I am a SAHM but I have always been in charge of the finances, in so far as paying the bills, budgeting, etc. If I didn’t tell my husband I doubt he’d know how much he made. We have always made big financial decisions together, and everything has always worked out fine for twenty years. I have never felt “less important” than my husband just because I wasn’t working-- well maybe a little now. We decided I would stay at home together, we both are college graduates. I expressed concern about the cost of college early in the process, and just like is so often talked about here daughter applied to some safeties, matches and reaches, academically as well as monitarily. She was accepted everywhere she applied and the cost to attend is basically the same for all. Daughter chose what I would call a reach school and it seemed like all was going well and she was happy. This week everything changed. I don’t really know why. She gets mad if I bring it up. I tried talking with her tonight alone and asked if she was just unsure and having last minute jitters. She said no, that wasn’t it. She says she has made her decision, so I said have you or your father contacted school #1 yet? And she said yes and that they gave her until the 17th to decide. I don’t know if all money from school #1 will be refunded but I can’t see my husband agreeing to her plan if it wasn’t. I think tomorrow I will have her father read this forum and see that I am not the only one that thinks the way I do. He is out of town on work. I will update after that. Even the fact that my husband spoke with her and they decided on the commuter school and neither told me for two days was a shock, and to be honest at first I thought it was a joke because last year I had told her to attend the commuter school (my alma mater) and be done with the whole process. She wanted none of that then. I don’t get it. Thanks for all of the replies.
There are a lot of solid points to be made here – that your daughter’s last-minute change of heart could just be jitters, that there is already a financial commitment to the first school to be considered, that the boyfriend’s proximity might be influencing your daughter, etc. Ultimately, though, the bottom line is that you are an adult and you have much more life experience and awareness of the consequences of choice. This choice is not between black boots and brown boots. It’s major, and it needs to be made with the input and wisdom of adults.
Commuting may make it very socially challenging for her. I would schedule a time to sit down and discuss this with DD and Dad. It is very late to change now.
Investigating a different major is fine, but a new school is probably not fine.
Why does your husband think it’s okay to disregard your opinion and feelings, and to teach your daughter that it’s okay to run roughshod over them too? Is that how he wants your daughter’s future spouse to treat her?
Your issue isn’t which college is better for your daughter. Your issue is that your husband and daughter are treating you disrespectfully. The college choice is a symptom. If I were you, the question I’d be asking myself wouldn’t be which college is better for my daughter. It would be, “Am I better off with him or without him?”
Do not take any loans to pay for your daughter’s college until you’re sure about the answer to that question. And seriously think about getting a full-time job so you can take care of yourself no matter what happens.
So the question (just like Dr. Phil says) “Where is the pay off?”
The school isn’t better, the situation isn’t better, the cost is the same. So what’s the real reason?
What’s really going on in your daughter’s head? If she is suddenly adamant about going to this school she should be able to tell you why. She OWES you an explanation.
Not the money if your H makes her pay for it too.
Maybe the BF but he’s smart enough to tell her to go as far as you know. Maybe that changed.
Afraid to go far from home? It’s not necessarily going to be pleasant living with a mad mom if she really thinks she can commute (which is a terrible idea that dad SHOULD be on board with). To commute has so many drawbacks that it’s hard to conceive she’d want to do it. It’s a real sabatoge of the college experience.
You said the first school is more on the reach side. Is she afraid she can’t hack it?I
Did she decide she didn’t want to live in a city? That the environment was wrong?
Thinks she can keep the HS friends she has and save the trouble of making new ones? ( I see kids on this forum think this way all the time. The friends grow and move on while they remain stuck.)
There has to be some concrete reason.
What’s dad’s payoff?
Protecting “daddy’s little girl” from big bad mommy (who only tries to talk sense but gets seen as the nag?)
Doesn’t want D to go far from home?
Saving a few bucks?
I’d pay for on-campus housing to avoid the commute–I’d call well-spent insurance. One car accident is going to cost more than the housing and could be more life changing than anyone bargained for.
Maybe you’ve already tried this. Try talking to your D again. But don’t speak–no refuting or saying but, but…
You really want to hear what she has to say and learn her reasons. The only unacceptable reason is “just because”. Decisions aren’t made in a vacuum
Stay calm and quiet and when done if she asks you what you think tell her you’ll get back to her after you mull it over.
It’s important that she help you understand. No arguing, no blaming, no nagging.
