My Wife and I Were Discussing How to Spend Our Retirement. Then She Dropped a Bomb.

Pay Dirt is Slate’s money advice column. Have a question? Send it to Kristin and Ilyce here . (It’s anonymous!)

My wife and I (late 50s) recently visited a financial advisor at the recommendation of our life insurance agent. We are very well set for retirement and were asked how we want to spend for retirement, lifestyle-wise, and what kind of “legacy” we want to leave for our three children. The legacy question was surprisingly a point of contention between us.

When my wife’s mom passed away (her father had died a few years before), there wasn’t much, if anything, left in her estate for my wife and her siblings to divide up after paying the bills. My parents were better off, and I was left enough money that we paid off our house (approximately $50,000), and we became debt free, which helped our retirement savings significantly as our house payment went into savings/investments.

I would like to do what my parents did: leave our kids enough money to help them, but use our retirement savings/income to basically live the same lifestyle we are living now. But listening to my wife talk, she wants to have our kids “set for life” and thinks we need to have a very conservative retirement lifestyle, spending-wise, to make the money last in order to give them a substantial amount when we pass away.

I know we will reach a “happy medium” at some point, but what is your opinion on leaving children a “legacy,” especially a comparatively large one, that possibly limits the things I would like to do in retirement or at a minimum continue our current lifestyle?

You asked for my opinion. I think you got a gift that helped you do something significant—you paid off your home, and that allowed you to boost your retirement savings. But, you did the rest yourself: You earned, saved, invested, and are now at a point where you get to enjoy the fruit of all that labor.

The question I’d ask your wife is this: Can anyone actually be set for life, given that we have no idea what curveballs are coming for us? Absent $20 million or more, probably not and even then, I’d wonder. None of us knows what’s coming. A child could face a serious illness or life-long disability. One of your kids could start a business that fails or lose half of everything in a nasty divorce. Maybe they want to or have to step back from their job into a caregiving role. Or, maybe A.I. replaces them.

Money helps in some of those situations, but not all. And, it doesn’t prevent them. You can’t paper over life with money.

Your wife wants to sacrifice the next 30 or 40 years to help her children. It’s a noble goal, but I don’t think it’s fair to you, individually, or to you both. Still, her instinct is rooted in her past. She watched her parents’ estate evaporate and wants the kids to be left with something. OK, a good estate attorney can plan for that.

What you can’t plan for is your own health and strength as you age.