Boyfriend refuses to marry his fiancé until she pays the 6 years worth of taxes she hasn't filed: 'Her wages are garnished.'

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Emmy Pratt • Senior Editor
May 14, 2026 7:45 AM EDT

Does love and the IRS mix?

It's not totally unheard of for a couple to wait to marry until one of the partners has paid off their pre-marriage debt. The jury is still out on whether that's a good strategy financially and relationally. If it's going to take you four years to pay off your student loans, and you're already 35, you might not want to wait those four years before getting married and having a family. Debt shouldn't keep you from the moments that matter most in life. I'm not saying you should have a big fancy wedding if you're struggling to keep up with your credit card payments, but you shouldn't delay milestones indefinitely and use debt as an excuse.

One of the reasons you should still get married if you have credit card or student loan debt is that it's much easier to pay it off if you have two incomes instead of one. If you can't work together to pay off debt, you have to wonder how other aspects of the marriage will go. It's supposed to be a collaboration. I'm not saying that if one partner spends thousands of dollars on clothes and toys they can't afford, their partner should just accept it and keep paying their ever-growing balance. 

The one kind of debt that you don't want to mess with is IRS debt. They are ruthless and will take everything from you if you don't pay them. The boyfriend in this story doesn't want to marry his girlfriend yet because she is so blasé about her IRS debt, and I don't blame him one bit. 

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  • A man standing next to a woman in a desert
    via Brooke Cagle

    An engaged couple who are not going to get married until she figures out her tax debt. 

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • Am I overreacting? I won’t legally marry my partner until she pays her taxes.

    I have been with my fiancé for 5 years. She has been successful in her career and has been lucky enough to be hired (with significant equity) at a startup that took off.
    via u/Mysterious-Oil-9619
  • When we started our relationship, I was trying to get a small business off the ground and was struggling financially. For two years, I think I took home $30,000 per year. I gave that up and transitioned into tech
    via u/Mysterious-Oil-9619
  • partially for myself, but mainly for her and the lifestyle expectations this relationship comes with. I don't have a ton of savings and I have finally myself out of the hole put myself in financially, moving to LA and doing a
    via u/Mysterious-Oil-9619
  • The Hollywood sign at sunset
    via Jake Blucker

    Los Angeles is an incredibly difficult city to live in if you're only making $30K per year

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • boot camp early in our relationship. To be clear, I'm thankful with where I am at now career-wise. I wouldn't trade it for what I had before.
    via u/Mysterious-Oil-9619
  • I learned 3 years ago that she hadn't paid taxes in at least 4 years, which has now become 6+ years. I asked her to get that figured out for a while, but backed off over a year ago
    via u/Mysterious-Oil-9619
  • after it became a major rift and realized she wasn't going to do anything about it. The government is now garnishing her wages.
    via u/Mysterious-Oil-9619
  • We are set to get married early next year. I am worried that the government will come after me (once we are married) unless she takes care of this. I, as an individual, cannot take on the amount of debt that
    via u/Mysterious-Oil-9619
  • she probably owes and cannot afford to have my wages garnished. She says she wants me to help her and that I am hanging this over her head. I have connected
    via u/Mysterious-Oil-9619
  • her to advisors and she has found a few on her own. She's met with two in the past two years and still done nothing. I told her that I will not legally marry her until she sorts this out. Am I overreacting?
    via u/Mysterious-Oil-9619
  • EDIT: When I say pay, I really mean FILE. She does have pay deducted out of her paycheck from her w2 job. But it's standard and she is in the 30%+ tax bracket. I'm certain she
    via u/Mysterious-Oil-9619
  • owes money still. She has the money to pay it off. It's not about the fact that she has debt at this point, it's the avoidance.
    via u/Mysterious-Oil-9619
  • A close-up of a W-2 and tax form
    via Hans (Unsplash+)

    A W2 form, which she should've used to file her taxes over the past six years. 

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • k_leetayl i think you know you're not
    via u/k_leetayl
  • Mysterious-Oil-9619 OP When I type it out, I feel strongly that I am not. But she has a really convincing way of making me feel like I am unreasonable, or that I am moving the goal posts for the things she wants out of her life.
    via u/Mysterious-Oil-9619
  • Chumptopia A good friend of mine ended up losing HER house that she had before she married a guy who didn't pay his taxes. Don't do it. The IRS is ruthless.
    via u/Chumptopia
  • Dixieland_Insanity NOR I didn't know my late husband had federal student loan debt until we had been married for 3 years and the IRS was going to keep our entire tax refund. Every year going forward, I had to file an injured spouse form and accept whatever the IRS determined was my portion of the tax refund.
    via u/Dixieland_Insanity
  • The form kept me out of legal trouble but it still cost me. I had 3 children and he had none. Money I would have received through child tax credits was cut by half. Even though it was technically my refund for my kids, since he could claim them as dependents, half of what I should have received for them went towards his debt. This was the money I used for school expenses, clothes, eye glasses, dentist, etc. This took money directly from my kids that I had always used for their needs.
    via u/Dixieland_Insanity
  • Do not marry her until the debt is fully resolved. With her wages being garnished, the IRS has already decided what she owes. She isn't doing anything to help herself or this situation by ignoring it. It isn't going to go away. Please be smart about this. You're seeing that she will avoid dealing with major problems regardless of the consequences. You don't want her consequences to become yours as well.
    via u/Dixieland_Insanity
  • Mysterious-Oil-9619 OP She also like to remind me that "all of my friend's husbands take care of the accounting."
    via u/Mysterious-Oil-9619
  • inspiringlyCrazy Yeah it sounds like she's going to make HER debt, YOUR debt
    via u/inspiringlyCrazy
  • brattygio Love can survive anything, but marrying someone who keeps avoiding a problem this serious will make you scared for consequences that aren't your to own. NOR.
    via u/brattygio

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boyfriend marriage taxes irresponsible wages girlfriend debt illegal garnish fiancee
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