The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Cannot believe I'm getting hitched for insurance.
Aoi Tsuki
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I am engaged to a fantastic nerd, after a five-year relationship and with our families' mutual approval and all that happy shit. We have already started saving up for a decent, but not extravagant church wedding sometime next fall ("we" = the two of us and my parents...aside from traditional bride-family tropes, his folks make much, much less money than mine, so that's not an issue).
I just got a very stable job, at an insanely stable company, with guaranteed overtime and damn good insurance that kicks in July 1. Hell, if you or your immediate family want to, you can go to the company clinic and get looked at or even a couple shots/pills for no cost at all.
Of course, "immediate" family at the clinic and according to Insurance Bastards means your spouse or children, NOT your adorable, fluffy, perpetually medicated fiance. My guy is turning 25 and off his parents' insurance at the end of May, after which he will have a crappy part-time job and no insurance at all. He takes blood pressure, asthma and sleep medication on a daily basis, not to mention regular therapy and antidepressants. I'm working on improving his diet and getting him to exercise to alleviate the need for some of that stuff, but keeping his weight down will be a looong process; in the meantime, with the cost of those meds versus his income, he cannot not have insurance.
When my trainer in orientation mentioned common-law marriage for what seems to be a very common circumstance, I discovered it'd be insanely easy, by all appearances, to get Mike on my insurance before all the church-wedding crap happens: it looks a whole lot like we just need to prove we've been shacking up (bills and paycheck stubs can take care of that, not to mention our lease), and we're basically married. The trainer said all it takes to get a common-law spouse on our insurance is a receipt from the courthouse, et voila.
This seems bizarrely simple for Texas and its down-home values, but we really, really need to pull it off, if we can. My question can be subdivided thus:
1. Does anyone know why this wouldn't work, any pros/cons, and whether it'd fuck with the process of a later church wedding, i.e. still having to sign a marriage license? (It probably doesn't help that I have no clue how to go about getting married. Will dig around in previous threads for that general advice; my mom and best friend should also be able to answer most of those questions.)
2. Should the idea feel this, well, funky? There's no doubt in our minds that we want to get married, and have for years; only money worries have kept us from making it official for this long. Hustling it along now feels like cheating, and I frankly don't want to tell our families at all that we're technically married already, according to Blue Cross. (They're both/all Catholic, though they respect us enough as adults that they've never, say, reproached us for living together before we could get hitched.) But not telling them would feel like lying. Should I shrug and get over it, seeing as how the alternative could very well compromise the shit out of my intended's health? (His parents can pay for his meds now, but they won't be able to after the insurance wears off. Between us, though, we could just about cover a month's gap in coverage.)
tl;dr Get pre-but-real-married on paper for needed insurance: can it be done, and am I weird for considering it?
I just got a very stable job, at an insanely stable company, with guaranteed overtime and damn good insurance that kicks in July 1. Hell, if you or your immediate family want to, you can go to the company clinic and get looked at or even a couple shots/pills for no cost at all.
Of course, "immediate" family at the clinic and according to Insurance Bastards means your spouse or children, NOT your adorable, fluffy, perpetually medicated fiance. My guy is turning 25 and off his parents' insurance at the end of May, after which he will have a crappy part-time job and no insurance at all. He takes blood pressure, asthma and sleep medication on a daily basis, not to mention regular therapy and antidepressants. I'm working on improving his diet and getting him to exercise to alleviate the need for some of that stuff, but keeping his weight down will be a looong process; in the meantime, with the cost of those meds versus his income, he cannot not have insurance.
When my trainer in orientation mentioned common-law marriage for what seems to be a very common circumstance, I discovered it'd be insanely easy, by all appearances, to get Mike on my insurance before all the church-wedding crap happens: it looks a whole lot like we just need to prove we've been shacking up (bills and paycheck stubs can take care of that, not to mention our lease), and we're basically married. The trainer said all it takes to get a common-law spouse on our insurance is a receipt from the courthouse, et voila.
