From what I recall earlier, this particular CCRC is faith-based and prohibits opposite sex residents from living together unless they are married.
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I see, thanks.
They can cohabitate at the CCRC without the benefit of marriage (i.e., “live in sin”). There are couples there who do that. However, she still has to do a buy in whether she marries him or not. And pay fees. The CCRC is not going to let them spend half of their time there without her doing a buy in. I don’t know the exact rules on duration of visitors, but I’m sure they exist.
Things would still be simpler if she did not marry him.
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There had been talk upthread about a pre-nup. Will that happen or does the speed of this mean that won’t happen?
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We certainly hope a pre-nup will happen!
But, “sooner rather than later,” doesn’t tell us much about their timeline.
Would help if she’d actually tell my dh!
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Oof. That’s such a “I’m in a fairytale” kind of statement. She wasn’t close to him in high school and she wasn’t in touch with him for over 50 years after that. If she had walked past him on the street after 50+ years neither of them probably would have recognized each other.
This all seems like love bombing and rushing by Bob to get her to the alter. Like a sales pitch where “if you don’t buy the car today, I’ve got interested buyers coming by in the morning.”
Her assets become joint assets if she gets married. THEY DO NOT NEED TO GET MARRIED TO LIVE TOGETHER. WHY IS THAT BEING RUSHED.
Sorry for the all caps, my alarm bells are ringing so loudly with this guy.
You must be exhausted navigating all this and your DH is not in an easy spot at all.
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1 talk to the pastor and have him hold onto the license. Perhaps he can do some premarital counseling, which would be better.
- Invite the 2 exes to lunch or dinner. They may agree, and have lots to offer. After all, you mom will be living by them. Even one joining you would be helpful.
- Hire a professional to explore his finances. Such a person can even chat with the exes, with an excuse may be a new neighbor.
I know I’m on the extreme, but that is me.
Agree with background check, what can be verified about what Bob has told MIL.
And is he being sued, or behind on his bills, etc. Get his ssn#and hire someone to check his background.
How can she protect her finances if she were to want to divorce Bob? It is more than likely imo that Bob or MIL will change their minds, just as the other exes did.
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Or if they do last but he survives her. What does she want happening to her estate? Few at this point, especially with children, want to hand it over to the later-in-life spouse for it to ultimately up with their children!
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I think before everyone gets tangled up in estate issues (agree they are important but perhaps not the burning question) MIL and her son need to address a more pressing question-
They marry, she moves in. 6 months later Bob needs a higher level of care (injury or fall requiring rehab, or something longer term). Does MIL end up moving down into a smaller unit once the “co-fee payer” has been moved out? Does that work for her? Or can she afford to stay in Bob’s bigger unit, paying the entire fee, while he’s in a higher care housing option– is that possible, is that affordable long term? Or does MIL have to move WITH Bob, incurring fees for services she doesn’t need, just to have a roof over her head?
The “couples scenario” benefits the CCRC, not the couple, in every situation I’ve seen where the two people have different long term care needs. Especially if there’s a waiting list; especially if the differential allows the place to charge higher fees even when it’s not needed.
To me- this is the question for THIS week. MIL may be enamored of her new life with a sexually active partner, a nice place to live, built in social life. But what happens next June if the partner is physically impaired and she’s stuck in a studio apartment? To me, the red flag was the comment earlier “her dining room table is nicer than his” (paraphrasing). The nice units in these places have room for a dining table. The small units are essentially efficiency apartments– drop leg table, two chairs, and folding chairs in the hall closet for “guests”.
Can she afford the larger unit on her own if Bob moves up to rehab?
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Great points. If Bob were to need AL care, etc, would she regret leaving her house and hometown and be stuck at the CCRC?
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Great points!
And a reminder to all, that at most CCRCs, it’s the CCRC that decides when someone needs to be moved to the next level of care, not the resident. And if they don’t agree to the move, then the resident is private paying for the round the clock care to keep them safe at the level they currently live.
