31 Users In An Online Community Share Stories Of People Who Married Rich

Marrying a rich person isn't equivalent to living happily ever after.

May

• Published in Interesting
• July 29, 2023

People think that marrying rich will give them life without problems. After all, when your partner has that much money, it seems like all financial worries would instantly disappear, and you could have anything you want with a snap of a finger.

Sadly, it doesn't work that way. Marrying the rich means that you'll have another set of problems.

First of all, marrying a rich husband would mean accepting that you'll never be number one. He's got a business or two (or even three) to manage.

So his work will always come first over your needs. Then, making money will be his number two priority.

The sad reality is you'll have to settle for the third spot. Plus, would you settle for a man who only knows how to buy your love?

Sure, you'll be showered with gifts you can never buy. But what about your emotional needs?

He can't fulfill those because he'll be busy with work. If your husband works as a CEO or they're C-level executives, they're probably working 80 hours a week.

And the most miserable part of it all is that you'll never have a functional family. The demands of the rich husband's career can indeed take a toll on the family dynamics.

If you don't believe any of these, maybe these stories will open your eyes.

A heartbreaking story of people who were deeply in love

ok, not me, but a close friend from the middle-east.

so he comes from a middle-class background with lower-class roots, and is pretty smart in a well-rounded way. he's pretty handsome, well-read, articulate, polite, emotionally intelligent...etc. the kinda guy who almost always makes the good decision, but is limited in potential due to a lack of connections and wealth.

so anyway, his uncle works for this really rich and established family who are looking for someone to marry their only daughter, the only problem is that this family, although really blessed financially, didn't win the genetic lottery, so to speak. in fact, one could say that they're kinda cursed... they carry a fatal genetic defect that causes a rare form of muscular degeneracy, one that has decimated their family in the last two generations.

so my friend proposes anyway (the girl is charming, and is quite intelligent to boot), and the father had given rather unsubtle hints that good things would come to him if they were to get married, and he wasn't lying. the couple get married and move into a really big house that was sold to him by the father for a no-money down, pay-when-you-can loan. he gives him a great, very well-paying job in his company and even gifts him a new car.

so my friend, being the intelligent, ambitious, and promising individual that he is, moves up the ranks quickly, is given another loan by the dad to start a small business on the side, and in a few years has already bought a couple of properties for himself.

now all this time, they're getting closer together as a couple. really closer, he's gone from seeing this relationship as one of mutual convenience to real love and respect.

he appreciates all the doors that marrying her has opened, and she appreciates the risks that he took in terms of marrying someone who might die early and pass on the disease to their progeny. a few years later, they have a wonderful baby girl who shows no signs of the disease.

but sadly, within five years or so of their marriage, the wife -who already had signs of the disease- starts to get really sick, and over the next couple of years, she deteriorates to the point where she's either in hospitals or bed-ridden.

she died last year of complications, her heart literally gave out a few days after their eleventh anniversary. so here he is, raising a seven year-old daughter, and absolutely heart-broken.

he had become so deeply in love with his wife that losing her completely shattered him.

although he's rich as hell now, and will become much, much more so when her parents die, because the dad put him and the grand-daughter as the heirs to the family wealth, he's still suffering. and even though i'm sure the pain will lessen with time, and he'll eventually get remarried, he's kind of an emotional mess right now.

so a few months ago, i invited him to come hang out with me for a while in Bali, i figured the island atmosphere would help soothe his mind a bit, give him some perspective, or at least a reprieve from the emotional grind.

so we're sitting on this empty beach at sundown, with a bottle of mccallan and the thin remnants of waves lapping at our toe's.

i let him spill it all out, just train of thought type storytelling, about the good days and the bad days and everything in between. and in the end, he tells me that it was worth it all, not for the money, but for the chance to be with her for that short while.

Realizing the gap between the rich and the poor

Kinda... my wife was not rich, her Dad was, she/we inherited a substantial amount.

First 15 years of our relationship I didn’t believe her Dad had money. He never showed it. Pleasant surprise to say the least.

