Tag: Marriage/Divorce

Russia’s New War Grifters—The ‘Black Widows’ Duping Soldiers Into Marriage

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When Russian soldier Sergey Khandozhko got married the day after enlisting in October 2023, his family and friends were confused. The 40-year-old had never mentioned the bride. Nor had he spoken of marriage.

More puzzling was the 20-minute wedding ceremony without photos or exchange of rings, and only one guest. Afterward, Khandozhko’s new wife even carried on living with her ex-husband and their children, according to testimony and a court ruling reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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Matthew Luxmoore

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November 4, 2025
A new issue in divorce: Who keeps the mortgage rate?

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When Ann Shea, 44, was finalizing a divorce last year, she knew she wanted to keep the suburban Chicago home where she was raising her school-age kids. But it was equally important for her to hold onto her relatively low mortgage rate.

She had purchased the home in the summer of 2012, and had refinanced to a rate of 2.8% during the pandemic. She wanted to keep the house to provide stability for her kids, who were still young and attending school nearby.

But to get the mortgage and the title of the home in her name only would have required refinancing, which would have bumped up her mortgage rate to the 6% range, where rates were averaging in mid-April when her divorce was finalized. A back-of-the-envelope math estimate would suggest that her monthly mortgage payment could have ballooned by 33%.

“The divorce was so expensive, and to think about adding on that cost would have been terrible,” Shea, a compliance attorney, told MarketWatch.

Moving to such a comparatively high mortgage rate after 11 years of paying off the 2.8% loan would have felt to Shea like she had “lost all that ground,” she added.

Shea’s plight is becoming more common. As mortgage rates soared from historic lows during the pandemic to two-decade highs at the end of 2023, homeowners with rates under 3% became the envy of their friends and family. But when a marriage splits up, the question of who walks away with the lower mortgage rate sparks far more than casual jealousy.

It’s increasingly a source of tension at the divorce negotiating table, Alla Roytberg, a New York City-based family and matrimonial law attorney and a mediator, told MarketWatch.

“In the past, when rates were low, it was an easy answer, because somebody could refinance and get a 3.5% rate,” Royberg, who has been in matrimonial law for the last three decades, said. “And now, they have this 3% rate, and if they refinance, they’re going to get 7% or 6% — and that makes it unaffordable.”

Unconventional solutions to who keeps the low mortgage rate

Historically, a couple who is going through a divorce will either work out an arrangement to refinance the home and put it in one spouse’s name, or if the divorce is acrimonious, they can be forced by a court to sell the home and divide the proceeds, Erin Levine, co-founder of Hello Divorce, a company based in Alameda, Calif., that sells online divorce services, told MarketWatch.

Levine is a family law attorney licensed in California, and has helped more than 5,000 individuals through the legal process of divorce. Hello Divorce recently beefed up its real-estate arm, because it’s seen a surge in interest in home-owning couples interested in divorce.

Those traditional methods are still an option separating partners pursue today. But the large gap between prevailing mortgage rates and the rates on divorcing couples’ homes, coupled with a more expensive housing market, has prompted some to turn to unconventional strategies to divide real-estate assets. They can include deciding to co-own a property together or agreeing to stay in the same house for a certain number of years.

“People are trying to figure out ways to work things out of court,” Levine said.

The financial motivation is strong, too. “We have to come up with creative options over how to handle those kinds of cases,” added Roytberg. “Some of them are barely able to find the budget that they were living with. How do you add another three, four thousand dollars in rent, when the money isn’t there?”

Some couples are finding innovative solutions — from sale leasebacks to mortgage assumptions — to hang on to their prized ultra-low rate. Others are resorting to less sustainable stopgap measures.

Here are some of the scenarios couples are turning to:

Stalling until the market improves

One strategy is to “buy time,” Levine said.

In this scenario, the couple finalizes their divorce, but continues to co-own the home while waiting for rates to fall. Either they stay together in the house, or one spouse moves out, but they both continue to own the home together to avoid refinancing.

About a tenth of the divorcees on Levine’s platform are saying, “‘I really want to stay in the house, I can’t afford these mortgage rates, and I don’t know what the market’s gonna look like, so give me two years,’” Levine said. “And with you staying on the mortgage, in exchange, I’ll pay you some money.”

Some arrangements include a higher-earning spouse paying the mortgage in place of spousal support, and then deducting it from their taxes, Roytberg explained. “It helps both sides,” she said, “because they don’t need to refinance at a higher rate for the other, and [the higher-income spouse] could directly pay the mortgage instead of spousal support.”

Continue living together while you ‘wait and see’

The so-called lock-in effect — which refers to high mortgage rates forcing homeowners to stay put in homes with lower rates — has most homeowners frozen in place for the time being. Few are willing to give up their home and their low mortgage rate and move to a house that costs more, and requires a mortgage with significantly higher borrowing costs. That’s also led to a squeeze on resale inventory, which is hurting aspiring homeowners.

But with rates staying below 7% since mid-December, there are some early signs that the housing market is coming back to life.

