Going to college and getting married?

[mommamaree]

The other thread about dating age made me think of a question.

Why do so many people think parents helping their grown child with college expenses must/does end when and if that child decides to marry. If one of my children meets their spouse in their teens or early twenties and, after discerning marriage with them, wants to get married while in college, my husband and I are committed to continuing whatever aid we had promised to give them. Why should we withdraw our financial assistance? In my opinion, withdrawing help would be a way to exert control of the choices of a grown child makes that has nothing to do with education. Why is that assumption there that aid should/would be withdrawn?

 

[TheRealJuliane]

The other thread about dating age made me think of a question.

Why do so many people think parents helping their grown child with college expenses must/does end when and if that child decides to marry. If one of my children meets their spouse in their teens or early twenties and, after discerning marriage with them, wants to get married while in college, my husband and I are committed to continuing whatever aid we had promised to give them. Why should we withdraw our financial assistance? In my opinion, withdrawing help would be a way to exert control of the choices of a grown child makes that has nothing to do with education. Why is that assumption there that aid should/would be withdrawn?

I think it is up to the people involved. Some parents would interpret the decision to marry as a signal that says, “I am now an adult, I wish to handle my future myself, I will take it from here, thanks Mom and Dad.” In other cases, supporting a young person or a young couple would just be the charitable thing to do.

In our case, we intend for our sons to be off the family “payroll” when they are in grad school. So if they married at that point, we’d help pay some expenses, especially with the wedding, and perhaps with suitable housing. It would depend entirely upon the situation at the time.

 

[CradleJourney]

The other thread about dating age made me think of a question.

Why do so many people think parents helping their grown child with college expenses must/does end when and if that child decides to marry. If one of my children meets their spouse in their teens or early twenties and, after discerning marriage with them, wants to get married while in college, my husband and I are committed to continuing whatever aid we had promised to give them. Why should we withdraw our financial assistance? In my opinion, withdrawing help would be a way to exert control of the choices of a grown child makes that has nothing to do with education. Why is that assumption there that aid should/would be withdrawn?

In my opinion, a successful marriage is based on being two independent adults who fully comprehend that independence, choosing to surrender that to merge with their spouse. So, to me, unless the student is already paying their own way, and has experience living and working in the “real world”, then they aren’t ready for marriage. Therefore, there would be no support to withdraw.

Now I respect that different families are able to help to different extents and have different values. But to me - continuing to give money for education would be something that might be seen as an attempt to continue to control the child by the parent, rather than letting the newly married couple set their own finances, priorities, plans and agendas. (What if they decide to have one of them postpone their schooling, or transfer schools? Once married, that is their decision - not the parents.) I have no problem with giving adult children money, I just think it has to be a straight up gift with no conditions (like using it for a specific purpose) attached, or it has the potential to become an intrusion on the marital relationship.

FTR - my oldest married her high school sweetheart after attending 4 years of college in a different city (we assisted with tuition). They became officially engaged while she was working on her master’s in yet another city, and then married shortly after her graduation.

 

[JackieMom]

If financial assistance has already been promised, then yes, a suitable marriage should not cause the parents to break that promise.

But, my parents took our marriages to mean we were fully fledged adults with our own families and households. We were no longer under their wings - we made an adult choice to start a new family. They have always been helpful and generous but cut off major financial support once we decided to marry. On top of that, my husband would not have felt good about accepting large sums of money from my parents to cover what he considered to be his responsibility, or about accepting money from his parents once he was a grown man.

Ultimately, had I wanted my parents to cover grad school, I would have just postponed the wedding. We took out loans to cover my husband’s graduate degree and paid out of pocket for my CE.

I think this is how we will manage things in our own family. Getting married is an adult choice, and young people deciding to take on the responsibility of marriage need to be prepared to handle all the responsibilities associated with it. It’s not just “playing house” on mom and dad’s dime.