set aside money for parents without telling your wife to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let me take a wild guess. OP is marrying a much younger woman who wouldn’t spare him a second glance without his wallet.

This was my thought too. They will both get what they deserve out of the relationship.

[Anonymous]

1) premarital property is premarital property. don't commingle, have a trust in place, and properly title the accounts and also make sure transfer-on-death is set how you'd like.

2) i explicitly set this up in my trusts and will. i also had a separate life insurance policy to fund it. all of this was done with the knowledge of my spouse.

3) the funds that i was going to devote to my parents care in the event of my death will now go to our child. enough things go wrong with second spouses and additional children that i'm more comfortable knowing that my child will be secure regardless.

again, all of this has been done with the knowledge and cooperation of my spouse. doing it in secret seems like a terrible red flag for your future marriage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you can't have a discussion with your wife about these issues, you shouldn't be getting married.

+1 Think about how this might play out, OP. What if she finds out later and then asks when you guys are going to set aside a like amount for her parents? What if you don't have another million so the "fair" thing to do is move your in laws in since you're bankrolling your own parents? What if she finds out later and your prenup is invalidated due to dishonesty on your part (a real thing that can happen, fyi)?

[Anonymous]

Setting aside premarital funds for the care of your parents isn't crazy (in fact, your fiancee is lucky; my spouse is spending a lot of earned income on his parents. care at the cost of other things like funding our kids' 529 plans), but intentionally hiding this from your fiancee is a big red flag. You have to be able to communicate openly, so get to work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1) premarital property is premarital property. don't commingle, have a trust in place, and properly title the accounts and also make sure transfer-on-death is set how you'd like.

2) i explicitly set this up in my trusts and will. i also had a separate life insurance policy to fund it. all of this was done with the knowledge of my spouse.

3) the funds that i was going to devote to my parents care in the event of my death will now go to our child. enough things go wrong with second spouses and additional children that i'm more comfortable knowing that my child will be secure regardless.

again, all of this has been done with the knowledge and cooperation of my spouse. doing it in secret seems like a terrible red flag for your future marriage.

+1000

Done in secret is a terrible idea. I get the need to protect yourself, in 2nd marriages especially. But you have to be truthful and upfront with your future spouse, or the marriage won't last

[Anonymous]

Married for 30 years.

Take a step back. Involve your fiancée in entire decision making process. Do you have multi million dollars to set aside for your new life as a married couple? I think if any the reassurance that you’d prioritize US and or future children. Could funding not be set aside for a new home? Education of future DC?

DH and I have always had shared bank accounts. In our long marriage, we’ve been a double income, no kids (but bought a house on his income only with down payment from my grandparents), then I was a SAHM raising our 3 DC while he got a graduate degree and worked, then I went back to work (my salary paid for college tuition) to now where I’m an early retiree.

[Anonymous]

"without fiancee's knowledge" is key here

that's the part that will get you in trouble

[Anonymous]

Why would you do this?

That’s weird.

Even if your parents are in need, 1M is a lot to gift them. I’d not do that especially if you want to have children some day.

[Anonymous]

OP, you are entitled to set aside $1 million for your parents. Holding it from your fiancée is messed up. You should be going over your finances with a fine toothed comb before getting married. Get a prenup. Give her plenty of time to go over it with a lawyer.

You need to start thinking like a team. Right now, you’re tweeting to pull one over on her. Therapy gets recommended a lot on this board, but in this case it’s warranted. WHY, in the name of all things holy, do you think it’s appropriate to hide $1 million from the women you think you love? That’s really, really messed up. Or you’re a troll. If this is real, you need help.

[Anonymous]

I actually see nothing wrong with this. I am 100% fine with an adult child - man or woman - setting aside money for their own parents care and wellbeing before they get married and intermingle funds with someone else.

This is a clean way of doing things. Afterall, when parents pass on, their estate pass on to their descendents.

