# Fiance & I are at a Stalemate



## USD2018 (Apr 4, 2018)

Hello all, 

I am new to the forum and my current predicament is what has led me here. 

I am engaged to a wonderful man that I share many common financial goals with. The problem? We cannot agree on how to reach those goals. 

The situation: I am a recent college grad in debt (student loans & credit cards & car financing) which I am working to pay off with income from my full time job. I was just promoted to full time with a pay raise so I am very happy and comfortable with my financial situation and my plan to approach paying off the debt which I will not go into unwarranted detail over (basically the traditional method of paying off highest interest credit first and considering loan consolidation down the road). 

My fiancé did not go to college but is up and coming in the IT field (less than 1 year of experience, working contract positions) and his income is equal to mine. Our combined annual gross income is $110,000 in San Diego, CA. 

I am 24 years old and he is 30. No kids. Currently we do not pay rent as we are staying with family temporarily and CONSTANTLY arguing about our next choice of living situation. We were renting a two bedroom apartment and decided not to renew the lease. We want to either rent a new place closer to our jobs or pursue purchasing a home. 

He is inheriting $350K from his grandmother and he would love to invest in real-estate. Realistically, his inheritance will not be useful for much more than a down payment in San Diego. Given this, he wants to purchase foreclosed homes out of state (Utah or Texas) and restore/sell those homes at market value. Not a bad idea in my opinion, but I feel that given his lack of experience and knowledge with investing, real-estate markets, and the entirety of this idea, I just don't feel confident with his plans. The extent of his "plans" is so simplistic that I cannot take him seriously. He is basing his financial decisions on his frustration with the housing market and cost of living in California, so I think his plans are in danger of flopping because he never had an interest in flipping homes at all and does not reflect much of an interest now (outside of the money he imagines he will be making). 

I grew up watching my parents and grandparents buying/flipping/selling homes. It is not often the simplistic, quick, and pretty picture depicted by HGTV. I will admit that I am timid about out-of-state transactions as well. I want to conduct financial decisions within places that we are familiar. That would mean our home town, not random foreclosure listings in other states that he sees online. 

Even so, I would not condemn him for embarking on this journey if that is how he wants to apply himself. What I have a HUGE problem with is that he wants both of us to quit our jobs in order to move into the homes while he remodels them. The concept is of course to avoid rent/mortgage payments. 

My complaints are the following: 

I love my job. I'm grateful for the job and it financially sustains my debt & living expenses. I went through college and got into debt in the first place to have a job like this!
I love living in San Diego at this time of our lives. I want to eventually move out of state when we find someplace that we mutually love. But, for the time being I feel like I am where I am supposed to be because I am laying the foundations of my career.
We are both currently entry level at our jobs. In my opinion, we need much more job experience before jumping ship.
My gut feeling is that he is not prepared for investing. He has done little research, he claims that financial advisers are worthless and only want to accept your money, and I have seen him experience buyer's remorse over several large purchases in the past (his car for example)

While I respect the fact that his inheritance is 100% his to do with as he chooses, I feel that he is being inconsiderate about how his decision will affect my personal and professional development. It's not all about me, but it's not all about him either and he wont shut his mouth long enough to really listen to my perspective in the first place. 

Currently, this is a topic that we simply do not bring up due to the stalemate we are in. We argue to the point of not discussing because he sees our difference of opinion as an ultimatum for our relationship. 

He is unwilling to remain in San Diego any longer than he feels he "has to." and apparently neither of our jobs matters enough to him to obligate him to stay. He is blaming me for being superficial and choosing my job and living in San Diego over the possibility of him purchasing a house for us to live in and own outright. I am sensing that in his desperation, he is becoming outright manipulative with statements meant to make me feel guilty and degraded. 

He tells me my job isn't worth staying for, he claims he will "take care of me" once I quite my job, he guilt trips me about wanting to continue a career even after having kids (when he knew full well the whole time that I want a career and family simultaneously), and he claims that I am defiant with no respect for him. 

I do not know how to move forward. I want to pursue either renting another apartment soon to give his mom her house back or pursue purchasing a home in San Diego and committing to a mortgage payment. Both ideas he scoffs at. He says rent is a waste of money and we are better off saving money by living with his mother (I cringe at the fact that he wants to continue freeloading). To the latter, he says that he wants "adventure and new experiences" because he is done being stuck in San Diego. 

For anyone who has endured reading through this long post, I sure would appreciate thoughts, incite, advice, or your own testimonies and how you are dealing.


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## Bananapeel (May 4, 2015)

Sounds like you two aren't compatible on a fundamental level. It's better to find this out before marriage than after.


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## RoseAglow (Apr 11, 2013)

@USD2018, you have described a few major incompatibilities. 

Just because of my own personal history, the one that gave me shivers was his insistence that your job isn't worth anything and that you should trust him to take care of you, he doesn't want you working once you have kids. That is awesome for women who want that, but for women who want a career, it hints at significant, long-term problems down the road. It is possible that he will never take your career seriously and that if you do end up having kids together, he is going to expect you to do the traditional work- e.g. 95% of everything. You might end up having to fight to be taken seriously, to have help. I would be wary of this. I am working woman and it was important to me that my H was the kind of man who was OK with his wife having a career. 

