighing. Until recently I was already looking for good housing areas, good schools and was thinking of baby names and now that has all been ripped away from me.

The fact that seemingly no one agrees with my decision makes me deeply question if i have made the right choice by breaking up.

AITAH in this situation or is my reaction warranted?

He is absolutely doing the right thing.

This isn’t only about the money (though that is huge) but also that she lied to him, which is unacceptable.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

Exactly, it really is this simple.

This person makes a very good point.

Exactly, he is not responsible for this.

Financial incompatibility is the leading cause of divorce. He dodged a bullet.

This commenter says he did the right thing.

She was dishonest, and about one of the most important things.

Ending the relationship is totally justified.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.