“Buyers and sellers are learning to live with uncertainty,” Shay Stein, a Las Vegas-based real-estate agent with Redfin
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said in a recent report. “They’ve realized no one has a crystal ball that can predict exactly when mortgage rates will fall back to 5%, so they’re making moves now,” she added, “because they can only wait so long to be near their grandkids, live in an RV like they’ve always dreamt of, or finalize their divorce.”

But some divorcees are not as keen, opting to wait and see.

“I had one [divorcee] that had decided that he was just gonna live in the basement, so good luck with that,” Jae Tolliver, an Ohio-based mortgage broker with Union Home Mortgage, told MarketWatch, referring to someone who wanted to continue to live in their existing house, even though they had split from their spouse. “People are definitely trying to get more creative.”

Tolliver recently quipped on social media that couples are staying together not for the kids’ sake these days, but rather for their low mortgage rate.

He also described another client who decided to stay in the house with their ex-spouse after the divorce, and continue to pay the mortgage payments like before just to keep the low rate.

But “it wasn’t working out so great,” Tolliver said. “Because at the end of the day, you have a divorced couple that’s living under the same roof, and that just isn’t going to work.”

Co-owning the home until a milestone is reached

Some splitting couples decide to continue to own their home together until a certain milestone, such as their youngest child graduating from high school.

“It’s almost always tied to kids,” Levine said, because couples often want to provide stability. For example, a child who is involved in a very competitive sport may require more consistency in their schedule, so the parents may opt to stay put until the child gets to college.

Sale leasebacks

Some couples are turning to sale lease-backs, a strategy which Levine says is something she hadn’t encountered recently.

Similar to the concept of buying time, a sale leaseback between a splitting couple can mean an arrangement where one individual sells the home to the other, and then rents it back from them with the option to repurchase their share later.

“Some of our customers like it, because in divorce, a lot of people’s credit is screwed, as they’ve been separated for a while and in different households, so they haven’t been paying bills,” Levine said. Those financial setbacks could make it difficult to rent or buy a place on their own.

By selling their share to their ex and leasing it back, they can secure a place to live without having to worry about the debt-to-income requirements, or their low credit score, which can be obstacles to finding housing, she added.

Biting the bullet

Other divorcing couples, anticipating the struggles ahead should they fight to keep their low rate, have decided to bite the bullet and refinance.

Take one recent divorcee’s case in San Mateo, Calif.

After a mother of two split with her husband in December 2021, they had gone through the process of formalizing their divorce. That meant that she would have to give up the 3.25% mortgage rate that she got in 2020.

She spoke on the condition of anonymity because she did not want her story to affect her child support payments.

“I had to refinance while rates were insanely high,” the homeowner told MarketWatch.

She refinanced in October 2023 to get her ex-husband off the mortgage and the title of the home, as well as to buy him out of his equity in the home. She ended up with a 30-year mortgage rate of 8.25%.

“I have an awful rate right now, I mean, it’s ridiculous. My mortgage has more than doubled,” she added. Her monthly payment went from $1,450 to $2,975.

She considered the possibility of selling the home and using her share of the proceeds to buy another one, or even renting a cheaper home.

But both options were unappealing because she would still be stuck with a higher rate, and would lose her home, which she has lived in since December 2013. She hopes to refinance in the future when rates fall.

“I’m just looking at it as if it’s temporary,” she added. She also got a raise recently which could help offset some of those expenses.

Shea’s solution: Assuming the mortgage

Shea, the suburban Chicago divorcee who didn’t want to give up her 2.8% rate, managed to land a mortgage assumption, meaning that she essentially took over the existing mortgage that had been in both her and her husband’s name, at the same rate.

Assumable mortgages have become an incentive offered by some sellers, but they are rare and only available in certain circumstances.

Shea worked with Tami Wollensak, a mortgage broker who is also a Certified Divorce Lending Professional with specialized training on divorce-related real-estate transactions.

It was Wollensak who recommended that Shea ask her lender if she could assume the loan in her own name. She guided Shea on how to ask for the right department and how to request an assumption, rather than a regular refinance.

“It’s very unusual,” Wollensak, who is also based in Chicago, told MarketWatch. “Every lender looks at it differently.”

Fannie Mae
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guidelines give lenders some discretion to grant assumptions to people who are going through life transitions. But borrowers have to qualify for the mortgage and must be able to afford it on their own. The timing of the divorce must also allow for the assumption process to complete.

When Shea first asked her lender, Iowa-based Green State Credit Union, about an assumption, she was turned away. But the duo kept digging and asking for different people to talk to.

The lender eventually allowed Shea to assume the mortgage at 2.8%, and have only her name appear on it. Wollensak says the lender may have allowed Shea to take over the payment alone without her spouse based on her strong credit profile. Green State Credit Union did not respond to a request for comment.

“It depends from servicer to servicer. It’s very much like the Wild, Wild West,” Wollensak said. Shea did not pay any expenses associated with the assumption of the loan, such as closing costs or other fees.

“It was a lot of back and forth trying to find the right person,” Shea said. “I’m so grateful.”

