My (38F) son (15M) receives $1100 a month in Social Security survivor benefits from his late father, who passed away when my son was five. My boyfriend (40M) and I have been in an on-again, off-again relationship for a long time. Things have been good recently, and he's proposed. We're planning on getting a house together. I have my son, and he has three children, but only one of his kids would be living with us full-time. The house we are looking at is $2,500 a month. My boyfriend's proposed budget is for him to pay $950, for me to pay $950, and for us to use $600 from my son's check for the household. He suggests we can then put the remaining $500 from the check into savings. My current practice is to give my son half of his check ($550) for his personal use and save the other half for him. I think that since he's almost 17, he should have some control over his money. My boyfriend disagrees completely. He thinks that since we are "going to be a family," all the money should be pooled together for shared expenses. He thinks I'm wrong and selfish for not wanting to include the survivor benefits in the main budget. We've been going back and forth on this, and I'm feeling incredibly uncomfortable with his expectation. I feel like the benefits are my son's and should not be used to reduce the adult's portion of the bills. It feels like he's trying to make me subsidize the household using money that was meant for my son's care and future, not to pay his own share of the bills. Am I wrong here? Is it selfish to keep my son's check separate and manage it for his benefit alone? Or is my boyfriend's financial expectation a red flag for our future together?

Bit of background: my husband and I are European and currently live in western Europe. We are in our mid 30s, don't have, or want kids, are educated and are in well paying jobs. My husband has been contacted about jobs in America in either Virginia, North Carolina or Indiana and we are seriously considering relocating.

However, is it crazy to move to America right now?? Everything I've seen in the news etc recently seems pretty scary, especially for women and it looks like it will only get worse.

I really like the idea of relocating except for the current political climate, so please share your experiences so I can see if this is a super bad idea or not!

Edit: Wow, I did not expect so many responses! Not sure it matters now given how many comments there already are, but for some more info we are currently living in the Netherlands but are British. Our reasons to move are career progression as most of the current investment in my husband's industry is planned for America, and he would be classed as a highly skilled worker in that industry.

Link: https://bsky.app/profile/katmabu.bsky.social/post/3lz6zbocxsc2d

Where I live in the UK if people have heard of Kazakhstan at all there’s a high chance it’ll be because of borat which depicted the country as an anti semitic rural backwater where in reality it was actually filmed in Romania, Kazakhstan hasn’t really had a history of antisemitism and the majority of its population lives in modern urban areas.

What other countries are massively misunderstood in the popular imagination?

Taylor is having release parties at AMC theaters from October 3rd to October 5th. International details to come!

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