So, my husband and I have been starting the process of getting pre-approved for a FHA loan to buy our first house. He has always told me that his credit card debt was around $10k. Well, when he actually pulled his account balances, in all, it was more like $39k - not to mention the nearly $8k in student loans. That's nearly $50k of debt he's accrued before he met me.

Needless to say, when I gave the lender the numbers at first, I gave her the incorrect ones. When I got the correct info, we only got pre-approved for a $178k loan - which won't go very far in the market we're buying in. So, I've decided to abandon our plans to buy a house this year and we're trying to figure a way to pay that debt down. Not only am I feeling hurt and betrayed, I'm just in disbelief how ONE person can rack up that much debt by themselves. This has seriously caused me to consider separation/divorce, but I don't want it to come to that in my heart.

What can we do to pay this off? I doubt he could get a card that has 0% interest to pay those monstrous balances off. I already had him call and inquire about getting his APRs lowered (they're insane - one is 28 percent, another is 26 and another is 17 percent). I feel lost and have no clue what to do. My only thought is to move into a smaller rental that costs less, put that extra money to his debt and when I'm done paying off my debt in about six months, taking over the joint bills (rent, utilities, etc.) so that he can put about 90 percent of his earnings toward paying the credit cards. It will still take about two years to pay off. Anyone else have ideas? I'm seriously freaking out about this. HELP!