Question: At age 52, I have been divorced for 21 years and have no children. I have worked for a large company for nearly 15 of those years. My employer not only provides me with retirement benefits, but also great health and long-term care insurance coverage at a discount. Two years ago, I met a man who is now a member of the Armed Forces and who intends to retire next year. He was divorced ten years ago and has an on-going obligation to his former wife, now as alimony and, when he retires, as half of his retirement. We have been talking about getting married, and when he retires, he wants me to quit my job – or at least work part-time, so we can travel around the country in his RV.
I love him very much, but if I quit or work only part-time, I will lose my health insurance benefits and there will be no more contributions to my 401k which I can’t touch for a while as it is. I have been able to pay off my house and have no debt. He wants me to sell my house and buy into his RV so we can live there.
We prepared a budget, and after his obligation to his ex, we will really have to pinch pennies if I have no income coming in, but we will be able to survive. He says that I will be able to use the Veterans Administration facilities as his wife and that I will have no problem letting my health coverage go. I am pretty nervous about this even though I am in good health. Do you have suggestions?
Answer: If we were you, we would be nervous too. Although the final decision is certainly yours, we visualize financial and emotional disaster if you allow your health coverage and everything else you have worked for to go down the drain under these circumstances. All you need do is read the papers and look on the Internet to find story after sad story about reduced military and veterans’ health benefits. And we believe that your will be making a horrible deal if you sell your home and invest in his RV which depreciated significantly the day after he drove it off the lot and will become less valuable each year.
If you choose to leave your employment and are in good health, at a minimum, purchase an individual health insurance policy – that is, if he has the money to buy it for you. And how will you make sure you are covered if you and he need the premium that would have been paid for food or fuel to power that four mile per gallon gas guzzler?
Bottom Line: Love is grand, but it won’t pay the bills. You are thinking about moving from a lifestyle that you control into one in which you will be controlled. Given your success, we think it’s a bad idea for a person your age, or any age, to make this kind of move. It doesn’t take an economist to figure out that you guys are going to be in for rough financial bumps after you ride down his yellow brick road for a mile or two.
