Your life is much easier as long as relationships are genuine and positive between you, your spouse, and their family.

But so long as your lifestyle is partially dependent on family resources, the underlying power dynamic (between you and your spouse, between your spouse and their family) is always there and can make conflicts much more hurtful and challenging to resolve than if there were no family money.

Anonymous wrote:Its wonderful for the man. His wife comes with housing and college funds for children. She also comes with country club membership, family vacation homes, professional connections and her own money. The man does not have ownership of the house, but, he does not have to pay the mortgage either. He can take all his money and invest most of it. He does not have to save for college for his kids. He does not have to pay for anything but food and medicines when he retires. His housing is provided to him for the rest of his life for FREE.

In other words, he can have a lovely life, lovely wife, lovely kids without being a provider.

Not if they co-mingle salaries. He has to keep his income completely separate.

And his housing only exists so long as he is still married. He could end up homeless if she walks out.

It’s not a good situation.

Anonymous wrote:I have a question about how this works in practice for uber-wealthy family. When a man marries the daughter in a very, very rich family (like CEO of a Fortune 500 company), how "lucky" financially is this man? Or is it structured so that there is only shared money between what he and the wife make during the money, and that any inheritance will go to the wife/kids? So in other words, while his life will of course be monumentally different and probably help with down payments or buying them a house, the majority of the wealth will be structured so that it belongs to the daughter and not the man marrying into the family?

NP. I know someone who did this. Now in his fifties, it is not a good situation. He was a very hard worker and provider for his family, and she stayed home. She has significant trusts in her name and in the name of her kids. Her parents contributed some money for a down payment but for the most part, their daily lifestyle entirely depends on his work, except for expensive vacations put on by her parents (where they vacation with the parents).

He is exhausted now from years of work (50-60 hour weeks since they married). He wants to retire. If they were willing to allow her trusts to be touched, they could. But she and her family will not allow the trusts to be touched, and she will not agree to a downgrade in lifestyle. She is also refusing to work, and has threatened that if they divorce, she will sue for full custody and lifetime alimony, which she has a good chance of getting (they’d pay for the best lawyer, he could not afford one they would pay for). So, essentially, his labor is building their family trust that he can’t touch, and the power differential is threatening to keep him from his kids. He is trapped.

Watching this all play out, I would never recommend a son marry into that sort of situation. It is extremely toxic.

Anonymous wrote:We are well-off (and pretty frugal). DD married a guy who is on the road to future earnings. She has a good job. Our money will go towards providing them a house, family vacations, no-interest loans for purchases like safe cars, and money for childcare etc. My inheritance will go to our biological grandkids only.

What if they adopt?