From Struggle to Luxury: What It’s Really Like Loving Someone Who Hit the Jackpot Overnight
We went from making $23000 for two people to… well I do not want to say but a lot. We are happy with our income. We are not millionaire, “yet”, we are getting there…
I was a PhD student at a top university, so I was making peanuts (about 20 years ago). We married when I was still PhD student. We struggled a lot, I mean, a lot. Anyways, I graduated and I helped her finishing her graduate schools. I supported her career development. She started making a lot too because she is much more hardworking than I am. I am mid-senior, and when she advances to mid-senior, she will make more than I am doing now because she works in finance. We have had ups and downs over the years, but we still love each other. Still kicking after 20 years!
I ran engineering at a startup and we went from combined annual £300k (me) + £180k (her), which is admittedly pretty amazing, to me getting a £10m+ payout on my stock at exit.
What happened is we moved to a nearby country where her family lives, bought a lovely farmhouse, had two children, and are living happily with the understanding and practice (only joint accounts) that all assets are 50/50, since this is very much like a lottery win. She’s now a SAHM, and I’m running a few small SaaS companies that cover our £180k/year worth of expenses (private schools are nearly half of that). We have the normal ups and downs of every marriage but we agree that having taken the money arguments off the table at the very start of our relationship, when we were on £150k + £50k has made it all much much easier.
Kinda the flip case for me? I went from making $20k a year in grad school (which took nearly 7 years to finish) to making a strong 6 figure salary. I’m no millionaire, but I’m doing well.
I met my gf in grad school, and she was with me throughout that long brutal process. She was with me when I was unemployed for 6 months living on food stamps and my credit card and trying to land a job. And now, she’s with me while I’m making good money working remotely.
If anything, the money has made our relationship better; we’ve taken multiple international trips together, we go see live music more often and we go out to dinner more often and at nicer places. We basically just have more fun together because going out doesn’t break the bank like it used to.
I suppose The opportunity is there for me to run off and go wild with sugar babies or whatever, but that doesn’t appeal to me at all. It’s way more fun going out and traveling and planning s**t with a partner, and I’ve got a great one who loves me for who I am. That’s everything.
Ooh, story time. My grandma remarried when she was middle aged to a man who had a some low value Texas land. They had lots of money issues and my grandma ended up working until she was 70 when she finally retired and they lived frugally. During this time my grandpa developed increasingly progressive dementia, and also fracking made it so the land suddenly became worth a LOT of money.
Well, my Grandpa’s mostly estranged daughter starts to reinsert herself into the picture at this point. One day the daughter told my grandma she was taking my grandpa to church. When they later came home, my grandma asked, “How was church,” and my grandpa said “We didn’t go to church, we went to change the will.” This was a minor miracle, because my grandpa had such profound dementia that he usually couldn’t remember what happened the moment before. The daughter apparently slunk out without saying anything.
Anyways, legal fight ensues, and my grandma is able to get the old will restored. The daughter tried to get everything given to her and have my grandma left with nothing. The daughter would’ve been given a shitload in the original will, but she tried to take absolutely everything.
My wife was an accountant making just a little less than me. My career exploded to where I am making 4-5x her salary, however work load/stress is increased. We decided to have her stop working to take on more of the work of managing the house and kids, and it works for us. It’s like a job for her and it allows the free time that I do get, to be high quality family/wife/kids time. For our family it has worked out well.
Yup, my ex. We were together for over 12 years. Then his dad died of COVID and he inherited an insane amount of money, turns out the guy had way more properties and assets than anyone knew. As soon as the money came in, I wasn’t “good enough” anymore and he traded me for a 25-year-old with a perfect b**b job.
Not wealthy, but very comfortable. Ex husband struggled for years to pass his boards, and he was just about ready to give up and work a lower paying job instead. I happily supported us during that time, because I believed in him, and in marriage. Even when it sucked after having a baby, and PPD, I couldn’t reduce hours at work, because we couldn’t afford to. Also paid off his and his parents’ loans because we agreed to joint finances, and I figured life is long – there will be times I’d earn more, and times he would – so it shouldn’t hold us back from doing what was good for our family.
I pushed him to go for one last exam. He passed, got licensed, and everything changed.
He became obsessed with making and spending money, working more hours than the average person in his field. Soon, he no longer wanted joint finances. His money was his money, and he would contribute what he decided was enough. Discussions about finances stopped being discussions and started being a*****e. He also stopped being involved with the kids, working all the time and buying status symbols instead, only hanging out with friends who ‘respect’ wealth. After a few years, I stopped asking him to contribute for groceries and basic kids needs when physical abuse escalated (to avoid conflict). I figured out how to make do with my salary, and divorced him. Because after many many years of thinking this was a phase, I finally came to the realization that money doesn’t actually change people, it just amplifies traits that were already there. Being poor just kept his a*****e nature in check because he needed my money.
