<p>My dad was 45 when I was born and, while I enjoyed certain benefits over my older brothers (from a previous marriage) because he had acquired more financial stability by the time I came around, I would never do that to my kids.</p>
<p>I love my dad and all, but theres just something about a 60-year-old picking you up from school that has always bothered me which is why I want to get married young.</p>
<p>Basically the ideal marriage in my eyes would be maintaining the status quo post marriage as before marriage. The only difference is that we live together and file taxes as married filing separately/jointly depending on which ones results in the lowest tax bill. Bank accounts, savings, investment portfolio held separately, as before marriage. If both parties own a home, both are to be held separately but pick one to live in and rent out the other. The rent income is to be split 50/50 (net of tax) between both parties. Each party’s assets are the sole responsibility of that party, and that party only.</p>
<p>I believe in a strict separation of business and the personal. Nothing can be gained by merging finances rather than maintaining separate finances.</p>
<p>futurenyustudent, you come off as cold, calculating, detached, and dispassionate, someone who expects to make exorbitant paychecks and singlemindedly pursue his own agenda. Like others have asked, why would you ever want to raise children? What makes you think you’re even prepared to do so on an emotional level?</p>
<p>You say you’d encourage your wife to do whatever - even move overseas if she wants, but you wouldn’t go with her. What about your child? Never seeing his or her mother or father (depending on which parent they stay with) would be devastating and difficult. I hardly saw my dad growing up and it was really painful. I don’t know how you could do something so harsh to a child.</p>
<p>I may also add that it’s exceedingly difficult to adopt as a single white man. It’ll take years and lots and lots of money, and you may still get a kid from a bad (drugs & narcotics) background.</p>
<p>Since when do cold, calculating, detached and dispassionate people necessarily make bad parents? I’d like to see one study that suggests such conclusions. I would propose that detached people make better parents-they’re able to maintain a modicum of objectivity.</p>
<p>Just because the two parents live apart doesn’t mean the kids never get to see one of the parents. There are these big metal tubes with engines called airplanes, you know, which can connect any two large cities in the world within 24 hours. And there are these things called, you know, airlines, that sell tickets on board these metal tubes, and fly them between distant cities. My parents have been apart and I’ve been living with my mom for the past 10 years-I turned out just fine and so did my sister. If one has the will to make it work, there’s a way to make it work. And I’m certainly not going to ask her to give up the job opportunity of a lifetime in Hong Kong, London or anywhere else, just because I don’t want to move to Hong Kong, London, or anywhere else for that matter. And I expect her to respect my choice not to relocate with her.</p>
<p>And I love how you just assumed I’m white.</p>
<p>futurenyustudent,
I also want to know why you want to have kids. They are an extreme financial drainer; they get sick A LOT, need lots of money spent of school, food, diapers, etc. They fight with you, rebel against you, make everything messy, are extremely unpredictable, take plenty of risks whether intentional or unintentional. They break things, they lose things, they take things. The only thing that they give in return is an emotional connection, eventually probable appreciation of what you have done for them, oh and dependent status on a tax return for about 18 years. You don’t seem like you’re one for the emotional connection or appreciation, and the dependent status doesn’t seem like it would make that much of a difference in your planned salary. So what the heck?</p>
<p>I bet you hate life… it is mostly impossible to fully control.</p>
<p>because even though children bring those things.
they also bring joy and happiness!!!</p>
<p>That’s what I mean about the emotional connection. I don’t feel like futurenyustudent would be able to provide his children with the emotional support, that they need and deserve.</p>
<p>Futurenyustudent, just out of genuine curiosity…if you want all (or most) financial issues separate from your wife, why are you looking for someone who makes at least $150k as you mentioned in another thread recently? Does her salary matter as long as she is able to pay for herself in your business arrangeme- er, marriage? :p</p>
<p>Honestly? No, as long as she knows that there will be no transfer of wealth whatsoever in the event of a divorce. </p>
<p>And btw don’t forget the tax benefits that you get as a head of household. </p>
<p>I also firmly think stable parents beget stable children, and vice versa.</p>
<p>
I met my future husband a month into college my freshman year at Cal. We married between my junior and senior year, had kids 9 years later. My husband was already working and supported me through my last year. It’s almost 26 years later and our oldest graduates from high school in 2011. Sadly neither kid is considering Cal since they are majoring in things better at other schools. My husband made DD promise not to date until she was 40 (when she was 2).</p>
<p>I also went to school with a plan to not marry until late 20’s…</p>
<p>i asked my brother about this and he said that the only ppl who marry in college or immediately after graduation to start a family are ugly ppl.