I grew up pretty poor and to be honest I never realized just how different life was with money. It’s a different existence.

Rich guys can be an emotional train wreck.

I dated someone super wealthy and yeah, I definitely earned every penny. The dude was an emotional train wreck.

I realized I could provide more for myself single and broke in terms of happiness and quality of life then with him.

Gold diggers are real.

I'm pretty sure my husband married me for my money. I was 29 and feeling lonely. We were both science nerds. He was a doctor's son, but he was really not financially supported.

I was a bar owner's daughter and far wealthier than he, although the money was parceled out to me in fairly small amounts but it supported us. Although I appeared to be the stay at home do nothing housewife to many I am sure, it was really my money supporting us and our three children.

He did work but he had a serious debt creation problem with credit cards so his salary was never enough. When we turned 50 he met another woman, told me "She's rich!" And abandoned me to basically poverty and food stamps. Lovely right?

Fast forward two years, I tookmy half of his retirement account which was about 70k, and invested it and now I have close to a million. I'm shooting for 5 million. Oh yeah and now I don't have to "discover" yet another maxed out credit card in my name ever again.

It's better to prioritize one's happiness.

Broke up with someone set to inherit over a billion from her father. Nice girl, no major issues but just didn’t feel like we clicked.

Some days I can’t help but think it was dumb when I’m looking at my very very average bank account and salary. It would have been a more extravagant life but I’m with someone who makes me happy so I tend not to regret it.

A woman's very miserable life with a greedy and abusive rich man

I didn’t, but my mother did about 15 years ago (after divorcing my father).

He keeps all of his wealth stashed away in an account that she can’t access. The house and cars are bought and paid for and the utility bills are also covered.

She won’t ever have to worry about not having her basic needs met. But her disability check is “our money,” while his millions are “his money.”

He gets legitimately upset about things like her buying organic eggs instead of regular, running the shower for thirty seconds while she grabs a towel from the other room, and going through the Taco Bell drive-thru because these things cost him his “hard-earned cash,” even though he’s actually inherited most of his money from his father and she usually uses her disability check for extras.

He emotionally abuses her every day, sometimes berating her until she cries and begs him to leave her alone. He insults her body and appearance.

He hovers over her and harasses her while she eats. He picks apart and criticizes everything she says and does.

According to what she’s told me, they haven’t had sex in years. I can remember exactly one time that I’ve seen him show any kind of affection toward her.

I think he held her hand once while sitting on the couch sometime in 2005ish. Other than that, I’ve never seen him kiss or hug or even touch her.

The worst part might be that I think she prefers it that way.

It is the most miserable, cold, lonely marriage I’ve ever seen. She is too dependent to leave.

I know I would much rather die completely alone than married to someone like that.

He didn't know his wife is wealthy.

Anyways, I unknowingly married into wealthy family. My wife's parents are millionaire next door types.

There primary house is worth maybe 230k, but I had a feeling that something was going on because one time, when I was 23-24, they had found this lightly used Toyota Land Cruiser for sale in GA for some ridiculous amount of money, like 70k. I was going to GA for work the next week and they asked me to buy it and they'd pay me back when I got back with it.

It literally did not register with them that a 23-24 year old probably doesn't have 70k in the bank. So, they sent me with a pre-signed check and told me to fill it out with the final price.

I had been dating their daughter maybe 3 months at that time. About a year later, my father in law casually mentioned wanting a log cabin in the woods somewhere, preferably on the lake.

I took it as if he were dreaming and said yeah, that would be really nice. That coming weekend, he and my mother in law put an offer in on a lake cabin with one of the best views I've ever seen in my life.

I'd hate to know what they paid for that. I still didn't really understand what they did or didn't have until they made me executor of their estate.

The vast majority of what they die with is going to charity and their church. Just wild.

Moral of the story. Looks can be deceiving and just because they have it, doesn't mean that you'll inherit it.

Pursuing marriage for financial game is a very bad idea.

Yes, my wife’s parents are UHNW and co-founded a many billion market cap public tech company - although they sold most of their stock and retired twenty years ago so they aren’t billionaires.

