Separate finances: how to deal if one spouse isn't saving enough for retirement

[Anonymous]

I always love how women feel their money is their money and men are supposed to provide.

If you reversed the genders here, op would be savaged!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please go see a financial advisor ASAP so they can help you figure this all out.

Shed doesn't need a financial advisor. She needs a marriage counselor or a a divorce lawyer.

+1

OP and her husband aren’t 30. You’re not going to see a financial advisor who is going to be able to correct the fact that OP probably had a couple of decades of saving ahead over her DH. Either get comfortable with the fact that your assets will eventually benefitting him, or divorce.

What if he has a stroke? Even if he had nothing in his name, he wouldn’t be able to get a Medicaid bed due to your situation.

I think these two just got married to save the $1,500 on health insurance, and maybe for tax reasons. Short term thinking, indeed. (Are we noticing a pattern here?) I don’t buy it about consulting with attorneys and financial planners about how this made sense. This whole thing is too harebrained. If you did consult with someone who should know better, you should ask for a refund.

+1 you consulted the whole shabang but all this issue that you are asking in dcurbanmom did not come our? That was not money well spent. At all!
Op, you are married to him, or dating him. His kids issue is your issue. His retirement issue is your issue.
I do feel sorry for you that why I will never marry a guy who make less than me.
But it is what it is . This is marriage. You are in it.

[Anonymous]

My retirement fund is 4x larger than my DW. Mine is enough to cover for both of us (I think) so we are perfectly okay with smaller wife's fund. Not sure why one person having a bigger retirement fund is problematic. You retire together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you really love this guy, you could consider cross subsiding him. This is what (virtually all) men do for (virtually all) women and have done since the dawn of time.

+1 I married a woman with 2 kids and few assets but I knew it and it was what I accepted as part of the package deal. While I wish she had had a lot of assets it was my choice and I’m happy with it. I didn’t rush into the relationship until I knew I really liked her children and they liked me.

This is what marriage is - for better and for worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My retirement fund is 4x larger than my DW. Mine is enough to cover for both of us (I think) so we are perfectly okay with smaller wife's fund. Not sure why one person having a bigger retirement fund is problematic. You retire together.

Would you be ok with it if your wife could have been contributing a lot more but chose to blow it in a different way, while you were saving?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My retirement fund is 4x larger than my DW. Mine is enough to cover for both of us (I think) so we are perfectly okay with smaller wife's fund. Not sure why one person having a bigger retirement fund is problematic. You retire together.

Would you be ok with it if your wife could have been contributing a lot more but chose to blow it in a different way, while you were saving?

Would I be okay? Yeah, I think so. I am not going to dictate how she spends money as long as we have enough for retirement which we do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I always love how women feel their money is their money and men are supposed to provide.

If you reversed the genders here, op would be savaged!!!

+100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be really helpful for a post like this to list out the specific information (i.e. annual salaries, total respective retirement savings, ages, etc.).

Why?

This is about money but it's not. Reading the OP and her follow up, I'm guessing OP would be happy to "subsidize" her DH's retirement and be all in, if he were. As long as he's choosing his ex's feelings over hers about child support, he's not all in.

The ex has borderline personality disorder. I assume you have no idea what someone with that disorder is like. He's not "choosing his ex's feelings" over op's, he's protecting himself and his kids (and op!) from her mental illness. People with BPD can be downright scary when they are raging. Pursuing her for money would be a losing proposition. This is not a run-of-the-mill ex-wife and divorce, where two parties simply lost interest in each other. I have no doubt that she was abusive to him and the kids. The fewer interactions they have with her, the better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I always love how women feel their money is their money and men are supposed to provide.

If you reversed the genders here, op would be savaged!!!

Seriously. And op really misrepresented the situation in her first post. It's really wrong to position the situation as he never saved anything for college, when his job provides private college tuition fully paid for his kids. That's hugely different than not having any money for college. And she skipped the part where the ex-wife is mentally ill. And that he's a college professor, which is a very different scenario when it comes to retirement than someone who works 9-5 everyday and only gets two weeks vacation a year.

Honestly, op, you should be counting your blessings that you found a lovely person whose company you enjoy to spend your golden years with, not counting out the dollars in your respective retirement accounts like a miser. You need a major shift in your way of thinking about this.

[Anonymous]

OP here.

So, DH is calculating that he will need $10-15K/year for his kids to attend his or another association college. Big savings but not free. He makes $75K/year.