This seems bizarrely simple for Texas and its down-home values, but we really, really need to pull it off, if we can. My question can be subdivided thus:
1. Does anyone know why this wouldn't work, any pros/cons, and whether it'd fuck with the process of a later church wedding, i.e. still having to sign a marriage license? (It probably doesn't help that I have no clue how to go about getting married. Will dig around in previous threads for that general advice; my mom and best friend should also be able to answer most of those questions.)
2. Should the idea feel this, well, funky? There's no doubt in our minds that we want to get married, and have for years; only money worries have kept us from making it official for this long. Hustling it along now feels like cheating, and I frankly don't want to tell our families at all that we're technically married already, according to Blue Cross. (They're both/all Catholic, though they respect us enough as adults that they've never, say, reproached us for living together before we could get hitched.) But not telling them would feel like lying. Should I shrug and get over it, seeing as how the alternative could very well compromise the shit out of my intended's health? (His parents can pay for his meds now, but they won't be able to after the insurance wears off. Between us, though, we could just about cover a month's gap in coverage.)
tl;dr Get pre-but-real-married on paper for needed insurance: can it be done, and am I weird for considering it?
Aoi Tsuki on
0
Posts
We were already engaged when I got laid off, and COBRA wasn't going to cover her. So we got married at the courthouse and still have not had a ceremony. But we both have insurance, which is fantastic.
Its not as if you will love him any less for having married him this way - and you can still have the ceremony later!
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
This way his wife was able to get posted to the same base as him instead of across the country, along with whatever pay/insurance/health plan incentives came along with it.
We did it for tax reasons -- got legally married in December, then had the ceremony in February. It's pretty common, I think, and you don't really have to tell anyone (your family, or whoever) that you're already legally married if you don't want to. Or, rather than withholding info, you can pitch it to them that being legally married =/= being spiritually married, so it's still important to you to have a church wedding (since they're catholic, this might work well).
The Best in Terms of Pants on JCCC3
Wait what?
Just because she has a better job they should get a pre-nup??
My husband and I got married perhaps a little earlier than we might have because he was just so tired of worrying about the fact that I couldn't go to the doctor or you know, get antibiotics without running up quite a bill. We were going to get married anyway, we just moved up the date a bit so he could put my name on his enrollment form for the year.
edit: On the subject of a pre-nup, it is NEVER a bad idea, no matter who makes more. We didn't bother with one because we're just that cocky about our relationship, but from what everyone else anywhere ever tells me, that was a huge mistake because you want to do that shit while you actually like each other and not when you've broken all his grandmother's china and he's suing for custody of kids he only wants to hurt you for sleeping with his sister's husband.
Now, I would go and check with your HR rep or the insurance company directly as there is a chance your fiancé may be eligible for coverage as a "domestic partner" if you've been living together for a while. Many corporations are going to this definition, even down south, that allows same-sex partnerships and other couples who don't want to get legally married to provide insurance and other benefits to their significant other. I know the requirements for my company are living together for at least a year, but it may vary depending on where you are. If they don't offer that, a quickie wedding at the courthouse will not detract in any way from the real ceremony that you share with your friends and family.
And one more thing:
Unless one of you is an honest-to-god millionaire, pre-nups do nothing except foster distrust and doubt. Why would you ever say to your partner "Hey, I love you BUT sign this thing just in case I don't love you anymore."
I wouldn't necessarily advise this in case guests do find out.
Just be aware that, while most people of our generation aren't going to mind separating the signing of the papers from the ceremony, people of an older generation or different principles might feel a little betrayed if they discover that you two are already married in the eyes of the law when they've made an effort to attend the ceremony. I'd be upfront with everyone and that way if there ARE any guests who have a problem with it they can choose to decline the invitation.
