I’m gonna be honest, I’m not asking for a friend, I’m asking for myself. Our daughter (24) married this man (65) in September. She herself stated money was the main reason, and he knows it but it doesn’t bother him. Both my husband & I are having a very hard time getting used to the idea.
I agree with many people here that it’s up to her. It’s her life and she’s going to live it how she wants. How you feel about it doesn’t matter. I think what she’s doing is morally objectionable because it turns a relationship that should be about caring and mutual affection and all those flowery concepts and turns it into a financial transaction. He gets companionship and sex and she gets money and not having to work (I assume). But once again, this is her decision.
How do you manage this? You either accept that or you don’t. You get to determine if you want to be part of her life or not. Perhaps this is too much for you. Perhaps not. But your only options are to accept the arrangement or not.
I’m not sure where morality comes into the whys of getting married. Historically, women have married for things other than love, when they had a choice at all. If they maintain fidelity and keep their agreements with each other, how is this any less immoral than marrying for love?
I would hope that love-based marriages are what we all aspire to. At least in my belief it is. I’m not telling people what they can’t do with their lives. There are plenty of things I disapprove of, but I don’t go around berating people for not living as I would like them to.
The OP sounded like they didn’t like this kind of arrangement for children, possibly for the same reason that I don’t like it. So I was letting them know that I agree and sympathize but at the end of the day their child is an adult and can do whatever they want. It is the parents’ decision with how they will react to things they don’t like their daughter doing.