My wife had the unique environment of being raised by people that had the humility and experience of being self made, but she also only experienced the financial stability of people who made their money long before she was born. I would say that this resulted in the positive emotional health of being raised in loving and stable family but she was mentally cognizant of the entrepreneur hardship that it takes to be successful and her parents would tell her about.

I didn’t know how much of an impact this would all have on my own career and life when we started dating, but we are very close to her family and spend a lot of time together. Nightly dinner conversations are on how to preserve and grow wealth through investments and tax avoidance.

Moreover, they are active angel investors so entrepreneurial convos are commonplace. The transfer of knowledge that I have experienced is absolutely invaluable.

The flip side of this is some emotional stuff that you just have to overcome. I am very successful by all financial metrics, but I’m still a peasant compared to her parents.

No one ever makes me feel that way and they celebrate my wins so enthusiastically, but my success doesn’t really move the needle of what my wife grew up with and her parents have. To a certain degree, my success is more like getting table stakes to be here rather than anything really special.

This really can screw with your mind and distort your perception of yourself after working so hard and achieving so much by normal standards. However, you just have to be confident with yourself and recognize your value regardless.

The only other thing I’ll say is that managing generational wealth takes a lifetime of grooming to prepare for and is a full time job when the transition happens. It’s a major responsibility and takes a lot of personal development and knowledge to be successful with it.

So people who think just marrying into a wealthy family and that it’s going to be a sweet party are sorely mistaken. It’s a big deal.

Also, I don’t ever suggest anyone pursue a relationship for financial reasons. That will end very badly for everyone.

Finding your true partner in life, no matter their background, will yield the best outcome and most financial success

What a horrible mother!

I was emotionally blackmailed by Mummy dearest into marrying into a super wealthy family. We ourselves were not wealthy at all.

Before marriage it was all stressful being the poor side of the marriage. After the marriage I learnt that the seriously wealthy sometimes had serious money problems.

Very soon after marriage I had to learn a whole lot of stuff about how money works, and get into a few fights to make sure that the money remained with us. At least we are wealthy if not super wealthy now.

Now it’s quite nice, tbh I never realised while growing up how much better life is when you are rich. Like not just stuff but freedom.

At the very least, there's love.

He married me for my money i married him for his brains, life is a roller coaster but i still love my man.

They needed to go their separate ways.

My ex (who is now a good friend) is quite rich. We broke up for the reason I wouldn't move to Europe with him.

It lasted 2 years until he decided to move and I wanted to stay here and refused to let him fly my broke student self to visit him all the time. Money was never a concern and I still don't care about his money.

Now that we are friends, he probably spends more money on me because we go out for dinner or drinks when he is in town. I sometimes tease him about being rich but he doesn't flaunt it (drives an older VW golf, lives in a small apartment in a middle class area, doesn't wear flashy brand names, cooks, cleans and does almost everything for himself).

Only thing "rich" thing he does is flying first class overseas because he hates not having extra leg room.

Marrying the rich isn't always equivalent to happiness.

My best friend from childhood married a billionaires daughter. He's still depressed and still himself.

He lives a nice life but it's not his money. His kids are set for life, he is still miserable and complains a lot... But what can you do he's a mate.

A friend turned out to be a snake in this tale.

I didn’t marry him for his money, but he got pretty wealthy while I was with him.

We met in college. Dated for 4 years while we were both dirt poor(but his parents were very well off), and then got married.

My degree seemed to be a busy, so my career wasn’t going anywhere. His took off after a couple of years and he moved up in salary fast over the years. I was with him a total of 11 years.

We decided we were financially stable enough to have a child after 5 years married. I had a spotty job history in customer service, so we lived on his growing salaries.

While I was pregnant we met and made friends with a woman whom I became close to quickly. After a year I was venting to her one day about his spending habits and disclosed how much money he made.

Looking back, I realize she didn’t seem to start getting closer to him until after that. He ended up leaving me for her less than a year later.

So I didn’t marry the guy for his money, but he was definitely changing during our decade together. The frivolous way he spent money and lived at the edge of his budget drive me nuts.