because hot people are spending their college years partying it up, having fun, and making sure college is the best years of their lives…</p>
<p>HIS WORDS NOT MINE.</p>
<p>Meet in college? Too soon. WAY too soon. Do what I did and meet the future spouse in GRAD school. We were both T.A.s. Have a good time in college. Finish sowing those wild oats. Then go to work in the real world for a few years, to learn what it’s really, really like, but don’t get married! After after a few years, ditch the condo/apartment and the full-time job for full-time grad school (and be the envy of your co-workers who stupidly got married and bought a house and were stuck). Now you’re ready to meet the spouse on campus, because you’re older and wiser. You know yourself better now, and you know what you need for a lifetime commitment. </p>
<p>That’s what I did. 22 years later, two of our kids are in college (one in high school) and all is bliss.</p>
<p>"No… because that takes a lifetime, not just a meer 30 years… "</p>
<p>Well, duh. But I meant I can’t imagine feeling so fundamentally unsure about who I am as a person and what I want that I can’t get married until 30. I feel like you’d have to be emotionally unstable to be that indecisive STILL at that age, barring some extenuating circumstance. There are plenty of good reasons to wait that long, but if you’re putting your life on hold until you “find yourself” you’re going to be looking for a long time.</p>
<p>"@emaheevul07
people are starting to realize that they want to explore life more while they are still young, instead of getting tied down so early in age where it’s just responsibilities and you have to SCHEDULE time for yourself. "</p>
<p>I guess some of us are blessed to not be tied down by responsibilities in their 20’s, but I sure as hell am not among them. I don’t care if other people want to wait. Any bitterness I may have expressed about it comes from the rudeness I have been getting from friends about my own engagement. When I told them, several told me they wouldn’t even come to the wedding because we’ll be divorced in a year anyway and it’s not worth spending the money on a gift. I don’t care if you’re 16 and getting married, nobody deserves that kind of treatment. It’s been a very hurtful experience for me on that side of things. Other than that, I am just bewildered but hold no ill will toward anyone that wants to wait. I just can’t believe how incapable some people are of understanding that some of their peers may not be in the same place in life as they are.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[Did</a> I Get Married Too Young? - WSJ.com](<a href=“http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107204575039150739864666.html]Did”>http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107204575039150739864666.html)</p>
<p>^Interesting article. At the same time, I think it’s important to remember that none of us has any real control over when we meet our future spouse. I mean, we can plan on one thing, and decide when to start “looking” proactively, but even then our lives can (and probably will) turn out completely differently from the plan.</p>
<p>I feel like looking proactively when you’re young could actually be to the detriment of your search, I feel like it’d scare some people off and perhaps even limit you in who you really get to know-- someone may not seem like “the one” at first but then they turn out to be anyway. I didn’t even like my fiance when we first met. My mom was ragging on him about something in the beginning and I even said, “GOD MOM, it’s not like I’m going to marry him!” I agreed to go out with him out of a sense of obligation because he seemed so genuinely kind and I figured I couldn’t complain about all the bad men I’d dated if I didn’t give the nice guy who turned up a chance. And then it still took me a few weeks to warm up to him, and even to the idea of a relationship at all. You just never know what’s going to happen.</p>
<p>My parents met when they were college students, but they were attending a seminar thing and didn’t even attend college in the same city. They were both around twenty five when they got married, and my brother was born that year.
Although they don’t regret everything happening, my mom couldn’t do a graduate degree because of it and couldn’t get to see the world. In saying that, back then, half my mom’s friends were already married. Since my father’s a year or so younger, he was one of the first of the friends (in the same graduating class as him) to get married.
I think college isn’t a bad place to find college, you have matured a bit and are not trying to pull on all the teenage rebel stuff as you did in HS (hopefully).
However I don’t want to be married too soon, even if I meet the right person. Anyway that’s ages away, I still have to get through HS.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You know… you can have a good time in college IN a committed relationship. There are people out there that don’t have to “finish sowing their wild oats” while in college. People have this strange impression that everyone in college has to go out get drunk every night, and pass out on the side of the road because they fell asleep at the wheel from drunkenness. There are some people that are mature enough in college to know what they want to accomplish in their career and know who they want to be with for the rest of their life. Just because you’ve worked for a few years doesn’t make you any wiser or mature. I know plenty of people in their upper 20’s/lower 30’s who are immature and working jobs they couldn’t care less about, while still bar-hopping most nights.</p>
<p>When you know what you want and who you want to be with, there is no sense in pushing that off. Go out and get it. I’ve had plenty of beers and plenty of years to “know myself”.</p>
<p>@futurenyustudent: in order to get married, you must find a willing girl first. with all your requirements, good luck.</p>
<p>if all else fails, get a mail-order bride or something.</p>
<p>and i’d hold off on marriage until i have my own manhattan penthouse and a nice car…and a condo in florida for my parents so they’ll leave me alone i theyre still around. and maybe fix my teeth too (4yrs of braces=nothing).</p>
<p>LOL I pretty much agree with futurenyustudent’s stance. I know this couple who is going through the absolute ugliest divorce in the history of divorces right now and it’s just insane to think about. I can’t imagine getting married to someone without deriving a huge amount of material advantage out of it. Why else would you need to get married then? Marriage is just a contract that people made up a long time ago and everyone blindly follows to this day. </p>
<p>And the only people I know getting married or engaged in college are super devout Christian types.</p>