My Ex Stopped Paying for Our Daughter’s College for the Cruelest Reason. I’m Livid.

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I am a divorced 53-year-old man, and I live alone. I have a 21-year-old daughter who is a junior in college and is very happy and loves it. She has many friends and her grades are good. She struggles with ADHD and “appears” to be lazy at times. Nothing serious. She cleans when she needs to clean, she makes classes and appointments on time, she can hold a job during summer when school is out. All her professors love her.

For most of her life, she and her mother (my ex) have had arguments. They would fight mostly about how great my daughter’s relationship was with me. Her mother seems very jealous of me and my daughter’s relationship. I am very carefree and easy going. I get interested in the shows and music my daughter likes. I listen to her tell me about her life, and I give great advice when I think she wants me to.

On the other hand, her mother is very different from her in almost every way. Her mother is smart, loving and a good person, but is also very narcissistic, mean at times, irrational, judgmental, and a master at the “guilt trip.”

Sometimes their fights would get so bad the neighbors would call the police.

Her mom married a very wealthy man a few years ago, and they have been paying for most of our daughter’s college. I pay about a one-third because I feel it’s the right thing to do as a father, even though I don’t have a lot of money and live paycheck-to-paycheck.

I see my daughter often, but her mother’s house is my daughter’s residence when she is not in school. Over the holiday break, my daughter started experiencing severe panic attacks while staying at her mother’s house. Her mother suggested she should stay home and treat the panic attacks and not return to school. My daughter loves school, her dorm, and her friends that are there. She returned to school because she thought it was the best thing for her mental health.

Well, her mom texted her, and me, that she will no longer be paying for her school, or healthcare or anything! She is cutting off my daughter because she thinks she is ungrateful and disrespectful.

What do I do now? Can her mother, who paid for most of school JUST STOP and let my daughter and I struggle with the debt that will remain? Should my daughter just do whatever her mother asks in order to NOT be cut off?

If I help pay for my daughter’s college alone, it will take a chunk out of my savings that I was not counting on! Thank you, I will appreciate any advice.

Step back for a moment and let’s see if that provides some clarity: Your daughter had severe panic attacks at her mother’s house and decided returning to school was better for her mental health. Her mother responded by cutting off all financial support. In my book, that’s using money as a weapon, and it’s going to backfire spectacularly on your ex.

Let’s be clear: Your ex has no legal obligation to pay for college. Your daughter isn’t a little kid, and it isn’t basic support. It’s a gift, and your ex can stop giving it at any time. But wielding that gift as punishment when your daughter made a healthy choice? That’s not going to bring your daughter back under her roof. It’s going to cement the dynamic your ex has been complaining about for years—where you’re the safe parent and she’s the controlling one.

But you’re not blameless here either. You’ve positioned yourself as the “cool dad” for 21 years while your daughter and her mother fought so badly the police showed up. You can’t describe her mother as “narcissistic, mean, irrational” and claim you’ve been neutral or even on her side because you like the same music. It feels as though you’ve been in competition with your ex, and your daughter has paid the price with her mental health.

You and your daughter should find someone to talk to, but her first step must be to contact her college’s financial aid office immediately. Schools have processes in place for students whose parents cut them off mid-degree. She’ll likely qualify for additional loans, possibly emergency grants, and can apply for scholarships and campus employment for senior year. That will limit her overall debt and allow her to finish her degree on time.

Do not drain your savings. You’re living paycheck-to-paycheck as it is, and giving her more might eliminate her ability to get aid from the college or win scholarships. Keep contributing what you sustainably can, but understand this is her debt to manage, not yours to martyr yourself over. If, in the future, your circumstances change, by all means help her get that debt paid off.

Overall, your daughter is doing a pretty good job managing her life despite the challenges her mother posts. It’s encouraging that she had the wherewithal to make a mature decision about her mental health even while facing eviction from her home. It’s likely that her mother’s power move will damage their relationship permanently, which is tragic, but at the end of the day, this story is about control, not your daughter being “ungrateful” for not accepting an invitation to make her life a living hell.

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I’m in IT and facing layoffs, same old story. At my age (58) and salary, I’d say chances of finding something comparable are slim to none. My wife and I have about $130,000 in accessible CDs/accounts, about $1.4 million in my 401(k), and she has a teacher pension when retiring in two or three years, plus about $300,000 in a 403(b). We owe about $320,000 on the mortgage on the house, that’s about our only big expense.

Simple question: Should I be planning on using 401(k) and savings to bridge the gap until 65 or 67 to max out the potential Social Security payment (if Social Security is still available, that is)? I wouldn’t have an issue working at Starbucks or whatever for extra cash or to stay busy. I just don’t think it’s worth the effort to submit my resume to 500 places that realistically aren’t going to give me a sniff.

Dear Forced Early Retirement,

I get that finding an IT job at 58 is tough. But I wonder if you’re thinking clearly about how expensive the next seven to 10 years are going to be. Healthcare will be your biggest expense—$1,500 to $2,000/month on the ACA marketplace. That’s $126,000 to $168,000 before Medicare, basically wiping out your accessible funds.

Your full retirement age is 67, but maximum Social Security requires waiting until 70. That’s 12 years of expenses to cover, a goal that might not be affordable (or worth the wait).

For the next two to three years, your wife’s income helps. Can her teaching job cover your health insurance? If not, can you get COBRA for 18 months? Once she retires, how much is her pension? Does it include health benefits? When does it start? Those details matter enormously when calculating a retirement bridge budget.

The biggest issue: How much do you actually spend annually? You’ve got $1.7 million in retirement assets, but you’ll pay tax on every 401(k) dollar. If you spend $100,000/year and her pension replaces $40,000, you need to plug that gap or your 401(k) might not last long enough.

Bottom line: You need to know your number to plan effectively.

Get a fee-only financial planner to run scenarios: Social Security at 62 versus 67 or 70? Tapping your 401(k) at 59½ or getting a job to defray costs? How long can accessible funds plus unemployment last?

Kudos for thinking ahead. Too many near-retirees don’t. Your willingness to work for structure and income shows you’re approaching this thoughtfully. Just make sure your plan accounts for healthcare costs, not just mortgage payments.

I met my fiancé at a house party. I was there with my best friend, who happens to be gorgeous. He began talking to us and kept talking to me after my best friend left. We made plans to hang out later, and over the next three months our friendship evolved into a wonderful relationship. Recently my fiancé and his good friend had a falling out, and in an act of spite, his friend forwarded me a series of emails from around the time we first met. By reading them, I learned that, initially, my fiancé only spent time with me because he wanted to have a shot with my best friend. He called me plain, repetitive, and mildly annoying.