Then later (after mulling)–she needs to give you some uninterrupted time just as you did for her. Write your reasons (or ours) down for her. Sometimes writing is easier than the spoken word because we all know they go in “one ear and out the other”.
Sounds like D does not want to move away from her BF - no matter how supportive he is.
I think the focus on the D is misplaced, all due respect. The sabotage you are dealing with is from your H who up until now was on board with the plan that major decisions get made together. Except for this one. With implicit encouragement for your D to play both ends against the middle. And contravene a decision that had already been made and paid for.
Your H has some “splaining” to do.
The BF is more or less irrelevant.
You hold the purse strings… you have the power.
I would tell her there are two options: The original school or community college. An hour commute is just setting her up for failure (if you are sick, tired, bad weather) and you will not do that.
If I understand correctly, the daughter is expected to take out loans if she lives on campus but not if she commutes. Is this correct? This is a big disincentive to live on campus and if you want her to live on campus, take away the loans. Or make the loans the same if she commutes.
But I agree. Some communication needs to happen here. Everyone needs to step back and take an objective look at how things progressed from where they were on May 1 to where they are now and figure out where the disconnect happened, especially in communication. Really listen to one another. Then you will all be in a better place to move forward and make a decision together on what’s best for D right now.
Can you talk with your husband alone and explain your safety fears re the commute and suggest that the two of you at least reach a compromise and offer your daughter one of three options (assuming that you can get the money back from school #1): 1) she attend school 1 as planned; 2) she attend the alternative choice, but live on campus; or 3) that she stay at home and either work and take a gap year or attend a local area community college (assuming there is one). If you can get your husband to at least take the option of attending school number 2 and commuting, which means a safety and academic risk (due to lost time) as well as social isolation and the need for her to use one of your cars, you will have accomplished a lot.
Whether or not it’s safe to commute isn’t the issue. OPs spouse making a unilateral decision and hiding it from her is.
There is a piece of the puzzle missing. DD and DH are hiding something from you. There has to be a reason for such abrupt change of plans.
Trying to delete my comment…
I would agree with @redeye41 that this is not a SAHM-specific topic or issue. I think this is a communication issue between her and her husband. We do nothing but muddy the waters by throwing SAHM, WAHM, or WM into the mix.
Post 70–“The commute isn’t the issue”. …
But after much thought it actually is a very central if not THE issue to this particular decision
. Cross out the money. The academic factors. The BF.
It may not be the reason that D changed her mind nor why dad let her. Doesn’t really matter. Call it a wash.
But it is a VERY deciding factor as to why OP does NOT want this college. Call it a deal breaker.
It is such a huge negative to commute especially to OP that actually attended this college that her opinion should hold a LOT of weight.
As I understand it-- The “commuter” college is NOT a commuter college. It is a residential college. It’s best attributes are tied to being a resident.
Two VERY good reasons to NOT commute are safety and the loss of the college experience.
Easy one first–Safety-- Maybe dad (who did commute) and D (who hasn’t a clue) discounts the safety issue totally. Mom has another version because she is the only one who has “been there, done that” on that drive.
Some posters say “yeah, I drive an hour every day!” but needing extra time in your day to study with a varying schedule is not the same as going to work. It is not. It’s not HS and it’s not just a drive home from work.
Second–Loss of college experience–Dad was a commuter. He doesn’t get it. It didn’t hurt him maybe but he doesn’t know if he could have been helped. D doesn’t have a clue.
This is where you hit your head and say “you don’t get it”. How do I explain? This is where you need magic words.
I just think of a T-shirt from long ago with the words “if you don’t go, you’ll miss it”.
Both dad and D need to understand that a very important part of college is in the residential experience. Friends are made and networks forged. And it’s not a part time proposition.
@motherofdragons, @gouf78, You’re missing the parts about OP’s husband and daughter not listening to her opinion — at all – and having private discussions and keeping information from her. If she were working and able to walk out tomorrow and support herself if that’s what she wanted, do you honestly think they’d be treating her that way? I don’t.
I think she’s making a mistake if she treats this as a “we disagree about the best college” issue. Unless she wants to spend the next 4 years, and beyond, being left out of important decisions that affect her financial future, she needs to set her limits. She didn’t like the behavior. She gets to address that and not have the topic of conversation turned from what she wants to talk about (being ignored and left out of major family financial decisions) to what they’re willing to talk about (whether or not the daughter commutes to school). I think this is major betrayal by OP’s husband, and that’s what I’d address.
I’m not missing those parts; I don’t attribute the husband’s and daughter’s behavior to the OP being a stay at home parent.