Look at her description of herself and him, then imagine where these two people might be in their thirties. Is the twenty-something year old person with the great job going to be significantly better off than the dude with a myriad of problems and a shitty part-time job? Yeah, probably. They're getting married out of convenience, not because they're ready to make a lifelong commitment. Wanting to keep her dude on his meds shouldn't entail ceding half of her stuff to him somewhere down the line, and she shouldn't ignore that for the sake of his feelings when she's already making a huge compromise just for his sake. If he can't understand that the practicality of a pre-nup, then he's an oversensitive moron for thinking medical necessity should spark blind trust in each other and faith in the relationship.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Oh, don't get me wrong - We were planning on staying together for the next 80 years, but marriage wasn't something we believed in. Our folks were the worst examples of marriage partners you could probably hope for - which for us, meant that marriage = teh suck.
Her final year at university, he folks called and told her: "Hey, remember when we said that we'd use that trust fund your grandfather set up for you to pay for a 4 year degree? Yeah, well, we've reconsidered and we're going to pocket the money. Also - you wont get student aid because Dad didnt bother to file taxes this year. So good luck in finding alternative means." ::Click::
So rather than see her drop out, lose medical insurance (she had as a student), I looked up what it took to be considered married.
30 bucks and three signatures?!? Thats it? Thats what all the damn hoopla is about? A ONE PAGE FORM!?
That Dec we were married by a nice lady who had a crazy pet menagerie in her house - cats, dogs, birds, etc. Our witnesses were the cast from wild kingdom.
Since then, she's gotten financial aid, heal insurance, life insurance, and we can make descisions for each other in case of medical emergency. Not to mention the higher tax allowance it gives us.
It didn't change anything really - I still love her in exactly the same ways, she still loves me - we even kept our original names. The only huge difference is in how the state views us.
This is the biggest issue for me.
He's in the middle of a self-improvement period, and she's helping him through it. What if he fails? What if he lets his weight get out of control, develops worth health problems, and becomes more depressed? This is a very real possibility, and if it came to pass it would likely end her interest in him. Were that to happen, a divorce would be in the cards.
Normally you'd tell a person in this situation to wait for marriage, as you don't want to enter into marriage without being sure that you want to spend the rest of your life with a person. She doesn't have that luxury, so her options are instead either pretending there is no possibility she'd stop loving her future husband or planning for that possibility, no matter how tactless that may be. Should tact be a greater concern than her long-term financial security?
Also, I get the sense from the OP that she isn't 100% on marrying this guy.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
It's not necessarily bad advice (although I don't personally agree it's necessary) but your judgmental stance of the partnership seems misinformed and somewhat incensitive to the reality of the situation.
On the one hand she says that she absolutely wants to get married.
On the other hand, she has strong misgivings. Granted these misgivings are presented as practical rather than personal, but it's still telling that her gut reaction to getting married and giving her boyfriend health insurance is to look for reasons why they shouldn't do just that. Furthermore, if she really wanted to get full-on married, I'd expect her to be informed about the process and its costs. Instead, she's just assumed that not having enough money was reason enough to forestall the process, never thinking to examine how much it'd cost and use that data to come up with a time frame for getting married. Seems to me that she was more comfortable with marriage as something far-off in the future.
Beyond that, there's an obvious incentive to present your long-term relationship as eventually leading to marriage, even if you aren't sure. If your long-term relationship isn't necessarily leading to marriage, then you're forced to question the relationship or invite others to question it, and you don't necessarily want that. As such, I consider the possibility that a person who says they want to get married, but hasn't (in spite of numerous incentives to do so), might not actually want to get married.
In any case, the fact is that she wouldn't marry him now if she had the option not to. Regardless of what her reasons for not really wanting to get married are, it's something to consider when looking at the question of whether or not to consider the possibility of divorce. If you're not completely on-board in the first place, then divorce might be in your future.
As for being judgmental, I don't think that's valid. The closest thing to a judgment I present is that her boyfriend might not successfully overcome his problems and that she might end up being much more successful than him. I think that's realistic, but feel free to argue that people with his issues (weight problems and depression, with the burden of additional health problems on top of that) never fail to change and never get worse.
