Originally posted by: Gaffer Tape
To put some more specifics as to why I can't... well, my mother seems to think that if I get married, I'll lose my scholarships. In actuality (although I didn't tell her as I didn't want her to think I was considering getting married), I did talk a person in my school's financial aid office who said that my federal scholarship money would actually increase a bit if I was married. Conversely, though, the loans that my fiancee has require her to be a depedent. And we've talked about just leaving everyone else out of the equation and eloping. But her parents still very much try to control her, and they offer all kinds of financial support to her, so I really don't want to jeopardize that by sneaking around behind their backs. Her dad would probably end up making her a widow if I did that. ^_~ I'm still a bit younger than you two were when you got married, so I still have plenty of time to get things together. And I know a perfect "ready" time will never come. But we'll just see.

Yeah, financially marriage can work for and against you. As a married man, I get a few tax breaks, but nothing to write home about. On the filp side, when we first got back to England, I signed onto unemployment to allow me a little financial space to look for a job in animation (my profession), but being married actually meant I was not entitled to any cash because I now had a wife to support me (even though she was new to the country and working in a very low paid retail job). Long story short I was forced to take any job I could, and luckily landed my current government job which is a far from animation but beats digging holes. So I can understand your concerns, Gaffer - it's not as black and white as 'let's run off and get hitched in Vegas'.

You'll figure it out though