So, outside of that potential flag, I'm concerned that you have family history and real-life knowledge of what it takes to flip homes, but he is not taking your thoughts and considerations and experience into account. This is a current flag, not a potential one. You are correct that he is overlooking not only your preferences but also your experience. This is not good.

When I was dating, I had someone who was very wise tell me that I should look at how any potential mate handled my pain or discomfort. As you said, it's not ALL about you, but your feelings should be considered. Your fiance sounds dismissive of your very real and wise (career, financial) concerns.

You are still quite young. The choice of who you marry profoundly affects your life course. At this point, my recommendation to you is to rent a house or apartment in San Diego and give yourself a long engagement. At 24, you're probably growing into your own now- sometimes people who are younger don't stand up for themselves very well yet. If you have been together with your fiance for several years, he may be used to a "Man Leads, Woman Follows" relationship. It sounds like that is not a good fit for you. I'd give it more time to see if he treats you as an equal. Right now, he isn't doing that. 

Best of luck to you!


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## wilson (Nov 5, 2012)

Wow! You sound way more mature and financially responsible at 24 than he is at 30. You are absolutely right to be concerned about plans to flip houses in another state. Flipping houses is a ton of work and certainly the experienced flippers are already scooping up the easy houses. I imagine he's going to lose a lot of that $350k gaining experience in everything that can go wrong. I get the feeling his only experience so far is watching the HGTV reality shows.

Be very cautious about leaving your job at this point. If you take a few years off trying to flip houses, that experience won't matter. You'll have to start at the bottom again. And you'll have to be making payments on your loans the whole time.

Based on what you've said, I get the feeling he's impulsively jumping into this. I don't get the feeling he's the type who will make it work. I'm guessing he'll jump into something else if the flipping gets too hard. It's hard to know what the future will bring. Sometimes guys like this find their niche and do very well, but sometimes they just jump from scheme to scheme and barely manage to scrape by. The fact that he's living with parents at 30 isn't a good sign for future prosperity.

We don't know a whole lot about your relationship, but go forward with the same caution you are showing about these financial matters. There are some issues of concern which will have huge impacts on your life with him. A marriage is supposed to last forever. Respect and compromise are essential components if the relationship is going to last. Don't hold onto this relationship if it's going to be like this always.


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## Diana7 (Apr 19, 2016)

I would put off the marriage indefinitely until you can get this sorted, if you can. It seems that you both have very different ideas of where you want to live, work and housing as well as general money issues. 
You may be incompatible for marriage if you are already having such major disagreements.


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## Andy1001 (Jun 29, 2016)

Your boyfriend is under the delusion that three hundred and fifty grand is a lot of money.It’s not.
The reason these houses are sold cheaply is because they need lots of work.Thats why construction firms buy them,they can do the work using their own tradesmen and laborers,paying a wage.You would have to hire tradesmen and pay top rate for it.You would also need architectural and engineering advice and need to pay for a full structural survey BEFORE you buy.If there is a house in your area suitable for restoration and you can still live in it then you may eventually make a profit but these jobs can take years and regularly become money pits.
DO NOT give up your job under any circumstances.Any future employer would take a dim view of someone this early in their career giving up their job for something as frivolous and ill thought out as this pie in the sky idea.
Remember this.If these houses were so sought after they wouldn’t be cheap to buy.


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## USD2018 (Apr 4, 2018)

Thanks for all of the replies so far. 

I don't really talk to others about my relationship very much or about what is going on in my mind and how I feel about the relationship. That's because I come from a hypercritical family & upbringing. So, I don't confide much in my family and I get too embarrassed to confide in my friends. 

I attend counseling now to work out the issues I have from my experience with growing up and constantly being criticized by my mother. As such, the past year or two I have been much more upfront about my needs and expectations in my other relationships, especially with my fiancé. We have been together only a year and a few months. We got engaged after two months, and based on that I knew it would be better to have a long engagement and continue to see how we would grow together. 

I think that he lacks a level of maturity that most males reach around age 30. It has been pretty distressing to me to feel so suppressed. He doesn't seem to comprehend that his treatment of me is manipulative and less than gentlemanly most of the time since he primarily is absorbed in his own little world and acts out of selfishness. I'm still baffled that even though I can identify my issues with him as clear as day, I still feel a sense of normality being in the relationship (if that makes sense)?

I might sound mature with my goals and current financial state, but I certainly struggle with "coming into my own" as RoseAglow puts it. I know that I am being disrespected and dismissed, but I am so used to this kind of treatment from my upbringing that I don't seem to mind as it feels normal for me to be so invalidated. Pretty crappy, but that's why I started seeking therapy and stopped planning the wedding. 

Things often escalate to a fight before he takes me seriously. I've mentioned this to him and I think this hit home with him because ever since, I have noticed some improvement in his treatment of me. Overall, we are still far from where I want our communication skills to be at. He does have several essential characteristics that I need in a partner. I can trust him not to be dishonest, he has a solid conscience when it comes to doing the right thing, he makes genuine efforts to improve our relationship (cleans up after himself more, asks me more questions about my day and what I'm thinking about, complains less, tries to be more positive, etc.). 

I think the essence of our incompatibility is that he is a reforming man-child. When he argues, he resembles a toddler stomping their foot and plugging their ears while shouting over the other person. 

Anyway, this all sounds very unromantic and most people would say that we have an unhealthy dynamic. The thing is, I agree and so does he. We aren't blind to the dysfunction between us. We still don't want to break up, and we are probably ideal candidates for pre-marital counseling. 

