Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well it sounds like you are not getting legally married — so you actually are doing exactly what all the advice here is telling you.

But, you are still making a ton of excuses for this guy’s poor life choices. I hope it works out, but it will be good that you are not legally married if this doesn’t work out.

OP, what kind of service does one have in a church that is not legally binding?

NP here. I imagine the kind where you don’t sign the marriage certificate? The church cares that you pay the fee and agree to premarital counseling or whatever terms they have. After we got married we had to take the marriage certificate to the courthouse before we were legally married. It would be easy to skip that step and just have the church wedding and reception.

This seems so weird and dishonest to me. So your bio family, 'church family', and all your friends will *think* you're legally married, but in reality you are not. A very religious woman in my young widows' group did this because she was marrying a similar type of financial dolt (though the widow put all her ire on the ex-wife)

In 2021, does anyone really care if people just live together? OP has likely already set herself up for enough trouble buying a house with this guy.

Anonymous wrote:So, OP, you provided a lot more context and it doesn't seem as bad as it did. That's good.

It's good you are not getting legally married.

Sounds like you own a house together, split the cost (maybe not 50/50) and split household expenses. You probably have those joint account set up.

As far as costs for your own retirements, your own children, and your own additional savings vehicles, I would advise keeping those separate. This includes investments.

If you want to take a vacation or buy a car or get Botox or shoes or gifts, take turns or throw that $ into your joint household account.

As far as his family help, I suppose that at the end of the day if your finances beyond living expenses are separate, he can do what he wants, and if he has no access to your savings then he's limited to his own money. That's good.

It would be great if you could talk about it: perhaps agree to discuss help to your families exceeding $5K per year or whatever it is, but the whole point of keeping your finances separate is that they are just that...separate, and inaccessible to the other person.

I would probably want to do that if I got divorced and re-coupled, and I would also probably want a yearly sit down for household budgeting, and transparency of networth, credit score, general financial health, etc... just to know.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well it sounds like you are not getting legally married — so you actually are doing exactly what all the advice here is telling you.

But, you are still making a ton of excuses for this guy’s poor life choices. I hope it works out, but it will be good that you are not legally married if this doesn’t work out.

OP, what kind of service does one have in a church that is not legally binding?

NP here. I imagine the kind where you don’t sign the marriage certificate? The church cares that you pay the fee and agree to premarital counseling or whatever terms they have. After we got married we had to take the marriage certificate to the courthouse before we were legally married. It would be easy to skip that step and just have the church wedding and reception.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a little weird to me. OP says she's not legally getting married. And people are still piling on. Last I checked DCUM was FULL of SAHMs and underemployed women who mooch off of men. I smell a little hypocrisy and sexism. If OP wants to marry a nice guy who cleans and cooks and is fun to hang out with- but doesn't have a huge 401K- how is that different from any woman who doesn't work? And if a woman who spend a lifetime working in the home needs some of their joint funds to support elderly parents, wouldn't that be between the couple? Or would that always be wrong and a SAHM gives up all rights to deciding how family money is spent?

It's different because OP can't actually afford what this is going to cost! I would never advise a woman to SAHM or be underemployed if the guy doesn't earn enough to support their needs, FFS. This is a purely practical piece of advice. OP can't afford this guy.

I think the point being made is that OP is in the same position as many husbands with wives who don't carry their weight financially but contribute in other ways. THere's literally a whole thread in this forum on how to convince your husband to keep being sole breadwinner so you can SAH.

It OPs situation, he works and earns 4X what she makes. What appears to be at issue is savings and retirement. She needs to decide if what he brings aside from that is worth the sacrifice. Just like any man with a SAH wife would have to decide. It's an individual choice, and lots of people choose to make the financial sacrifice for the quality of life. Usually the people making financial sacrifices are men.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a little weird to me. OP says she's not legally getting married. And people are still piling on. Last I checked DCUM was FULL of SAHMs and underemployed women who mooch off of men. I smell a little hypocrisy and sexism. If OP wants to marry a nice guy who cleans and cooks and is fun to hang out with- but doesn't have a huge 401K- how is that different from any woman who doesn't work? And if a woman who spend a lifetime working in the home needs some of their joint funds to support elderly parents, wouldn't that be between the couple? Or would that always be wrong and a SAHM gives up all rights to deciding how family money is spent?

