How to handle this with DD?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just tell her the truth!

That you're currently engaged in a temporary legal situation where you entertain the genitals of some rich dude. His kids get whatever they want. Your kid gets the scraps, and nothing is expected from her deadbeat father. And tell her any money you make, if at all, just goes for your own pleasure, not for anything your only child needs or wants.

What's the problem?

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just tell her the truth!

That you're currently engaged in a temporary legal situation where you entertain the genitals of some rich dude. His kids get whatever they want. Your kid gets the scraps, and nothing is expected from her deadbeat father. And tell her any money you make, if at all, just goes for your own pleasure, not for anything your only child needs or wants.

What's the problem?

+1

+2….thanks for clarifying

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just tell her the truth!

That you're currently engaged in a temporary legal situation where you entertain the genitals of some rich dude. His kids get whatever they want. Your kid gets the scraps, and nothing is expected from her deadbeat father. And tell her any money you make, if at all, just goes for your own pleasure, not for anything your only child needs or wants.

What's the problem?

+1

+2….thanks for clarifying

+3 Well put. Thank you.

[Anonymous]

It infuriates me when people get married when their kid is a tween and don't think AT ALL about financial aid for college if they don't intend to pay. I totally get that things happen sometimes. But this just sounds like a scenario where it never occurred to OP that her getting married had MASSIVE ramifications for her daughter's financial aid eligibility AND she never had any plan for addressing those ramifications (and now seems completely unwilling to).

The bare MINIMUM that you should do is ask your husband to loan your daughter the necessary $$ at no profit to himself. Even then, there's a decent chance she's worse of than she would have been if she gets into an elite school (which offer lots of grants as opposed to loans), but at least she's not completely screwed.

OP: If you aren't willing to even ask your husband to loan your daughter the money, I sincerely hope she leaves for college and never looks back.

[Anonymous]

I sincerely hope OP was just trolling. Even dung beetles wouldn’t treat their kids like this.

[Anonymous]

OP, if you’re still reading this, and I’m not reading 34 pages— have you thought about your daughter getting legally emancipated?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Start by being more sympathetic with your daughter. Out of her half and step siblings, mom, dad, step non, and step dad looks like she is the only one who suffers financially.

OP here. I am sympathetic and have told her that many times. But I don’t know what else I can do for her. She’s 17. I’m feeling like a failure as a parent given how she’s been acting ever since we had the official college talk. She told one of her step sisters that she only got into a prestigious liberal arts college because she’s a legacy, full pay, her father made donations to get her into a fancy private high school, etc. I felt sick when I heard about that. She’s going to ruin her relationship with them if she keeps going on this way. She should be mature enough to understand that she has no entitlement to her step fathers money.

It’s not just his money. She is living in the house with them, or did for some time, as a second-class citizen. Can’t you see that? And because of your marriage, she is not going to get the need-based aid she would otherwise get. The same thing happened for me - my mother couldn’t afford to pay for my college and my step-father’s income prevented me from qualifying for need-based aid. So it was either I go to UMD and only drown a little in debt, or go to a fancy school and really drown. I went to UMD. Definitely was not my best fit, but I had no better option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Look, the situation is what it is. She has 30k she can decide what to do with. The rest is up to her. That’s not going to change unless she gets a scholarship.

Mostly, I want to know what to say to her to get her to stop lashing out at her step siblings and my H. I’ve tried talking to her and get nowhere.

Tell her you got married and didn’t think, and now don’t care, that your decision affects her deeply.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can not believe people are giving the OP, a single mom with a dead beat ex, such a hard time about having saved 30k for in state UMD!!!

That’s so much more than just kids get!!

But those other kids can qualify for need-based aid that OP’s daughter is ineligible for as a result of her mother’s marriage. And the daughter is treated like an after-thought while be long surrounded by wealth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents were legal immigrants here and we had absolutely nothing. I picked the college I wanted, the city I wanted, and when I got in, I went to that college. I worked, I borrowed money under my name, and got grants and scholarships and whatever I could scrape. I had a ton of loans but I’m paying them off.

Your daughter isn’t unhappy that DH isn’t paying for her, deep down she’s unhappy because by your actions and words you are forcing her to pick going to a college she doesn’t want to go. Young people don’t get the impact of loans, but they’re young, let them choose their path and you gave your advice. You should simply say pick the school you want, I’ll contribute what I can, ans the rest will be loans you’ll have to pay. Support her on her decision. Stop focusing on the step family and telling her to go to UMD. She wants a fun college a great name college a place she’s be proud and happy at. Give your advice about loans ans then let her go forth with that decision.