Any other comments/suggestions are welcome. Thanks!


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## GusPolinski (Jan 21, 2014)

Step #1: Leave California


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## BioFury (Jul 9, 2015)

+1, California sucks. 

I understand your reservations about leaving your jobs so early in your careers, which is a legitimate concern. You and your fiance really need to learn how to compromise, and find a solution that you both are happy with. A good rule to go by is that neither of you should do anything without an enthusiastic agreement from the other party.

For instance, you could suggest that you two could stay in California for 1 or 2 more years, at which point you'll move with him to another state and seek employment with another company. Or, you could compromise more in his favor, and suggest that he find a home closer to you, say in Arizona or in rural CA, and once he successfully "flips" his first house profitably, you will move with him. It's perfectly feasible that both of you could find entry level careers in your field elsewhere.

However, it's not reasonable for him to ask you to quit your job, and move to another state, in order to pursue a venture that neither of you have any direct experience with. Real-estate empires are not a dream you make happen over night. He needs to be diligent, and slow-moving. If he's not careful and judicious, the $350,000 he inherited will be gone in a flash.


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## Adelais (Oct 23, 2013)

Stay engaged and don't quit your job. Let him go pursue his dream, and when you are lonely, break up and find someone who respects your brain, your need to fulfill your dreams, and has the wisdom to seek the wisdom of experienced people when making big decisions.

After he settles in a state and successfully flips a home, you could consider looking for a job there...but then again, you may have realized that you have regained some happiness while not arguing with a man-child all the time, and you may want to just let him go.

He sounds stubborn, and is willing to say anything to convince you to let him have his way. He is manipulative and trying to guilt you into quitting your job. That will not change. At 30, that is the way he is.


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## uhtred (Jun 22, 2016)

GusPolinski said:


> Step #1: Leave California


There are about 40 million people in California. A large percentage of them have the option of leaving - but they stay. 

Real-estate is very expensive but there are a lot of advantages to living in California that for many people make up for that.


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## uhtred (Jun 22, 2016)

OP - a few things to think about

Its important that a couple have compatible ideas about life. There is no right or wrong, but if you both imagine what you want your lives to be like in 10 years, 30 years - then those need to agree.

Despite my issues with my wife (specific to sex) we have always had very compatible ideas about what we want our lives to be like: Both with science / engineering jobs that are important to us. Lots of travel. Live in a place with a beautiful outdoors, but near a major city. No children. Lots of spending money on fun / excitement, not much on status items. etc etc. 

You and your fiance need to see if you are really on the same page at least for the critical items: children, work, desired type of place to live (Chicago vs NY is OK, but if one of you wants to live on a ranch in Texas and the other wants San Francisco night life, you have a problem).

If you do not have compatible goals, you need to call off the marriage. Neither is wrong, but you would not be happy together. 


As far as investing: that takes real knowledge and skill. Things with modest growth like low risk mutual funds are fine to do without a lot of research, but specialty investing like realestate needs real knowledge and a lot of work. 

If you want to buy property as an investment, you need to know a LOT about not just the property, but local laws, taxes etc that could have a dramatic effect on the property value. Its *work*. If it were easy, people would do that instead of working.

For people who have the talent and are willing to put in the effort, investing in realestate can be a very reasonable career, but its is not a get-rich-quick method.


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## USD2018 (Apr 4, 2018)

Andy1001 said:


> Your boyfriend is under the delusion that three hundred and fifty grand is a lot of money.It’s not.


My thoughts exactly. This amount of money is great for savings, getting rid of other petty debt, maybe getting into some smaller investments, or even a down payment for a house to lower the monthly mortgage payment. But hey, it's not my inheritance. If he wants to blow it that's on him, I'm steering clear of any position that leaves me vulnerable of losing what I've worked for. I mean, I worked at my job for pennies for two years before the administrators even hinted at promoting me upon graduation. 



BioFury said:


> +1, California sucks.
> 
> I understand your reservations about leaving your jobs so early in your careers, which is a legitimate concern. You and your fiance really need to learn how to compromise, and find a solution that you both are happy with. A good rule to go by is that neither of you should do anything without an enthusiastic agreement from the other party.
> 
> For instance, you could suggest that you two could stay in California for 1 or 2 more years, at which point you'll move with him to another state and seek employment with another company. Or, you could compromise more in his favor, and suggest that he find a home closer to you, say in Arizona or in rural CA, and once he successfully "flips" his first house profitably, you will move with him. It's perfectly feasible that both of you could find entry level careers in your field elsewhere.


Thanks for the advice. I've been pushing for staying in California for 1 or 2 more years. Of course it sucks here! I don't have the desire to raise a family here, but I don't see the need to rush. We could easily stay another couple of years to put ourselves in a better position to apply for higher paying jobs elsewhere. Plus, we haven't traveled to any of these states together to learn about the area and make a well-rounded decision on where to settle long term. This compromise puts him into a temper tantrum and he starts ranting "I'm thirty I don't want to waste anymore time and you all want to stay here for a job that didn't give you a raise for two years!" Well, while I understand that passing time without living your dreams sucks from personal experience, I also know what it is like to experience the payoff of waiting it out and working for the result. Even though my job "treated me like crap" (his terminology) for a few years, now I am now running a lab and being paid a more than decent entry level salary with benefits, plus I am eligible for another promotion in 1 more year! I wish he would see the compromise of 1 or 2 more years being worth the wait so that we could have some more experience. I have a gut feeling that it is fickle to leave a full time job within the first two years of accepting the offer. Honestly, 2 years is a compromise for me, because what I really feel is that a decent amount of time would be 5 years. 2 is the minimum of what I would feel okay with. 

