Romance is beautiful, but have you seen the price of groceries lately? We all grow up watching movies where the protagonist chooses love over money, leaving the rich villain for the poor artist with a heart of gold. It makes for great cinema, but in the real world, love does not pay for dental work or a mortgage. One woman on Reddit is currently facing this exact dilemma, having to choose between marrying the man she loves or keeping the financial lifeline provided by her doctor ex-husband, and honestly, her calculator is making some very strong points.
The OP (Original Poster) is a forty-four-year-old woman who divorced her husband two years ago after a twenty-one-year marriage. They share four children. Because she spent two decades as a stay-at-home mom supporting his medical career, the divorce settlement was actually quite favorable. In the state of Massachusetts, she was awarded alimony for life—or until she remarries. Additionally, she gets to stay on his group health insurance, which is a massive perk in this economy.
The ex-husband, affectionately referred to as “James,” is a piece of work in his own right. He is a doctor who apparently hates the institution of marriage so much that he has vowed never to do it again. He even told the OP, “Luckily for you, it’s not emotionally or financially cost effective for me to marry just to get you off my health insurance.” That is a level of petty pragmatism that you almost have to respect. He would rather pay for her insurance than deal with a new wife.
Enter the boyfriend. He is forty-five, empathetic, and works as a case manager at a non-profit. He sounds like a lovely human being who values work-life balance, unlike the workaholic ex. They are very much in love, and the OP admits she wishes she had met him first. But here is the kicker: love doesn’t pay the bills. The OP did the math and realized that if she were to re-enter the workforce now, she would likely be making around $17 an hour. That is a far cry from the lifestyle provided by lifetime alimony from a physician.
Things came to a head after a pregnancy scare. The boyfriend, driven by a desire to do the “right thing” and stop living like two separate entities, proposed. He wants them to live under one roof and be a real family. It is a sweet sentiment, but for the OP, that ring represents financial ruin. Accepting his proposal means instantly forfeiting her alimony and her health insurance. It means trading a stable financial future for a household income that would be cut in half.
The OP had to turn him down. She explained that she simply cannot afford to marry him. The boyfriend was hurt and didn’t understand why she was prioritizing money over their commitment. He sees it as a rejection of him; she sees it as a rejection of poverty. To make matters more complicated, the OP claims they can’t even move in together without marrying because “archaic family court laws” might view cohabitation as sharing finances, which could also jeopardize her alimony.
The boyfriend works for a non-profit, which is noble, but notoriously underpaid. The OP is looking at a future where she loses her primary income source to live on a case manager’s salary while raising the remnants of a large family. That isn’t just a lifestyle change; that is a plummet. She is being asked to set fire to her safety net for a piece of paper that says “married.”
It is easy to call her unromantic or mercenary, but she is actually being incredibly responsible. She has children (even if they are older/adults, they are expensive) and a future to think about. Why should she give up financial security that she earned through twenty-one years of domestic labor just to satisfy a societal expectation of what a “committed” relationship looks like?
So, is the OP the ahole? Absolutely not. Marriage is a legal contract, and in her case, signing a new one voids the old, very lucrative one. If the boyfriend truly loves her, he should want her to be secure and insured. They can be committed partners without the government getting involved and turning off the money tap.
What would you do if marrying your soulmate meant losing your entire income? Would you take the plunge for love, or would you stay single and secure? Let us know in the comments if you think the OP made the right call!