Re: Credit Card Debt Question
The son I refer too was picked on and bullied in high school. He hated school and really had no social life or male and or female friends.
He had no desire to consider higher education.
The first summer after he got his driver's license I informed him that he would not sit at home and vegetate and that he better find a job. He went and got a job at a local fast food establishment.
He finished high school and the only thing he liked in school was Navy R.O.T.C .
He was proud and looked good in the uniform.
He maintained the fast food job for a couple of years after high school graduation. He was still living at home with us but paid us "rent" since he declined to pursue advanced education. Dad was not going to allow a freeloader to exist in his house.
He had saved up some money and was "tired" of that job and sought opportunities in other fields. Nothing panned out and he was shortly broke. In that financial interlude I suspended his rent payments to me. He finally obtained a job in a local super maket in the deli department cooking chickens,etc.
The female that he had asked to the Senior Prom years ago was working in that same store. In short, it was his only date that he had ever really had. After a short courtship he asked for her hand. He was still living at home at that time.
So intead of getting an apartment or going to college he buys a house in anticipation of his new bride moving in and helping with finances.
Weeks before the closing of his house I informed him that I had "saved" all his rent payments to me and was giving those monies back to him as a wedding present and down payment for his house. His soon to be wife then asked if my wife and I would be giving them any additional wedding presents.
Fast forward a year and she left him high,dry,in debt, and broke.
The divorce was a DIY affair with no lawyers (no money on his part) and she and he filled out the required forms and filed and settled. I kept informing him that she was liable for the debts they had accrued during the short marriage but he refused to acknowledge that advice. "Dad!! I know what I'm doing."
So now he will suffer from one year of marriage for the next 8 years to settle the debts incurred during his short year of "bliss".
I should have advised him to rent some service from some of the "local girls" on a pay as you go schedule.
This is difficult for a father to state, but my son is not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
That being stated, he is a kind,caring,loving individual and deserves better than what he has received.
I apologize for this rambling discourse but I just seek some advice on what I can do at this time to help him emotionally and financially.
T2,
It is a tough thing to see your kid get the wrong end of the stick even if he isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Butterknives are just as important as any other knives, and are needed more often.
He is better off having done the marriage thing and failed, then to have been subjected to immoral and degrading activity, as much as some live by that code.
I would definitely say that, having gone through it, a bankruptcy is not the answer.
ANY way is preferable over a record which will stay with him as long as he lives, 7 year limit or not.
Try to start from the most practical if longest solution, and work towards the worst solution, bankruptcy being the last resort.
I can't add any more then already has been offered, but I think this doesn't have to be as bad as it looks.
If he has to pay for seven years to finally have paid off the burden, it will definitely have tought some valuable lessons, besides him having learned to stick with it and see it done and gone.
Seven years will go by as quick as anything else that goes by at the same time, and will have him be able to look at himself in a better way, knowing he worked at it and then succeeded, if that doesn't build character I don't know what will.
Your financiaql help can reduce the time it will take to pay back his debt.
Myself, I would have urged him to get after his former spouse, and come hell or high water, cause her to be responsible for the stunt she pulled, through legal action. She is responsible just the same as he is being made to be!
I can appreciate your concern and have respect for a Dad who cares.
Your offer to help with what finances you can is a wonderfully Dad-like thing to do, while he works to eliminate the results of his decisionmaking. It sounds tough, but it will make him a better man.
Believe me, 7 years is nothing compared to the agony of a bankruptcy record which will NOT go away, but surely will leave opportunities to be picked on some more.
I hope he or he and you can come to a decision that will not let him slip into bankruptcy.
Kind regards,
Take care,
PH.