We had no savings, he wouldn’t pay off any debt, and every time he got a raise he would spend it. I strongly believe he was squirreling money away somewhere because even being extremely generous, I couldn’t figure out how we were spending that much money every month like he said we were.

I grew up dirt poor, so I have a very healthy respect for money and having a savings.

He’s married to his affair partner now. They had a kid and she’s a stay at home mom now.

He was extremely manipulative to me and he’s very good at it. She’s manipulative, too, but much more transparent.

We’ll see how long that lasts. I’ve lived that life with him and it sucks.

They're fortunate the marriage worked out in the end.

My cousin sister did it. She is really pretty and the guy is really rich.

Our family aren't so close that's why we had no idea about their financial situation. Their eldest brother and sister in law cut them off after their parents died.

She was doing her Masters and was taking care of her 3 sisters. It just became too much for her and she agreed to marry the guy.

The guy had the longest crush on my cousin,he is very loving.

Now that I am a Lil older and can have grown up talks, she shares about her feelings. She really respects her husband and is really grateful for taking care of her family.

He receive a lot of money. But at what cost?

I know a man who did this. Married the daughter in a wealthy family. She was a huge pain in everyone's ass.

Spent money like it was water and had no idea of it's value or use. Unpleasant to everyone as none of them were important other than her parents I guess - the source of the funds.

Spoiled the kids, caused them to develop unearned attitudes. It was hard to watch.

Ended in divorce. He got a payout from the family, but I don't think it was worth it.

For a marriage to work, partners need to align their financial goals.

I kinda, sorta did. Not in the true sense of the word, since I earn well, have my own career, and am aligned with him on financial goals.

But money is cited in the top 3 reasons for divorce. I worked hard to have 0 debt, even in grad school, and lived in ways that ensured financial stability.

Like living with roommates even when I didn't "need to," not traveling unless I could pay cash, not getting pets until I was solidly settled. My husband views money the same way - simply, I would NOT have married him if he had debt or mindsets about money that I don't mesh with.

Don't get me wrong, I love the guy. A lot.

But... lasting marriages need more than love. And I know a couple that is NOT aligned about money, she has tons of debt and an exorbitant lifestyle, and he is frugal, and it creates rifts and tension and ill-aligned expectations in so many facets of their lives.

It's not just money - it's food and travel and hobbies and pets and kids and friends and education, and money touches all these things. So to not marry, at least a little bit, "for" money, or with money in mind is a terrible idea

She was blinded by money. In the end, the woman became miserable.

My mom did this. She had at me 19, didn’t know English.

White American man asked her to marry him so she did, he HAD money.

He’s 16 years older than her, he’s now broke, a terrible person overall and she’s miserable. He also cheated on her two years ago which was shocking to know that his d**k still works at his age.

Woman gets tons of money out of a 5-year marriage.

One of my mom's friends was like this. She met a very rich guy in new york, married him, was taken care of for a few years, and then about 5 years into the marriage began to insist that they move to Boston.

She eventually got her way, they changed their residency and she divorced him. In Massachusetts (at the time, it may have changed since then) a marriage of at least 5 years guaranteed the wife 50% of the husband's estate (if there was no pre-nup).

In New York, she would have had to wait 10 years. This was a blatantly strategic marriage and while I don't agree with her actions, I don't think she has any regrets about putting in ~5 years of work for several million dollars.

Vicious cycle ahead

I actually have a very close friend. Her last "relationship" was based on the fact that he got a LOT of money and so paid for her food, oil for the car, rent for the flat they moved in together, pretty much everything as far as I know.

When they got to know each other she (my friend) wasn't interested in him at all, but after he confessed his feelings for her and she found out about his income, she suddenly found herself very much interested. The problem was: the money could only make her happy for so long, and after 2 years she broke up with him.

As far as I can see their relationship was always a rocky one because she didn't really like him or his personality, she also wasn't really attracted to him physically. Funnily enough, even after she should have realised that such kind of relationship wasn't for her, her current "boyfriend" is once again her boyfriend because of money.

