If I marry, I will lose the income from my husband’s death benefits. What do I do?

Question:

I am a widow and I have a young son. My husband passed away several years ago. I connected with an old friend from high school who was going through a divorce at the time and we seemed to hit it off and were there for each other during each other times of need. We started dating and have been together for almost four years.

I receive money from my husband's passing away and so does my son. Together what we bring in is a good amount. The guy I have been dating asked me to marry him. Before he asked me to marry him, we did have sex, so now we are trying to live our lives the right way, not have sex, and get married as soon as we can.

But here is the problem, I have bills I know his income alone cannot pay and I feel that I would regret giving up money that my husband, who passed away, worked for and died for and that was for our son, to marry this man. How can I choose between my son and a man? I will feel guilty for choosing a man over my son.  Should I give up the money I am receiving? I honestly need some help. I have gotten so depressed about this and don't know what else to do. I don't want to take away from my son, but I love this man and want to have a family and life with him.

Please help!

Answer:

I assume you are referring to Social Security death benefits and not an inheritance or a life insurance death benefit. The latter would be yours regardless of whether you get married again or not. The Social Security benefits stop for the widow who marries again, but the child's benefits do not stop.

Regardless of this, the fact is that if you value your income over getting married to this man, then you don't love him. If you love him; yes, the income will be less, but the two of you will figure out how to live on what you have. "Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a fatted calf with hatred" (Proverbs 15:17). Life isn't about money.

I can guarantee that your child would rather have a dad than money, even though his benefits don't stop because you get married.

"For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows" (I Timothy 6:10).

Response:

Yes, it is a death benefit for my son and myself. I do not value money over him. He is a very special person to me and I do love him. But I will never love him the way I loved my husband. It's hard for me to choose between taking care of my son with the money his daddy earned or letting it go to marry a man that I love. I feel my son should come first, and I am afraid that if I let my money go that he will not because I wouldn't be able to afford anything. I'm stuck in the middle, I know to do the Christian thing that I should marry this man, but it's a hard decision. I feel hopeless sometimes.

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