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January 22, 2024
My not-so-empty nest and the dirty little secret that no one talks about

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Ever since my daughters entered high school, I was preparing myself for the dreaded “empty nest.” While it was years away, I worried about how I would adjust to the reality of kids in college and no more time-sucking chores to do.

Even though I have been a working mother in a two-income household, family always was a priority, and I was devoted to caring for our daughters. So, I did wonder how I would adjust to the hole left in my daily calendar when our girls went off to school, graduated or moved on and launched their own lives.

But here’s the dirty little secret that no one talks about until it happens. After decades of marriage and three years of COVID quarantine, I’ve got a different problem: I can’t get my husband to leave the house.

It’s a topic of conversation among my girlfriends, all of us looking for some solitude but instead faced with our husbands, always in their sweatpants, happily hanging out around the house.

Of course, COVID was the trial run, the big disrupter, for being at home. My husband, pre-COVID, was a human tourism brochure, constantly digging up great activities we could go to. Most of them were things we did together but since we weren’t holed up together at home, it didn’t feel stifling.

The COVID pivot

But once COVID hit, all those activities came to a screeching halt and my husband proclaimed that with all the books, CDs and vinyl from his youth along with tchotchkes he’s collected over decades, he could be more than happy to stay home forever and read, listen to music and peruse his collections.

Maybe I have done such a good job of creating a comfortable nest that my husband just doesn’t feel the need to leave. Perhaps COVID caused him to re-evaluate just how important it was to get some fresh — and possibly contaminated — air.

Maybe, like so many men his age, he doesn’t have enough friends — Jane Fonda has expounded on that of late, explaining to anyone who will listen how vital her women friends are to her well-being, while all men want to do is sit next to each other and watch sports or cars or women from afar. And she’s right, women have friends that are soul mates, advisers, co-conspirators. Most men haven’t thrown each other that emotional lifeline.

The timing is unfortunate. I’m working less than full time at this stage of life. Now that I’ve gotten accustomed to my children being gone and look forward to some time to myself, my husband has had to rethink his motivation to get out of the house every day.

Still working, but from home

The fact that he continues to work, but now fully from home, hasn’t helped. After stressful workdays I understand that he also needs some downtime.

Many men are at the stage of life where a decision about whether to retire is also on the table. But here is a word of warning to husbands considering that as their next chapter: Check your Rolodex for friends you want to spend time with because we can’t be your constant companions.

Maybe it’s a “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus” kind of thing. But after watching all the episodes of “The Sopranos” for the first time recently, I feel that if only there was a Bada Bing club — without the Bada Bing. Maybe someone should start a Daddy Daycare to literally take care of Daddy.

Guys of a certain age need a place to meet and schmooze, a clubhouse where someone can make them a plate and just create an inviting space to shoot the breeze. I have no idea what they would talk about, though.

See: ‘It’s just a nice place for an old guy to go, I guess’: Men’s Sheds offer camaraderie and connection

Women know that building deep friendships has paid huge dividends as we all have gotten older. Long-married spouses need more time with their friends — a respite from too much togetherness at home and an opportunity to discuss something beyond what’s for dinner.

I did gently mention a few weeks ago to my husband that he rarely leaves the house these days and maybe he could take an outing one afternoon a week that didn’t include me.

“What do you mean I never leave the house?” he said, incredulous. “I went to Ralph’s just the other day.” And proud hunter-gatherer that he is, we’ve got the boxes and cans of unheard-of sale items we will probably never use to prove it.

Also see: Am I lonesome? ‘I’m fine. I’m fine.’ How single men can prepare to age alone.

Growth of gray divorces

I have found women are often more adventurous, even as we age. We are less willing to just hang back and “relax.” For an increasing number of women, gray divorce has become a term that sociologists are noticing, as more older women have chosen to approach their senior years alone.

See: Gray divorce can be financially devastating — especially for women

For others, independent travel is an answer. There are so many blogs, Instagram and Facebook
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accounts by women traveling alone that we are practically our own demographic. In my independent solo travels, I have encountered many women who got tired of asking their reluctant husbands to come along and have happily set out on their own.

Once you arrive in a strange city, it is totally liberating to explore when you don’t have to check in with anyone else about what to do when, how to get wherever, or what time or what to eat each day. And it’s easier to engage in conversations with strangers when you are by yourself. I find I’m more open to those encounters when I’m on my own.

See: This 82-year-old woman ended up traveling alone in France for three weeks. It turned out pretty great.

Dolly Parton’s secret

I heard a story recently from a photographer who was photographing Dolly Parton. The soon-to-be-married photographer asked the performer her secret to her long marriage. Parton’s answer: “Travel a lot. Separately.”

While it’s important to get away, for me, who never described myself as a homebody, it’s essential to have some alone time that doesn’t involve leaving the house. As we age, the one thing that is certain is that the future is unpredictable.

There may come a time when leaving the house is not a safe or viable option. While we are healthy and active enough, let’s give each other the space to enjoy one of life’s guilty pleasures — moments of solitude at home where you have a chance to think, regroup, dream and sometimes to just do absolutely nothing.

