From Struggle to Luxury: What It’s Really Like Loving Someone Who Hit the Jackpot Overnight
Wife and I meet at Microsoft in 1994. We were both “paper millionaires” from stock options. Then hit it again when I worked at Google and wife worked at Amazon. Finally big increase, bitcoin. Several times with bitcoin.
As for wife and I? Still married. 26 years this October. Having more money didn’t change us much. We are big savers, still have 97% of our Microsoft/Amazon/Alphabet stock. Put all bonuses into savings/investments. 35%-40% wages go into savings/investments.
Maybe lucky we both were very financial literate at an early age. Wife has a trust. My parents made sure their kids knew financial issues-savings-investments-how to pay for education/housing.
So when we hit several increases in wealth. And getting into 7 digit income on a yearly basis. Money just isn’t much of an issue. We talk about what we want and work with our advisors. We do monitor spending, more so to prevent fraud-skimmer(which we have had happen a few times).
We set goals, quarterly-yearly. And talk with our 4 children about financial matters. Especially since we are in our 50s and setting our portfolio to carry through our letter years, properties in trusts-investments to cover monthly costs-long term investments-inheritance. Our NW has grown to higher 8 digits. So planning to enjoy life and be able to pass to our children/grand children with minimum hassles….
I was the one that had my income skyrocket, first by making six figures in a certain stock years ago and then that was followed by a six figure promotion and an inheritance. From working in the mountains as a 13 year old because we were so poor to this.
I made sure to never let the money affect me, and parts of me are still the frugal boy. I need to buy myself clothes. Anyway, my partner was with me through it all and she has more creative passions, so I offered to support her and our son without her having to work. But, she insists, so I make sure she is the most comfortable she could ever be.
I changed our money, but I didn’t let it change me.
Made our lives significantly easier and I was able to pay for my wife to finish college. She had dropped out prior to us dating due to life and costs. Now without having to worry about work since I can reasonably cover us both she can finally get her education.
Didn’t happen to me, but I’ve seen friends change once they started making real money. It’s like the wealth doesn’t change them it just reveals who they always were underneath. Has anyone actually had it go *better* after money entered the picture?
They changed fast, priorities flipped, and suddenly you’re dating their bank account more than the person. Money magnifies everything, good and bad.
Met my wife when we were broke college students, been married 28 years. Over time, my income continued to grow until I was making close to 7 figures a year. Our expenditures grew in concert until it felt like we were still living paycheck to paycheck. I hate my job, so we finally got to a point where we have enough money in the bank to retire, if we downsize and live a frugal life.
Well, that’s a non-starter. After discovering my wife had been spending $200k+ a year on the credit card, she blamed me for “not saving properly for the kids college” and investing poorly. She also refuses to get a job.
Needless to say, I’m the bad guy. We are separated and headed for divorce. I’m just hoping to not come away destitute at this point.
An old work buddy of mine went from begging me for money, and asking me for a place to crash because he and his wife were on the verge of divorce to winning $500k on a scratch off. He was generous with his money but also dumb as f**k with it (going to the casino every weekend and buying full books of scratch offs after work most days). Needless to say, he won his money in March and by December he was going through a divorce and back to begging me for money and a place to stay.
I went from being the starving artist in a relationship with someone who made six figures to someone who made their own six-figures (but my ex still made like double what I pull in).
He really seemed to resent the work I put in to get that – I went to grad school in another state and he said he’d come with me but then just didn’t show up for several months and kept having excuses to go back home after a week out there (Tbf: it was a boring city where we didn’t know many people during covid shut downs).
When I graduated I eventually got a few more higher paying jobs that required longer hours while he started working less (but still pulled in more than me, and we lived in a LCOL spot so we were perfectly fine supporting ourselves on lower income anyways). But he ended up spending all his free time staying out and doing d***s while I worked and then had to clean the house/take care of our pets because he was hungover all the time and wouldn’t do any chores. He also started ignoring me for other women and stomping all over the boundaries I set because I “wasn’t there for him like they were so he should be allowed to do this”. We were in an open relationship but, yknow, with limits.
