pre-nup?

any updates? the only thing i seem to agree with with mlylt is our love of cats

Well yeah. Do you even woman bro?

Especially in this case where she's marrying a guy 10 years older. She's almost certainly doing it for 'help me raise my daughter and pay my bills' reasons. Or at least that's a huge part of what OP is expected to bring to the relationship.

We need to know the attractiveness of both OP and the woman in question.

Well, it's started...

Last night she was stressing out about money, ldo, and how the little girl has $425 due on November 1 for costumes for dance. Keep in mind the girl is on a performance team. Lessons are $170 a month for 8-9 months of the year plus costumes. The gf gets $325 a month ($3,900 a year) in child support (no tax on child support, so that's all take home pay). This was due to a court order a few years ago, but the father has no contact with the girl. I make 50% more than gf, so we agreed to split common bills 60/40. We decided not to count the child support as income for gf and the gf would use that to pay for dance related stuff. All other expenses for the girl are counted as in common (mortgage, groceries, her clothes, school supplies, etc.).

So last night the gf starts asking if I'm going to help pay for the costumes. I kept my cool and reminded her that she was suppose to pay for the dance stuff out of child support. She got pretty pissy about it. I told her I was willing to pay 60% of dance stuff, but then child support needed to be on the table financially. Either dividing it between us (probably a dumb thing for me to say) or counting it as her income and reconfigure what percentages of the bills we pay (which would likely screw me and help her, as I'd be paying a large amount for dance but she would only pay another percent or two of the bills). Anyway, it ends with her blowing up saying that I just want her to pay more. Meanwhile, I'm like wtf? If you weren't going on this trip you would have the money for costumes, and I already pay the majority of expenses for the little girl, which I think is pretty generous, tbh.

I think I'll offer to pay $175 this morning. I don't think I should, but I probably will.

Dude.

This woman who seems terrible with money, is getting mad at you because she’s terrible with money.

Start hiding money?

Wait - not necessary in this case...

dale,
This sounds like a bad situation, and I largely agree that this woman seems terrible with money. So probably a lot of bad times ahead if you guys get married without her figuring out her finances.

That being said, I'm going to play devil's advocate and say that your financial approach as a couple seems overly nitty to me, and is potentially adding fuel to the fire. Like, "I make 50% more than you, so we'll split bills roughly 60/40" seems ok in concept. But then, "Your child support is not included in the income calculation, nor are the following enumerated expenses included in the shared bills calculation" seems like you're setting up a multi-segment corporation with decentralized profit centers, rather than just running a household.

At the end of the day, what's your goal with regards to your and her finances, assuming you do get married? Considering that your resources and debts are largely going to be shared, what are you trying to gain by having such explicit rules about which fund the kid's dance classes come from? It doesn't seem to matter which "account" the dance costume funds come from - if you both agree that it's a good use of money, then it's definitely going to be money that your household spends; arguing over who pays is more or less arguing about whether to take the money from either the left pocket or the right pocket of the same pair of pants.

If I was on the other side, I would view your strict attitude about keeping finances completely separate as a broader signal that you don't really consider the relationship a true partnership, but more of a formal business relationship. Maybe you don't think that your relationship (or your finances!) could survive a situation where you pool all of your resources and expenditures. But to me, that suggests a larger problem with trust that would leave me seriously questioning whether I wanted to marry this person.

I say all this as someone who has successfully managed this "shared finances" approach for a while now, including times where my wife has worked and I didn't, where we both worked, and where I work now and my wife doesn't. Finances are complicated and I know that lots of other couples successfully manage a much more separate structure, similar to the one you want to have. But in your case, it seems like it's breeding more resentment than satisfaction.

dale - since this apparently wasn't clear enough the first time - this rule applies to everything, including dance costumes.

Your only decision at this point is whether or not you want to spend the rest of your life in this situation. You can try going to counseling, watching her have a breakthrough and commiting to changing her spending habits if you want, but spoiler alert - once a busto, always a busto.

lol at having $1k in the bank and spending $425 on dancing costumes

c'mon son

Refusing to help pay for your future stepdaughter's activities is a pretty bad position to be taking, especially since you've been like a father to her for most of her life.

However, I do believe that if you and your fiance are going to apportion expenses by some formula, then the child support should be included for her income.

Finally, if you two are going to get married, it's difficult to see how keeping this cost-sharing arrangement in place is going to work, especially with the income differential between the two of you.

