Saving belongs_to associations

[Jeff Lee]

I'm trying to save a username along with profiles (User has_many
Profiles; Profile belongs_to User). I had a portion of this working
(updating user info) but I cannot create new user records.
I get the following error:

You have a nil object when you didn't expect it!
The error occurred while evaluating nil.build

Parameters:
{"commit"=>"Create record",
"profile"=>{"company"=>"",
"new_user_attributes"=>[{"username"=>"jlee",
"active"=>"1"}],
"new_someid_attributes"=>[{"someid"=>"123456789"}],
"type_id"=>"2",
"first_name"=>"Jeffrey",
"last_name"=>"Lee"},
"authenticity_token"=>"65507986d1912380edf522b5b9f7ee3763c6dc0d"}

I am getting stuck on the profile model code below:

# Users
def new_user_attributes=(user_attributes)
user_attributes.each do |attributes|
user.build(attributes)
end
end
def existing_user_attributes=(user_attributes)
user.reject(&:new_record?).each do |user|
attributes = user_attributes[user.id.to_s]
if attribute
user.attributes = attributes
else
user.delete(email)
end
end
end
def save_user
user.save(false)
end

New method in profiles_controller:
def new
@profile = Profile.new
@profile.user = User.new
end

User partial:
<div class="user">
<% new_or_existing = user.new_record? ? 'new' : 'existing' %>
<% prefix = "profile[#{new_or_existing}_user_attributes][]" %>
<% fields_for prefix, user do |user_form| -%>
<%= label :user_form, :user, "Username" %><%=
user_form.text_field :username %>
<%= user_form.hidden_field :active, :value => "1" %>
<% end -%>
</div>