Daryl writes to Dave Ramsay, sans brothers:
I was dating someone last year that I was expecting to marry. She was having car problems so I co-signed on a lease with her. Now we’ve broken up and she still has the car. So far, she’s made one payment and I’ve made one. We have a forfeiture agreement on the car where, if she didn’t make a payment by the end of the month, I could come get the car. Her parents have offered to buy her another car and she’s offering to just give me the leased car. She won’t tell me how much her parents are willing to give her for a new car. Our conversations have become pretty confrontational.
I’ve already got a leased truck. Why should I take on these payments as well?
I can’t stress this enough. NEVER co-sign on a loan for anyone. I don’t care if it’s your brother, your mother or your hand-twin, but especially not if it’s someone with whom you’re currently having sex.
If you are determined to help them financially, then just give them the money and forget about it. The reason someone can’t get a loan on their own is because even at a time when lenders are frothing at the mouth to provide loans to anyone with a pulse, they are still considered too high a risk for default. And if they’re not going to pay back a bank, they’re certainly not going to pay you back either. In this situation, if you don’t think the average American woman* won’t find it easier to simply find an excuse to break up with you, therefore providing herself with an iron-clad rationalization for sticking you with the debt, you don’t know much about the way women think.
*i.e. the kind of girl who has no savings and significant credit card debt.