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6 months would be great. Mil is able to get her money back and move back to her house. 2 years and she wouldn’t be able to get back her buy in. Whether or not she wants to move to a smaller unit or pay more to stay in Bob’s bigger unit
@Hoggirl this has to be stressful. The not being informed but having information is not how is should be.
Mil has decided, it sounds like it’s unpopular but she is not being dissuaded. I hope it makes her happy and she has a good life with Bob.
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I have been reading this thread with interest since the beginning but have not commented. Apologies that my post is rather long!
Perhaps I am jaded by my grandfather’s late in life experience getting married, but this whole situation would be throwing up red flags such that if dh or I were in this situation, we would not be patiently waiting on the sidelines letting it unfold the way it has.
In my own situation, my devout Catholic widowed 80+ y/o grandfather got married rather quickly to a like aged woman b/c they wanted to live together and he would not do so unmarried. As it turned out, she was in the early stages of dementia, and not long after, she began accusing him of cheating on her with the young lady behind the deli counter. At some point, she began physically abusing him, lashing out at him in anger during these accusations. I don’t recall the entire situation since it happened over 30 years ago, but eventually my uncle had to step in to convince my grandfather to leave her. While I know this is a completely different scenario, the impact it had on all involved was such that, if one of my elderly parents was rushing into a relationship, uprooting herself in this way, I would not be okay just getting piecemeal info from friends trying to assess the situation. Even tho my parents are grown adults - I have definitely already witnessed a couple of questionable decisions with them based on gullibility that I think comes along with advanced age.
My own MIL has been a widow for almost 25 years. She has never dated, but after nearly 50 yrs of living in the same place, she did uproot herself from her home and friends to move an hour away to be closer to my SIL, a single mom with two kids. 10 years later, she has been living alone in a condo a few blocks from SIL, but she has become completely dependent on SIL for social connectedness. She hasn’t been able to drive for a few years, so that has rather shut her off from her friends, whom she was very engaged with before she moved away. Dh and I, as well as his other siblings, have talked about how quickly she has declined in recent years, which we really attribute to the loss of social connectedness. She does not see it herself, and while expressing how much she misses her friends, she insists she is fine but it is clear how isolated she is. Her friends see each other all the time, but she only visits infrequently b/c it requires hiring a driver to take her there and back. While she has the means to do so, she finds it too much of a hassle to regularly make the trip back and forth.
I know HogGirl’s MIL would be moving to a CCRC with other people, and a new husband/boyfriend, but leaving her lifelong friends and daughter to be with someone she has only briefly spent time with, yikes, definitely be worrisome to me if it were my parent, esp after witnessing the situations with my grandfather and MIL.
Dh and his brothers are very protective of their mom, so I can’t imagine them not having already stepped in to have serious conversations with her if she were planning something like this. Finances aside, the uprooting herself to move far from the life she has always known, with an uncertain future, is troublesome, esp after hearing what kind of guy Bob is.
HogGirl, I’m sorry you are dealing with this and hope your MIL decides to slow things down and not make a rash decision.
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And if the new living arrangement has a higher fee, how happy is MIL paying for that?
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If they marry before the end of 2025, and file a joint tax return…what happens if they get a refund? Who gets the money?
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This thread is one for reminding me of old stories…in 1991, DH and I were dating and were walking on campus. We walked past a random student urinating at a bush on the walkway. DH said, “yo, buddy!” and he said to us, “Oh, get a room,” and DH said, “get a bathroom” (but quietly). (We had not been doing any PDA)
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@gardenstategal -i think this is a good point. Any money MIL has is money/ assets accumulated by her and FIL over years of marriage. I have known cases where the kids got nothing their parents worked for over decades and the second spouse from a brief marriage and their kids walked off with it all.
It’s a tricky point though. It makes the kids look greedy ( unfairly) if they bring it up.
