Allison Brooke Eastman’s fiance was ready to walk down the aisle and commit to the wedding vows. Until he found out how much debt she had. Turned out when he was about to say “for richer and for poorer” he really had no idea just how poor. According to the New York Times, Eastman’s finance broke off the engagement three days after finding out about her massive student loan. Early on in the relationship she admitted to having about $100,000 in student loan debt, but the truth was, she didn’t know how much debt she had. Turns out the debt was closer to $170,000. “He accused me of lying,” Eastman, 31, a San Francisco X-ray technician and part-time photographer, told the New York Times. She had run up much of the debt earning a bachelor’s degree in photography.  “But if I was lying, I was lying to myself, not to him. I didn’t really want to know the full amount.”

This story isn’t completely uncommon. Money breaks up marriages all the time. But some debt-ridden college graduates wonder when the right time to break the news to their significant others really is. Kerrie Tidwell, a third-year student at the Medical College of Georgia is working on becoming an ER doctor. Tidwell tells the New York Times she’s fully expecting to rack up a quarter of a million dollars in student loan debt. But what she’s unclear about is how her boyfriend will react. “I didn’t acquire it because I go out and shop a lot,” she told the newspaper. “It’s because I’m doing something that I’ll love for the rest of my life. I know he has his own dreams, and they will require money. Will my debt take away from that?”

Financial planner Lisa J. B. Peterson told the New York Times that with about half the couples she counsels, both parties have significant debt. In about a quarter of her clients, one person has significant loans. She says the most important thing people can do is talk about money before marriage. “At least half the time, people are shocked at what the other person’s attitude is,” Susan Reach Winters, a matrimonial lawyer told the New York Times. “You ask how they’d handle it if someone wanted to stay home after having a baby, and at the same time they give completely different answers.”

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