I hear what you're saying. I would point out a few things. It was actually her idea to keep separate accounts, not mine. And I honestly don't remember how we came up with the dance/child support agreement. She seems to feel that child support is sacred money and if it comes up at all, she seems to think that I'm trying to steal money from her daughter. I suspect that it was simply a compromise that child support was off the table and she used it for dance, which still left her with nearly $2,000 leftover a year. Again, I'm happy to simply count child support as her income and reconfigure the percentages we each pay. I just want both of us to pay our fair share. I do pay for 60% of all of the girl's non-dance. We just spent $200 at the eye doctor for the appointment and glasses and I'm paying 60% of that and other medical bills. I just don't think it's fair for me to pay 60% of the girl's expenses and somehow child support is in the wind.

I offered to pay $175. She seemed satisfied with that.

Yo your girlfriend ****ing sucks. Dump the ***** or you will regret it. If she has that kind of money situation she should have axed the expensive dance stuff. That just shows you her priorities, she will be in debt soon and drag you in with her.... so have fun paying off her bills.

Of course this is a reasonable desire. But it's also exactly the desire that leads to an enormous amount of resentment, because it's very common for both parties to believe that they're paying more than their fair share in terms of:
- money
- house cleaning/upkeep
- childcare effort
- planning logistics

I'm no psychologist, but it seems like there's got to be a belief on your part that she's not actually contributing her fair share already. That's going to be a problem regardless of who pays for dance classes. I mean, are you really positive that a 60/40 expense split is the right one, just because your salaries are in that ratio? Are you looking at pre-tax salaries, or net take home? Are you accounting for retirement benefits? Are you taking into account discretionary vs. non-discretionary funds? The declining marginal utility of money?

Suppose you take home $60k and she takes home $40k, and your non-discretionary spending (including child costs) total $75k. She contributes $30k and you contibute $45k. You're left with $15k of disposal income, but she's only left with $10k of disposable income. That seems "fair" in an economic perspective, but it doesn't seem equitable for a marriage.

I think that the situation is not cool. I mean.... for me it is very weird how this woman thinks about money. But what matters is that you have stress as a couple. Premarital counselling and finances and budgeting as a very explicit part of it. Plain because it won't get better with marriage.

Spidercrab,

Good posts.


Dale,

You both need to think about and communicate clearly about how you will view and manage money once you are married. Some couples are happy with everything being in one joint account and mainly just using that, regardless of how much each person makes, or whether one person even works at all or not. Some couples are happy with having separate accounts, or mainly a joint account but also separate accounts, or whatever, but still viewing the finances as completely together (not just shared or fair or contributed to by both, but completely together). But the couples that have separate accounts and still view their money as separate, with expenses being contributed to by certain formulas or percentages, seem more likely to have problems with money and their relationship.

You're not married yet, so it's understandable the way you've explained things. And you've been generous with the way you treat things and with your like a daughter/soon to be stepdaughter. But if you're engaged and assume you'll be married, this seems like a minor thing to nit about - would this be an issue at all, once you're married? How would this be paid for once you're married?

In short, I agree with posters saying she doesn't seem good with money, but if you are going to marry her anyway, you at least need to have clear discussions with her about money and get on the same page with how things will be once you're married.

I'm a boglehead. We ran every conceivable set of numbers. We sat down and ran the numbers, including take home pay. My student loan payment is $225 a month more than hers and I pay $40 a month more in life insurance than her. I also pay significantly higher income taxes. I take home about 60% while she takes home about 70%. Our left over money after bills is almost exactly the same.

I guess the frustrating thing is that I feel like despite sitting down and writing all of this out, she's now changing the goal posts b/c she is now thousands of dollars in debt because of this trip.

jesus dude you really shoulda just paid the money. it really isnt that much and you really look like a dick refusing to help out your almost daughter.

I realize that you are petrified of getting played and worried she is using you for money but you gotta get over that **** or gtfo.

How does this weird 60/40 thing work? Like does she get a receipt from the optometrist and then you get out your calculator to figure out how big of a check to write her for reimbursement?

I've never done anything like this, forgive me.

And did you ever sit down and have a longer conversation with her about how you now support her and her daughter's trip (begrudgingly but you don't tell her that), but asking/discussing how future trips and communication and planning and decision-making will go after you're married?

She is responsible for putting some problems in the way, but it seems like the biggest problem between you two is your communication and being on different pages.

Also, I noticed that in the OP and at the beginning, you refer to her as your fiancee, and then later you switched over to referring to her as your gf...

How will the wedding be paid for and will it be a small or a large one?

More precisely, it's continuing. And there will be no end to it.

You and she are so far apart on financial matters that I can't see how you will ever be able to reach common ground.

Just one more example of the distance between you two on money matters.

As others have previously stated, I wouldn't seriously consider marriage until both of you are confident that you have everything ironed out financially. I don't see that happening, but maybe you two are that one in a million.

Always curious to read the wedding vows in situations like this to see if they include provisions for sharing of expenses commensurate to each party’s income