<p>Let’s just say there are alot of women around here who may not have originally married for money, but are staying married solely for the money. (does that make any sense?)</p>
<p>Yea it does. It reminds me of a thread a while back…someone was seeking advice about her marriage and affair and there was a big argument over whether you should stay married just for the financial comfort.</p>
<p>haha kirmum. Loved that bit.</p>
<p>Didn’t marry for money. Married for lus–I mean love–and stayed married for love. I followed my mother’s and Virginia Woolf’s advice: I made sure I had money of my own.</p>
<p>Okay girls…who’s staying in it for the dough?</p>
<p>I told my daughter to make sure she brings her own money to her marriage…and to keep it her own…a measure of independence.</p>
<p>We met at college, I was 18, he - 19; married two years later (yeah, Russians usually did not wait till the end of college); had a baby a year later (I took a year off) and another one in the year I got my Master’s… Married for 21 years now, daughter is in graduate school, both boys are leaving for college next year.</p>
<p>Our daughter met her fiance in a Graph Theory class; she was 17, he - 19. He could not think of a way to invite her to a date; so he invited her brother (who was taking the same class) to come to the dorm to play Counterstrike, and to take the sister with him… :)</p>
<p>lol, I don’t think counterstrike was very appealing to her though?</p>
<p>Do you have twins?</p>
<p>You know, sometimes when there are big disagreements with H, I feel that if it weren’t for the kids, I would leave. Then, considering that the biggest disagreement alway are about the kids, I would realize that if it weren’t for the kids I wouldn’t feel like leaving. A true Catch-22.</p>
<p>lol, but soon the kids will leave you</p>
<p>Her regrets and my good fortune. She’ll pay someone to take me off her hands. 30 years.</p>
<p>zantedeschia, no, no twins. The kids are 16, 18, 20. Our youngest decided to go to college after 11th grade, and his older brother is graduating in time. Apparently, it will be better for our finances, but ahhh, empty nest so soon… :(</p>
<p>And yes, DD did play Counterstrike, although not as much as the boys.</p>
<p>Oh I see.
My parents won’t let me go far away (basically meaning everywhere I apply to has to be within driving distance) because I’m an only child and once I’m gone, the nest is empty!</p>
<p>Marry for money? Geez, that was the last thing on my mind about H-to-be (I’ll steal cheers’ remark: “Married for lus–I mean love” ). I was/am very self-sufficient. Rubbed off on D. She announced during high school that she wanted to live in a mansion on the lake, with a boat, a riding lawn mower, and a golf cart to get around her property. My flip comment was that she’d better find a rich young man. Her retort with rolling eyes was “Mom, I’m getting all that by myself, and I’m not sharing!”</p>
<p>Get married for the money? What money? We were students for a long time after we first got married.</p>
<p>My mother (tongue in cheek) always said you could love a rich man as easily as a poor one. Unfortunately none of the women in my family have ever been very good at following advice. </p>
<p>When we first married, 1975, we lived on $500 a month and that was gross pay. We even paid off some student loans with that. It’s gone up since then, but stay for the money? Nope. (That’s not to say I wouldn’t, lol, but that option isn’t presenting itself.)</p>
<p>Money? The first two years of our marriage we lived on less than $3000 per year (fellowship money with a spouse allowance, no less!). I have no idea how we did it. Maybe $105/mo rent had something to do with it. Then the big time, my first real job – $11,500. And we saved almost $5,000 the first year. Of course, inflation adjusted from 1971 this wouldn’t be bad money now, but fortunately I’ve received a few raises over the years.</p>
<p>I lked Kirmin’s story. So many long-term, happy marriages here. Yet statistics show that hardst time in a marriage is with new baby and the teen years. I feel for Jamimom, with so many kids, the teen years just never end.
I raised mine as single mom. Now I’m about to relocate and be with HS b/f.</p>
<p>Oh yeah, we were rolling in food stamps! We had a budget of $500 for our wedding, which was in his parents’ back yard. Their crappy, little dog, who was locked up in a back bedroom, barked all the way through our vows, of which I have no recollection because all I could think about was strangling the dog. </p>
<p>My wedding dress was my younger sister’s Gunny Sax Prom dress. My other sister took pictures with her Instamatic. On the whole roll, only three pictures came out. Aliens and mutants seemed to have crashed our wedding.</p>
<p>Our rings were given to us by a relative, and we paid to have them cleaned. The reception was at my grandma’s condominium pool house, catered by one of my grandma’s friends who charged us $100 to feed 50 people, including us and the Justice of the Peace. His mother made reservations for our wedding night at the Best Western in LAS VEGAS, located somewhere in the boondocks, but conveniently near the freeway! </p>
<p>Married for money? Nope, we just woke up one day, and the idea no longer made us break out in a cold sweat. The prospect of finally having our own careers and making our own money was definitely a part of our decision.</p>
<p>That is a great story sluggbugg. As for myself, we eloped when I was at the beginning of my second year of grad school and my fiance/husband, who had graduated college one year before me, had obtained a job near my school. The only people at our wedding besides the justice of the peace were four fellow grad students. Both sets of parents disapproved of our relationship due to religious differences, and we were afraid to even tell our brothers or sisters as we didn’t want them to get in trouble with our parents for being in on our plans. We didn’t have a honeymoon or anything as we got married on a Friday night, moved into our apartment on Saturday, went to tell our parents on Sunday, and my H started his new job on Monday. As soon as we announced our marriage, all of the disapproval of both parents magically disappeared and both of us have had wonderful relationships with our in-laws ever since (unfortunately, two of the four are no longer with us.) We have been married for 26 years, have had many wonderful vacations in spite of no honeymoon, and my husband is still at the same company where he started when we got married. I can’t imagine one of my kids (now 17 and 20) doing what we did at age 22 which is how old I was when I got married!</p>
<p>bookworm: more details…please! Sounds like a great story…</p>
<p>slugg: belly laughing on a Sunday morning here. What a great visual, crappy yappy dog and mutant guests caught on instamatic-grade film. Loved it!</p>
<p>H and I lived together for a year and a half before we married. My parents didn’t know me for the first year of our co-habitation. They would hang up the phone if I called home. On my birthday. Even Christmas.</p>
<p>Why I decided to do ‘their’ wedding is a mystery, but I did. Went home and staggered through mom’s fairy tale come true. In her wedding dress. H never complained, darling man, but the bride who was scheduled for the wedding after ours did peak into the bridal suite at the church where I was waiting to go down the aisle.</p>
<p>She must have thought I couldn’t hear her when she left the room and said, “She looks like death!”</p>
<p>Managed to look thrilled and cinderella-like in all the photos, though. Wisecracks on the altar made the three priests convulse with laughter. Sooooooo glad to get out of there, onto the honeymoon and back to MY life.</p>
<p>S feels the same way, I’m sure.</p>
<p>We had some friends in grad school who had three weddings. A civil one down on the corner, so to speak. Then a religious one with the bride’s family, and a religious one (different religion) with the groom’s family. Neither of the “in-laws” attended the ceremony for other faith. Of course neither set of parents knew the kids had already been married for half a year in the civil wedding.</p>