Quote:
Originally Posted by diyosa
I clearly see a cultural difference here. I am Asian so I kind of understand OP's husband. It's not like his parents are totally dependent on him though, they are land lords people! So they do have monthly income!
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They are landlords because the son/husband allows them to live rent free in HIS spare apartment rather than renting it out himself. They are only able to be landlords because they have somewhere else to stay.
OP - this is something I'm considering with my own partner. I have never met anyone more compatible with similar life goals, approaches to finances, and all the practical stuff except for one thing: his parents. He's an only child, his parents don't really have any family of their own, and after a failed business in a rural area they are in their early 60s with health issues and no retirement savings. All they have in a bare-bones house his dad built himself (wood burning stove in upstate NY!) and the land the house is on. My boyfriend started his own business while in law school that grew, and now he runs the physical operations out of the barn on his parents' property. His mom is co-owner of the business, though she did not put up any money to begin it and does significantly less work. He refuses to take a larger salary than his mom, despite having law school loans, an apartment in a larger city to grow the business, and of course the lion's share of the work and intellectual capital. His dad is paid on a per-unit basis for production, but is also lazy and often the bottleneck in getting orders out as quickly as they could receive them. Both could have done more with themselves, but were too proud to move somewhere with economic prospects when the business began to fail. They also chose to put money into cars, tools, farm equipment, etc. for hairbrained ideas that his dad had that never panned out, rather than save for retirement.
We want a house and kids, not to mention the "extras" live traveling, but I don't see how we can do that while supporting his parents. They already have health issues in their early 60s, so there could be 20 years of taking care of them above and beyond social security. I got a late start saving because of facing cancer in my early 20s (though we are off the hook with my unemployed parents because they treated me like absolute crap when I was sick and long after, so we no longer have a relationship) and he got an even later start because of law school and then starting his own business. It's very sad to me that I may have to end a relationship with someone I love because he puts his grown parents above our future, but there it is.
But the thing is, we're talking about it NOW, before we're even married. A year into a marriage isn't the best time to start this conversation, but you need to have it.
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