Anonymous
12/12/2025 20:53
Subject: marriage and SN kids - staying together "for the kids" changes
Exactly. Care for these kids to adults is $100-200k/year IN PERPETUITY.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:$600k is solidly upper class even in the DMV.
New poster. I understand this perspective, but when you are facing the possibility that your child may never be independent, and potentially in quite a challenging way, it changes the calculation quite a bit. For example, when you die, who will take care of them? For how long? How will they get paid? Who makes sure they are actually doing their job? The liabilities in families like this are much much larger than normal families where you know the kids will leave the nest and support themselves. If your curious try to go through the mental exercise of how much you would have to add to your retirement savings to comfortably solve this problem.
Anonymous
12/12/2025 20:15
Subject: marriage and SN kids - staying together "for the kids" changes
Anonymous wrote:$600k is solidly upper class even in the DMV.
New poster. I understand this perspective, but when you are facing the possibility that your child may never be independent, and potentially in quite a challenging way, it changes the calculation quite a bit. For example, when you die, who will take care of them? For how long? How will they get paid? Who makes sure they are actually doing their job? The liabilities in families like this are much much larger than normal families where you know the kids will leave the nest and support themselves. If your curious try to go through the mental exercise of how much you would have to add to your retirement savings to comfortably solve this problem.
Anonymous
12/12/2025 19:31
Subject: marriage and SN kids - staying together "for the kids" changes
Hi OP, first, hugs. This is really hard.
ExDH and I were in a similar situation and decided that we really care for each other but both deserve a better form of love, too. The divorce process was hard but worth it. We coparent respectfully and we each have time off now, which is also very helpful.
$300k HHI is also a very comfortable life. I know DC area is very expensive but I wouldn't let finances be the thing that keeps you in an exhausting situation if the split income is still this high (no judgment whatsoever just my take having been in a similar situation with slightly less).
ExDH and I were in a similar situation and decided that we really care for each other but both deserve a better form of love, too. The divorce process was hard but worth it. We coparent respectfully and we each have time off now, which is also very helpful.
$300k HHI is also a very comfortable life. I know DC area is very expensive but I wouldn't let finances be the thing that keeps you in an exhausting situation if the split income is still this high (no judgment whatsoever just my take having been in a similar situation with slightly less).
Anonymous
12/11/2025 20:26
Subject: marriage and SN kids - staying together "for the kids" changes
OP, I'm another person in a very similar boat to you only my child is older and my husband and I have been doing this for longer. As one of the PPs above wrote, my husband is a good person and the only other person who loves my child as much as I do. We have managed to hang in there and there's no romance at the moment but there is support, friendship, empathy, and kindness to the other spouse. It's been hard and certainly not anything either of us envisioned. It has been nice to read the other responses here. No one I work with has any inkling of some of the awful things we've been through at home.
Anonymous
12/09/2025 23:38
Subject: marriage and SN kids - staying together "for the kids" changes
Op here. I just want to say thank you for everyone’s replies. The honesty of all is so very much appreciated. I wish the best to everyone. More generally I also want to express gratitude for DCUM as a forum where I could post something like this and get real and a genuine set of distinct replies.
Anonymous
12/09/2025 20:38
Subject: marriage and SN kids - staying together "for the kids" changes
OP, I’m so sorry. DH and I went through a less severe version of what you’re going through. No advice, but it’s totally valid to feel to spent for anything romantic. We were able to reconnect when our dc got better.