She was in a tight spot, having messed up uni application. Her mom more or less kicked her out, and she asked him to stay at his flat for a few days.

Well, turns out it's a really big and nice one, and even though she never showed any interest in him (she actually often said that his advances towards her were annoying, and less flattering things about his looks), after he confessed his feelings she started something with him and now again has some kind of "sugar daddy" who pays for her everything.

I don't really agree with what she does, because I think I could never sleep with someone I am not attracted to, regardless of money. But at least those two guys kind of fell into her lap and she didn't actively seek them out or something like that.

I expect her to break up with him after maybe one or two years when the money can no longer mask his looks and personality which she dislikes.

He probably wouldn't have a peaceful life if he married the rich girl.

This one hits me deep. I dated a girl for 6 years.

I was days away from proposing when a friend of mine who know of my plan, told me he saw her cheat on me more than once. With one of our other friends.

When the truth came out, there was obviously a lot of turmoil but she begged for forgiveness, promised it would never ever happen again, and part of me believed her because we really were in love. I just couldn't shake it though.

Couldn't sleep. It was like a rock in my shoe.

"once a cheater always a cheater" never left my brain. I ended up dumping her and moving on.

I married a middle-class girl from a farm, blue-collar dad. I was also raised in a lower-middle blue-collar family.

The girl I dumped was the heiress of a large company, which she sold after we broke up and netted ~$100M. She married a guy and they now have three homes, range rovers, a ferrari, you name it.

Still friends with her on FB. I think about it a lot.

I have no doubt I am much happier now with a faithful wife and four beautiful children. But god damn that ferrari looks like fun.

I managed to get myself in a $250k+ job by age 30 and have given my stay-at-home-mom wife and 4 children a wonderful little life, but a far cry from the 1%.

The end.

Having bad financial choices is life's biggest stressors.

It was important for me to be a stay-at-home mom as well, but you don't need a rich husband to do that. You just need a husband who wants to make it possible.

My husband makes $30,000 a year which is more than enough. Now I'm very happy as a SAHM, and my husband is happy that I'm home with our baby every day.

We take care of each other. I love him more every day.

I have a relative who grew up poor and married a man who seemed to have a lot of potential to earn big money. He does make a lot of money... but they invest so much into their kid's fancy education, and their fancy house, and their fancy cars, that the wife ends up working anyway.

They're always stressed out, always wearing designer clothes, and don't sleep in the same bed. The wife loves their kid more than her husband.

It always makes me depressed to see them. I'd rather live with my husband and son in a cardboard box with love than live their kind of life.

He'll eventually realize that what he did was the right decision — even if he didn't get a hug from Marc Gasol.

Her dad was the team doctor for an NBA team that will remain nameless. They were filthy rich and got free tickets to all the games.

She also knew a lot of the players.

I didn't find her interesting at all. It only lasted for a few dates, but she offered to get me in to games for free and even meet some of the players.

I couldn't go through with it.

I'm still trying to decide if it was a good idea or not. It would have been cool to say I god a hug from Marc Gasol.

That's a very nice plan.

I grew up working class, worked up to middle class and at the same time essentially married up to decent wealth. I wouldn't have the life I have now if it hadn't been for the family money.

The family money didn't give us any complacency or a safety net to avoid needing to build our wealth. It has served to give us a leg up to continue building our own wealth - working and investing our own income and making sure we grow our networth.

It's easy to marry into money, or inherit money and then piss it all away. My goal is to build it into multi generational wealth so that my kids can have the same safety net, set their own goals and hopefully continue to build it up for their own kids.

How can some women stand their cheating rich husbands?

I see women like this all the time. Their husbands hit on me in front of them, the women hardly care since they aren't in love.

It's disgusting. I can't imagine being with those men.

It's hard to stay married to a cheating husband, even if he's rich.

Not me, but I have one or two friends who made this choice.

One is unemployed and depressed, but indeed rich by way of her husband's money-making. She is also on the asexual spectrum, so I feel it helped her choose money over passion.

