Sean Strickland met his wife on Tinder about seven years ago, back when he was driving a beat-up old Nissan truck and not exactly presenting himself as long-term relationship material. On the Shawn Ryan Show, the UFC middleweight champion talked about what it has been like marrying into a family from a completely different world than the one he grew up in.
His wife holds two degrees, and her family carries a long lineage of success. Her grandfather was a World War II veteran. Her grandmother coached at a well-regarded college. Her father inherited and runs a family business.
Strickland put his own family history in equally plain terms: “mental illness and permanent disability.”
Her father’s wealth came with conditions. Strickland had to sign a prenup before the marriage.
“I had to sign a prenup because you know how rich people work,” he explained to host Shawn Ryan. “Rich people put assets in different names.”
The message from the father was not subtle: he was not about to let someone with Strickland’s background anywhere near the family’s money, and Strickland said he could not blame him for it.
The first meeting with her family did not go as planned. Strickland was running a high fever from monkeypox he had unknowingly picked up from a friend at his gym. During dinner, he started telling her father about his childhood and found himself crying mid-story. “First time I met her parents, I had a breakdown,” he said.
Her father has never fully warmed to the match, and Strickland carries no illusions about that. After the wedding, the two met for breakfast.
When they said their goodbyes, the father-in-law shook his hand and said, “Sean, I didn’t think you were going to be my son-in-law, but here we are,” then walked away.
Despite the rocky introduction, the relationship with the family has brought real change to Strickland’s life. His father-in-law gave him a laptop, opened a Charles Schwab account, and began walking him through investing.
When his wife first came into the picture, Strickland had a million dollars sitting in a bag under his bed with no plan for it. “She was like, ‘Are you f**king st*pid?'” he recalled. He credits both her and her family with reshaping how he thinks about money and his future.
“My girl really changed my life,” Strickland said. “If it wasn’t for her, I’d be in such a bad place.”
