What Leads to Real Gold
“Those who marry for money earn it.”
This saying cuts across cultures in one form or another.
I was having a conversation last week with a young woman who commented that she wants to find places where she can meet rich men. And another young and single woman chimed in that she agreed.
This conversation bothered me. I couldn’t figure out why at first, but soon enough, while driving (this is where I do my best thinking), I figured out what it was. Their outlook seemed unrealistic.
I looked around at my wealthy friends and none of them married rich. Instead, here’s the more likely path they took.
All graduated from college. They all married college graduates. Then the couples went to work, saved money, and started having kids. They invested in the more promising career or both work, and all along the way, they were making choices, clipping coupons, contributing however they could. If you read the millionaire books out there, they most likely got rich in marriage, following a plan of earning, saving, and careful investing.
These couples operate as a team, a marriage and a financial partnership. While I know plenty of wealthy women, not one of them married wealthy.
They built their life and their wealth, together, and now they are reaping the benefits, together.
So, while there are dating sites that cater to millionaires, I bet those cases are few and far between. Plus, if a man is a millionaire and he has accomplished a lot financially, my guess is that an accomplished woman will be more attractive and interesting to him.
So ladies, my hunch is that the best path is to become accomplished in your own right. That will serve your marriage, whether that be now or in the future.
Agree?
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Very nice article, thanks! I’ve subscribed to your RSS feed. Please keep up posting.
Dear Sarah…and young women listening in,
Once upon a time I had a condo in a fancy city neighborhood the other side of the rocky mountains, a fancy foreign car, a fortune 500 management job and a marriage with my high-school/university sweetheart that didn’t last (thankfully with no kids)…
Skip forward a decade or a little more and I moved to a small west coast resort town, played, skied, did some writing, smiled allot, met a great girl, married her, bought a small home (our money doesn’t go far in this mountain town), had a son, quit my job, opened my own business, had a daughter, my wife quit her job, sold a bunch of stuff in a community garage sale last week and in the end as we sometimes struggle financially we look at each other and know we could have more somewhere else…if only we gave up the happy life we love so much.
It’s not about the money…it’s about hitting ‘Ctrl F’ and typing ‘happiness’ or ‘love’ and seeing the ‘no words match this search’ prompt after reading this article. The myth isn’t about how they married, the myth is that the money makes people happy.
In the end the houses and cars and phones and iPads are all distractions from the important stuff. Less is more.
‘Ctrl F’ ‘l-o-v-e’
I don’t want to be rich, just comfortable enough to enjoy my life. My boy, who is more of a planner than me, just set me up to watch my finances, and I know it’s a right step for me, and for us as a future preparation too.
What’s wrong with a little self respect and earning your own money?
Good post. Good comments. I would submit that those who do not marry for money earn it as well. There is no easy path to happiness, with or without money…and often those who wake up in fortuitous circumstances they didn’t work for end up feeling depressed and undeserving.
I would never marry for money but never having had much money, I know that without it, life is a constant struggle!
Very well put. Enough is as good as a feast.
My husband and I worked very hard, and we became multimillionaires. Then he met a younger woman who wanted very badly to marry a rich man, and he started having an affair with her.
So I’m divorced, and he’s refusing to marry the girl because he thinks she’s a gold digger. Imagine that!
The path to riches lies within yourself. I can say from experience that marrying rich isn’t all it cracks up to be. When there is inequity in money, the person with the lesser asset is left without recourse when things go wrong.
As I put it to one of my friends, you are marrying him for money and he’s marrying you for your youth. Would you stay with him if he no longer has money? Her answer was no. My answer was then why should you expect something different for you after youth is gone.
She walked from our friendship that day but I was there for her to pick up the pieces when she became an single unwed mother because her BF did not want anymore children. He was already on his grandkids.
Kim,
Thanks for that story. Very interesting. I think your question is key! Wouldn’t it be nice if we had this wisdom early on?
Sarah
Very well written! I must say that 90% of women wants to have a guy that is stable in his career, for what? Money of course. Hypocrite people will only say that money isn’t important. It is indeed important in our life. But still money isn’t the sole reason to find happiness, there are other factors to be happy but some of them involves money. \peace/
Alex Toys