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Many thanks, again, for the opinions, insights, and experiences! I will try to address as many as I can, but it’s awfully hard to tag specific people. And, for me to even keep up! Hopefully, I hit them all
I do not know how it is in all states, but in our state, individually owned assets (and liabilities) remain separate and do not become marital property/liabilities UNLESS there is commingling or transmutation (eg, adding someone on an account or a deed or a loan). Now, how they acquired assets or debts in the future could absolutely become marital property or obligations
Mil previously did not understand that a pre-nup was necessary to address estate issues as well as issues in case of divorce. Once it was explained to her that if he did not waive inheritance rights in a pre-nup he could elect against her will after they’d been married a year (abd take 1/3 of her property), she claimed she understood the necessity of a pre-nup to ensure her adult children (my dh and sil) inherit ALL her remaining property. She also claims Bob has his own assets that he would want to go to his adult children.
As far as hiring a P.I. or someone to do a background check, that has not yet been done.
We are in the process of each (me, dh, and sil) crafting a list of questions. I felt like our doing so individually, while less efficient, might be more effective in not missing anything. MANY of my questions relate to fees. Primarily whether Bob and mil would be jointly and severally liable for the total. I totally suspect that to be the case for a married couple.
I also have questions about the additional costs associated with higher levels of care and what fees look like if one of them goes to more care while one remains in the home. And again the joint and several liability aspect of those additional costs. The point of who determines next-level care is an excellent one that I added to the list. Thank you.
Yes, mil could afford the entire fee for the home on her own should he predecease her. We are still unclear if they must pay more than the $7,200 per month if she moves in. We don’t know if that is the current amount for a couple. It may be that Bob is paying less now but that it will be $7,200 if he marries her. Fees go up annually, and one of my questions relates to rate increases over the last five years and the anticipated increase for 2026.
We are hopeful that any pastor would do some pre-marital counseling.
The latest thought (brought up by sil) being discussed is trying to persuade Bob to move to mil’s town. By mil gifting him what she would pay as a buy-in as well as a life estate in her home should she predecease him. Her total cost of living in her paid off home is substantially less than their potentially paying $7,200 (or maybe more??). Probably $4,500-$5,000 less per month. I don’t think he will go for it, as he gives up his certainty of long-term care. Food costs would go up. And, a big thing they would lose (though they don’t need it yet) is the shuttle service at the CCRC. I really think it’ll be a hard, “No,” from him, but dh thinks it’s worth bringing up if for no other reason than to gauge his reaction to it. By all observations, she has many more friends and a much larger support network there than he has here. Sil has said she would be helpful to BOTH of them.
Whew! Yes, this is all exhausting. Mil has still not called to tell dh she plans to marry Bob. She also did not tell my nephew (her other grandson) yesterday at his birthday gathering. We are telling our ds today. Of mil does not call my dh today, he will call her early afternoon tomorrow. Dh has been more patient than his sister, but that is waning quickly now.
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Big hug to you. This would be challenging if it were your own parent- it must be excruciating to be doing all of this for an in-law parent with all the other drama going on.
Any lawyer who is not half asleep is going to ask “You are giving a man you’ve been dating a few months the right to live in YOUR house for the rest of his life? Are you crazy?” So I am not worried that this plan will go very far, no matter how attractive the finances may turn out to be. And one of his kids moves in for six months to take care of him when god knows what happens and then won’t leave and then you guys need to evict the kid and his adult child? Oh Brother. A world of pain.
I think your best case “risk management” plan is to accept the fact that for now, your MIL intends to marry him, buy in to his place, and make a life for herself there. Since she’s keeping her house for now (and you can just continue to grind on how difficult, time-consuming, horrible it would be to empty the house to get ready to sell it- that ought to buy you guys time) her fallback if she’s miserable is to move back home. Divorce Bob, stay married, whatever.
So executing that just requires a MUCH better understanding of the care, costs, and liability scenarios at his place, and finding a really experienced lawyer to draft a pre-nup which his kids can’t challenge. And figuring out how to get SIL off her posturing- which I’m pretty sure is allowing MIL to dig in her heels in a stubborn and aggressive way (“I’ll show them all- I’m marrying Bob and we’re going to be really happy together!” ) while allowing her to ignore her OWN red flags…..
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