who wants to be a (spouse of a) millionare

[queenlua]

Here, have a very interesting story by Elon Musk's first ex-wife, where she talks about how she fell in love with the to-be uber-jillionaire & what caused them to grow apart.

I like it because it's not a "wow this guy was an A+ raging asshole" screed, and is more about how a young, ambitious woman fell in love with a young, ambitious man, the only man who seemed to respect and admire her ambition. And yet, as the man became more and more successful, he became more and more wrapped up in work, expecting her to take up more domestic responsibility, expecting her to be blonde like the wives of all his friends, showing more and more disdain for her "books," until one day she realizes she's been slowly turned into the trophy wife she never thought she'd become.

Read it a while ago, but posting it now since a friend brought up an interesting question this morning—if you had the opportunity to marry a fabulously wealthy person, e.g. a Saudi prince, would you go for it? (I answered, first I need to love them and have compatible goals for our future, and if that hurdle's cleared even then I'm a little nervous. Most marriages end in divorce, so you can't just be "now I've got it made"; I'd want to continue having my own money and my own career. Friend seemed more optimistic about the idea, saying it'd open huge opportunities for him and his potential kiddos. idk. interesting stuff.)

Comments

[mark_asphodel]

I think being told shortly after the marriage that if she were an employee, he'd fire her is a damn good sign not to have kids with this man. Not a raging asshole but holy hell were the red flags out quick.

Also, if you're marrying a fabulously wealthy person and you want a safety net, the prenup is kind of the place for that?

[queenlua]

i seem to have this hazy recollection of skimming an article a week or two ago about how prenups are actually surprisingly hard to enforce in a bunch of states / generally a huge pain in the ass unless you're like Super Extravagant Levels of wealthy, which was amusing and unexpected to me, may try and dig the article up again since i was like half-asleep when i read it the first time.

[amielleon]

Hell no, uber-wealth is drama I don't need.

I'm not just saying this based on principle--the statistics back me up. Past a certain point, more money correlates with greater unhappiness.

I've already gotten occasional pangs of "does this person only love me for my money" paranoia. I do not need it a hundredfold with the addition of the politics of dealing with people who are in fact out to gut me for my money.

[queenlua]

i'm having trouble finding the actual stats atm, but i'm p sure the stats describe something more like a logarithmic progression—in particular, i think you get super-diminishing returns on additional wealth after the 70k/year mark, but i don't think it ever actually goes negative.

but the extra gains aren't super-significant after a point, and coupled with personal preference (i.e. not wanting to deal people after yr monies) your point still stands :P

[amielleon]

Dang, I can't find the exact study I read all those years ago, but iirc it was mostly logarithmic until it got to the extreme right side... and then it dipped down a bit. Which I think makes sense, because imagine being that Shah, only ever having girls take an interest in you to rob you of your money. :p

I also found a study that suggested that reported life satisfaction rose with more $$$ (probably due to psychological feelings of superiority or making it, if I had to guess), but day to day experiential happiness did not after $70k.

I wouldn't mind it if I made double what I do right now, admittedly. But I wouldn't, say, take a double salary for working for a markedly* unethical company or one without a delicious cafeteria.

(* they're all unethical to some degree.)