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Woman in a wheelchair saying: “THERE IS NO MARRIAGE EQUALITY UNTIL PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES CAN MARRY WITHOUT LOSING BENEFITS”
this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2025
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Chronic Illness
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A community/support group for chronically ill people. While anyone is welcome, our number one priority is keeping this a safe space for chronically ill people.
This is a support group, not a place for people to spout their opinions on disability.
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Be excellent to each other
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My husband is disabled and receives SSDI (US). I did the math when he was awarded disability and he would be getting a lot more if we weren't married. We had a very long discussion and long story short marriage was more important to us than money. Since we're married the money is counted as income and I am the one who pays taxes on it. He qualified for Medicare too after the first five years on SSDI and that comes out of his benefits as well. I still buy insurance for him through my employer which I pay out the ass for but it's worth it with his medical conditions and should I lose my job he still has his Medicare to fall back on. I dare say I pay almost as much for his medical needs as we get from the disability payments. We aren't by any means rich but we have the basics and that's enough. My heart breaks for him and others in the same or worse situations. His own family will say that they love him with one breath and then disparage those "freeloaders" with the other. Since the beginning of the year we've been religiously watching our bank account in horror wondering when the checks will just stop coming. It took years of hard work and tough decisions to get us both to a place of stability and productivity that now could disappear in an instant because we are the collateral damage in a rich folk's pissing match. I hope they all rot in hell.
couldn't you just get a divorce and not mention it? no one has to know you're technically not legally married, just keep wearing the rings.
the government shouldn't be the arbiter of whether you're married or not, you and your friends and family are.
It was a really long discussion but it came down to the fact that marriage means a lot to both of us regardless of what others think.
that's kinda what i mean though, staying legally married despite economic disadvantages sounds to me like you care more about what the government thinks than you do about simply proclaiming the love to each other.