The added bonus will be that the time we do spend together will be all the more interesting, with new adventures to hear about.

Iris Schneider has been a journalist and photographer since the 1970s, starting in New York City while teaching at PS 97 on the Lower East Side. She became a staff photographer at the Los Angeles Times in 1980. Her work can be seen on her website or on Instagram (@schneidereye).

This article is reprinted by permission from NextAvenue.org, ©2023 Twin Cities Public Television, Inc. All rights reserved.

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September 3, 2023
Should couples combine finances or keep separate accounts? One option leads to a happier marriage, study says.

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Hello and welcome to Financial Face-off, a MarketWatch column where we help you weigh a financial decision. Our columnist will give her verdict. Tell us whether you think she’s right in the comments. And please share your suggestions for future Financial Face-off columns by emailing our columnist at lalbrecht@marketwatch.com.

Wedding season is upon us. Couples across the land are probably obsessing right now over wedding-day details like the seating chart and first-dance song. Unfortunately, many couples don’t pay nearly as much attention to their finances prior to marriage: Almost half (49%) don’t discuss how they’ll handle their money before they tie the knot, according to one survey. Only 41% tell their salaries to each other and just 36% say how much debt they have.

Not being open and honest about money can be a sign that you don’t trust your partner, a relationship killer if there ever was one. It can also mean unpleasant shocks — surprise, your soulmate has a 530 credit score — that stand in the way of those dreams you cooked up together when you were just two crazy kids in love.

One big decision couples face when they form a household: Should they merge their money into joint accounts, or keep separate accounts?

Why it matters

How couples manage their money isn’t just about making sure the water bill gets paid on time. Discussions about money can get fraught fast and sometimes become proxy battles for bigger issues in the relationship, like who wields more power, whose career is more important, and who does more domestic labor. Money and how we spend it is also an expression of our values. And if you’re not on the same page about your values, then why are you in this relationship?

The verdict

Share the wealth. Use a joint account.

My reasons

The No. 1 reason to share your money is that joint accounts appear to lead to a happier marriage. That lessens your chances of divorce, which can be financially devastating.

There’s been research suggesting that couples who share their accounts are happier than those who don’t, but the link was only correlational, so it wasn’t clear whether “joint accounts make you happy or if happiness makes you open a joint account,” said Scott Rick, a University of Michigan associate professor of marketing. He co-authored a new study that is the first to find a causal relationship between joint accounts and happier marriages.

Rick and his co-authors tracked 230 newlywed couples for two years. One group of couples had to open a joint account, one had to keep their accounts separate, and a third could do whatever they wanted. Researchers checked in with the couples every few months to ask them how their relationships were going. The couples who kept separate accounts or did whatever they wanted (most of whom kept separate accounts) saw the “typical decline” in relationship satisfaction, where they were happiest at the start of their marriage and satisfaction dropped after that honeymoon phase, Rick said.

But the joint couples stayed at the initial level of happiness, and if anything, their relationship satisfaction “seemed to increase a tiny, tiny bit over time,” he told MarketWatch. “By the end of two years, the joint couples looked a lot better than the ‘separate’ couples and the ‘do what you want’ couples,” Rick said. “Part of that is because the joint couples got on the same page in terms of money matters, it prompted some discussions. They started to see things more eye to eye.”

“You want to get away from score-keeping, which couples can fall into: ‘I did this yesterday, so it’s your turn today,’” he added. “With separate accounts, you really get into score-keeping: ‘Well I paid this, and you paid that.’ You want to get away from ‘his’ money and ‘her’ money and you want to get into ‘our money.’”

The couples with merged accounts “reported higher levels of communality within their marriage compared to people with separate accounts, or even those who partially merged their finances,” said study co-author Jenny Olson, an assistant professor of marketing at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. “They frequently told us they felt more like they were ‘in this together.’”

If that’s not enough to convince you, consider the fact that there can be financial benefits to having joint accounts. Keeping all of your money at one bank could help you avoid minimum-account-balance fees, or make you eligible for a higher tier of customer rewards. “Combining assets provides greater ease of management for bills, for planning for the future, and for emergencies,” said Woody Derricks, a certified financial planner with Partnership Wealth Management in Towson, Md., who specializes in same-sex couples. If one person suddenly lands in the hospital, it’s harder for the other to act on their behalf financially if money is in separate accounts, Derricks said.

There’s also the estate-planning aspect, said Kelley Long, a certified financial planner with Financial Bliss in Oro Valley, Ariz. “When you have joint accounts, if something happens to your spouse, your life is so much easier financially. Everything automatically is yours. You don’t have to walk around with a death certificate and go everywhere to claim everything. They always say joint accounts are the poor man’s estate plan.”

Another point in favor of joint accounts is that sharing money can help control spending. “You might restrain yourself a bit if you know you’re being watched, so it might tamp down some more extravagant spending,” Rick said.

Is my verdict best for you?