I bought a condo for my retired parents to live rent-free next to my brother's condo 20 years ago. It allowed my parents to not sell their large sfh as a distress sale and double their pension by rent out their own house. As a result, my parents became well off.

Today, that house of my parents is up for sale and all of their children (we are 3 sibs in total) will make bank because of it. Of course, we are in our 60s and so it will benefit our own children rather than us. But, if we had not helped our parents, we would not have preserved our generational wealth for our children.

I am all for people with means helping the various generations of the family.

This should absolutely be a fait accompli before you get married and it should not be something that you need to share with your future fiancee.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I actually see nothing wrong with this. I am 100% fine with an adult child - man or woman - setting aside money for their own parents care and wellbeing before they get married and intermingle funds with someone else.

This is a clean way of doing things. Afterall, when parents pass on, their estate pass on to their descendents.

I bought a condo for my retired parents to live rent-free next to my brother's condo 20 years ago. It allowed my parents to not sell their large sfh as a distress sale and double their pension by rent out their own house. As a result, my parents became well off.

Today, that house of my parents is up for sale and all of their children (we are 3 sibs in total) will make bank because of it. Of course, we are in our 60s and so it will benefit our own children rather than us. But, if we had not helped our parents, we would not have preserved our generational wealth for our children.

I am all for people with means helping the various generations of the family.

This should absolutely be a fait accompli before you get married and it should not be something that you need to share with your future fiancee.

"...without telling my future wife about it." <--- This is the problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually see nothing wrong with this. I am 100% fine with an adult child - man or woman - setting aside money for their own parents care and wellbeing before they get married and intermingle funds with someone else.

This is a clean way of doing things. Afterall, when parents pass on, their estate pass on to their descendents.

I bought a condo for my retired parents to live rent-free next to my brother's condo 20 years ago. It allowed my parents to not sell their large sfh as a distress sale and double their pension by rent out their own house. As a result, my parents became well off.

Today, that house of my parents is up for sale and all of their children (we are 3 sibs in total) will make bank because of it. Of course, we are in our 60s and so it will benefit our own children rather than us. But, if we had not helped our parents, we would not have preserved our generational wealth for our children.

I am all for people with means helping the various generations of the family.

This should absolutely be a fait accompli before you get married and it should not be something that you need to share with your future fiancee.

"...without telling my future wife about it." <--- This is the problem.

BINGO!

When financial details (and anything else) are kept secret in a relationship/marriage, that marriage rarely works out for an extended period. Hard to build a relationship when you are not trusting and truthful

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"without fiancee's knowledge" is key here

that's the part that will get you in trouble

Yep. And going into it so fiancé know this is part of the deal. I think it's when it happens later, when all funds are commingled, then suddenly one spouse wants to spend on aging parents instead of themselves and/or kids that problems arise.

Discuss with fiancé, establish a pre-nuptial on pre-marital assets, and set up a trust for parents.

[Anonymous]

Whatever you have in your bank account prior to marriage will be viewed by your wife as being shared assets. This is how it works, regardless of what the law says.

The solution is to stay single or marry someone with more money than you.

Honestly, there really isn't any advantage to getting married if you have assets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are entitled to set aside $1 million for your parents. Holding it from your fiancée is messed up. You should be going over your finances with a fine toothed comb before getting married. Get a prenup. Give her plenty of time to go over it with a lawyer.

You need to start thinking like a team. Right now, you’re tweeting to pull one over on her. Therapy gets recommended a lot on this board, but in this case it’s warranted. WHY, in the name of all things holy, do you think it’s appropriate to hide $1 million from the women you think you love? That’s really, really messed up. Or you’re a troll. If this is real, you need help.

OP here. Why would my wife need to know about my financial situation, aside from I am neither in debt nor gambling? I make 400K/yr, and she makes 100k/yr. I always wanted to give 1M to my parents because they adopted me from China when I was two years old. They did not have a lot of money when they adopted me, and gave me every opportunity to succeed. Would that make any difference if I gave my parents that 1M before I met my wife to be vs. after I met my wife to be?