As for the latter compromise, I think this will be my next suggestion to him. It would imply that I wont run away with him the moment he gets his inheritance, and that might motivate him to work harder at researching and seeking help for whatever venture he decides to undertake. I just know that once he sees how much effort it will take, he wont want to go for it. He definitely knows how to apply himself when it is something he really wants. But, he is showing signs of being shifty in things that require effort outside of his current career. Since I met him a little over a year ago, I've seen him switch from ambulance EMT work to computer IT administration. He worked very obsessively to get to where he is now in IT, I even envied his dedication. Now I'm wondering if he can commit to the field or if he's going to try and start all over again in real estate. Could go either way. My bet is that he will stick with IT and dump the real estate investment idea. Then he will probably blame my lack of support as the reason he didn't go through with it (*rolls eyes*). 



Araucaria said:


> Stay engaged and don't quit your job. Let him go pursue his dream, and when you are lonely, break up and find someone who respects your brain, your need to fulfill your dreams, and has the wisdom to seek the wisdom of experienced people when making big decisions.
> 
> After he settles in a state and successfully flips a home, you could consider looking for a job there...but then again, you may have realized that you have regained some happiness while not arguing with a man-child all the time, and you may want to just let him go.
> 
> He sounds stubborn, and is willing to say anything to convince you to let him have his way. He is manipulative and trying to guilt you into quitting your job. That will not change. At 30, that is the way he is.


Don't I know it. I wonder, is my apathy toward whether or not we end up getting married concerning? I mean, I can see past his childish tendencies and attempt to not let it affect me in the short term. But, it would be delusional of me to think that I can happily deal with such behavior the rest of my life. Inevitably, a toll will be taken on my self-esteem for knowingly committing myself to someone that I am less than thrilled about. The thing is, we got engaged early and I should have discouraged that. I don't know what I was thinking. But, now that we are engaged I feel like I should have a higher sense of commitment to making things work out, as if we are already married. I don't have a religious reason for thinking so per say, but I gave my word that I would accept his hand in marriage and now I feel like I would be a failure if I dropped him before trying every possible solution to succeed as a couple. I wonder if this is an extreme approach to the status of being engaged? It's not all terrible, I am happier than I was in my two previous relationships. At least now I am confident and secure enough to not let my partner push me around and deceive me. Having a sense of confidence in his fidelity and his focus on starting a family with me has given me massive satisfaction compared to my past. So, I guess I see these other struggles as things worthy of "getting through" if possible. 



uhtred said:


> There are about 40 million people in California. A large percentage of them have the option of leaving - but they stay.
> 
> Real-estate is very expensive but there are a lot of advantages to living in California that for many people make up for that.


This is especially true in the short term for the both of us. For one thing, both sides of our families all live in California as well as our entire social and professional networks. 



uhtred said:


> OP - If you want to buy property as an investment, you need to know a LOT about not just the property, but local laws, taxes etc that could have a dramatic effect on the property value. Its *work*. If it were easy, people would do that instead of working.
> 
> For people who have the talent and are willing to put in the effort, investing in realestate can be a very reasonable career, but its is not a get-rich-quick method.


I keep telling him to post his ideas to some kind of forum so that someone else will tell him exactly this! He doesn't want to hear it from me or anyone else who is close to him. If a third party, or even a professional financial advisor, pointed out the details to him then I think he would either a) create a realistic plan or b) figure out something else to do with his money.


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## wilson (Nov 5, 2012)

Do either of you have any sort of home ownership or home improvement experience? It sounds like neither of you have done that. Unless he has been through a few projects of his own, he has absolutely no idea of the cost, complexity, effort, and frustration that every single project has. TV and real estate seminars make it seem so easy, but it's not at all. Has he even hired a contractor for any sort of project? Dealing with contractors is a skill gained only through experience. If he wants to jump into house flipping with no experience, that's his choice, but you should not follow along. And unless you actually enjoy doing those kind of projects, it's not fair of him to force you do to it with him.  You'll be working 60-80 hour weeks doing hard and dirty work.

With what you describe of him going from EMT->IT->RE, maybe all you have to do is stall him a bit and he'll get interested in something else. Tell him that you want to keep your job for the benefits, but he can start looking at houses.


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## kag123 (Feb 6, 2012)

Has he ever left the nest of his mom's house? (Did I read correctly that you are both living in an apartment in his mom's house with no rent?) 

He's 30 and doesn't seem to have a stable career, and seems like he's never really had to live life on his own two feet if he's never had to pay rent/find a place to live outside of mom's house. 

So he's getting this windfall of 350k coming his way and to him this is like winning the lottery, he thinks he can use that money to change his life. The truth is that 350k isn't really that much money. It would be very easy to blow it. But for someone who's never really had to grow up and make it completely on their own, it would be easy to think the opposite. This is how a 16yr old getting a 350k pot of money would think. 

I would not marry this man anytime soon. For a 30 year old he has a lot of growing up to do and you have a lot of fundamental differences here. 

