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How can I come to terms with marrying for money?
My fiancé (30m) and I (26F) are getting married in the next couple weeks. We’ve been together for two years and live in the US. I come from a really poor family and never had much of anything growing up and it was honestly horrible. I went to bed hungry so many times as a child and even when I grew up, moved out, went to college, and got a job to support myself on; life still sucked without money. I was constantly having to figure out how I was going to make rent, how to shop for a bargain, feed myself, etc. I always had multiple roommates and counted every penny. I typically lived in college apartments so they supplied the furniture because I couldn’t afford it. I wore the same clothes for years and could never afford to do anything nice. Even movies were a struggle for me.
Then I met my fiancé who’s by most people’s standards, fairly wealthy and has connections so he’ll never be poor becuase he was able to go to a top school and land a 6 figure job. I do love him, but I’m not in love with him.
He never physically hurts me, but a lot of things are his way or the highway. He’s very bossy and arrogant and sees everything in black or white. When we argue he makes sure that he lets me know every time how much he could ruin my life if I left him and that I’d be back to struggling without him.
With that in mind, if I go along with whatever makes him happy then my life is generally happy too. He’s sweet as long as everything is going how he wants it to and most of the time it’s easy enough to do that. He’s definitely elevated my life a lot, we have a big beautiful home, go out to eat wherever and whenever we like, and can afford most things within reason. Money and bills are never a worry and I never go to bed hungry. He’s bought things for me I could never afford and in the future things only look like they could be brighter.
I know that my chances of meeting another person
of his status who would want to marry me are next to nothing and my family and friends would absolutely be mortified if I didn’t marry him.
It still makes me sad though becuase im not attracted to him, and will never have a good love life with him. I’ll never really get to pick and choose what I want because he’s king at the end of the day. I’ll never have my own place to call mine becuase everything is his and even the things I have my name on he could take away from me because he knows I couldn’t afford them without him. I’ll never get to travel or live anywhere he doesn’t want to go. I’m like a little bird in somebody else’s birdhouse. Every time I want to break up with him, I can’t becuase I’d have nowhere to go and all of my loved ones would turn their back on me if I left him. I work 40h weeks and have 20k saved up, but getting a place based on the credit I don’t have is so difficult and I don’t want to live in college apartments for the rest of my life. I would also still struggle becuase my car payments, student loans, etc are so much that if I were on my own I would be dirt poor again.
So at the end of the day I have to grin and marry him and be happy with what we have together. There’s never going to be a fairytale romance for me because money rules America.
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Maybe give some free advice about: Love Life?
You are thinking that the worst of marrying this guy is that you are not in love with him and that as long as you do what he wants, that he will be happy but I can guarantee you'll be lying to yourself as I did for 30years that I was reasonably happy. My situation wasnt exaxtly yours but I do know what it is like to be married to someone who turns out to be totally different after I married him.
So I will explain what I went through so you can understand what to really expect.
Heres what the worst can be like. I marred at age 20. He was 24. He wasn't wealthy but a full time worker at whatever over the years and I had to work too to survivc and we did and considered ourselves middle class but at the bottom of that. We eventually owned a house and had two cars, went to church and were active there. I didnt understand then but know now that he was born with an inability to love people and also had undiagnosed mental illness, enough for me to see at home but not enough for society in public to discover he has it. He was not in love with me but loved a few aspects of me. When asked by a psychologist if he was in love with me, he finally admitted after dodging the question 3 0r 4 times, that he had never been in love with me, only loved me for being the mother to his kids. After going a few sessions, this was near end of marriage, he stopped going and in a talk I had with the Dr. and realized from what he said that hubby might never change for the better, even going to him, I decided I'd had enough and left him because he wouldn't cooperate for divorce. The Dr. had discovered this much, that the husband was aware that something wasn't right with himself but afraid to find out and get treatment, rather choosing to show people in general that he was just another good man by having a home, cars, a wife and kids minus the white picket fence. It wasn't bad that he didn't love me. Sooner than later, he began to despise me as well. He verbally abused me after a month into our marriage. There were warning signs for me as there are for you but at 20, I just couldn't see them for what they really were and made excuses for him in my mind trying to rationalize what he said and did. I remember one day being so terrified that he in an angry rage would hit me that I locked myself in the bathroom for hours. Also, he wasn't even sexually matched with me and was not aroused by me. I never saw desire in his eyes. We had sex only when he wanted it, not because I did. He had to work the next day was always his excuse, said with frustration and anger towards me. He wanted Friday or Saturday only as he wouldn't work the next day. Even so with a bad sex life, we had 3 girls. His bad treatment mostly centered on me, he'd only yell at the kids sometimes if he was frustrated at something else that did not go the way he thought his day should go. tHAT left no room for unexpected things like finding someone smashed your car window overnight. When I found that, I knew I couldn't tell him or rely on him. I had to handle the whole thing. I had friends better than my husband because one friend followed me to the shop where a new window would go in and took me out to lunch so I didn't have to wait a long time in the repair shop office. When hubby got home, told him my car window had been smashed, and before I could tell him I had handled it, he already came unglued.