She and her husband are good enough friends, but many of us feel he acts like he does not respect her even though she would disagree.

The other got divorced and is now a single mom of two special needs children. Their marriage was tumultuous and he cheated a lot.

However, she's very financially well-appointed, both due to a good divorce settlement and intergenerational wealth of her own.

Can a person truly be happy by prioritizing financial security in a marriage?

I think some people just value having security... I mean is marrying for love -- when love is so fickle and fleeting -- truly any better?

Honestly, I think the chances of you ending up in a divorce/unhappy situation are probably around the same for either (marrying for love vs marrying for money)

Ideally you would want to marry someone who can provide both but if that's not an option, you have to choose what works best for you...

At least she isn't living a life similar to her dad's.

My dads third wife and kinda my mom married for the money. It was all about money.

Everything was about money and looks. That’s all anyone talked about.

Now my dads twenty year younger ex third wife lives with her vapid emotionally messed up daughter who supports her despite having gotten everything when my dad died. She went deeply into debt expecting more.

What a waste of a family. She started dating my dad like ten years before he left my mom.

She blames my dad like he was some controlling monster but she was a hot 19 year old. Then she got rich in real estate.

She has zero excuses for the train wreck her life has become. Despite everything, my mom went on to kick ass all by herself.

But my mom was also the classic angry first wife despite being the hot second wife. So there’s that.

As someone who married a poor man and now supports myself and raises kids mostly alone I want to wring all of their necks for the stupid shit they freak out over and make important. I wouldn’t choose that life again in a million years.

It’s poor misery. Back biting.

Catty. Depressed aimless kids.

Petty drama.

Marrying for a visa isn't a good idea.

well he wasn't wealthy, but he was higher than me on the social rung and i wanted a ticket in. i married him for a visa.

it was an awful relationship, but i did what i had to do.

got away, will soon be a citizen, and remarried for love. your friend is in for a shock.

unless the man is truly so wealthy that he bleeds money, most are extremely frugal and don't just spoil the c**p out of women, no matter what they promise at first.

Dating rich people can be a waste of time.

Not Married; but Dated.

Back in highschool I should have dumped this girl like.. 2 months into the relationship. It was a trainwreck, and I knew it was.

So did she. But her dad, really wanted to make it work. (he liked me, her other BFs were.. well.. not high quality people)

So we went on vacation, he got me cool golf clubs, we went to NBA games, and a bunch of other 'dates' that her dad went with us. It was pretty nice.

Sadly; after breaking up, all the fun times turned into crappy memories, and I sort of regret sticking around as long as I did. Could have been dating other people, or at least not wasting my time with her.

tl/dr - Fun while it lasts, memories not worth it imo.

We hope this person ends up with someone they truly love.

This question always makes me insecure. I belong to a fairly well-to-do family.

But we are noveau riche, so many of my habits have stayed the same as I was growing up in a lower-middle-class family. I made new friends in college who have generational wealth, whom I wouldn't have imagined hanging out with during my teenage, and idk it always felt alienating.

I know within the next five years, I will consider marriage, but this idea of arranged marriage stuff is kind of horrifying.

Like, just on the basis of money someone decides to spend life with me is kind of scary. I have been in romantic relationships but things didn't work out the way I wanted.

So having a love marriage right now seems a distant idea to me.

A marriage of convenience will only end up in a miserable life.

It seems these relationships always ends badly at some point, or the couple ends up having very separate lives. This negative pattern also repeats itself with women desperate for a relationship, security, or trying to please their families.

Many of my friends and relatives pursued relationships of convenience. Their self-esteem and identity almost disappears, making them continuously miserable.

A few told me they regretted getting married or having children. Ultimately my sympathy lies with the children in these situations. My niece is unceremoniously dumped on relatives whenever possible and clearly developing emotional issues due to her situation.

People who marry for money can expect that their marriage or life won't be a happy one. You can already see it from these stories and the stories you're bound to hear from other people.

As one user wisely pointed out, it's essential for couples to align their financial decisions, regardless of their financial status. In doing so, couples can at least have one less problem to tackle in their marriage.

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