To ask how many of you married for money?

[Quietsurrender]

Because I am considering it.

Divorced with DC and starting to really struggle financially and now also in other ways.

Finland always comes top of nations in terms of happiness. The Finns, themselves, always contest this. They say that what they have, and what they aim for, is contentment. They believe Contentment is superior to Happiness and, furthermore, is what is achievable.
You already have a DC, so that's a basic-life-achievement you don't necessarily need to chase after (I mean, in the sense of women having, often, a greater need/desire to have a child). Also, I haven't picked up how old you are? Because this may/will have a bearing on what is your heart's desire - and that can change as we age. So, what I guess I'm saying is: are you of an age/mind-set where falling deeply in love is the sine qua non; or are you moving into a space where loving friendship and deep companionship seems more attractive?
These are the more important arguments, it seems to me, than marrying for money per se.
In a bargain (e.g. a marriage contract) you have to show up & do your bit. I can imagine it would be the worst of all contracts to marry in bad faith, then be regretful & resentful that your spouse was not also your beloved, for the rest of your days.

I wish I could - but only because I’ve never had much money and life is difficult - but we make it through. But I know I value personality and character over everything. What I love about me and my partner now is that there is so much potential, we are both ambitious and hopefully we can make smart choices along the way. We arnt money oriented at all, but we do encourage eachother in our careers and have open conversations about where we need to be to afford x or live in x area.

I'm seeing so many posts in this thread about how important financial stability is and how money makes everything more comfortable. Yes... and what I don't understand is why the answer to this seems to be to find a man and become dependent on him, rather than to MAKE THE MONEY YOURSELF if it's so crucial. That seems more like financial stability to me - you have the money but also control over it because it's yours.

I wouldn't have been interested in a long term relationship with a man who lacked the same ambition and earning potential as me. I've never wanted to be, and never have been, financially dependant on a man. I don't want a man to depend on me.

Yeah, my dad has put his family wealth in trust so that no SIL can do well out of his daughter.

In my particular case, the offending party is amoral.
I was his third wife.
I was not his mistress.
It didn’t take him long to acquire a mistress.
I believe he’s on his fifth wife.
I feel as though that was my failure, somehow.
I just can’t figure out how.

Finding a partner who's compatible in terms of financial/material goals and ambition is a completely different thing to "marrying for money".

As you presumably know, if you have family wealth - I imagine you were wary of men who seemed to be pursuing you for that alone, as distinct from men who wanted a wife with similar financial ambitions to theirs.

Marrying someone for money can turn out to be the most comfortable loving relationship and marrying for love can be a soul destroying emotional rollercoaster of a relationship. Whether they have money or not, it's about mutual love and respect. A lot of the posters think that marrying for love means a 30 yo marrying a 85 yo man for money.

To answer your question, I've done both. First was for love and i was absolutely destroyed in that relationship and taken for granted. I worked so hard and gave so much of myself to make the marriage work for a walking red flag of a man. The second one wasn't for money but I I was with someone who was very
very ambitious and since the marriage he has become extremely successful and wealthy and we call it our wealth . It's nice to have the choice to be a sahm or not and spend without looking at your bank account.

If he's very wealthy, very old and with one foot already in the grave I'd say go for it. Your prostituting yourself but if you prefer that to poverty that's your choice!

In reality the very wealthy move
in the same circles and marry each other. I witnessed this when I did private client work for the wealthy. Which makes sense really.

The days of a wide eyed working class secretary being pivoted into unimaginable wealth are long gone.

Is that still even a thing? Do people still do that?

I had a friend who was a carer to an elderly man with mobility issues. She married him and he died a few months later leaving her very comfortable. His children were really angry but could do nothing as it was all legal. She was a very merry widow 😂

Predatory marriage is the new perfect crime. No capacity checks on marriage. The marriage revokes the will you just stop them making a new will voila as spouse you get the lot on death if they have no kids £322k plus half the remainder if the person has children.

No!?!. Good for some, I guess.

Have neither in my relationship, we are clinging on as in our late 50's.

id guess you were the next course before he got bored

I mean it’s definitely very possible.

Approaching a man may get you laid but most men are picky about who they will date long term.

As I said I know plenty of pleasant women who are terminally single.

I’ll also not sure about the dating app thing either and it does depend on the woman. Once again you may find initial matches but a lot of men select from their matches. So the woman finds she has “disappearing matches”. Then once again when you remove the men who would have sex with you but nothing more than that, a lot of women don’t get many matches either.

I am sure many do but it’s really not true for all women.

I wish someone had sat me down in my 20's and spelled out the implications of being the breadwinner. It might have shaped my dating decisions differently. I love my successful career and I love my DH but financial inequality in the relationship isn't easy to navigate and nearly 30 years on, it still is the main source of tension between us.

You would think, but some on here seem to think that financial compatibility being a consideration when it comes to dating/marriage is ‘marrying for money’, and that instead of being one factor, it must be the only one.

Whenever people said “money doesn’t buy happiness” my mother would reply “but you can be miserable in comfort.”

older men can marry much younger women purely for their looks and sexual wants. Why can’t I marry an older man for financial security? You both know it’s not true love but you mutually benefit so if you’re ok with that, I don’t see the issue. I don’t think I could marry a man for purely money if he genuinely was in love with me however.

Yup I did.
i watched my mum as a youngster be with my step dad - who she loved . And obviously before that my dad. We had no money, life was basically shite.

But she loved them. She’s old now (almost 80) with nothing.
I grew up thinking that I wasn’t living like that.

I made the decision young to not let love cloud my judgement of a good life.

I nearly did, after years of struggling and suddenly being offered the world. It was tempting, it really was! But in the end I realised I just couldn’t do it, nice guy but I didn’t love him 🤷🏼‍♀️ so I called it all off with 6 months to go. He understood and we stayed friends for many years (drifted apart now) He even supported me (as a friend, not financially) when I chose to have children on my own. I struggled massively as a single parent and was always broke and sometimes I wonder how different things could have been….but then I knew I made the right decision. Now my kids are late teens I’m finally beginning to have a bit more spare cash for myself and I did it the right way. But I can see why some do marry for money.

Nope. DH was on minimum wage when we met and married.

However he now runs his own business, earns 4x what I do and is very generous with it

I wouldn’t marry for money but I also wouldn’t marry someone who didn’t have a strong work ethic or I knew would struggle to earn a decent wage (and by decent I mean above minimum wage and above average wage I guess). I was brought up by a mum on low income who married someone who often didn’t work and when he did, it was very low income. It was a hard childhood and one I didn’t want for my future or future children.

I’ve been married over 20 years. We didn’t have money when we go together but we both had careers and we knew while we would never be high earners, we were in careers that should earn ok. 20+ years later we both work and earn pretty well (combined gross of about £85,000 do by many on here not that great but well above national average).

No, but if I married again it would definitely be a factor