How to do it: we are just casually living in this Canadian shack for legal reasons.

[jadelennox]

I didn't mean to post another one, but I swear I've read this slashfic a thousand times.

Dear How to Do It,

What responsibility do I have to potential dates and hookups to disclose that I’m in a sham marriage?

I’m a 19-year-old straight man who is married to another man one year my senior. This marriage is purely a sham: to make a long story short, I was in an abusive home situation, and the easiest legal way to get me out of the situation and off the streets was to marry my best friend. (We are planning an amicable divorce once I graduate college since the financial and FAFSA benefits are too good to pass up.) We both identify as straight and have never had a romantic or sexual relationship. The marriage is purely on paper.

I’m going to be attending college this fall after a gap year and I want to meet some ladies. I have no romantic or sexual history to speak of, and I want to get out there and get out my horny teenage energies with hookups and casual dating. My “husband” encourages this, as we are just roommates with extra steps. Do I need to disclose my marriage to potential hookups? Does it make a difference if I’m dating someone seriously or if it’s just a fling? I’m a bit lost here as there is no script for this situation.

—Wed Boy Gone Wild

Rich: That is true. There is no script.

Stoya: There is no script. And I am going to go ahead and say upfront I’m having a hard time focusing on the romance and sex aspect of this because our letter writer is essentially committing fraud.

Rich: Yeah.

Stoya: So, it’s not so much, “Do I need to disclose that I’m in a sham marriage?” It’s, “Do I need to disclose that I’m committing college fraud?”

Rich: Right.

Stoya: Which, I mean, we could kick back and forth how ethical it is to commit college fraud in a country where college costs more than many students can ever hope to pay back.

Rich: Totally.

Stoya: But that’s a thing that would be a huge deal breaker if not disclosed for me and that’s also a thing that someone you disclose to could report you for. So, that’s really the bind here. Not so much, “Do I need to tell people I’m hooking up with that I’m married?” It’s, this is a big and complex situation that could really mess up the lives of both the letter writer and his friend.

Rich: Right. So, if you’re going to go this path, maybe the smartest thing to do is honestly to fly under the radar. That comes with its own ethical concerns. We get a lot of questions about disclosure and there is a lot of discourse these days about what details are necessary in order for someone to properly consent.

Coming from the tradition of cruising culture where you don’t know a thing about the person and may never, I don’t think that one, for a fleeting sexual encounter, needs much biographical information. But I wonder what you think about that?

Stoya: I think two things. One, the joy of a fleeting sexual encounter is in the lack of biographical information. So, not coming from cruising culture, coming from presenting as female and all of the weight of expectation that comes with that, I agree, though it will be a contestable opinion.

Rich: Yes.

Stoya: In a hookup, half the point is you don’t know anything about each other. That’s what makes it so shiny and erotic and all of that. Sometimes a hookup turns into something more significant and you do learn more about each other. But what are you supposed to do? Write a memoir and trade memoirs and when you meet at the bar, be like, “See you in two weeks depending on your reading speed, so we can have a zipless fuck.”? No.

The other thing though is the impossibility of total knowledge. Right? The ways that we come to know each other over the course of a long-term relationship are beautiful and yet, there are things our partners will never understand about us and there are things we will never understand about our partners. And they can even say the words. The example coming to mind is they can on three separate occasions say, “True socialism never lasts” in different ways. And it can only be the third time that you end up crying with snot dripping down your face like a kid who’s just been informed Santa Claus isn’t real. True story.

Rich: Yeah, I figured.

Stoya: The first layer is, are we being told everything? Which is impossible. The second layer is whether we are understanding. Are we grasping the meaning of everything being said to us? Which is often tricky. One of the most wonderful things about long-term significant relationships is striving together toward knowledge, but that in no way means that you reach it.

Rich: Yeah, I agree. I do think that playing it in the non-disclosure realm does create a potential complication if that hookup does become a relationship and then that person may feel like somewhere down the line they didn’t get that information soon enough. But that’s a matter of personal taste, I think, that you can’t really correct for until you’re there. When is it a good time to say I’m in a sham marriage to my best friend?

Stoya: Also, any person who’s going to look at this financial and FAFSA benefits thing and go, “Yeah, that was a great idea” is more likely to also understand why the ball was hidden on that particular thing.

Rich: Right.

Stoya: If our writer goes around at college saying, “Hey, I’m in a sham marriage that I’m staying in because the financial and FAFSA benefits are so great,” someone in the administration is going to find out and they’re going to get kicked out.

Rich: Yeah.

Stoya: So, it’s possibly about tailoring their search for people that they’re attracted to who also have the kind of politics where they’re likely to be understanding of this situation.

Rich: And maybe not shitting where you eat. I mean, you might want to circumvent the hookups on campus entirely. I know that that’s a really difficult thing when you’re in college and you’re among a bunch of potential partners, but you want to play it safe here. What’s the most important thing here? It’s probably not getting laid, it’s to keep fostering this situation that you have very precariously set up for yourself because of extenuating circumstances that are beyond your control and not fair. To flee abuse is completely understandable.

