When You Mom Gets Married Again and Is Happy
When Your Parents Remarry, Anybody Is Happy, Right?
Chris and Tina Anastasio, of San Clemente, Calif., who wed concluding year after thirteen years of dating, are the embodiment of the latest tendency in remarriage.
He is 84. She is 77. And non everyone was thrilled about their matrimony.
Why?
Mr. Anastasio explained.
"Tina's youngest girl got concerned when Tina told her we were getting married," said Mr. Anastasio, whose ii previous marriages ended in divorce. "She wanted to know, 'Supposing you die, who'southward going to get your house?'"
It's a common theme every bit older people who realize they might however have years to live choose non to do it alone.
In a 2014 study on the demographics of remarriage, the Pew Research Heart found that people 55 and beyond are getting remarried at higher rates than they in one case did.
Sixty-vii per centum of previously married people ages 55 to 64 had remarried, Pew reported, up from 55 percentage in 1960. Half of all adults 65 and older had remarried, compared with 34 percent in 1960.
The report'due south writer, senior researcher Gretchen M. Livingston, floated the idea that the reason may accept to exercise with increasing life spans. "People realize they take many more years to live and desire to discover fulfillment in that extra time," she wrote.
Only the likelihood of remarrying couples in that age subclass staying fulfilled may depend on how carefully they planned their finances before walking downward the aisle.
[READ More than: Here's How to Maintain Peace Among Your Heirs]
"It's all very tricky and sometimes difficult to understand," said Hyman G. Darling, president of the National Academy of Elder Police Attorneys, of the coin-related factors that tin affect older remarrying couples. "We've definitely broken up some marriages" when advising couples on the fiscal intricacies of combining resources in their gilded years, he said.
Risks attached to later on-in-life marriages include the potential loss of regime benefits like Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income. Income and estate taxation increases, the loss of pensions or alimony and the taking on of a new spouse's debt are likewise possible with the signing of a marriage certificate. Long-term wellness care costs and whether a new spouse is legally bound to pick upwards the tab for them are big issues, Mr. Darling said.
But according to Mr. Darling and Lina Guillen, an attorney and co-writer of the 2017 book "Living Together: A Legal Guide for Unmarried Couples," the problem older couples wring their hands over most when considering remarriage is how their decision will affect their developed children.
"A common reason older partners cull to remain single is that they want to exit their property to their children," Ms. Guillen said. "Children may accept expectations for a coming inheritance. Things can become sensitive when a new spouse comes along."
The Anastasios are living proof — although they wish they weren't. Mrs. Anastasio tried to reassure her daughter that Mr. Anastasio had no designs on her holding and hadn't even considered the possibility of outliving her. The daughter, Laura, however, was said to be unconvinced. (The Anastasios declined to give her concluding proper name to protect her privacy).
Mr. and Mrs. Anastasio married for honey but also for practicality. Mrs. Anastasio is British. Before she and Mr. Anastasio married, her visits to the United states of america were limited to 3-month stretches on a visa. Although the couple loves to travel, going back and forth then oft was stressful. "At our age, going through security at the airdrome is not much fun," Mr. Anastasio said.
Prototype
They midweek in a pocket-sized anniversary without consulting a lawyer or an manor planner, which they acknowledged may have been behind the daughter'south unease.
"We were always treated like a married couple. And we started to think, the merely reason nosotros're non married is to satisfy Tina'southward girl," Mr. Anastasio said. "We had talked well-nigh putting something in writing, proverb, whatever happens she keeps her things and I go on mine and never the twain shall meet. Merely we decided it'south time for united states to worry nearly united states of america, not the kids. We have plans to put something in writing" somewhen, he said, merely they chose not to before the wedding.
"If a couple remains single and one dies without a will, generally speaking the unmarried partner volition get nothing," Ms. Guillen said. "The property volition become to blood relatives, with children being outset in line."
Remarrying couples like Mr. and Mrs. Anastasio, on the other hand, take to plan ahead. What Ms. Guillen called the "golden standard" for such couples is signing both a will and a prenuptial understanding. Only and then tin they feel reasonably certain their grown children's inheritance will not be contested or otherwise tampered with, she said.
Mrs. Anastasio, at present on her third marriage after beingness divorced and widowed, said practical factors beyond citizenship convinced her to marry Mr. Anastasio. 1 was a health scare a few years agone. Navigating hospital rules after Mr. Anastasio was admitted would have been easier if they were legally married, she said. But if citizenship and health care proxy issues had non been factors, she would accept preferred to remain Mr. Anastasio's live-in partner rather than his wife. "I didn't want to upset my daughter," she said.
Mr. and Mrs. Anastasio are outliers; many people over 55 remarry for moral or religious reasons. "There are people who say, I'chiliad not going to alive with someone without being married no thing what," Mr. Darling said.
In addition to a articulate conscience, benefits for such couples include money saved by joining households and, in some cases, depending on the state and the combined income, lower taxes.
But for many couples the minuses of remarrying often outweigh the pluses. That might be a reason, according to Pew, that the number of people over 50 who cohabit with a partner rather than marry jumped 75 percent from 2007 to 2016.
And some couples are finding ways to skirt the organization.
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They include John Yahner and Shaune Bazner, of Washington, D.C. Mr. Yahner and Ms. Bazner, both 67 and divorced, met on Match.com in 2014. Two years ago, they started talking about union.
"I told Shaune, I am committed to you just not complacent. I am happy to marry you in a spiritual ceremony," said Mr. Yahner, the begetter of developed triplets and an adjunct teacher at American Academy. Mr. Yahner joked that he wanted to avert legal marriage to protect his "$28 in assets."
For Ms. Bazner, an creative person and jewelry designer and the mother of two grown sons, the complications of marrying included her eponymous business, an asset Mr. Yahner might have some claim to if she became his wife.
"We didn't want to worry our kids nigh whatsoever money they would inherit, but we wanted to exist something more than boyfriend and girlfriend, which sounds similar y'all're going to the prom," Mr. Yahner said. So they exchanged vows, but none that leap them contractually, before an Episcopal minister friend in Maine last twelvemonth.
In doing then, they accept landed in a sweet spot between feeling more than than casually connected to each other and protecting their children's futures.
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"We told our kids correct off the bat, what nosotros're doing is blithesome, and nosotros don't want to be crass virtually it, but your inheritance is not going to be afflicted," Mr. Yahner said. They were relieved. And non simply about their inheritances. "They got the real message, which is, we're non just shacking up for a few months. Nosotros're in it for the long booty."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/your-money/parents-remarry-inheritance-children.html
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