Relationship advice

His debts are going to drag both of you down. As you have seen, that's already started to happen.

It's good that he helped you with depression, but that's a better job for a doctor. And it's good you want to help him with his debts, but that's a better job for a debt counselor - or he can even talk to the bank and ask them who they might recommend (note: there are scams in this area, so please exercise caution).

Either way, these are big deals, both of them are, and they both need professional attention and assistance.

Thousands of dollars in debt, assuming it is not for school or medical issues, should be a very large red flag to you. Bad credit will follow him to all sorts of places. If you marry, it will follow you around, too. Bad credit means every time you borrow, it's more expensive than if you had had better credit, and you have fewer options for lenders. It also means you are turned down in a lot of places, such as he found with the police academy and you will find if you look to buy a house.

The most common topic of argument between couples is about money, and this one's a doozy. These are big, big bucks. Some questions - and you don't have to answer me but you should be asking them of him and yourself:

• Does he have a gambling problem?
  
• Does he have a drug problem?
  
• Does he have a spending problem?
  
• Does he have any other sort of expensive addiction?
  
• Does he have collections of stuff which could be sold, if that's the cause of his indebtedness?

Mortgages, educational debt, and (sorry) medical debt are all common and expected in the US. But other forms of heavy debt are often signs of significant problems.