NC for this because it involves my good friend and I wouldn't want it to be outing.
I have a very, very old friend. My best friend. She has had some really shitty relationships over the years. Never really had a healthy LTR (so no children) and also quite a lot of financial stress and uncertainty.
Several years ago she met a really, really lovely guy and they have a truly wonderful relationship. They are made for each other and I am so happy for her. They don't live together - he's got young adult/teen sons from a previous relationship (ended long before) and so he's staying local to them until the youngest is older. No possibility of children together due to age. All good.
Yesterday my friend called me. He proposed to her and she said yes. It wasn't at all what she was expecting but she is over the moon, they both are. My first reaction was to be absolutely thrilled for them.
But.
After years of struggling my friend has managed buy a small home for herself which she owns outright. She doesn't have much pension to speak of and isn't young enough or earning well enough to change that significantly. This house is her entire security and is SO important to her.
Her fiancé is a genuinely lovely guy (I am certain he is one of the good ones) but he is not a high earner at all and has absolutely NO assets whatsoever. I think the longer term plan is that he will move in with my friend in a few years once he feels able to move away from his son.
Neither of them are especially financially savvy (that's not really the right way of saying it but hopefully yuu know what I mean) and I don't think either of them will have considered the legal implications of marriage. I'm really concerned that my friend is going to be jeopardising her security. If he moves in, my understanding is that her house will become the marital home and that it would almost certainly become a marital asset. He earns less than she does, has even less savings, and also has dependants and so it's possible he would even be awarded more than a half share in the event of divorce.
Also my friend has several nieces/nephews that she is close to and she has mentioned in the past that her estate will pass to them. This obviously wouldn't happen if they marry, and her estate would ultimately pass to her partner's children (or even a future wife, if he remarried) rather than her own family if she were to die first. This isn't such an issue compared to the risk to her security, but I still don't think it's what she'd want.
The issue is I don't think either of them have considered any of this and I am really worried for my friend. In the cold light of day marriage is of absolutely ZERO benefit to my friend and had a big upside for her fiancé.
I'm certain he has no idea of this and his motivations are simply that he loves her and wants to spend his life with her. But years on mumsnet makes me see it quite differently and I'm even finding myself feeling angry with him for asking her to risk her security, which I know is unfair.
So to get to the point, I guess I have two questions/problems. The first is if I should gently probe my friend to see if she understands the legal implications of marriage. I've helped her a lot in the past with financial advice and so this wouldn't be as put of place as it might sound. So long as she is fully informed then I'm happy if she's happy.
The second problem is how to deal with my low level resentment at her fiancé. Its made me look at him a bit differently which I KNOW is unreasonable. But my friend has had so much shit to deal with over the years and FINALLY has security and he is (albeit unknowingly) asking her to give that up for him.