I think the entire idea that having a job means you can walk out and leave if you don’t like your spouse’s behavior is ludicrous, frankly. I don’t think that’s how you do marriage. Conversely, not pulling a paycheck from an exterior source does not mean you do not have control and resources within a marriage. If you lack those things, it’s not because you don’t work. It’s because you chose to give up that power at some point.
I agree with you @austinmshauri that it is a HUGE betrayal on the husband’s side, and that there are some serious, larger issues that need to be addressed between the two of them. What’s going on with the daughter is a symptom of the marriage being in trouble, not a cause, in my opinion.
Austin–I’m not missing that. But those are different issues which may or may not be addressed by OP in her own good time.
And no, I don’t think her ability to support herself has any bearing on this situation.
IMHO–it has more to do with “mom advice overload ( registered as nagging)” that occurs over the years. Not that the advice isn’t good or right.
Since dad isn’t backing up the advice with “mom is right on that point” it just goes unheeded
I think we are all getting waaaaay overheated here.
I agree with everyone that the OP’s husband behaved inappropriately in cutting her out of a major family decision. The daughter behaved inappropriately, too, although when a kid plays her parents off against one another that’s the kind of inappropriateness one has to expect and forgive.
That said, I think the OP is not necessarily being reasonable, and a lot of posters are swinging far out of line from the truth here. This is not the sort of major family decision that affects the OP’s financial life. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t affect her financial life at all. There is likely no additional cost from changing colleges here. This is not the OP’s daughter throwing her future in the toilet either. She is choosing between two public universities, one of which is more prestigious than the other, but both of which have the capacity to give her a good education. Remember, the most important component of her education is her, not the college she attends. The place where she feels more motivated and comfortable will be the place where she gets the best education.
Also, because these are public universities, there’s a good chance that if she feels she has outgrown the local university in a few years, and she has done well, she will be able to transfer to the “better” university.
Then there’s the “commuting” issue. I am not in favor of living at home and commuting to college, either. But lots and lots of people do it, and grow up into perfectly functional, well-educated adults. My foster brother did it – he lived at home all through college, and drove 20 miles or so – often in very snowy weather – to get to his classes. He made plenty of friends, and had (as far as I can tell) a great deal more sex than I did during college. He was very immature and unfocused when he started college, and had sketchy language skills (English not being his first language), and he needed a lot of support from my mother, especially, to stay on track and to understand what he was supposed to be doing. Five years, ten years later, nothing was missing from his life because he had never lived in a college dorm.
There are hundreds of thousands, millions of people like that. As I said in a recent thread, everyone in my family but my brother went a long way away to college, but both of my in-laws lived at home through college, and it didn’t make either of them dumber. My friends in Europe generally can’t imagine why we pay for our kids to live someplace else when they are in college.
And the weather issue – give me a break! People in cold climates commute on snowy days. Overwhelmingly, they don’t die or total their cars. It’s OK.
In other words, this is not a high-stakes family dispute, it is an extraordinarily low-stakes family dispute. While my preferences would be exactly the same as the OP’s, the daughter really is the person most affected by everything, maybe the only person really affected by anything, so I don’t understand why, at the end of the day, it wouldn’t be her decision. If the husband and daughter cut the OP out, or made her feel like she was cut out, that’s bad on them, but I’ll bet they knew perfectly well what the OP thought and took it into account, too. Understanding the OP’s position does not mean agreeing with it, and not doing what she wants does not mean that she has been disregarded.
In addition to everything mentioned above …
Your daughter needs to realize that the world does not revolve around her and that her decisions could have an impact on others. She needs to learn to follow through with commitment.
First, you have paid at minimum a deposit on college #1. Transferring at the last minute to a different college could affect her financial aid and your wallet.
Second, by this time she has a roommate assigned to her at college #1. Transferring is going to leave that person without a roommate, at least temporarily. She will be randomly assigned someone rather than going through the dorm’s “matchmaking” computerized service. She may have counted on a new friendship that is now lost. There may even be someone who didn’t get a housing spot because of your daughter’s decision to leave.
Third, it is possible that there is someone out there who didn’t get a spot in a class because your daughter had already taken it. Maybe it was a prerequisite that has thrown that person’s plans awry.
It’s for situations such as these why we made our kids stick with an extracurricular activity when they wanted to quit for silly reasons. Let her change schools if she wants to … at the end of the semester (if your finances aren’t negatively affected) or at the end of the year. If it’s true love with the boyfriend, it will endure regardless of whether or not they’re together.