Need advice please!
First let me say this our engagement happened about 4 years ahead of the schedule I had in my mind. I still have every intention of not getting married for 4 years and FDH is fine with that. He needed the engagement to put the relationship as permanent. Basically he feels at our age boyfriend/girlfriend was stupid. He wanted a stronger relationship title than that while understanding I am not ready to be Mrs FDH at this point.
1) FDH wants to pay for the wedding. As in all of it. All wedding outfits, flowers, cake, food, church, reception hall- literally all of it. When I told him we were getting married thusly we could split the costs he waved me off. Apparently this is important to him on some deep macho level that I can not wrap my brain around. Whatever, he wants to save for four years and provide a Cinderella style wedding, go ahead.
2) We discussed moving everyone into one home. And he said he would pay half the mortgage, half all of the utilities, groceries etc. Here is one problem I do not think my current house is the one to do it in. Yes it is a 3/2 and the girls could share a room, but no matter how you slice the pie, I lose my home office which I need. So I can either: get the permits to add onto the house- the lot is not big enough to build out, so we would be building up- or sell the house I have and purchase a new one. Which FDH is on the fence about. He does not want to see me give up/sell my house as he knows I like it, does not know if we can afford to buy a new one and what if the HOA won't allow the upwards build.
He has been crunching numbers and since he has no idea what I make, he input my salary as the same as his. And has determined "we" can not afford to buy a new house but the upwards build would be possible IF the HOA allows it to add one additional room aka my office the girls would still have to share a bedroom.
So- here is my dilemma.
We have been together for a few years. FDH knows I own my own business. He knows there are multiple branches of this business. He knows what the name of the business is and that it is quite successful.
He has no earthly idea what my income is. None. That became obvious to me when I went over the numbers he had been crunching so hard and saw he input my income as equal to his. I have always hidden my income while dating because men in the past have seen me as their meal ticket.
At some point FDH needs to become aware of my income. Primarily so he can stop stressing over the costs of things. How exactly do you tell a man, who was born, bred and raised to be the provider for his family, the primary bread winner etc: That your annual net is more than 20 times his?
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Yikes. This should have been
Yikes. This should have been mentioned before now especially if the joining of your households is imminent. Why the big wedding if you will be living together as husband and wife for a few more years? I just don't get that part. Is it for your 'princess' day? Because weddings are not your princess day but a union day. Sorry, off my soapbox.
I would sit him down and say "Why can't we save the money for the huge wedding and buy a bigger home? And as we are engaged you need to know that my business is taking off faster than conceivable and presently I am 'clearing' $xxxxxxxx a year. But xx % is put straight into retirement investments (blah blah). But then anything can change and my plan is to save as much as possible in case the bottom falls out of the market."
I would certainly look at protecting your net wealth. And talk to your fiance about sharing the cost of things a little more fairly. Or you can just present him with a Mercedes as a wedding gift...
Oops. Let me clear something
Oops. Let me clear something up: He wants the big wedding. Sorry, I should have made that clear from the start.
Apparently his first wedding was at the court house and he wants to do it 'right' this time. Myself? I think it would be rather fun to fly out to Vegas and get married at one of the silly specialty chapels. Not Elvis, but I hear they have a Star Trek one where you can get married by a Klingon! Might not be the most romantic thing, but imagine the fun photo's and stories you could tell!
I am over 50 years old. Cinderella I am not. There will be a prenump. He has always known I make "more" than he does, just not how much more. I am relatively sure he input my income at the same level as his to keep things "fair". But I don't think it is very fair if he is paying half all the household costs and thusly not able to save for his own retirement to the level that he needs to.
My idea of fair, is figure out who earns what percent. Which realistically would have me paying for about 90% of the household costs. With more than enough for retirement, spending money etc. I am worried he in his primary bread winner mindset, is going to have a problem with earning far less of the household income than what he thought.
There are somethings I won't pay for. They are his responsibility.
1) His kids. Currently there is no CS order. If there ever comes a time that there is one again, that is his expense.
2) His legal. Again, that is his issue.
3) Debt prior to marriage. I did not spend it I am not paying it back either.
My thought process is he pays for his kids/debts, I pay for mine. Anything expense that is shared (aka utilities etc) should be divided up by % of income, not just 50/50. He needs to start saving for retirement. He needs to pay off the small amount of debt he has. He is not going to be able to do that, if he is overpaying what his percent of the bills are.
I need a way to explain to him I may bring in most of the 'bread' but he need not bake himself and his future by attempting to keep up. He is fiscally responsible. He makes decent money spending choices. I just don't want to savage his ego in explaining to him what my actual income is.
Kids, to include my own, have
Kids, to include my own, have no idea what I make.
And while 20x sounds like a lot. He isn't making a lot either. I think it 'sounds' more impressive than it is.
You are in the ballpark of my
You are in the ballpark of my earnings.
The company itself is making far more. However it is reinvested into the company for employee raises, bonuses, upgrades and eventual future expansions.
sweet! I wanna be you when I
sweet! I wanna be you when I grow up! Can I have a job? Feel like expanding to CA?
My apologies just saw this
My apologies just saw this post now.
To answer your question, yes.
Medical
Dental- Which includes braces
Vision
short term and long term disability insurance
Legal assistance
Afflac
Pet insurance (Seriously it came as part of the package)
And the company is registered with a credit union to help save them banking fees, and if their credit allows it, lower interest auto/home/personal loans.
Standard holidays.
Standard vacation
And everyone gets their birthday off with pay
I'm actually surprised at
I'm actually surprised at what your paying yourself. I figured it would be much higher. I'm with Dtzy though. He has seen the company, he knows how many branches you have.
Having met your FDH, jmho he set the numbers up assuming that you would want the physical numbers to be even, not based on percentages. Better to err on the side of caution than to assume your newly minted fiance is willing to foot more of the bill than you are/can.
I think the actual income number might surprise him a bit since you don't act like you make that kind of money, but based off your business, where your house is located etc, I don't think he is believing you make the same $ he is. He may even be hoping that these numbers he has crunched lead you into opening up about what your income is, so he has a better overall idea of what the family finances will look like.
*like*
*like*
The BM in our situation has a
The BM in our situation has a severe mental illness. Please feel free to read through my older blogs to understand how unstable the young woman can be. At the moment things are better, she is on medication and her life seems to be leveling out.
Understand what threw her off her rocker and let to her psychotic break, was money. The fact that FDH no longer had to pay her CS, she owed him and she actually owed him a lot since she had not reported a raise to the court (as their CS order dictated.) $1500.00 a month drove her over the edge of reality.
If money is such a driving force in that young womans world: I do not want to see the frenzy she would work herself into with "My ex married a millionaire, I want CS again!".
In our state, supposedly I am not responsible and my income can not be counted towards CS at all. I say supposedly because I have read of 23 cases in the State of Florida where a step parents income was considered and CS was ordered based off it, so this is now a growing trend. If he and I are not married they can not consider my income at all. There is no common law in the State of Florida.
I will not be obligated/ordered to write BM a check every month to support two kids that I had nothing to do with the conception of.