So, I think the most important thing to do is to prioritize and to say, “OK the college thing, the setup, that is what I need to be doing. Everything else is secondary to that” in my opinion, given the situation.

Stoya: And just what kind of weird sect does this kid come from that he had to get married to leave the abusive home situation?

Rich: Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, that’s a great question because it’s like what are those extenuating circumstances, right?

Stoya: I’m just having a weird feeling about it. So, in case there was something screwy with this man who’s one year his senior. Think back, did you really have to get married? Because something seems really odd there and I would hate to not mention that oddness.

Rich: Especially because we’re talking about a 19-year-old and 19-year-olds don’t necessarily have a complete worldview and are much more susceptible to manipulation than say somebody 10 years, 20 years their senior, right?

Stoya: Yeah. I mean, the guy he’s married to is only one year his senior, but 20-year-olds can also manipulate. So, I want to encourage our writer to reconsider the whole situation, just to make sure things are as above board as they can be in a sham marriage which is perpetuating because of financial and FAFSA benefits. Oh, gosh.

source

Comments

[green_grrl]

Stoya is being pretty extra with the suspicions at the end. “This man” is LW’s best friend who is within a year of age, not some stranger predator. They are both young and should keep an eye on their credit reports.

Other than that, FAFSA is notoriously not understanding of abusive families—the salary and savings of those parents who refuse to give you a penny are considered the resources you have to pay for college. The quickest way to legalize a family estrangement IS to get married to someone who you trust to be your emergency contact/power of attorney over your abusive parents.

I do agree that hookups and casual dates don’t need to know up front. If things get more serious with someone, I suggest sharing a similar story about “someone else” to see what her reaction is.

[ashbet]

Oh, my DEAR GODS, this is screamingly awful advice all the way down >:(

Rich and Stoya Do Not Get It.

I don't know if they went to college as minors/under 21, but FAFSA assumes that your parents are financially supporting you, and abuse/neglect is not taken under consideration. Getting married is one of the FEW ways to get out from under that assumption.

My guess is that they got married when the LW was 18 or younger (he's 19, and coming back to college after a gap year), which, again is one of the FEW legal ways an abused minor can get out of the custody of their family. As a minor, he couldn't even go stay with the best friend or the best friend's parents without his parents' consent.

HE GOT MARRIED TO ESCAPE ABUSE. NOT TO DEFRAUD ANYBODY.

And they're legally-married -- it's not actually illegal OR against the financial-aid rules to have a companionate marriage, a sexless marriage, etc. That part isn't the college's businsess.

This kid is trying to be ethical in disclosing his situation to potential future partners (which should be phrased as "the easiest legal way to get me out of the situation and off the streets was to marry my best friend," as he said), and Stoya/Rich are pearl-clutching about the validity of the marriage for financial aid . . . FFS >:(

Also -- this advice is both unhelpful and UNKIND. Pouring a ton of judgment on a kid who was doing his best to get away from abuse is NOT a good look.

[hashiveinu]

I don't know if they went to college as minors/under 21, but FAFSA assumes that your parents are financially supporting you, and abuse/neglect is not taken under consideration. Getting married is one of the FEW ways to get out from under that assumption.

The age they assume you're independent is actually 24. :/

[ashbet]

Ugh, even worse — it’s been a while since my daughter was in college, I must have misremembered!

[likeaduck]

THIS. Right? Like wow, the confidence with which they speculate and hypothetically judge while openly acknowledging they have no knowledge of the possible extenuating circumstances? The lack of empathetic curiosity is striking.

[cereta]

Pretty much everything you said. Shockingly, there is no requirement for Pell Grants that says you have to be having sex with your spouse. AFAIK, the only situation in which the "validity" of a marriage is dug into is immigration. I suspect most health insurance benefits require that the couple be living together, but they're not peeking in windows.

[jadelennox]

And they're legally-married -- it's not actually illegal OR against the financial-aid rules to have a companionate marriage, a sexless marriage, etc.

THIS.

[cimorene]

All of this. Shockingly bad advice. Why didn't they just Google it if they knew this little about it?!

[torachan]

Seriously. Even if the LW ran away and had no contact with their parents, they could not get any financial aid on their own because the government assumes that your parents are responsible.

[castiron]

What exactly is a "sham marriage", anyway? Are two people in their 80s who marry for companionship and to have a trusted person as their next of kin also perpetuating a sham marriage, if they're not head-over-heels for each other and don't have any interest in sex with each other? What about a couple who decides to legally marry when they start having kids and then divorce once the youngest kid is an adult -- did they have a sham marriage? What about two 19-year-olds from an evangelical background who marry so they can have sex, and then after a few years realize they're not compatible and divorce?

LW and his friend formed a legal bond to get LW out of an abusive family situation; just because they're not sexually interested in each other doesn't make it any less an act of love and care (especially given how many people who would look down on them for being in a same-sex marriage).