On the other hand, keeping separate accounts just works better for some couples. Long’s parents have been married 51 years and have never shared money, she said. They’re both financially responsible, but they have opposing money personalities. One loves to spend and the other hates it, and they also have a disparity in their incomes. Keeping separate accounts was “a loving decision” that let them “maintain maximum happiness in their marriage without having to change their personalities,” Long said.

It can also be helpful to keep separate accounts if you meet later in life and have long-established financial habits, or have children from a previous marriage, financial planners said.

Another reason for later-in-life couples to keep finances separate is to preserve a step-up in basis for highly appreciated assets, Derricks said. “If someone owns an investment for decades that has appreciated nicely, they may want to keep that in their own name so that if they’re first to pass away, their spouse or partner receives it with a full step-up in basis and can liquidate it after death and not have to pay capital-gains taxes,” he said.

Couples can also try a happy medium between joint and separate, with one shared account for household expenses, and separate accounts for individual spending on things like expensive hobbies, Rick said. “Everyone needs a room of their own, so to speak, and space,” he said. “Joint is definitely better than pure separates, but if you have the time and energy, I would say attach some separates to the joint.”

Tell us in the comments which option should win in this Financial Face-off. If you have ideas for future Financial Face-off columns, send me an email at lalbrecht@marketwatch.com.

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May 12, 2023
My fiancé and I are 60. His adult daughter is opposed to our marriage — and insists on inheriting her father’s $3.2 million estate. How should we handle her?

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What advice would you give to a widow and widower considering marriage on how to manage finances — and deal with adult children?

We are both 60 years old and plan to work a few more years, mostly for health insurance. We both have about $1.5 million in retirement savings accounts. Our spouses’ 401(k)s and IRAs rolled into our accounts.

I have another $500,000 in a brokerage and he has almost another $1 million. We both own homes with $300,000 mortgages. Mine is worth $500,000, Paul’s (not his real name) home is worth $1 million. We have no other debt.

We both have one married, and one unmarried child that we help. We both have two grandchildren.

We should be set up very well. Here’s the concern: His married, well-off daughter is very aggressive about inheritance. She wants the family home retitled in a trust. She wants all life insurance and brokerage beneficiaries in her name. Her brother has had drug-addiction problems, so she’s cutting him out even though it seems he’s the one who will need help.

“‘She wants the family home retitled in a trust. She wants all life insurance and brokerage beneficiaries in her name.’”

The daughter isn’t thrilled about our relationship and suggests we just live together. For religious reasons, I would never do this. Grandma shacking up? What example would I set for my grandchildren?

As a widowed couple, we are realistic enough to plan for the time one of us is left alone. Paul has diabetes, high blood pressure and already sees a cardiologist. What if he has a heart attack? Stroke? Or if he dies?

What’s a fair way to mingle finances and allow security for me should he predecease me while allowing Paul’s daughter to ultimately inherit?

By the way, my children have never raised money as an issue. After we both cared for spouses through cancer, they know life is short and just want us to be happy.

Happy to Have Found Love Again

Dear Happy,

She is overstepping the line, and overplaying her hand.

The first rule of inheritance is that it’s not yours until the decedent’s money is sitting in your bank account. Your fiancé’s daughter can make all the demands she likes, but the only thing your fiancé has to do is say, “You don’t need to be concerned. My affairs are all in order. I’ve always taken care of my own affairs, and I am not changing now.”

How your fiancé decides to split his estate is entirely up to him, and can be done in consultation with a financial adviser and attorney, taking into account each of his children’s individual needs. For instance, if you move in together, he could give you a life estate, allowing you to live in the home for the rest of your life, and dividing the property between his two children thereafter.

Given that you have your own home, however, you may decide to rent it out, and move back there in the event that he predeceases you. There are so many ways to split an inheritance. You could look at the intestate laws of your state, and follow them. In New York, the spouse inherits the first $50,000 of intestate property, plus half of the balance, and the kids inherit the rest.

“Paul” may decide to set up a trust for his son, so he can provide an income for him over the course of his life. If he has or had issues with addiction, this will help him while not putting temptation in his way with a lump sum of money. The best kind of trust is the one that deals with any recurring issues directly, and takes into account the person’s circumstances.

Martin Hagan, a Pennsylvania-based estate-planning attorney who has practiced for four decades, writes: “First, it would authorize distributions only if the beneficiary is actively pursuing treatment and recovery. Second, it would limit distributions to paying only for the expenses incurred in carrying out the treatment plan that will have been developed for the beneficiary.”

You have $2 million collectively in a retirement and brokerage account and $200,000 equity in his home, and you can use these next seven years or so to pay off your mortgage, while your fiancé has $2.5 million and $700,000 in equity on his home. You are both well set up for retirement, and let’s hope you have many years to spend together.

The financial services industry has many opinions. You should, advisers say, have 10 times your salary saved by the time you’re 65 years old. You don’t mention your salary, but I would be surprised if many people in America had that much money saved, especially given all of the unexpected events — divorce, illness, job loss — that can occur in the intervening years.

You also have other priorities than dealing with an aggressive daughter/daughter-in-law. AARP suggests that most people should look into long-term care insurance between the ages of 60 and 65, around the time most people are eligible to qualify for Medicare. If you do it earlier, it can serve as a savings account in the event that you never need long-term care, AARP says.