The difference here is that because it sounds like your parents did not have that much money, you probably qualify for grants and scholarships and loans. The daughter and the situation has been screwed over by the mothers remarriage. Most colleges particularly private colleges will factor in the stepfather’s assets. If he didn’t exist, she’d probably get a lot of aid. But now she has the worst of both worlds. He does exist, he does have a lot of money, which will screw her out of most colleges financial aid, but he’s not willing to pay for her college education.

I have thought about this a lot because I have a net worth around three million and I’m dating someone with two teenage daughters. My boyfriend is well educated but is not in a high-paying job. Same for their mother. Without me in the picture, they should qualify for a lot of aid. Well, at least some aid. I’m not willing to shell out $600,000 for their kids to go to college. So my feeling is I either need to not marry him until they are out of college, or help pay for their education if I screw over their financial aid prospects by being married to their dad.

This is what I’ve been able to glean from random googling about financial aid and stepparents, anyway. I think with state schools you can often get away with not putting the stepparent on the form, but with most private colleges, they are going to ask for the stepparents assets apparently especially if the stepparent lives in the household where the kid lives most of the time.

If anyone knows differently, please fill me in, because I would love to marry their father, and not have my assets count towards their financial aid forms. But they’re not my kids, I didn’t raise them, we have a good relationship but I doubt they will take care of me in my old age, etc., so I really need to save that $600,000 for my own retirement. But if that’s my feeling, I’m pretty sure my solution needs to be to not marry him at this point. Or at least until they apply to college and we figure out where they are going. If they go to state school, no big deal, I don’t mind throwing in 10,000 or so a year to help them graduate without loans or with minimal loans.

Are the posters on here going to beat up this woman because she says clearly that she is not going to give her SO’s daughters 600k???

No. Because she isn’t going to marry him and jeopardize his daughters’ ability to qualify for need-based aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Change the details of the situation a bit and I think others would have very different opinions.

For example, let's say that OP was an ex-wife and was disgusted that her ex-husband was footing the bill for his new wife's kid to go to college. She thinks that is taking away assets from his own kids which should be used for them, or for eventual inheritance.

Wonder what the responses would be then?

1) No one is saying the new husband should foot the bill. Everyone is pointing out that the marriages prevents the daughter from receiving certain types of aid that would otherwise be available to people in the daughter’s financial situation.
2) Your scenario involves someone outside of the relationship (an ex-spouse) trying to control finances of which she is not a part. Surely you can see the difference. Right?

[Anonymous]

Did op ever explain what she spends her money on?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do people get married to someone that wouldn’t want to give the same to her child as he does for his own? As a parent your number one responsibility is to your kids and anyone who loves you would make them their first priority as well. Shouldn’t he want the best for her just like he does for his own kids? If he doesn’t then I really think that says something about his love for you OP.

Agree. If you agree to marriage you agree to FULLY open up your finances as well as your heart, no matter how old the children involved are.

If you have no assets prior to marriage then your new spouse should be willing to spend the same amount on your child as they do their own. That includes college education, material things like cars, down payments for homes, other financial gifts etc. If they balk at this then it is obvious they are selfish and don't care what happens to your child nor you.

If your spouse has millions in the bank then your children (including adult children) should inherit the same amount from your estate as their biological children do. It's only fair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do people get married to someone that wouldn’t want to give the same to her child as he does for his own? As a parent your number one responsibility is to your kids and anyone who loves you would make them their first priority as well. Shouldn’t he want the best for her just like he does for his own kids? If he doesn’t then I really think that says something about his love for you OP.

Agree. If you agree to marriage you agree to FULLY open up your finances as well as your heart, no matter how old the children involved are.

If you have no assets prior to marriage then your new spouse should be willing to spend the same amount on your child as they do their own. That includes college education, material things like cars, down payments for homes, other financial gifts etc. If they balk at this then it is obvious they are selfish and don't care what happens to your child nor you.

If your spouse has millions in the bank then your children (including adult children) should inherit the same amount from THEIR estate as their biological children do. It's only fair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, if you’re still reading this, and I’m not reading 34 pages— have you thought about your daughter getting legally emancipated?

What would this do?