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Leslie and I were college sweethearts. We met at Indiana University in 2004. I was working as a costume designer for the school play, and she was one of the actresses.

We had a slow courtship -- a friendship that turned into a romantic relationship

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In 2005, I graduated and moved to New York City to attend a theater program at Juilliard, and Leslie and I continued dating long-distance while she finished up her senior year. The separation was hard on her, but I was able to fly back to Indiana to see her every couple of months.

During one of my visits, Leslie asked me to go car shopping with her. It was her first time buying a vehicle, and she wanted my input. There was just one problem: When the salesperson at the dealership processed Leslie's application, he saw that she had a low credit score and told her she'd need a cosigner to qualify for the loan.

Leslie was surprised because she didn't have a lot of debt, but it turned out that there were a couple of nicks on her credit report due to medical expenses. Not wanting to let the sale get away so easily, the salesperson looked at me and asked if I could cosign. I thought, "Why not?"

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The next year, I moved to Connecticut to study production design at Yale. Leslie had just graduated and relocated to be with me. We moved into an $800, one-bedroom apartment and started splitting our household expenses.

Leslie found a job in a jewelry store, making about $30,000 a year. I was an unemployed graduate student, but I received a monthly stipend -- less than $2,000 -- from school. Money was tight, but I wasn't worried. I used my credit cards to float us when we needed them.

When our lease was up about six months later, we wanted to upgrade to a bigger place because we were planning a future together -- marriage, kids, the whole thing. At the time, it seemed like a good idea to buy a condo, even though we weren't making enough money to afford such a big purchase (and we didn't have any savings). But I'd always heard it was better to buy than to rent.

The housing market was at an all-time high, and we were easily approved for a $178,000 loan, with no money down. Once again, I had the better credit score, so the lender put the mortgage in my name.

Leslie wanted to buy all new furniture, so I came up with the brilliant idea to take out a student loan for the cost of furnishing the condo -- plus moving fees we couldn't afford to cover, either.

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It had been so quick and easy to get a student loan a few months before, so I thought, "Why not do it again?" And that's how it went: Every six months, whenever we needed extra cash, I'd simply take out another student loan to cover our bases.

The icing on the cake? When I proposed to Leslie in 2007, I bought her a $6,500 diamond engagement ring -- with money from a student loan.

More than a year passed before I started to worry about our debt. And that's exactly what I thought it was: our debt. I didn't think it made a difference that all of it -- the condo, $25,000 of credit card debt, $70,000 in student loans -- was in my name.

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soon after I finished grad school and a few months before our wedding, the student loan bills -- about $750 each month -- started rolling in.

By that point, Leslie's career had taken off, and she was earning much larger paychecks. We were renting our condo in Connecticut and had moved into a $2,500-a-month apartment in Brooklyn so Leslie could be closer to her six-figure sales job on Wall Street. Meanwhile, I had a string of low-paying theater jobs.

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Looking back, I should've noticed at least one red flag: Leslie always spent money as quickly as she made it. I didn't think anything of it when she had the retail job at the jewelry store. Her paychecks weren't that big, so it didn't seem like she was shelling out a lot. But when she got the Wall Street job, she'd blow an entire month's salary on Coach bags and shoes.

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We'd only been married for six months when Leslie told me that she wanted a divorce. I was blindsided. As far as I knew, we weren't having any trouble in our relationship. But Leslie's feelings had changed.<

I couldn't get a straight answer from her as to why she wanted to end things. She talked in circles about how marriage wasn't what she thought it was going to be -- how she thought she'd be more in love with me.

So after just a year and a half of marriage, we divorced in 2010 -- and I was on the hook for all of our debt.

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I moved back to Indiana to live with my parents to save money. I took a job as a college professor, while also working as a waiter and taking on other odd jobs, like working as a sign-holder for a cell phone company, to pad my income.

Leslie gave me $5,000, which put a dent in our debt, and then I drew up a plan for us to split the rest. She agreed to pay me an additional $300 each month for the remaining amount -- about $15,000 at that point. But after five months, she stopped making payments, saying her expenses in New York were high and she didn't want to contribute to paying back my student loans.

I took Leslie to court in 2011, but the judge only ordered her to pay $5,000 to cover some of the condo-related expenses.

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I declared bankruptcy last year in order to absolve myself of all responsibility for the house. Honestly, I felt relieved -- and ready for a fresh financial start.

These days I'm slowly but surely putting the pieces back together without Leslie. I still live with my parents, but I've learned to live well within my $38,000-per-year salary as a professor.

I've still got about $50,000 in student loans, but I'm chipping away at them a few hundred dollars every month.

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