If Too Soon To Quit moves out, but does not file for divorce, she must watch her money.
As an attorney with some limited experience in divorce law, I so saw many people cause each other so much pain because they did not consider marriage to be a business partnership as well as an emotional and sexual partnership.

Too Soon To Quit's husband could run up a lot of debt without her support. If he does, she could be forced to either repay those debts or pay an attorney to separate her debts from his. It was always messy, expensive work to separate debts that an ex spouse ran up after the couple separated, but before they divorced.

The lease poses a more immediate problem. I defend evictions for a living now. Both Too Soon To Quit and her husband are probably named in the lease. Even if she leaves, no landlord with even a single brain cell would release her from her obligation to pay rent if her husband is unemployed. If he is evicted, the wife's name will appear in the specialized credit reports that landlords check. I hope she can limit the damage.

Yours truly,

Ben Ramm

Thanks for the legal perspective, Ben. More bonus advice for TSTQ from "Savage Love" readers—perhaps better advice for TSTQ—after the jump.

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You generally give great advice. BUT. I believe you may have missed an important aspect of the situation when you responded to TSTQ's letter. TSTQ's husband may be suffering from severe depression. Guys are supposed to be the bread-winner in our culture, and it sounds like TSTQ's man has had some kind of crisis of faith in himself. The timing of his injury and loss of work may mean he is a lazy scamming dirtbag fuck who should be dumped on the street. Or it may mean that this young man buckled under the pressure of the first real adult-world test of his (culturally defined) man-hood. The boy may be suffering from depression or bi-polar disorder—all that passion and drive may have been part of his manic phase.

What should TSTQ do? Get the boy to a doctor and find out what is going on! If he is depressed or bipolar, she needs to do a few things: She needs to learn about these disorders and what it means for her and her relationship. There are good drugs that can help many people with moderate to severe illness. Dialing in a medication plan that works can take a long time. She needs to decide what she is willing to put up with in her relationship. She needs to have clear boundaries. Part of having clear boundaries is deciding when it is time to DTMFA; is there a time limit or some other threshold on the bullshit meter that she can rely on to tell herself it is time to go. Most of all, TSTQ needs to remember that the momentum of the relationship is strong. She may find herself finding excuses to stick around even when she would have been better off leaving. Know your boundaries and stand by them. No excuses.

This relationship is hanging by a thread, but properly identifying mental illness (if it is present) in one of its members may be enough to save it. Barring that, it may at least save a life.—M.S.

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I also have been reading your column in The Stranger since I was in my teens—twenty years ago! I generally think you give good advice... except when it comes to married people. It so often seems like you are telling married people to walk! This girl—TSTQ—says she has only been married five months! A broken foot takes months to heal, this guy probably isn't as lazy as she is making him out to be. In fact she might be nagging the shit out of him! And why is she trying to humiliate him on the Internet? You should've have asked her that.—T.K.

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While I roll my eyes at TSTQ's rush to marriage and wonder how much of her situation could have been foreseen, I think your advice was missing one key element, if we take her letter at face value.
It sounds like TSTQ's husband is suffering through severe depression. Loss of a job (voluntary or otherwise) without a clear path forward can often lead to a self-reinforcing cycle of ever-deepening depression. TSTQ's husband may need talk therapy, and probably at least a temporary course of antidepressants, to get out of this rut and become the hardworking, happy guy she married. If she really does feel it's "too soon to quit," she ought to try her damnedest to get him this care.

Of course, given that this is the U.S. of A, and given that even those of us with insurance often find psychiatric care isn't covered, he still may not be able to get the care he needs.—Didn't Choose To Be Depressed

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I just read the letter by To Soon To Quit and your response to it and I wanted to let you know that for a while now I've had the exact same pattern of behaviour as TSTQ's husband. Basically unemployed, not looking for a new job, not cleaning, playing video games all day, and watching quite a bit of porn. I knew that this behaviour was bad, but still couldn't get myself to behave any differently. I'm single and don't have any sex partners but I think that if I had, I would be in the exact same situation as the husband.

In your response you basically make him out to be the biggest asshole ever. But maybe there's a bit more going on there. Maybe he doesn't want "out"of the relationship, Dan, but can't manage to be "in" it right now either. Of course this situation is shitty for TSTQ and she should take care of herself first, but I think it might be even worse for the husband. It could also be a good idea to get him get some professional help for his own problems, before going to marriage counseling. I reckon that trying to fix the marriage when one of the people in it is broken won't work.

As for me, I'm doing slightly better, in the sense that I'm looking for a job now. Otherwise it's still pretty bad. Anyway could you pass this on to TSTQ and her husband. Maybe it might help.—P.