MW My boyfriend has ADHD, $50,000 in student-loan debt and no plan to pay it off. Is it my responsibility to step in and help?

By Aditi Shrikant

'He works a full-time job, pays bills on time and is a genuinely good person, but I feel like he's just living day by day'

Dear Dollar Signs,

I (26F) live with my boyfriend (27M). He works a full-time job, pays bills on time and is a genuinely good person, but I feel like he's just living day by day and not really thinking about his financial future.

He has never owned a credit card and has racked up considerable student-loan debt after earning two degrees. He hasn't defaulted or anything - I know he stopped making payments when the government paused repayment, but I believe he is up to date on them. He and I are both bad about ordering from DoorDash $(DASH)$ out of convenience when we could easily cook or pick up food on our block. That's probably the most irresponsible spending he does. He's otherwise good with saving!

My main concern is the lack of desire to plan - he doesn't see getting a credit card and building credit as a priority, and he doesn't talk about long-term plans for paying off loans. He only makes around $58,000 annually (I think? It's definitely in the $50,000 range), so I get it: He's kind of just thinking about covering bills and survival, and I was in that boat two months ago before getting the job I have now (and now I'm picking up more of our DoorDash tabs).

His main priority right now is building up savings after our move last summer. He says he wants a better-paying job, but he struggles with focusing on applications and cover letters. I've seen him get very anxious when filling out job applications, especially on weeknights after he's worked a full day and his ADHD meds have worn off.

His ADHD also makes it hard for him to focus and plan long term. He talks pretty openly with me, family and close friends about his diagnosis, and he takes Adderall for it.

I know I could step in more and help him work toward building credit or making a plan for paying down his student-loan debt, but I don't want managing his finances to become my sole responsibility. We're not considering marriage or having a family right now, but if we did in the future, I would want to address this more explicitly with him.

How can I push him to get it together? Is it my responsibility as a good partner to step in and help? When should we have these conversations?

His Better (Financial) Half

Dear Better Half,

You obviously care deeply about your boyfriend - the fact that you're worried at all about his debt when it doesn't affect you is telling. You're also right to be sensitive to his attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, as it's well documented that adults with ADHD can struggle to manage their finances.

However, I think it's important to remember that you both are so young. Having student loans is not uncommon for someone your age: 1 in 4 adults under 40 has student-loan debt, and 71% of borrowers with postgraduate degrees owe at least $25,000, according to data from the Pew Research Center.

As my colleague Jillian Berman points out, a number of developments in recent decades - including diminished public funding for higher education, advanced degrees that don't translate to high-enough earnings to pay off loans, and harsher-than-normal penalties for falling behind on payments - have both raised the cost of college and made it harder to repay student loans.

That said, I don't actually think your primary concern is his debt. It seems to me that you are anxious about getting deeper into a relationship with someone who doesn't appear to have a vision for his future, or a vision that you believe is appropriate for someone of his age and earning potential. You're worried that his apparent blasé attitude toward paying off his loans might mean he'll be complacent about marriage, kids and generally building a life together.

Unless you have an explicit conversation about his debt and your future as a couple, you'll continue to feel this way.

Having nonjudgmental conversations

Your fear of becoming your boyfriend's unwilling financial planner is totally legitimate. That is a dynamic many couples fall into if one is better at handling money than the other, said Lisa Marie Bobby, a relationship therapist and founder of Growing Self Counseling in Denver.

Because you seem to be more financially savvy than him, you need to be sure to approach this conversation with more care than probably feels natural - especially because it feels like there is already some judgment baked in here. Going out of your way to emphasize that he is a "good person" suggests you might inadvertently be associating a person's ability to budget with their worth.

"People who tend to have a lot of financial literacy can be a little bit judgy about it," Bobby said. "That will shut this conversation down and create problems. We cannot come from that angle."

Any conversation about creating a life together, whether it be centered on money or marriage or kids, needs to feel emotionally safe for both people.

"Make it very positive," Bobby said. "Start with: 'I adore you. I'm so excited about where this is headed, and I am aware that we have differences when it comes to our relationship with money. If we are on a trajectory where our lives are going to be more deeply intertwined, you and I really need to get into alignment around how we do this together.'"

Meeting him where he's at doesn't mean you need to be picking up the tab more, though. I'd argue that paying for his DoorDash might actually be enabling his tendency to not really think about his financial future. Why would he learn to budget if he knows you're operating as his safety net?

It also seems to me that you aren't asking for enough details. Considering you live together, you should know his salary - it's not the easiest question to ask, but in this case, the answer affects whether you two can cover your rent long term. Maybe you need to get more comfortable inquiring about his loan-payment plan, his exact income, or how he imagines your relationship progressing.

"Literally every couple needs to have these kinds of conversations," Bobby said. "This is one of the core competencies that is required."

'The future doesn't feel real'

You are right that his ADHD may be affecting his ability to be forward-thinking.

Jessica McCabe, host of the YouTube channel How to ADHD, was diagnosed when she was 12. "We get distracted and struggle with executive function," or the ability to focus, juggle tasks, plan and problem-solve, she said.

Research has also suggested that adults with ADHD can have more difficulty establishing long-term financial goals than those without ADHD.

"The future doesn't feel real," McCabe said. "The way we experience time is different. Our time horizon is shorter."

This perspective can be especially difficult when it comes to paying off debt, which accrues interest over time. If it's hard for you to perceive what life will look like in 20 years, it's challenging to justify paying down a bill now, even if you know it's going to grow into a much larger amount than what you originally borrowed.

Your boyfriend can implement budgeting or planning structures that make it more likely that he'll reach his financial goals, said Dave DeWitt, a certified financial planner who specializes in working with clients who have ADHD.

"It's really figuring out some way to hack your brain to set up some system that makes it so you have to improve," he said.

Scheduling automatic payments or keeping a separate bank account for money that is going toward your long-term goals, whatever they may be, is a good start.

"Send the money to a credit union with terrible technology, so it's hard to get access to it," DeWitt said. "If you just get your money moving to where you need it to go, you can basically have this simple framework."

'Money is never about money'

Like I said, you both are young. There is no need to get anxious because he has some debt or doesn't have his finances figured out. No one in their 20s really does.

But that doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't have some more candid conversations about where things are going and how you plan to get there. Perhaps talking about money is a good gateway into discussing buying a house or paying for a wedding down the line.

It's especially important to be honest because "money is never about money," Bobby noted. "There is so much attached to it. Our worth, our hopes and dreams, our values are all expressed around our relationship with money."

Straightforward but sensitive conversations can show you where his priorities lie and help the two of you get on the same page, if that's something you want to do.

Do you have questions about navigating your first job or cohabitation with a partner? Is your messy roommate situation or overbearing family causing you financial stress? If you're just starting out on your money or career journey, I want to hear from you. Write to me at dollarsigns@marketwatch.com.

-Aditi Shrikant

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June 26, 2025 06:00 ET (10:00 GMT)

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