After we got married in XX/XX/XXXX my wife following in her parents footsteps wanted to become a teacher. I had a good job and she was going to school full time and not working. We had our XXXX child in XXXX and opted not to put him in daycare. We were told that I made too much money for federal loans and we would have to pursue getting private student loans to finance my wife 's dreams of becoming a XXXX. We approached Sallie Mae and were told that we qualified to get private loans through them. Over the years all information they required was sent to them and they dispersed it to us with no questions asked. Over the years I would contact them inquiring about what our payment would be if my wife stopped going to school right then and I was always told that they would contact us at the end of her education and to not worry about it. My wife completed her education and has a XXXX and XXXX degree in XXXX and she currently XXXX. I have been at my current employer 7 years and throughout that time my mandatory overtime has helped us to meet our monthly payment to them. I work for an XXXX company and with the downturn in that sector my mandatory overtime has been eliminated thus creating a hardship in our repayment of our load to them. As of this complaint the only person I am behind on is our credit card which we have had to use over the years to help us get by when my overtime helped only to pay Sallie Mae and left us with not much else to live on. I called Sallie Mae on Friday XX/XX/XXXX in the hopes of getting a reduced monthly payment. I went over in extreme detail our current financial state with only having {$92.00} in our checking account and no savings. I gave accurate numbers and did not try to deceive anyone. After visiting with his manager he came back with what I thought was a solution. My 1.5 hour conversation went like most have over the years with them ; they were only willing to reduce our monthly payment from {$1000.00} to {$930.00} a month! 
I expressed gratitude to the person who spent all that time with me but asked why the payment could not get lower than that? He said that after they figured out our bills it showed that my wife and I would have about {$1100.00} left every month after bills. I said but sir that only leaves us less than {$200.00} extra every month, what happens if our car breaks down or we have some type of emergency? I said what if a person loses their job completely what would you do with them? He said they had no options if they had private loans and that left me completely in awe at their lack of compassion? 
He stated once again like a broken record that our private loans allowed for no to very little room for any type of negotiation. I said but sir can I contact the lenders either by mail or phone and state my case to them for either some possible loan forgiveness and or a reduction in our monthly payment? 
He never would tell who these people were? Was it SM, was it some reclusive billionaire ... who??? 
He never would tell me. 
I am in no way trying to be a freeloader and remove myself or my wife from the debt we signed up for but the un-willingness of SM to try and work with us leaves me completely in shock. 
Here I am trying to stay in good report with them and yes {$180000.00} is a lot to owe someone BUT I also feel that over the years SM should have questioned us a bit more when we were applying for loans. We never deceived them but if they had said XXXX and XXXX XXXX your current payment would be this dollar amount if your wife stopped going right now we would have said WHOA! ... we ca n't afford that every month and we would have had to figure something else out but SM just kept sending the money without any type of checks or balances. Our current payment to them is XXXX per month which covers the interest only.