As retirement columnist Richard Quinn recently wrote on MarketWatch, everybody’s circumstances are different. “Living in retirement isn’t about averages. It isn’t about what other people do or the opinions of experts, especially online instant experts who don’t know anything about you and have yet to experience many years of retirement themselves.”

Don’t give too much oxygen or power to your future daughter-in-law. Her father should give her a stock answer, and be firm. If she persists, he can say, “The subject is closed. I need you to respect the decisions I make about my own life, respect my privacy on these matters, and it would be nice if you would be happy for us, and support us in our marriage together.”

You can’t change people. But you can change wills.

You can email The Moneyist with any financial and ethical questions related to coronavirus at qfottrell@marketwatch.com, and follow Quentin Fottrell on Twitter.

Check out the Moneyist private Facebook group, where we look for answers to life’s thorniest money issues. Readers write in to me with all sorts of dilemmas. Post your questions, tell me what you want to know more about, or weigh in on the latest Moneyist columns.

The Moneyist regrets he cannot reply to questions individually.

More from Quentin Fottrell:

My boyfriend wants me to move into his home and pay rent. I suggested only paying for utilities and groceries. What should I do?

My dinner date ‘forgot’ his wallet and took the receipt for his taxes. Should I have called him out for being cheapskate?

My boyfriend lives in my house with my 2 kids, but refuses to pay rent or contribute to food and utility bills. What’s my next move?

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February 18, 2023
Landmark bill protecting same-sex and interracial marriages passes House

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The House gave final approval Thursday to legislation protecting same-sex marriages, a monumental step in a decadeslong battle for nationwide recognition of such unions that reflects a stunning turnaround in societal attitudes.

President Joe Biden is expected to promptly sign the measure, which requires all states to recognize same-sex marriages, a relief for hundreds of thousands of couples who have married since the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision that legalized those marriages nationwide.

The bipartisan legislation, which passed 258-169, would also protect interracial unions by requiring states to recognize legal marriages regardless of “sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin.”

In debate ahead of the vote, several gay members of Congress talked about what it would mean for them and their families. Rep. Chris Pappas, D-N.H., said he was set to marry “the love of my life” next year and that it is “unthinkable” that his marriage might not be recognized in some states.

Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., said he and his husband should be able to visit each other in the hospital just like any other married couple and receive spousal benefits “regardless of if your spouse’s name Samuel or Samantha.”

Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., said that the idea of marriage equality used to be a “far-fetched idea; now it’s the law of the land and supported by the vast majority of Americans.”

While the bill received GOP votes, most Republicans opposed the legislation and some conservative advocacy groups lobbied aggressively against it, arguing that it doesn’t do enough to protect those who want to refuse services for same-sex couples.

“God’s perfect design is indeed marriage between one man and one woman for life,” said Rep. Bob Good, R-Va. “And it doesn’t matter what you think or what I think, that’s what the Bible says.”

Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R-Mo., choked up as she begged colleagues to vote against the bill, which she said undermines “natural marriage” between a man and a woman.

“I’ll tell you my priorities,” Hartzler said. “Protect religious liberty, protect people of faith and protect Americans who believe in the true meaning of marriage.”

Democrats moved the bill quickly through the House and Senate after the Supreme Court’s June decision that overturned the federal right to an abortion. That ruling included a concurring opinion from Justice Clarence Thomas that suggested same-sex marriage should also be reconsidered.

The House passed a bill to protect the same-sex unions in July with the support of 47 Republicans, a robust and unexpected show of support that kick-started serious negotiations in the Senate. After months of talks, the Senate passed the legislation last week with 12 Republican votes.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., presided over the vote as one of her last acts in leadership before stepping aside in January. She said the legislation “will ensure that “the federal government will never again stand in the way of marrying the person you love.”

The legislation would not require states to allow same-sex couples to marry, as the Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision now does. But it would require states to recognize all marriages that were legal where they were performed and it would protect current same-sex unions if the Obergefell decision were overturned.

While it’s not everything advocates may have wanted, passage of the legislation represents a watershed moment. Just a decade ago, many Republicans openly campaigned on blocking same-sex marriages; today more than two-thirds of the public support them.

Democrats in the Senate, led by Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema, slowly won over key Republican votes by negotiating an amendment that would clarify that the legislation does not affect the rights of private individuals or businesses that are already enshrined in current law. The amended bill would also make clear that a marriage is between two people, an effort to ward off some far-right criticism that the legislation could endorse polygamy.

In the end, several religious groups, including The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, came out in support of the bill. The Mormon church said it would support rights for same-sex couples as long as they didn’t infringe upon religious groups’ right to believe as they choose.

Conservative groups that opposed the bill pushed the almost four dozen Republicans who previously backed the legislation to switch their position. The Republicans who supported the bill in July represented a wide range of the GOP caucus — from more moderate members to Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry, the chair of the conservative hard-right House Freedom Caucus, and New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, the No. 3 House Republican. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy voted against the measure.