If you are seeing a counselor already, what about asking if that counselor could do some pre-marriage counseling with you both. 

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk


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## Satya (Jun 22, 2012)

@USD2018, you've gotten some very good advice so far.

You're very mature for a 24 year-old in terms of the considerations you place on your future, both as an individual and as a person wanting to embark on a life-long partnership.

The problem is that your fiancé's future goals and your future goals are not in alignment. No matter how much you may love or care for him, your gut is already screaming out at you not to follow his advice, because it is not the advice of a learned or experienced man. It's the advice of a risk-taker, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pantsman. You've clearly worked too hard to close up shop and just invest everything into this man's lofty goals.

Please listen to the collective advice on this board, coming from people older than you who have had more life experience. Take it from me - I gave up a very promising job I landed just after college to go move to a different country and get married (I divorced my first husband because we had some pretty severe incompatibilities). When I married him as a 23 year-old, I had to wait to work legally, start over from scratch, and I was never thanked or recognized for the personal sacrifices I made. Those sacrifices stunted my career progression by about 10 years.

Do not give up your livelihood, your income, and your future for a man's "great ideas."
Do not buy a house with a man you are not married to.

If he truly wants to do this and wants you along for the ride, you need to set some boundaries and requirements. Ones that will make YOU feel more secure and that you can TRUST he will follow through:

- He spends no less than 6 months in classes/courses designed to teach how to successfully flip houses. Not the garbage stuff on TV, actual real-world experience coming from people who have done this for a living for years.
- Agrees to do this closer to home rather than in another state, where you will NOT be able to easily (or cheaply) monitor progress.
- Etc (fill in your desired boundaries).

I bet you anything that if he starts taking a serious class on the subject, he's going to tire of it and give up. Many people do not stick with things once they realize the amount of real work and dedication involved. You say that he's working in IT? What aspect? Security? If so, he has a better chance of success if he keeps at that. There is a severe need for good cybersecurity experts, for instance.

At the end of the day, only you can decide what's best for your future. My husband says that in life we are often faced with difficult or challenging choices, and each time he is faced with such a choice, he thinks back to the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when the knight tells Indiana when he is faced with having to choose the cup of Christ among thousands of chalices, "... choose *wisely*."


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## USD2018 (Apr 4, 2018)

wilson said:


> Do either of you have any sort of home ownership or home improvement experience?... If he wants to jump into house flipping with no experience, that's his choice, but you should not follow along. And unless you actually enjoy doing those kind of projects, it's not fair of him to force you do to it with him. You'll be working 60-80 hour weeks doing hard and dirty work.


Nope and nope! No experience. Well, my experience is second-hand from growing up in a house that my parents flipped. They bought it to one day retire in and my sister and I were dragged to Lowes and Home Depot every weekend. It was like living on a construction site and as a result I hate projects and messes, I like when things are done and ready to be lived in. So, based on that experience I know that it's all fun and games picking flooring, paint, and demolishing things until you start to wish that you could just enjoy the house already. Took him 3 years to finish a two story three bedroom home. 



wilson said:


> With what you describe of him going from EMT->IT->RE, maybe all you have to do is stall him a bit and he'll get interested in something else. Tell him that you want to keep your job for the benefits, but he can start looking at houses.


I like your thinking. I am 90% sure that this will work in the long run. I guess when direct communication fails I can resort to quiet dispute. 



kag123 said:


> Has he ever left the nest of his mom's house? (Did I read correctly that you are both living in an apartment in his mom's house with no rent?)
> 
> He's 30 and doesn't seem to have a stable career, and seems like he's never really had to live life on his own two feet if he's never had to pay rent/find a place to live outside of mom's house.
> 
> ...


He has been in and out of his mom's house over the years. She is a doctor and was very busy during his childhood and was never home, she divorced his father (a lawyer) when he was really young. So, a single mother/physician makes for a very busy woman. He was totally spoiled financially by his parents, but emotionally neglected. As a result, neither of her sons were actively pushed to excel on their own during the appropriate age. Both of her sons have been in/out of her house. He has never "had" to be on his own two feet. He claims that he "wants" to be on his own but his actions aren't really proving that to me. When we met, we shared the desire to move in together once we got engaged. I think that he was motivated to impress me at first, so he initiated the lease on a 2 bedroom apartment and we stayed there for a year. It was nice, but he was always complaining about what a waste of money paying rent is. I roll my eyes at the spoiled and entitled attitude he has toward paying money for accommodations. Rent and mortgages are expensive, but the trade off is having a home. He is far too content with settling in his mother's million dollar home with a view for my taste. I grew up spoiled by my parents myself, but I can not comprehend the entitlement that he portrays. I blurted out yesterday "who are you to not have to pay rent or a mortgage? what you're doing is freeloading off of your mom and trying to trap me with you" and he was so insulted. I feel bad for hurting his feelings but at the same time his mentality is truly sickening to me. 

I am certainly going to seek out further counseling for us as a couple. I was diagnosed with depression by my medical doctor and I've never had issues being depressed before. It seems to be situational and stress induced. Nothing raises my stress levels more than regretting my choice of fiancé 80% of the time we are together. So, hopefully pre-marriage counseling will be more enlightening. 

