Woman Schemes with Boyfriend to ‘Trick’ a ‘Rich’ Man into Marrying Her So She Can Pay Off Her Student Loans

A person recently sought advice from Slate’s Dear Prudence column after discovering that a close friend and his girlfriend are plotting to scam a wealthy man into marriage to erase her student loans.

In the anonymous post, the writer explained that their friend and his partner are actively searching for a “rich” man for her to marry and then divorce once he has paid off her debts. The friend, disturbed by the plan, asked how to intervene without losing the friendship.

“I feel like soon I will explode and share my opinion on this in a nasty way,” the writer confessed. “I don’t want to throw away a close friendship of many years, but I don’t want to know the details of this arrangement or meet the poor soul they are tricking.”

According to the letter, the scheme is already in motion. The woman is “currently dating multiple people,” and two of them are reportedly “very interested in marriage.” Despite the deception, she and her boyfriend allegedly intend to continue seeing each other after she weds their chosen target.

“I think it is despicable to trick someone into marrying you and cheat on them,” the friend wrote, describing the situation as “truly terrible.”

While the couple is “not looking for advice,” the man’s boyfriend still confides in his longtime friend about how the plan is affecting him — leaving the advice-seeker torn between disgust and loyalty.

“I don’t think the plan will work, and if it does, I’m not sure I want to continue being friends with this person,” they admitted. “But he is still my friend, and I feel I should listen to his woes and try to support him because clearly something is wrong with his judgment right now.”

Columnist Nicole Cliffe, writing as Prudence, didn’t mince words in her response. She urged the writer to end the friendship altogether.

“He’s a bad person now. I’m very sorry,” Cliffe wrote. “You can try to have a talk with him where you do ‘explode and share [your] opinion on this in a nasty way.’ That’s fine. He might even listen. If he doesn’t, he knows why you are not friends anymore. These people are disgusting.”