Thursday’s vote came as the LGBTQ community has faced violent attacks, such as the shooting earlier this month at a gay nightclub in Colorado that killed five people and injured at least 17.

“We have been through a lot,” said Kelley Robinson, the incoming president of the advocacy group Human Rights Campaign. But Robinson says the votes show “in such an important way” that the country values LBGTQ people.

“We are part of the full story of what it means to be an American,” said Robinson, who was inside the Senate chamber for last week’s vote with her wife and young son. “It really speaks to them validating our love.”

The vote was personal for many senators, too. The day the bill passed their chamber, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was wearing the tie he wore at his daughter’s wedding to another woman. He recalled that day as “one of the happiest moments of my life.”

Baldwin, the first openly gay senator who has been working on gay rights issues for almost four decades, tearfully hugged Schumer as the final vote was underway. She tweeted thanks to the same-sex and interracial couples who she said made the moment possible.

“By living as your true selves, you changed the hearts and minds of people around you,” she wrote.

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December 8, 2022
Senate passes landmark bill protecting same-sex, interracial marriages

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WASHINGTON — The Senate passed bipartisan legislation Tuesday to protect same-sex marriages, an extraordinary sign of shifting national politics on the issue and a measure of relief for the hundreds of thousands of same-sex couples who have married since the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision that legalized gay marriage nationwide.

The bill, which would ensure that same-sex and interracial marriages are enshrined in federal law, was approved 61-36 on Tuesday, including support from 12 Republicans. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the legislation was “a long time coming” and part of America’s “difficult but inexorable march towards greater equality.”

Democrats are moving quickly, while the party still holds the majority in both chambers of Congress, to send the bill to the House and then — they hope — to President Joe Biden’s desk. The bill has gained steady momentum since the Supreme Court’s June decision that overturned the federal right to an abortion, a ruling that included a concurring opinion from Justice Clarence Thomas that suggested same-sex marriage could also come under threat. Bipartisan Senate negotiations got a kick-start this summer when 47 Republicans unexpectedly voted for a House bill and gave supporters new optimism.

The legislation would not force any state to allow same-sex couples to marry. But it would require states to recognize all marriages that were legal where they were performed, and protect current same-sex unions, if the court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision were to be overturned.

That’s a stunning bipartisan endorsement, and evidence of societal change, after years of bitter divisiveness on the issue.

The bill would also protect interracial marriages by requiring states to recognize legal marriages regardless of “sex, race, ethnicity or national origin.”

A new law protecting same-sex marriages would be a major victory for Democrats as they relinquish their two years of consolidated power in Washington, and a massive win for advocates who have been pushing for decades for federal legislation. It comes as the LGBTQ community has faced violent attacks, such as the shooting last weekend at a gay nightclub in Colorado that killed five people and injured at least 17.

“Our community really needs a win, we have been through a lot,” said Kelley Robinson, the incoming president of Human Rights Campaign, which advocates on LGBTQ issues. “As a queer person who is married, I feel a sense of relief right now. I know my family is safe.”

The vote was personal for many senators, too. Schumer said on Tuesday that he was wearing the tie he wore at his daughter’s wedding, “one of the happiest moments of my life.” He also recalled the “harrowing conversation” he had with his daughter and her wife in September 2020 when they heard that liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had passed away. “Could our right to marry be undone?” they asked at the time.

With conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett replacing Ginsburg, the court has now overturned Roe v. Wade and the federal right to an abortion, stoking fears about Obergefell and other rights protected by the court. But sentiment has shifted on same-sex marriage, with more than two-thirds of the public now in support.

Still, Schumer said it was notable that the Senate was even having the debate after years of Republican opposition. “A decade ago, it would have strained all of our imaginations to envision both sides talking about protecting the rights of same-sex married couples,” he said.

Passage came after the Senate rejected three Republican amendments to protect the rights of religious institutions and others to still oppose such marriages. Supporters of the legislation argued those amendments were unnecessary because the bill had already been amended to clarify that it does not affect rights of private individuals or businesses that are currently enshrined in law. The bill would also make clear that a marriage is between two people, an effort to ward off some far-right criticism that the legislation could endorse polygamy.

Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who has been lobbying his fellow GOP senators to support the legislation for months, pointed to the number of religious groups supporting the bill, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some of those groups were part of negotiations on the bipartisan amendment.

“They see this as a step forward for religious freedom,” Tillis says.

The nearly 17-million member, Utah-based faith said in a statement this month that church doctrine would continue to consider same-sex relationships to be against God’s commandments. Yet it said it would support rights for same-sex couples as long as they didn’t infringe upon religious groups’ right to believe as they choose.

Most Republicans still oppose the legislation, saying it is unnecessary and citing concerns about religious liberty. And some conservative groups stepped up opposition in recent weeks, lobbying Republican supporters to switch their votes.

“As I and others have argued for years, marriage is the exclusive, lifelong, conjugal union between one man and one woman, and any departure from that design hurts the indispensable goal of having every child raised in a stable home by the mom and dad who conceived him,” the Heritage Foundation’s Roger Severino, vice president of domestic policy, wrote in a recent blog post arguing against the bill.