[castiron]

As far as LW's actual question, I'd point them towards advice for people looking at opening up their marriage, because that's exactly what LW's trying to do; he's married, and he's looking for short- or long-term partners outside the marriage. The fact that he's not sleeping with his husband or committed to staying with him past college isn't relevant; the fact that he's legally married is. But he doesn't need to say "hey, I'm going to divorce my husband as soon as I'm through college, so it's okay if you sleep with me"; he just has to look for women who are willing to date a man who's in an open marriage.

[jadelennox]

Yeah, it's not actually fraud unless it's an immigration marriage, and even then, it's still not necessarily fraud. You can get legally married for paperwork reasons! There's nothing fraudulent about it.

[conuly]

Even if it's legally fraud, I honestly don't think it's unethical to marry so you can immigrate. Our laws around immigration are fucked up.

[kiezh]

Am I missing something? Is there some reason the advice can't just be "tell people you're in an open marriage and your husband is okay with you hooking up"?

I have no personal experience in this situation, but why does the nature of the marriage have to be anyone's business? You are, at the moment, life partners with your legal business all intertwined, regardless of what you plan to do after college. People who only want to date or hook up with someone single should not date or sleep with you, because you do have another entanglement; so let them know that. People who don't want to be a party to cheating deserve to know that you're not betraying someone with them; so let them know that. People with open marriages navigate this issue all the time, right? Maybe find a polyamory advice column to ask questions from!

The advice given is, as others have pointed out, utter bullshit and does not address the actual question.

[adrian_turtle]

Am I missing something? Is there some reason the advice can't just be "tell people you're in an open marriage and your husband is okay with you hooking up"?

This covers almost all bases. The only potential problem I see is homophobia, and not the usual problems with homophobia. LW is a man who wants to date women. Some of the women who hear "I'm married; and my husband is fine with me hooking up" are going to think, "you're married to a MAN?" and nope right out. LW may not see the need to avoid dating such a woman. (The use of "straight," rather than "heterosexual" suggests he's not connected with a queer community.)

[dissectionist]

(The use of "straight," rather than "heterosexual" suggests he's not connected with a queer community.)

Can you clarify what this means? I’m queer and am primarily friends with other queer folks, and we use “straight” regularly as a term to describe people, so I’m puzzled by what this means.

[adrian_turtle]

I remember when people started using "heterosexual" to get away from the connotation that "straight" was normal and correct. Like the boy scouts are supposed to take an oath to keep themselves physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight. It feels like a hint, not a statement, much less anything intentional. Even my perception of it as a hint could just be a regional thing.

[dissectionist]

Huh, interesting. I’m in mid-life so have been around for the past few decades in queer communities; you’re likely right about this being a regional thing, as in my experience where I am, heterosexual is more a scientific term than a common self-descriptor.

“Cishet” is fairly common for self-description now among folks who are more aware though, so maybe “heterosexual” will also pick up steam here.

[ellen_fremedon]

Someone needs to tell this kid (and the terrible advice-givers) that all the extenuating circumstances around the marriage don't make it a sham. LW is married. He is legally married. The marriage exists. It is real. The college and the FAFSA people do not give one solitary shit if he and his husband are sleeping together. (His hookups may or may not, but any advice about that needs to start from a place of understanding the actual situation.)

[harpers_child]

This.

[ethelmay]

Apparently there are wealthy parents who suddenly discover this loophole and sign over custody of their minor kids to someone else, so then they don't have to pay for college, ta-da! This - is not that.

[librarygeek]

It's not like the FAFSA or college forms ask if your parents are still having sex if you're still a dependent, just are they living together, legally separated, or divorced. So if it's valid for the parental part of the forms, it's valid for the student.

It's a legal marriage, it's not a sham, companionate marriage or asexuals getting married is also legal, and yeah, saying it's an open marriage should be enough, especially if anyone gets long-term relationship enough to want to meet your husband. If I was 19 and meeting this guy, I'd probably think oh, queerplatonic relationship until they told me otherwise.

After all, as someone else said, they're both taking the social hit for same-sex relationships with certain parts of society, that's a significant relationship in both their lives.

[azurelunatic]

Look, when two of my friends got married because the landlord wouldn't allow a roommate otherwise, that was also fully legal.

[mommy]

"I'm in an open marriage" covers most of the issue. LW's husband is encouraging him to go out and meet people, and that's as far as the topic really needs to go.

[lilysea]

I think it would be fine for LW to refer to their spouse as a room mate,

and only reveal the married-on-paper, but not romantically/sexually involved, fine details if things got serious with a boyfriend/girlfriend

[ashbet]

Honestly, this.

Since they’re both straight and are not intimately-involved, neither of them need to bring up the marriage unless a more-serious relationship develops… in which case they could explain to a partner that they’re married on paper in order to get LW out of an abusive household and to enable him to get a degree.

(And I’m someone who has strong feelings about partner disclosure, but this in no way affects his sexual health or romantic status/availability.)

[minoanmiss]

What in the seven hells is wrong with Stoya and Rich? Did both their senses of empathy fall off? Did they lose the memories of every abused child they ever heard of? What the fuck is this 'advice'? I am atually tempted to write them a cranky response letter.

[lokifan]

do it, they can & should do better