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’d work on processing my feelings and sorting them into helpful to express, necessary to express, and unhelpful and unnecessary to express
Do you trust your daughter’s ethics and willingness to prioritize her happiness? If not that should be your concern, otherwise learning to trust her to leave if anything goes as wrong as it likely will is something to focus on.
Regardless of everything, therapy is probably a good call for you. It’s not just for the mentally ill, it’s also a resource to help deal with it when life throws you a curveball.
Adult people are entitled to make their own decisions under the FAFO maxim.
Your opinion on it is just that, an opinion. As far as idiotic shit to do, this is mid tier. You still got your daughter etc. focus on that.
Idiotic? This is a low tier mistake. Everyone wins regardless. The only thing she loses is the ability to marry someone her age and enjoy youthful things together with them. Just because she’s married doesn’t mean she can’t go off on her own to have fun.
You are assuming there won’t be a negative externality resulting from this behavior, I give you 99% chance there will be issues.
Half the people can’t maintain “normal” marriage with proper “feels” lol
As long as both parties acknowledge what kind of relationship it is, and she gets what she wants out of it, I think I would be able to accept it. Doesn’t mean I would like it, though.
It may become complicated if some day she does fall in love and if it’s with someone else. She may be faced with hard choices if this happens.
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.
My cynical view on this situation is the pros are 1) she’s fast-tracking home ownership for a generation that generally expects to not own homes, 2) she’s securing financial stability during the traditionally least financially stable era of adult life, 3) working as a paid live-in caregiver pays significantly little comparatively and it is damn hard work, 4) she may have plans on marrying for love later. She’s still maturing, so having a starter marriage that’s lucrative may not be a totally terrible idea.
Honestly at the end of the day, you want her to be happy, right? If she’s walked into this with eyes wide open, considered all the cons and still found the arrangement preferable, is it really the end of the world? What would your feelings be if she had chosen some other non traditional relationship?
Yeah in the old world where a little elbow grease was all you needed to afford a house, this would have been a coward’s move and creepy as hell.
Now, it beats the pants off of most jobs. Which is all the evidence you need of how much of a failure society has become. This situation should be awful, but it’s pretty nifty by comparison.
This is the best comment ^
If they’re cool, they’re cool.
Be sure to wring the old fart dry
She’s not underage and the husband knows the deal. I would make sure she has a back up (a man is not a plan). Make sure she has a job/career to fall back on, and if she’s stay-at-home, see if she gets any kind of money from her husband on a regular basis that she can put into her own savings. Other than that? Hopefully the wedding was bomb.
It’s sad that none of you realize that none of this is true, and it’s a troll for attention.
I think that most or all of us understand that any post like this is suspect. It’s just more fun to play along than shit on everything.
Condescending to us just makes you look pathetic, not smart.
What makes you think they are trolling? Their answers are grounded and are providing context when needed. A troll would include details about a gold coin vault that he swims in.
You’ll both have lots of time to get used to the idea. Sorry to hear that your daughter turned into a gold digger marrying out of financial convinence instead of love. Its kind of unsavory and understandable why its causing some cognitive dissonance. But well thats the kind of thing our society incentivises and she’s an adult who can make her own choices. Its hard to judge too hard. Hope the husband is alright personality wise and even if this is dark to say, you can take some solice in that statistically speaking its probably not going to last too long and she will probably inherit some assets. If it all burns down it will be a hard but good lesson in not being with people just to extract value out of them.
Good for you kiddo. Not that I have kids, but hey if it gets ya ahead and/or happy, go for it. As long as said kid is a consenting adult. Otherwise it’s cop time.
Based on all the replies this seems both are getting what they want out of it, so I don’t see an issue. Not every marriage needs to be a love match, but it does seem like there is some of that, so even better.
I do understand your moral reservations as it seems a bit cynical, but in the end it’s her life and she and any kids they might have are basically set for life.
Smart kid
how do you manage?
I’m relatively conservative, so probably a blend of bonds and market tracking index funds.
