To ask how many of you married for money?

@MermaidMummy06 - I relate to certain things in your post. My DH is infuriatingly un-ambitious too, and it drives me crazy.

However, he IS the man who gets up and gets stuff done! Does lots in the house, cooks, cleans etc. All the super high powered men I know barely know where the kitchen is!

Very well put, and what I did!

It's sad that divorce so often leaves women poorly off, financially, that you (OP) even needs to consider this.

I guess it depends where you meet men too. In my late 20s I was hugely ambitious and working long hours to further my (highly paid) career, so the chances of me even having the opportunity to meet someone without money/ambition etc was pretty slim. I met my DH at work!

My sił always sought out wealthy men. She said she found the fact they were rich a big turn on. She went on specialist dating apps to find them. These men that she dates, and one of them she married and had children with, are not physically attractive by conventional standards, and they’re not charming or clever either. They tended to always be at least several years older than her.
I should add though that she (and my dp) had abusive childhoods so that probably played its role in her choices

How is it the same as prostitution?

I’ll be honest - I met DH in my early 20s and wasn’t thinking much about future earning power, I think I was pretty naive in this respect. It simply felt like ‘we both earn enough right now’, so that was okay. However, some of my friends, often who married a bit later, did seem to think about it more and married bankers, corporate lawyers, private doctors etc.

At that stage I honestly didn’t realise just how massive the income differences would become within a decade or so. These women often gave up work to enable their husband’s careers - I wouldn’t want to do that as I love my own work and earning my own money too. However, they all lead very comfortable lives now - think private schools, second homes, lots of holidays etc - while we are really stretched to the max and reaching certain ceilings in what we will ever earn. Sometimes I do feel a bit jealous tbh, and wonder if I should have thought about this more carefully…

They can get weirdly miserly when they get old even the millionaires.

Nope. Marriage is hard enough without love.

*and love.

No, but I was young & stupid. DH appeared a go getter but it turned out he has zero ambition. Despite having a career which he could earn well, he sits in a dead end option & moans, but refuses to move because higher paying companies have benchmarks & expectations.

I've started working in a relative's DH's company and yes, I'd marry for money if I had my time again. Relative flits in & out & is always on holiday. Just walks into travel agent & books luxury 4 week holidays, buys whatever she likes. Her life is easy. SIL was smart enough to marry a high earner & has an easy life, too. Both work, but it's much easier if your partner earns well, too.

The worst part is I mentioned how well DH's cousin was doing & he said 'he studied & worked hard for it, he deserves it'.

I'd give up a lot for that kind of life. I'm tired of battling & driving old battered cars. For the record, I'm the one who has mostly contributed to our financial position by previously being the higher earner, providing the house deposit & we only started moving forward after I took over our finances. DH had been ignoring our day to day finances & actually lost us money.

It goes further, though. Ambitious men are motivated in other ways. They get stuff done. DH sleeps until 10am on weekends & then whomps on the couch. He does very little unless told to do it. The ambitious men I know are all out there early, getting stuff done!

So basically you're saying only marry a rich man. So ... marry for money then.

I didn’t ’marry for money’ in the sense that it was the only thing I was concerned about, or that I was looking for someone to provide for me, but I wasn’t interested in even dating men that weren’t at least on an equal footing to me financially. Similarly I wasn’t interested in dating men I wasn’t attracted to, or men that I wasn’t compatible with in other ways.

I didn’t marry for money but he does earn a decent amount now and i work in an admin job part time so that worked out well

People won't admit marrying for money, but aren't interested in marrying someone who's poor.

There's been a lot of research on hypergamy (or 'marrying up') - it might make sense for high status career women to 'marry down' eg to a self-employed man who can choose his own hours to fit in the school run etc. However all the evidence supports the reality that women, no matter how financially independent they are, still want to marry someone of high status.

People also have the capacity to self-deceive - "yes, my husband is very, very wealthy, but I would have married him anyway..."

Married to a man who now earns a lot of money and has shown me no affection since day one, truly. If he is this way now, it will only continue/get worse and that is a very lonely way of life over time.

I also work out of personal desire, but it's not even a fraction of what he earns, and over time this has led to a power imbalance as well.

While it's a great comfort not to have to worry about money, I wish every day that I was with someone who was affectionate and less boring and who I actually looked forward to seeing at the end of the day or made me feel sexy or noticed or who gave a great hug. Marrying an unaffectionate man feels masochistic in retrospect but I was pregnant and felt I had no choice at the time. It's been a deeply empty and platonic relationship.

Sounds like a short term fix and not a great long term option.

You can find someone wealthy who you also love

Erm not so much in later life though. There’s less single men, many of those have been tossed back in the pool for a reason and unless you’re a catch they aren’t interested in older.

I'd rather be broke than marry for money and no affection?? Then what? Get divorced and take his money? Get some morals, get a job, do a course earn your own money and be financially dependent on yourself! Nothing better than a strong women who does it all by herself! Seesh!

I didn't, but he makes quite a lot now which has been a nice bonus in an already happy marriage.
I was the higher earners when we got together.

Unfortunately not, but I do often dream about an alternative world where I did 😂

In a heartbeat. After a life of very hard work combining motherhood with more than full time hours I think if I had my time again I’d go for someone loaded. Some of my friends married farmers and now they are retired and the farms are sold they have millions.

How is marrying for money different from prostitution?

I agree 100%. I could never marry or commit to someone I didn’t love.

Never marry for money but put your love where there is some. 😁

No, but I know someone who did.

She's still married to him, but is pretty unhappy. She has no worries, spends what she likes, lives in a beautiful home, etc etc and it was all fine for the first few years, when everything was shiny and new.

But now she's emotionally unfulfilled and basically pretty lonely within herself. Her husband, who is basically a nice man, irritates her because there is no love there to 'smooth the edges' as there are when we love a man and can smooth away his 'foibles'. She dreads the (soon) retirement years when 'he's going to be around all the time'.

Would she do it differently knowing what she knows now? I don't think even she knows that.