I will admit that I'm being insensitive, though. That said, I think insensitivity is warranted here if it leads to presenting concerns that the OP might not otherwise think of, or that she might think of but feel reluctant to share. Before a huge decision like marriage, you need to consider all the possibilities, even the ugly ones. Putting on rose-colored glasses doesn't make you a better person (or girlfriend or wife) and it doesn't make your marriage more likely to last. All it does is make your decisions less than fully-informed.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
The only real question when it comes to a pre-nup is "do you have assets you wouldn't want to lose in a divorce?" If so, you get a pre-nup. If not, you don't. It's that simple. Because while you don't plan on getting divorced, if it ever does come about, realize that neither party is likely to be acting 100% rationally, and a pre-nup helps to prevent extended, knock-down drag-out divorces.
As for whether or not you should get married: you're talking about two different things here, OP; being married in the eyes of the law, and being married in the eyes of God. They are two totally different things. If you go through with a common-law marriage, according to the state, you will be husband and wife. But really, you're not married in the eyes of yourselves, God, or your family until you decide you're married. Is it a bit of an equivocation? Yes, but it's also true. It's going to save you a ton of money, and make life easier on the both of you; you should do it.
So it wouldn't be wise to get a pre-nup if the OP doesn't have sizable assets yet?
I'd have thought that being able to foresee a significant income disparity down the line would also qualify, especially if both parties are still early in their careers. In that case, your potential future earnings would seem more important than what you have now, which is likely zilch. This would mean the OP should look at how much people at her job earn after ten years and how much her boyfriend might be earning in ten years, then subtract.
Am I wrong? If so, why? Do pre-nups affect assets gained during the marriage different than pre-existing assets, or is it just silly for most people to assume that they'll eventually gain significant assets when they have none at the time of the marriage?
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Just sit your family down, explain that you still want to declare before God and family, but the State part needs to come a little sooner so that you can secure a healthy future.
PSN Hypacia
Xbox HypaciaMinnow
Discord Hypacia#0391
I understand what you're saying and I realize that marriage is as much a business decision as a personal one, but my personal opinion has always been if you're more concerned with your stuff than your spouse you shouldn't be getting married in the first place.
Otherwise reasonable people act incredibly irrationally when they're getting something as emotionally-involved as a divorce; this is just an opportunity to lay things out at a time when you're both rational, rather than trying to work it out if and when you're incredibly irrational, and willing to do things for the sole purpose of hurting each other.
Even if getting married will give your spouse health insurance, which is what this thread is about in the first place?
Secondly, accusing people who seek pre-nups of caring more for their stuff than their spouses is awfully judgmental.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
It should be much easier (and more necessary) in this context, where romanticism is already being shelved because of practical concerns regarding health insurance.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
I guess my perspective is just very different than yours, considering I'm in the middle of a very rational, friendly and completely non-competitive divorce myself. I know that's sort of the oddity in today's divorce-prone world, but I've seen just as many family and friends with pre-nups as without go through terrible, drawn-out divorces. In the long run, if somebody wants to fight about something in court, you're going to whether or not you have paperwork in place.
What I'm saying, OP, is that if you love each other enough to be planning to get married anyways, doing it a few months early to help the health of your future spouse seems like a smashing idea.
Yeah see the problem with divorce usually isn't the two people getting divorced, but rather the lawyers coaching people into hating each other and trying to keep communication limited to legal letters.
They aren't doing it a few months early. It sounds like there was no timeline in place for getting married at all. They figured they'd get married at some point, which is common for people who have been together for years, but there was no plan to get married any time in the foreseeable future.
As for the subject of pre-nups, I guess I'm confused about whether or not they affect the division of assets accrued during the marriage. Is it possible to say, "Anything I earn in the future goes to me in the event of divorce," or does everything after marriage get split 50/50?
Also, is there any way the OP can get out of paying alimony, assuming her state still has that?
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
This is the only spot where you're flagrantly incorrect: I appreciate the fact that twoo luv doesn't supercede financial security in case shit goes south, but we did have a timeline now that he's proposed and I found steady work. We had planned to find a church and do it all in October or November 2011, because our biggest concern was my getting my bachelor's before we got engaged AND our having at least one good source of income. I just so happened to find it first.