It's different because OP can't actually afford what this is going to cost! I would never advise a woman to SAHM or be underemployed if the guy doesn't earn enough to support their needs, FFS. This is a purely practical piece of advice. OP can't afford this guy.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I'm a little shell shocked here. First off, my daughter's college is not an issue. She has a college fund, and a father with so many assets that any CSS profile makes her ineligible for aid. UVA uses the CSS in addition to the FAFSA anyway. And all her other schools are private. Secondly, my kids have a rich asshole dad and my divorce agreement protects them for life.

I'm with this guy because he's loving and kind-- yes too generous-- but not the kind of asshole my workaholic arrogant narcissistic ex husband was.

Lots of men are financially devastated by divorce. That doesn't mean they deserve no future. After eight years single I ran across all the types of single men in their 40's-- the losers, the scam artists, the impotent ones, the misogynists, the control freaks, and the fundamentally broken.

This guy is not that. He does all the cooking, all the cleaning, takes me to doctors appointments, loves my disabled son way more than his own dad does, and is supportive of my career and nice to my family. In addition, his income is 4x what mine is.

Yes, he needs to learn basic financial skills, and his dynamic with his family of origin is clearly fundamentally problematic. But so is mine. My mother has borderline personality disorder and my father comes from a long line of alcoholics. People come with stuff-- it's what they do with it that counts.

So the advice I was looking for was how to work together to establish boundaries and protect us from them.

FWIW we had already decided not to get legally married because living in a high cost of living area, the SALT CAP means our taxes would go up $8K annually by getting legally married. We are getting married in a church, which is what I consider marriage.

I do appreciate all the concerns and red flags-- trust me, I have been with that guy before- the user and loser. But this guy is better than that. He's just imperfect like all of us.

Anonymous wrote:This is a little weird to me. OP says she's not legally getting married. And people are still piling on. Last I checked DCUM was FULL of SAHMs and underemployed women who mooch off of men. I smell a little hypocrisy and sexism. If OP wants to marry a nice guy who cleans and cooks and is fun to hang out with- but doesn't have a huge 401K- how is that different from any woman who doesn't work? And if a woman who spend a lifetime working in the home needs some of their joint funds to support elderly parents, wouldn't that be between the couple? Or would that always be wrong and a SAHM gives up all rights to deciding how family money is spent?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a little weird to me. OP says she's not legally getting married. And people are still piling on. Last I checked DCUM was FULL of SAHMs and underemployed women who mooch off of men. I smell a little hypocrisy and sexism. If OP wants to marry a nice guy who cleans and cooks and is fun to hang out with- but doesn't have a huge 401K- how is that different from any woman who doesn't work? And if a woman who spend a lifetime working in the home needs some of their joint funds to support elderly parents, wouldn't that be between the couple? Or would that always be wrong and a SAHM gives up all rights to deciding how family money is spent?

The whole thing is weird- the original post focuses on her being worried about being dragged down financially by this guy and then when people try to warn her as to the potential major ramifications for herself/her daughter entering college her response is basically “whatever my ex is rich, college is already fully funded and by the way I’m not planning to marry the guy and also he make 4x what I do.” It’s also pretty unusual to have a church only marriage…in any circumstances, but particularly for two divorcées.

Anonymous wrote:This is a little weird to me. OP says she's not legally getting married. And people are still piling on. Last I checked DCUM was FULL of SAHMs and underemployed women who mooch off of men. I smell a little hypocrisy and sexism. If OP wants to marry a nice guy who cleans and cooks and is fun to hang out with- but doesn't have a huge 401K- how is that different from any woman who doesn't work? And if a woman who spend a lifetime working in the home needs some of their joint funds to support elderly parents, wouldn't that be between the couple? Or would that always be wrong and a SAHM gives up all rights to deciding how family money is spent?