I considered posting this on r/personalfinance but at this stage I feel like I’d prefer advice from this sub as it’s more of an emotional issue.
My significant other (AJ) and I have been dating for 3 years and are serious and talking about engagement. We both grew up as only children and both of our mothers are about 40 years older than us. We come from different “classes”. His parents are working poor while I come from the lower middle class. To be very clear, I don’t care about having lots of money, but I dream of a day that I won’t be worried about money.
AJ’s parents are nice people now. They have been nothing but kind to me. But they have a tumultuous background. BOTH of AJ’s parents come from very well-off families. But they were free spirits when young, I am unsure if either of them graduated high school. They got into hard drugs. They were homeless for a while and were eventually taken back in by their parents and got clean. At some point throughout this AJ’s father went to jail for a few years, he has anger issues. AJ does not know what the crime was and his father won’t tell him. His parents chain smoke all day long, and are doing poorly from it. In fact his mother smoked while she was pregnant with AJ. His father has some other internal health issues. They live in an apartment and always have. His mom is a waitress, and his father a janitor. They don’t have savings, understandably.
The other day AJ’s father announced he was retiring this year. Just done, no explanation, absolutely NO regard or plan about retirement or money. AJ immediately went into planning mode and tried to find a mobile home park where his parents could live more cheaply, but even that with buying/renting the land and mobile home was too expensive. He has tried to come up with other plans. Most involve him spending money/loans on buying them a living arrangement or potentially living with them.
AJ are I not well off. Although he has an engineering degree, and I just finished a job-focused masters in a hard science both from a top 10 university… combined we make less than 70k a year. I already feel like giving up financially in our personal lives. We have student debt, and rent to stay near the city where our jobs are is the second most expensive rent in the country. Rent takes about 50% of our paychecks if not more. We are very frugal and I actually still have some savings because I worry about money so much.
Long story short, I am worried as hell that if I agree to marry into AJ’s family that I will become financially responsible for his frankly irresponsible parents. His parents live in the same very expensive state as us. We can barely afford to live ourselves let alone save to have our own home or family. I feel resentment that me and AJ worked hard and sacrificed and will end up paying for people who make poor health and life decisions -even if we may love them. His parents may have made stupid decisions, but of course I wouldn’t want to put them on the street. Oh god I don’t want to have them move in with us either. And of course, if the tables turned and my parents needed help I’d want to help them -which is hypocritical.
I guess I am looking for advice on how I am thinking about this -am I acting spoiled because I am from low-middle class and not working-poor class? Do I not realize I am being unreasonable? Should I be strong willed or flexible in discussing this financial opinion with a partner who is adamant about helping his parents? Do I pack my bags and cut my losses even though I love my significant other dearly? Any similar stories would also be appreciated.
TL;DR: AJ’s parents are financially irresponsible and AJ wants to go 100% in on helping/housing them. We are poor/in debt and I don’t want to spend money on his parents. I want to hear other people’s stories and know if it is a deal breaker that we don’t agree on this before we get married.
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