Your fiancee and my ex sound quite alike as far as being unreasonable and wanting to put up a good show in public. I can understand wanting to marry for money. And that is a good thing if the man is a sweet person and totally in love with you, inside not just the outside. I can say now from experience with ex and some of our friends who ended up being controllers, that a controller type which your guy sounds like in all that you described him to be, and based on a personality class I took that talked of four basic personality types. Other tests go into more details. But this one is Promoters, Controllers, Analysts and Supporters. My ex was combo Promoter and controller while I was a Support type changing slowly towards being a bit promoter too. Basically, the room of us split into 4 groups when we were described the traits of each group. Promoters and Controllers had plenty in common to get along. Supports and Analysts, (your quiet bookworm types) were so total an opposite that a controller type automatically disliked the opposite types and felt despise for. I met others in my life who were controllers and can tell you all about them. In mental health, there is such a description as a controller. What you said partially describes a controller. ie "his way or the highway. He’s very bossy and arrogant and sees everything in black or white. When we argue he makes sure that he lets me know every time how much he could ruin my life. Although I watched a husband pound the table while visiting a girlfriend and he demanded she take off her wedding ring and put it on the table and that he would leave her, rather than yours saying if you leave he'll make life hell. A controller also believes they know more than anyone, are better than anyone else and become enraged if they feel you are questioning their knowledge, status, or anything they say. The an I mentioned married to a friend, grabbed her ring off the table and threw it to the far reaches of their backyard. I left. Another day, I stopped by to see her, and usually a controller will slowly work to cut you off from family and friends and are questioned and monitored like a child where ever you go, and if you go, you must call him. Nope he didn't do it exactly the same but thats also a controller trait. So I had eaten dinner, stopped by and they were about to dish up dinner, my husband had come in to wait for me before we went on our way. I was invited to dinner, told him we'd already eaten and he ignored what I said, pulled out a chair and told me to sit. He was too comfortable with me and was ordering me to do his will just as he did with his wife. He poured a glass of wine when that was all I would accept but his voice kept rising til he was yelling at me to sit and eat with them. I looked at my husband for help cus he wasn't being picked on, just me, cus of course hubby was a promotoer, close enough in personality to get along and I wasnt. My husband looked stunned, bug eyes and did nothing. So when the other gals husband took a step quickly and menacing towards me, I tossed the wine I had into his face and ran for our car, not caring is belpless hubby walked home. I was now pissed at the other man and my husbandd and drove to a park and didn't go home til ten. In the 30 years of marriage to an unreasonable none loving man and experiences with other controlling narcisstic people, the stress affected me. You will experience stress. Most women in bad relationships when they have 24/7 stress, find it affects their mind and emotions. Stress has to go somewhere and will affect your mental health or physical health. My faith kept my mind sane but my body suffered with stress caused illness, daily headaches, several migraines a year, all over body rashes, higher blood pressure, stomach ulcers and the list goes on. When I finally left him, i had no where to go and friends in another state said I could come stay with them. they had done this kind of thing taking in abused women before. This meant quitting my job to go. So I ended up without a job and living with friends. I went back to home town to live with a married daughter when when her first baby was due and her Navy husband away. From there I had to find an apt when they were moving too far away and I would lose another job. I had a bf at the time who said we could be roommates and got a place together. After about a month, he began to treat me like my ex had. SO I put my foot down, wasnt going down that path again. He got mad and without telling me, told landlord I was staying and getting a roommate and him leaving. When I hadnt seen him or been able to get a response from him and end of month a week away, I tried hard to find a roommate but wasn't going to cave in to his demands. I met another guy and was dating him a few months and put myself on Plenty of Fish, online dating site. Many guys wrote to me but by now I could see they wrote everything in the negative, I don't want this or that instead of simply stating the good traits they were after. that was a warning sign they were negative, mean people. One guy called and on that first and only call, coughed the cigarette smokers cough and I am allergic to cigarette smoke which was stated in my profile of what I was looking for, criteria a guy had to meet. He was complaining to me about all sorts of stuff in the world and his pet peeves, not asking me anything and when he kept coughing I asked if he smoked and he said yes. So he smoked and was negative and I told him not interested. Others lied to me on phone and face to face. People can put on a fake personality to hook you at first but after a handful of dates away in public, I finally went to a guys house where he was inviting to dinner he cooked. However when I walked in he apologized for his place looking messy and called his maid lazy and racial slurs. I don't know if he really had a maid, but his place was neat as a pin. So this told me he was anal retentive, had unnatural, unreachable high standards, was racist etc. I quietly had dinner, and only waited til he called next to say I'd given it a good try but there wasn't any chemistry. I learned from an earlier person whom I said it wouldnt work due to his smoking that telling the truth to possible controllers/narcissists is leaving you open for bad treatment, hate mail and phone messages and I am sure this guy could do worse. So if you want to leave him, you would have to find a lawyer who does pro bono work, and pretty much every one will take on one or two jobs like that where you do not have to pay and they only get pay if theres any money you win the case. I would not marry him. It will affect your health and you would be miserable. Having kids with someone who doesnt love you and is controller/narcissist Will damage your childrens views of what a happy good relationship can be. Kids copy what they see so your little boy could end up treating women badly and girls afraid to marry or choose someone as bad as their dad which happened to mine. So if I were you, I'd call around for womens shelters and see how to go about getting in there. Call around and find a lawyer ready to take on a free/pro bone case and tell him what you can about your predicament. If a lawyer has all these details as you leave the fiancee and he threatens you, the lawyer can help with any of the problems your guy tries to create because you made the first move
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