Also, he is not going to decide to quit eating well and taking his meds; he's been improving steadily for over three years now because he wants to do it. Problem is, "improvement" has meant coming down from over 300 pounds, chest pains, liver pain, and so forth, shit he should not have to deal with at age 24; getting him anywhere near decent health is going to take a long fucking time, but he's really dedicated to it. If he wasn't, I'd have dumped his ass a long time ago. (For the record, I've also gotten mental help and maintained therapy and meds because I didn't want to lose him. Our kids are gonna have some fun brain chemistry, lemme tell you.)
My biggest compunctions aren't financial, they're just guilt at what feels like cheapening our commitment based on financial need, and worry that it'll look bad to our families. You guys are probably right--hell, I might as well just bring it up and get their advice. (As for not being ready for marriage because I know fuck-all about the process, I don't think that makes any damn difference in whether this will work for us. Hell, how many of you guys knew exactly what to do to get traditionally married? I hadn't researched it yet because I figured the wedding was over a year away.)
Of course, this varies with the details of the wedding. If you want to be married on a beach somewhere, maybe it would take less time/planning.
Also, nobody would expect finances to be a paramount concern for you now, at the beginning of your professional career. I was thinking in the long-term, when there would be assets to consider in the event of a divorce. As you're in your 20s, your finances are going to change considerable between the beginning of your marriage and its potential end, and I figure it would pay to consider that. Look at how much you can safely expect to be earning in ten years, not what you have now.
In any case, if your primary concern really is just what your parents will think, you should probably ask them what they think. Odds are they'll just decide that getting married on paper isn't the same as getting married in a church, that your church wedding therefore won't be cheapened, and therefore be cool with it.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
I was another one who got married by a JoP a year and a half ago and we still haven't had our big party/ceremony thing.
We wanted to at least do something small but our circumstances (my losing a scholarship, his moving across country, me losing health insurance and then not graduating a year after he'd move to Hawaii and having to pay for myself to move here) made it more practical to just... well, do it.
A tiny part of me wishes that our friends were there at the time but I know it's not that big a deal. In the end, despite all the "practical" reasons that came up, the most important thing to me was that we got married, and we were together. We wanted to get married and in the end we did. I don't feel like I lost out much by not having our official ceremony in the end.
I'm now looking at it as being able to give everyone lots of notice, do it when all of our important friends and family can come, and doing it when more financially stable- we can save for a while and have a bigger and better party that we want without the stress of trying to scrounge up money on top of everything else and getting whatever other legal things done that we need to do.
Signing a form in order to get your loved one health care is not cheapening your relationship. You can still have the beautiful ceremony and the societal validation sometime next year, just as you planned. In our society there's no particular reason that legal marriage needs to have anything to do with the legal ceremony.
I married my partner for reasons exactly like this, even though we are both opposed to ever having a formal or religious ceremony, and there's no question in our minds that it was the right thing to do.
Explain them that this was the legal portion, and that you would love to still get married at a ceremony with them and all your family.
Or just don't tell them.
Fortunately, both my wife and I's parents were completely non-opposed. Hell, if my parents were opposed it would have been rather hypocritical since they married legally so my Mom wouldn't get deported.
1) The people who look down on you having something like a JOP ceremony now and a renewal in a year or two are probably the kind of people who look for anything to bitch about. Tell your family you can't afford the wedding you want for a year or two but you want to be married now so you're having a small JOP ceremony. If you want to make it feel more like a traditional wedding then have a small lunch reception after or something. Then when you're ready invite everyone to your vow renewal. A girlfriend of mine just did this (literally, a 2 days ago) for the same reason. It's more common than you would guess. It is also very much a real wedding.
2) I'm wedding obsessed so I can think of pretty much everything for planing a wedding off the top of my head. Which also means if you want advice on DIY, venue contracts, etiquette, invitation printing, catering, dresses, themes, etc I'm more than happy to help.
But your vanilla wedding runs what, 10-20k?