One huge negative characteristic I have noticed in myself is that in my dissatisfaction in my relationship, I've been more vulnerable to becoming attracted to other people (co-workers for example). I don't read too much into the attraction other than it being a reflection of me and my issues right now. It's out of character for me to really feel tempted by attractions outside of my relationships. I think that when I interact with male coworkers who are the same age as he is, only with PhDs and mature outlooks on life, I unfairly compare them to my fiancé. Once I was asked for my number by one of the grad students who did not realize that I was in a relationship (I was not engaged yet and usually only had small talk with this person). I told him I was flattered, but I was in a relationship. Sometimes I feel so guilty for thinking this, but I often wonder what things would be like if I were with someone like that. I've never brought it up to my fiancé, and I try to make sure that those fleeting attractions don't take too much of a hold. Whatever decision I make about my current relationship, I want it to be about me and him. I don't want my judgment to be influenced by an outside attraction. Plus, my attraction to others is so short lived anyway because it's only the "idea" of these men with mature characteristics that I'm drawn to. I also don't want to fall into the pit of viewing my fiancé solely as a man-child. He is deeply immature, but not a totally inconsiderate and incompetent moron.


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## USD2018 (Apr 4, 2018)

Satya said:


> @USD2018, you've gotten some very good advice so far.
> 
> You're very mature for a 24 year-old in terms of the considerations you place on your future, both as an individual and as a person wanting to embark on a life-long partnership.
> 
> ...


Thank you for the response. He is currently a network administrator but he does talk about security IT as a future prospect. I feel far more confident in his IT ambitions than something as seemingly random as real estate investment. I am going to undertake your suggestion to lay out those requirements. That is indeed a great way to test his resolve and possibly filter out unlikely ventures in real estate.


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## kag123 (Feb 6, 2012)

*Re: Fiance &amp; I are at a Stalemate*

Regarding your attraction to others:

You've got a good head on your shoulders, but you are young. I truly don't mean that in a condescending manner. It sounds like the engagement came very quickly and that you two haven't really had a lot of time to go through the typical rough periods of a relationship yet. Daydreaming about other guys is a red flag that your current relationship is not on a good path. By the time you are ready to walk down the aisle, you should have no doubts or regrets in your mind weighing you down, and you shouldn't feel the draw of daydreaming about another guy. This is your honeymoon period right now... marriage only makes things more complicated. If it's not great now, this early on, it's not going to get better with time. This is definitely the time to iron out all of these issues and determine whether it's better to end the relationship. 

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk


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## wilson (Nov 5, 2012)

USD2018 said:


> Nope and nope! No experience. Well, my experience is second-hand from growing up in a house that my parents flipped. They bought it to one day retire in and my sister and I were dragged to Lowes and Home Depot every weekend. It was like living on a construction site and as a result I hate projects and messes


Well, there you go. That's a rock-solid, irrefutable reason for not wanting to do this. You can tell him that he's free to pursue his dream and you won't stop him, but you can't take living in a construction zone again. You've done that before and couldn't stand it. If he wants to rehab houses, it has to be a house that you're not living in.


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## uhtred (Jun 22, 2016)

A good friend of mine, an extremely smart, capable guy decided to try real estate investment. He did his research, and bought some out of state properties. After a couple of years of steadily losing money, he got out. He was smart: he invested an amount that he was willing to lose as an experiment so it wasn't a disaster, just a good "lesson".

There are some people who succeed at it, but most do not do well.


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## Thor (Oct 31, 2011)

People have very different priorities. It sounds like, for you, location is important. It sounds like for your fiance location is not at all important. Then there would be the specific job you do, where kids and family fit in, prestige, income, what kinds of people you work with, and a bunch of other things.

If you don't have fairly similar lists in priority order with your spouse, there will always be conflicts. He wants to move for a higher income, you want to stay in sunny San Diego. He seeks prestige and works tons of hours, you'd rather he spend more time with the kids. Those kinds of things.

If you were to write down your priorities in order, and he did his list, do you think there would be much commonality?

Secondly, I live in Utah and this is not the place to flip houses! It is a hyper competitive business here. Everybody and his brother tries to flip houses or own rental properties. Finding a good candidate house to flip requires a real inside track somehow, like being a realtor or knowing an elderly relative who will give you a deal. Fixer-upper houses are priced as if the basic repairs and remodeling will only cost the materials. The labor is expected to be done by the buyer, so there is no real profit to be made.

Financially, here the better bet is to own apartments.

Thirdly, I recommend for you (and for your fiance), Dave Ramsey. His concepts are solid. For you he would advise attacking your smallest debt first rather than the highest interest rate. Yes, mathematically it makes more sense to attack the higher interest rate, but psychologically it frequently fails. So he advises make minimum payments on all but the smallest debt. Attack that one as hard as you can. When you pay it off, roll the amount you had been paying into the next smaller debt. Then when that one is paid off, roll that payment into the next larger one. This creates a snowball both mathematically and psychologically, harnessing human nature to get your debts paid off, and quickly.

Dave also recommends having an emergency fund of about 6 months basic living expenses. Don't use credit cards, use a debit card or cash. Don't buy a house until you have a good down payment, and keep the mortgage payments to a sensible % of your take home pay.

