Ex is one smart woman. You. On the other hand, are not. Keep this up so he can see the real you and then he can run like the wind to get away from a jealous harpie.

Yes, she is glued to him forever. As PPs have said, they have a child together. There will be weddings, grandkids and all the grandkid birthdays and graduations, etc. When you have a child together, you are parenting together for the rest of that child's life. It does not end when the child turns 18. If you cannot accept this, then do not marry this man.

If you're so concerned about money, have you asked who's paying for college?

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I guess it just bothers me because she does nothing for the business. Boyfriend does 100 percent of the work for 78 percent of the income. It just seems like an insane payout. She has a clause saying that even if she remarries (which she is close to doing we think) she still (and only her) owns 22 percent. Its like she literally is glued to him forever. I know its up to me to accept it or not and I really love him but I did not see this coming.

Of course she is. They have kid together so this would be the case even without her owning some of his business.

Please walk away. You don't deserve this man.

OP, your boyfriend is too good for you.

OP, would OF never? I can read no further.

OP, I get the resentment, I really do. The ex's passive income happens to be more than my annual salary as a teacher, so if this were my fiancé I can see feeling very resentful that his work would support his ex to the tune of more than I make working full time. So yeah. I get the resentment.

That said, I love your guy's response. I love that he acknowledges he would not have the business if it were not for her, and feels its fair that she get a cut of it.

Beyond this money, she's always going to be tethered to him. Always. I significantly underestimated how much that would bother me before I married my DH, hi had a child (now adult) from a previous marriage. There will be crises with the children. There will be events. There will be weddings and grand kids and she and that money she gets will be there always.

Can you be okay with that? I honestly don't think I could be. The money is just too much on top of the kids that will always be a connection between them. If you can't let go of that resentment soon and completely, I think you are setting yourself up to be very very unhappy. Let him go and find a something less fraught.

Anonymous wrote:We have both been married before. I had alimony for a short time but it is long gone which is fine as I rebuilt my career. I have one DC who I get child support for. I was married 7 years. Boyfriend was married 14 years and has two kids whom he pays child support for. I assumed she no longer got alimony as they have been divorced for 4 years. We want to get married so we had a financial talk last night. Turns out his ex wife passed up alimony in exchange for 22 percent of his business...as in she owns 22 percent of his business FOREVER. This gives her passive income of about 78-90k a year!!!!! FOR DOING NOTHING!!!! My boyfriend is fine with it and said something like "I would of never been able to start this business without her." Isn't unusual there was no "buyout."??? I want to start a life with this man but I don't want to keep her on the payroll forever. Boyfriends long term plan is to keep business up and running for 12 more years before he sells at which time we would have to give her those proceeds??? The alimony thread kind of keyed me into realizing this is extremely rare and my boyfriend got a terrible deal. Anything we can do now??

Or he made the right decision. Honestly, you sound like a gold digger.

Clearly you don't own a business. What he did was agree to a variable figure with no obligation to pay anything if the business fails and deminimis obligation if income is poor at any time. In exchange he can take risks with the business u obligated to make a specified monthly nut. The bet seems to have benefitted both parties well.

OP, if you bought Apple when it was worth nothing and now thanks to this company you have millions in the bank, should this company confiscate all you have because you have YOU HAVE DONE NOTHING????

You are preternaturally stupid, aren't you?
Whatever money or support she invested in her husband's business he was grateful enough to repay in his own way. This is between them, not you.

If you don't want to be booted out, try to rise above your greed and childish jealousy. Be gracious.

After all, you're not marrying this man for his money? Right?

That man deserves so much better than you. I hope, for his sake, he breaks it off with you.

Actually, I think if your BF is only paying 22%, he got a GREAT deal. Typically, assets accrued during marriage are split 50/50. From what it sounds like, your BF's ex-wife was the sole financial support for the family for 4 years while he worked to get the business of the ground. Then they were married for awhile after that. She most likely would have gotten a court-order for half the business in the divorce proceedings. It doesn't matter whether it was your boyfriend's "idea" or whatever. The court doesn't look at it like that. Marital assets accrued during the marriage are split 50/50.

Many family-owned businesses have trouble like you describe -- a split in the family means that the business must be divided as a marital asset, but often the business can't come up with the cash to buy one partner out so there has to be some other financial arrangement (loans, future earning stream, etc.).

Your BF might rightly be grateful that instead of destroying the business by demanding 50% of the marital asset upon divorce, she agreed to less than half of her percentage ownership of the business per year of the income stream (i.e. the business was 50% hers, and she should in theory be entitled to 50% of the income stream per year until she is bought out, but since her ex-husband couldn't afford to buy her out she agreed to a smaller percentage of annual income stream in perpetuity.)

Anonymous wrote:
Wow, OP. She helped him launch the business. That's her equity, and she has elected to keep it invested instead of cashing out.

Given your point of view, I assume the prenup states that if you leave the marriage, you take nothing but the clothes on your back.


OK Op here and I need to clear something up. All she did was go back to work so he could quite his corporate job to start the business. It was 100 percent his idea, his blood, sweat, and tears, and she doesn't have an ounce of experience in the field. She truly knows nothing about the business. She just did her part as a martial team and had to be the breadwinner for 3-4 years. In my opinion ANYONE should be willing to work and not get rewarded for life for it. Its not like she had the knowledge or the idea behind the business. I think thats an important point of clarification.

They call that investing. She invested in his business and is entitled to the benefits of her investment. Your BF is fine with this. He recognizes the value of her investment.

It is you who should stay out of his business.

His ex-wife was smart. She kind of outsmarted him, except he doesn't seem bothered by it. he doesn't resent her. They have a good relationship and he respects her.

He sounds great.

Don't be petty, OP. There's probably a better version of you around. Let her out and let this petty, materialistic one go...before PP forwards this thread to your boyfriend.

and let's not forget, he was married to this woman, who he has two children with, for 14 years...twice as long as you were able to keep you marriage together. You need to make peace with the past, accept the reality of the situation, or start over with someone else. You are sure to poison you relationship if you don't reboot.