First and foremost when dealing with date, prioritize the date in order from the smallest to the largest. If you are not aware of all the debt you have, then order your credit report from one of the credit bureaus so you have an accurate picture of what your credit reveals.

Then once the reports are in, sit down and tak with your spouse about the household financial situation. Make sure that when you have this talk, all minds are clear and you are both focused on your financial picture for now and the future. You cannot begin the journey, if you do not know where you as well as where do you want to end up.

The person that is working hard to clean up the debt needs to get the other person involved. They can make a chart together and establish timelines to have this debt cleaned up. It is imperative that why you are in the cleanup stage new debt is not be creating by anyone.  That defeats the entire purpose and cause even more issues.

Once all the debt is cleaned up it needs to be understood by everyone in the household that new debt should not be created. Ask the other person how did they feel knowing there was debt? What steps can you both take to in order to expedite the cleaning up process. Do not turn into the solo effort on this, it is not necessary.