Fwiw, my lifetime experience is that almost everybody makes mortgage payments for life. They get a 30 yr mortgage but they move in 5-10 years, which results in a new 30 year mortgage. After 30 years they are nearing retirement but still have 20 years left on their current mortgage!! The smart plan is to go with a 15 yr mortgage, and if you move to only take out a new mortgage for as long as what was left on the old mortgage. So if you move after 5 years, only get a 10 yr mortgage on your next home. This way you pay off your house in 15 years. The difference in your lifetime spendable money and quality of life is huge if you do this. It does mean not having the biggest newest fanciest house of all your peers, but you will have vastly more wealth to spend on nice experiences like vacations or private school for your kids or a fun retirement for you.

For almost everybody, their home does not turn out to be a money maker. They spend as much as if they rented. Also, after inflation and all the interest they paid, there is no big real profit. A few exceptions would be California, and metro NY/NJ/CT from say the late 70's to around 2000 there was a huge run up. But values are so inflated in those places that buyers today likely won't grow wealth by buying a house. Look at your house as a living expense, not a financial wealth builder.

Another financial source I love is Tony Robbins book "Money". At your age with your profession you should be able to retire young and wealthy! Follow Dave Ramsey's basic concepts of no debt and having a budget. Invest in good quality no cost mutual funds. Tony Robbins will inspire you (that's his gig), and his book is full of very sound financial advice from high quality sources. Diversify. This means US, international, big companies, small companies, different industries. Max out your 401k at least to what your employer matches. Consider Roth as well as traditional 401k/IRA (this diversifies your tax strategy). Look at the expenses charged by the investment or the institution, and understand how they are calculating their claimed returns. Real estate can be very good if you look longer term than flipping. Owning rentals is great, but doing the work of managing it is a big hassle and time waster, so look into REITs or other ways to own but not be the getting phone calls about broken plumbing or having to constantly deal with problem tenants.

There's no need for you and/or your fiance to be diverting into things like flipping houses since you are in great professions with IT. Put your energies there, and manage your finances per Ramsey and Robbins.


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## USD2018 (Apr 4, 2018)

Satya said:


> @USD2018,
> 
> The problem is that your fiancé's future goals and your future goals are not in alignment. No matter how much you may love or care for him, your gut is already screaming out at you not to follow his advice, because it is not the advice of a learned or experienced man. It's the advice of a risk-taker, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pantsman. You've clearly worked too hard to close up shop and just invest everything into this man's lofty goals.
> ....
> ...


Wanted to do a quick update because last night I told my fiancé that I wanted some form of a compromise. Here is how it went:


First option: We stay in California another 1-2 years to work our jobs for experience while we do research on property investments and flipping homes together. (rejected, too long for him to remain in CA).
Second option: He purchase a foreclosed home near our area and test out his capabilities on his own so that I wont have to drop everything. (rejected, does not want to spend time apart nor does he want to purchase a foreclosure in CA).
Option three: We never reach a compromise and therefore break up. (rejected, he does not want to break up and our conversation ensued with an exchange of jokes about how miserable the other person's life will be once they realize their mistake in not taking the other person's route).

I think he will cave to my stubbornness. As seen above, he is all over the place and does not want to compromise on anything. He doesn't even want to make a solid plan for his real estate goal because deep down he knows he is not serious about it. His brother joined in on the conversation, completely taking my side. I think having a third party listen in and tell him directly how nonsensical and inconsiderate he is being helped make a dent in my fiancé's perspective. 

I sense that we have a deeper underlying stalemate between us, which your response has helped me realize: I do not follow his advice for the exact reasons you bring up and this is why he thinks I am so disrespectful of him. He always says I never "listen" to him, and I always respond by explaining his definition of "listening" is actually "obeying" I suppose that is right, I rarely take his advice, unless I am confident it is something he has experience in. I don't buy into his impulsive decisions. He feels emasculated by me because I don't unquestioningly obey him or follow along with his ideas like I might have when I was younger and less experienced with being manipulated by push-overs. I don't think he knows or means to try and push me around into submissiveness, but the fact that this is what is happening means our relationship is definitely not healthy. 



kag123 said:


> Regarding your attraction to others:
> 
> You've got a good head on your shoulders, but you are young. I truly don't mean that in a condescending manner. It sounds like the engagement came very quickly and that you two haven't really had a lot of time to go through the typical rough periods of a relationship yet. Daydreaming about other guys is a red flag that your current relationship is not on a good path. By the time you are ready to walk down the aisle, you should have no doubts or regrets in your mind weighing you down, and you shouldn't feel the draw of daydreaming about another guy. This is your honeymoon period right now... marriage only makes things more complicated. If it's not great now, this early on, it's not going to get better with time. This is definitely the time to iron out all of these issues and determine whether it's better to end the relationship.
> 
> Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk


Tonight I will bring this up to him, that our relationship is not happy and healthy this early, so what does that say about our future? I will see what his reaction is. We haven't really addressed this truth together yet. 



Thor said:


> If you were to write down your priorities in order, and he did his list, do you think there would be much commonality?
> 
> Secondly, I live in Utah and this is not the place to flip houses!
> ...
> ...


I think we will have to do the list thing to confirm my suspicion, but honestly I think our priorities would be different. At first, we matched. I wanted to leave CA immediately after graduation. However, I was applying to out of state jobs as well as in-state, and I ended up with two offers. One in Everett, WA and the promotion at my current work place. We made the decision together to stay in CA because the Everett job wouldn't advance me as much as the promotion in San Diego would. The promotion in San Diego caused me to rearrange my priorities. Now instead of leaving CA, my top priority is investing my time/energy into my current job 100% with no flaky intentions for the next few years. So, now we have gone from compatible life goals to incompatible life goals. Maybe he is just in a phase of accepting the reality of my promotion and he will come around, not sure yet. 

