Agree with M2CK–many times one spouse can have a job that has lots of hours and is very stressful because the other spouse is able to dial back his/her career, so that the home can be kept intact. I have seen many marriages fail when both partners were working hard at their careers and no one was available to put the energy into helping keep the family and home intact. Traditionally and in my family, the female is the one who has taken on the responsibility of kids, home and education of the kids, but in some families it is different.
And absolutely nothing wrong with that.
We have our own concept of marriage and, while not ignoring the practical aspects of joining two lives and building a family, don’t see it as closing a business deal. It has worked just fine for us!
Totally agree.
Another example is if you’ve used inherited money to fix up co-owned rental properties, etc, without tracking it might be considered a gift.
Fwiw, even though I am madly in love with my spouse, it is no secret that we primarily got married for financial and legal reasons. We have lived together for 4+ years and nothing in our lives has changed but now he can go on my uni’s insurance (which is fantastic and covered as part of my PhD package), etc.
We did discuss what would happen if we got divorced. We are an obnoxiously open couple about everything… even things that would make other people cringe and question our fidelity to each other (for clarification, I mean things like going on vacations with people of the opposite sex).
I am completely, 100% aware of the fact that he has put as much effort into my “career” and our future children as I have (and with kids, I already know he will probably be much more involved than me). We made the decision that he would be the SAHD in order to support me and if we ever unfortunately did divorce there is no way I could leave him out to dry. I just couldn’t live with that on my conscious.
This is also part of the reason that we’re waiting to have kids. I never want to put them through a divorce if I can help it which is part of the reason why we’re waiting until (a bit) later in life.
Again, I know “never say never” but you’d really have to know us in order to understand how much we’d stick by what I’m saying. Unless, of course, there is ever abuse or other extreme extenuating circumstances.
Totally unrealistic not to mention unfair…let’s take my former sister in law. She put in 20+ years as the wife of a high-level executive, bearing and raising their children, moving children and household all over the world depending on her husband’s job, entertaining at the level you’d expect the spouse of a senior VP to be able to do…when able she worked in places like nicer boutiques in major cities where they were located. Her husband (my brother!) had a baby with another woman while they were married. You can bet that my SIL exited the marriage with a whole lot more than what she came in with and earned in dollars over that 20 years. She deserved it too!
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Another example is if you’ve used inherited money to fix up co-owned rental properties, etc, without tracking it might be considered a gift.
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Right! Because in that case, the inheritance was not being kept cleanly separate.
I well remember a phone call from my now H (when he was in medical school and I was an associate). One of his friends (an aspiring neurosurgeon) was experiencing marital difficulties.
Question: Is a medical degree a community asset?
Answer: Yes, generally, if it was earned during the marriage. But there are qualifications and exceptions, etc., etc.
Despite whatever difficulties they had, the couple did work things out and stay together.
We also have one friend from the same time who is in Marriage #4. Divorced W#1 (who was college girlfriend) during residency, married W#2 (another health care professional) and had children with her. She helped him set up his practice; they seemed to be a good team. They divorced and she fell into financial difficulty. Kids doing so-so. W#3 thought she hit the jackpot but was short-lived. W#4 is a former Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader.
One just never knows.
Wait a degree is a community asset? That’s really interesting!
You may think it is ‘cleanly separate’ but the court may not agree. What if you put it in an IRA in your name only, but spouse can proved you decided to do that and use income from your employer that year for a vacation, when you normally put that max into an IRA? As Attorneymom said, the income from the inheritance is marital property, and if the interest is compounded, well then there has to be an accounting of that. The longer that inherited money is in the possession of the marriage, the more likely it will get mingled.
My friend’s husband inherited his grandmother’s house, but the grandmother left it to him and his ex-wife, so she got half when they divorced shortly after Granny died. It never occurred to Granny that they’d get divorced. Husband was then very reluctant to deed part of the house to my friend, his second wife, and didn’t do that until they remodeled and she used a lot of her inheritance to do the improvements. Now they are ‘discussing’ their will and how things will be distributed since he has 2 children (one bio, one adopted who went with the exwife and has had very little contact in 40+ years but who has a child who my friend really likes). My friend has 2 nephews, a brother who is one step from a street person but who has a degree in finance and actual does manage his money well, and really no one to leave her estate to. I hope they spend the lot and die just as they spend the last cent.