He is 48 and has $45K in his 401(k). No pension.

He is in the humanities and not a researcher (so his career is really based on the teaching at this point), and was thinking he'd retire around 65. But that's a number in his head, assuming he's well enough to teach up until then. He doesn't want to teach forever and just hang on to hold onto the income.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here.

So, DH is calculating that he will need $10-15K/year for his kids to attend his or another association college. Big savings but not free. He makes $75K/year.

He is 48 and has $45K in his 401(k). No pension.

He is in the humanities and not a researcher (so his career is really based on the teaching at this point), and was thinking he'd retire around 65. But that's a number in his head, assuming he's well enough to teach up until then. He doesn't want to teach forever and just hang on to hold onto the income.

How much do you make and generally what do your monthly expenses look like?

Maxing his 401K on $75K per year is pretty good, there's probably not a lot of people making $75K that are still maxing their retirement accounts although I agree he should have a lot more in retirement than he does. Presumably he saved little to nothing beforehand. Still, he has about 17 years left of contributions which could end up being a sizable amount if you include returns plus he will also get social security. You guys also have the house to the extent you plan on leaving the area. One option for you might be to go part time or retire earlier if you wanted to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here.

So, DH is calculating that he will need $10-15K/year for his kids to attend his or another association college. Big savings but not free. He makes $75K/year.

He is 48 and has $45K in his 401(k). No pension.

He is in the humanities and not a researcher (so his career is really based on the teaching at this point), and was thinking he'd retire around 65. But that's a number in his head, assuming he's well enough to teach up until then. He doesn't want to teach forever and just hang on to hold onto the income.

OP, did you guys talk ANY of this through before you got married? If he was just a single dad, those kids would be getting financial aid. Now they won't. And how is he still only making $75k per year at 48? Does he teach at a community college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the real answer is twofold: you will subsidize his retirement if you want to have a nicer one than he can afford, and you need to tell him that you're worried you're going to resent that and he's essentially avoiding conflict with his ex at the expense of setting up conflict with you.

He needs to get child support, even if every dollar goes straight into 529s. Explain that your income will reduce his kids' financial aid, even though you maintain separate finances. He likely will not catch up to you (you have a higher income, another supporting parent, and more assets), but by making this change and pursuing child support you will likely resent the discrepancy less.

I understand separate finances for families such as yours, but I do think that once the kids are out and established, it doesn't make as much sense to think of the money buckets as completely separate. If you are married to this person in retirement, aside from any money in trust for kids, the retirement pretty much has to be viewed as joint for it to work on any level. I think you actually get that, which is why you're thinking about it now and bothered. But if he makes changes, seeks support (and either doesn't get it or gets it but it all goes to 529s), and keeps maxing out his 401k, you have to just accept that you'll be springing for any retirement "upgrades" with your bigger bankroll - be they trips or outings or living in a nicer area.

Why the hell are some people so disturbed that some married people have separate bank/investment accounts? It is like they are personally offended. So insecure it is funny. My DH & I are childfree by choice and happily married 25 yrs though have 2 golden retrievers.
We each have separate accounts we earned with 7 figure balances each. Both independent consultants/LLC so have plenty of flex/free time. Easier to keep track of separate accounts and money flow especially for tax purposes. I am a CPA so that helps!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I always love how women feel their money is their money and men are supposed to provide.

If you reversed the genders here, op would be savaged!!!

That’s in a situation where the wife gave birth to his kids and sacrificed her career by either mommy tracking or staying home. Not a later in life marriage where the mother of his children is neither caring for not financially providing for their children and as a result he is not saving enough for retirement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always love how women feel their money is their money and men are supposed to provide.

If you reversed the genders here, op would be savaged!!!

That’s in a situation where the wife gave birth to his kids and sacrificed her career by either mommy tracking or staying home. Not a later in life marriage where the mother of his children is neither caring for not financially providing for their children and as a result he is not saving enough for retirement.

Well presumably OP knew about the situation with the ex and that there was no child support coming. Nothing in her posts indicate that she was duped. Sounds like now that the initial euphoria has died down she has buyer’s remorse. My BIL came from a home like this. He and his sister ended up with a lot of student loans while his half and step-siblings has college paid for. Thankfully he’s a pretty easygoing guy and doesn’t seem to harbor resentment toward his siblings but couldn’t have been easy.