I believe you about the housing market in Utah. I'm sure any research upon the subject would reveal exactly what you are saying! 

I agree about there being no need. We are in career fields that are increasing in demand, in my mind we are already in a good investment by putting our time into becoming professionals with the jobs that we have. By the way, I love Ramsey. I started listening to him a few weeks ago and we are already starting to follow some of his advice. I've heard about the snowball method for debt payoff, I was actually considering that over the method I've been following. Never heard of Robbins so I will have to look into that one. Thanks for all of the info and advice, it goes much appreciated.


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## salparadise (Sep 13, 2016)

I think he is terribly naive to believe that he can just start flipping and life will be wonderful. I also think that your relationship is shaky––you've said as much already. Even if things were to go relatively well, I don't think your relationship can endure this kind of stress. Real estate is not a genteel game, it's full of sharks and shrewd operators. They'll eat him alive. 

Here's another serious problem with the plan... inheriting $350k at age 30, if managed well, could be the basis of long-term financial security. But, what he's talking about is rolling the dice on the whole wad. That gives him exactly ONE chance, and if it doesn't work out he'll probably be broke.

The first rule of investing (and gambling) is to protect the principal at all costs. After you've made some money you can take a bit more risk with the gains, but still only risking a small percentage on any one bet. I'm not a card player, but one thing I do know is that money management at the table equals survival. Even when you're holding a hand that you believe can't lose, you don't bet all of your chips. If you're playing with say five people, you hope to win one out of five but realize that you could get lucky and win one out of three for awhile... likewise, you could get unlucky and go twenty hands without a win. However, if you're betting 20 percent on each hand, guess what your odds are of surviving a bad run of twenty? Zero. 

That's the problem with the bf's plan. He only gets one shot, and he doesn't even know how to play the game. He's exactly the kind of player the sharks love to see pulling up a chair.

The smart move would be to invest conservatively at first (with a fee only adviser) and in a bull market like we have right now he could reasonably anticipate a 20 percent return. If he can get a 20 percent return he will double that money in five years. At 30 percent it will double every three years. Keep your jobs and pay rent while acquiring the experience/expertise to earn good incomes, the foundation of any financial plan. 

When the careers are established and you've doubled that money a few times, take a small amount and make a down payment on your first house in an upcoming neighborhood. Improve it and flip it. If all goes well do it again. But even if it doesn't go as planned you still have the financial stability to recover and perhaps try again, leveraging what you learned to increase your odds. 

Never, never, never bet all your chips on one roll of the dice.


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## USD2018 (Apr 4, 2018)

Thanks salparadise, I found the analogy a helpful guideline for seeing what kind of a risk he is talking about entering into. 

Over the weekend I gave him back his ring and said that until he is willing to reach a compromise with me, I cannot be engaged to him. My reasoning was that I need to be treated like an equal by my future husband. I also mentioned that he has been far too dismissive of me and my point of views/concerns/goals, to the point where I am no longer convinced that he loves me in the same way that I love him. I'm getting the picture that he views me as an accessory figure to whatever his ideas are, and that I'm not really unique to his plans. Meaning, he wants a woman to follow him wherever he wants to go rather than a woman to make plans with as a team. I feel that he doesn't need me, he just needed my compliance. 

He doesn't get it, he still doesn't get where I'm coming from or why I'm feeling this way. I took a six hour nap after we had this conversation because I was so drained. He denies viewing me as an accessory and he said that my place really can't be filled by just anyone. Still, rather than trying to understand why I came to that conclusion, he just keeps repeating that I'm being stubborn. 

So thanks for the advice everyone! Breaking the engagement was the necessary step for me to re-evaluate and feel free from the stress of being pressured to "make it work." I didn't realize before that I was really putting a lot of pressure on myself earlier than necessary. We got engaged too soon and now we can go back to the step of figuring out if we really want to spend our lives together before committing ourselves to it. We are beginning some couples counseling later in the week, so we haven't completely given up on our relationship. It's a win-win I think. I don't have to feel like I quit the relationship, but we can still take a step back and figure out if we are capable of compromising as a couple. If not, then we might have to end the relationship entirely.

Another bonus for me is moving out of his mom's house. I HATE freeloading and it was only under his pressure that I was staying with him and not moving on to rent a different place. If we renew our engagement in the future, then one of my conditions is to have our own place. I found a studio close to my job and he is pretty sad about not living together but it is what it is. I'm pretty sad about it too, but it would be far too confusing to continue living together while simultaneously breaking off the engagement when the goal of doing so is to work on our compatibility. 

Everyone's advice was very thought out and helpful to me so thanks again!


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## salparadise (Sep 13, 2016)

Smart move. Your priority should be advancing you ability to earn a good income. It should be his too, along with learning how to grow that 350k without undue risk. If he's serious about real estate investing he should be reading, taking courses and gettin a real estate license. There is a ton of knowledge the experienced people have integrated and take for granted. i could be wrong, but my impression is that he doesn't know what he doesn't know. I hate to think about how sad it would be for that little nest egg to vaporize.


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