My brother got divorced and it never occurred to him to claim any interest in the time share they’d bought with wife’s inheritance, even though they’d paid the taxes and fees over the years with marital assets. Also didn’t claim any of the interest in a house they’d ‘built’ across the street that was supposed to be for ex-SIL’s bother who had Huntington’s disease and was never well enough to move in. SIL had used some of brother’s money to buy and set a prefab home on the lot, but my brother did all the sweat equity labor, poured the foundation, framed the basement, did all the finishing. They rented out the house for about 5 years before the divorce. In brother’s mind, that was her inheritance and brothers, and not his.
Brother did get the marital house and foolishly got married again to a person with no money and a lot of debt. They sold that house, bought another, another, and then another. When they divorced, she claimed half the equity in the final house although it was all his money from the first house. She’s a snake and asked for everything including full custody. As to the original question of this thread, he did finally say enough and basically, that he’d take his chances with a judge and was done with her attorneys. They were not dividing millions, and the judge did divide most things fairly. He got the condo (final marital home) but the equity was way down when he took over, and the order is that she gets half when he sells. The value is recovering and she’ll benefit from that when he sells. He’s somewhat determined to outlive her!
Yeap, especially MD. High earning potential.
This is my favorite divorce settlement story: an ex-wife had the foresight to put in her divorce settlement that she would receive 1/2 of any Nobel Prize soon-to-be-ex-husband might receive. Lo and behold,
Good for you.
DH always felt the same way. He witnessed his Mom being left out to dry by his Dad, and he and his brother suffered right along with her as result. You can’t financially devastate the parent with primary custody without hurting the kids too.
And that is just unconscionable to me. I can’t figure out how any human being could do that to their kids.
nrdsb4 It really happens and it is devastating. There is no other way to say it.
How one presents him/herself before marriage and after marriage. How people allow themselves to change during marriage and also perhaps become bitter and difficult to live with. Sometimes there are telling signs in the family relationships and especially when there is bad parent modeling. Some people do go through mid-life crisis. Some have no fidelity. How people go through rough spots in life.
I just saw where Lee Greenwood is married to wife #4 (he has 4 older children and two with this wife ‘the love of his life’ - yes he was 49 when he met her and she, Kimberly is 1989 Miss Tennessee USA) - his first marriage was as a teenager. He says he never truly loved wives # 1-3 (I guess he figured out what ‘true love’ was with #4, who he met during a USO tour where they ‘fell in love’).
Look at some of the C & W entertainers that are married to their second spouse - Amy Grant with Vince Gill, Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood. All four of these had 1st marriages, and only Trisha didn’t have any children. Amy and Vince also have a child together. All of them have a high value on marriage and fidelity and expressing their Christian faith (and Amy with Christian music). Trisha said in an interview with Dan Rather that she wished she did not have a failed marriage (he asked about any do-over in her life).
H and I met young, but I had a belief that he would stay true to me, and I knew I would stay true to him. We have been married 36 years, and look forward to retirement together in 6 years. We both know each other’s faults and accept each other. We set out to make each other’s lives as easy as possible - no big conflicts. H has been a good role model for what to look for in a spouse for DD1 and DD2. When H spends any time with his sisterILs, he also appreciates me even more. One of his brothers also had two failed marriages, so he can see what turmoil he and his children have been through.
H’s older cousin was pregnant and married at 17/18; after 4 months of marriage he called her a whore. She was too proud to go to her parents (who did take her sister OOS with her young son with a bad marriage situation, so same would have happened with this gal). So now she is still married but tries to do little with him; she just inherited a nice chunk of money but says she would have to give him half in divorce (they live in WI; she may know as one of her daughters went through a difficult divorce that took several years). She plans to outlive him. Impulsive decisions as a young person and how one chooses to continue in life. Sad that she lives her life with lots of regrets.
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DH always felt the same way. He witnessed his Mom being left out to dry by his Dad, and he and his brother suffered right along with her as result. You can’t financially devastate the parent with primary custody without hurting the kids too.
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Very true.
I guess some people can’t process that their actions aren’t just hurting their ex-spouses (which should not be the goal, anyway). And then they later blame their ex-spouses because the children don’t like them. Hmmm
I think that it’s a sign of mental unhealthiness that these people can’t see the whole picture, and figure out the logical consequences.
^ Totally agree. It (mental illness) is more common than people think.
When my FIL died H inherited some, not a lot, of money from him and put it in an account in his name only. He has probably spent it all to the benefit of the family as a whole, but still.
When I realized this, I vowed that any money I inherited from MY parents,which is likely to be far more than he inherited, would go into accounts held solely by me.
Before this, we had shared everything. When I married him I had an IRA and a money market account. We mingled everything. As far as I am concerned, he showed his true colors when he established the separate account.
That is very sad, consolation. He needs to make it up to you.
He can’t.