In an effort to win the 10 Republican votes necessary to overcome a filibuster in the 50-50 Senate, Democrats delayed consideration until after the midterm elections, hoping that would relieve political pressure on GOP senators who might be wavering.

Eventual support from 12 Republicans gave Democrats the votes they needed.

Along with Tillis, Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Ohio Sen. Rob Portman supported the bill early on and have lobbied their GOP colleagues to support it. Also voting for the legislation in two test votes ahead of passage were Republican Sens. Richard Burr of North Carolina, Todd Young of Indiana, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Mitt Romney of Utah, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Roy Blunt of Missouri, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan of Alaska.

Lummis, one of the more conservative members of the Senate, spoke ahead of the final vote about her “fairly brutal self soul searching” before supporting the bill. She said that she accepts her church’s beliefs that a marriage is between a man and a woman, but noted that the country was founded on the separation of church and state.

“We do well by taking this step, not embracing or validating each other’s devoutly held views, but by the simple act of tolerating them,” Lummis said.

The growing GOP support for the issue is a sharp contrast from even a decade ago, when many Republicans vocally opposed same-sex marriages.

Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat who is the first openly gay senator and has been working on gay rights issues for almost four decades, said this month that the newfound openness from many Republicans on the subject reminds her “of the arc of the LBGTQ movement to begin with, in the early days when people weren’t out and people knew gay people by myths and stereotypes.”

Baldwin, the lead Senate negotiator on the legislation, said that as more individuals and families have become visible, hearts and minds have changed.

“And slowly laws have followed,” she said. “It is history.”

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November 29, 2022
Bill protecting same-sex and interracial marriages clears key Senate hurdle

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WASHINGTON — Legislation to protect same-sex and interracial marriages crossed a major Senate hurdle Wednesday, putting Congress on track to take the historic step of ensuring that such unions are enshrined in federal law.

Twelve Republicans voted with all Democrats to move forward on the legislation, meaning a final vote could come as soon as this week, or later this month. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the bill ensuring the unions are legally recognized under the law is chance for the Senate to “live up to its highest ideals” and protect marriage equality for all people.

“It will make our country a better, fairer place to live,” Schumer said, noting that his own daughter and her wife are expecting a baby next year.

Senate Democrats are quickly moving to pass the bill while the party still controls the House. Republicans are on the verge of winning the House majority and would be unlikely to take up the issue next year.

The bill has gained steady momentum since the Supreme Court’s June decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and the federal right to an abortion. An opinion at that time from Justice Clarence Thomas suggested that an earlier high court decision protecting same-sex marriage could also come under threat.

The legislation would repeal the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act and require states to recognize all marriages that were legal where they were performed. The new Respect for Marriage Act would also protect interracial marriages by requiring states to recognize legal marriages regardless of “sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin.”

Congress has been moving to protect same-sex marriage as support from the general public — and from Republicans in particular — has sharply grown in recent years, as the Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision legalized gay marriage nationwide. Recent polling has found more than two-thirds of the public supports same-sex unions.

Still, many Republicans in Congress have been reluctant to support the legislation. Democrats delayed consideration until after the midterm elections, hoping that would relieve political pressure on some GOP senators who might be wavering.

A proposed amendment to the bill, negotiated by supporters to bring more Republicans on board, would clarify that it does not affect rights of private individuals or businesses that are already enshrined in law. Another tweak would make clear that a marriage is between two people, an effort to ward off some far-right criticism that the legislation could endorse polygamy.

Three Republicans said early on that they would support the legislation and have lobbied their GOP colleagues to support it: Maine Sen. Susan Collins, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis and Ohio Sen. Rob Portman.

“Current federal law doesn’t reflect the will or beliefs of the American people in this regard,” Portman said ahead of the vote. “It’s time for the Senate to settle the issue.”

The growing GOP support for the issue is a sharp contrast from even a decade ago, when many Republicans vocally opposed same-sex marriages. The legislation passed the House in a July vote with the support of 47 Republicans — a larger-than-expected number that gave the measure a boost in the Senate.

On Tuesday, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints became the most recent conservative-leaning group to back the legislation. In a statement, the Utah-based faith said church doctrine would continue to consider same-sex relationships to be against God’s commandments, but it would support rights for same-sex couples as long as they didn’t infringe upon religious groups’ right to believe as they choose.

Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat who is the first openly gay senator and has been working on gay rights issues for almost four decades, said the newfound openness from many Republicans on the subject reminds her “of the arc of the LBGTQ movement to begin with, in the early days when people weren’t out and people knew gay people by myths and stereotypes.”

Baldwin said that as more individuals and families have become visible, hearts and minds have changed.

“And slowly laws have followed,” she said. “It is history.”

Schumer said the issue is personal to him, as well.

“Passing the Respect for Marriage Act is as personal as it gets for many senators and their staffs, myself included,” Schumer said. “My daughter and her wife are actually expecting a little baby in February. So it matters a lot to so many of us to get this done.”

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November 16, 2022