What is the draw of marriage?

[lawyerdad]

Originally Posted by Quirk

1. Some people are spoiled, nasty, cynical, greedy and/or vindictive people. Childhood trauma, teenage disappointment, too-much-too-soon, not-enough-ever... the causes are endless.

2. Some people marry with the best of intentions, and make a tremendous emotional investment in it. When it ends, they often feel incredibly hurt, betrayed, etc. and have an intense desire to punish the perceived 'offender'.

3. I'm guessing you're getting pretty one-sided perspectives on most of those situations as well . . .

 

[dtmt]

Originally Posted by lawyerdad

You're assuming that it's always the guy bringing the bulk of the financial assets and/or earning power to the relationship, which is far from universally true.
Not necessarily. There have been men who have been forced to pay alimony even when their ex-wives have far more assets and income.

 

[Quirk]

Originally Posted by lawyerdad

3. I'm guessing you're getting pretty one-sided perspectives on most of those situations as well . . .

True.

Also, the perceived prevalence of these kinds of nightmare divorces is exaggerated by the fact that no one ever feels the need to brag about how civilized their divorce proceeding went.

 

[lawyerdad]

Originally Posted by dtmt

Not necessarily. There have been men who have been forced to pay alimony even when their ex-wives have far more assets and income.
Well, there are always individual variations and outliers, but generally speaking that's not how it works these days. If you have actual support for what you've said I'd be happy to be corrected. Otherwise, I think you're probably relying on old husbands' tales.
Also, you began your earlier post by suggesting that women have little to lose in marriage and men have a lot to lose, financial assets in particular. That generalization would only make sense if one assumes either (1) women are bringing relatively little to marriage in terms of financial contributions; and/or (2) alimony is a one-way proposition, such that a wealthy wife faces no risk of being ordered to pay alimony/support to a penurious husband. Neither, to my knowledge, is a reliable assumption

 

[thinman]

Originally Posted by vanity

"Despite my ex-wife's best efforts to make the divorce as acquisitive and nasty as possible..."

And see, this is the type of thing I'm most worried about. I hear about this ALL THE TIME. Why can't exes just move on like rational people? I've never lashed out at or tried to hurt a woman for breaking up with me. Yet I think almost every divorce story I hear from a guy, that woman is trying her damndest to make his life hell. And to take his stuff just for spite.

WTF is wrong with people? Just move on.


IMO, this is not something that should prevent you from considering marriage, primarily because everyone's reaction to divorce is different and you can't control other people's behavior. It's a risk you take.

I will also say that I'm friends with a couple who divorced very quickly and amicably. They both recognized the marriage wasn't working, hadn't worked in some time, and wasn't going to work. I believe they remain friends.

lawyerdad, thanks for your support.

 

[ken]

You can't take any of that with you, but you can take a cemetary plot next to your wife's, and lay and be buried and decompose and sprout millions of worms and their children together for all eternity.

Why would you pass that up?

 

[globetrotter]

Originally Posted by aybojs

So are you going to offer anything to the discussion except ad homs? There are very valid points with real world ramifications being raised here, and your attempts at macho bullshit aren't really impressing or convincing anyone. I understand that the decision to get married isn't always going to be made on purely rational grounds, but the point of this thread is to fish out arguments over why the formality of marriage is perceived by some to offer so much more than an existing long term relationship that seemingly already provides many of the benefits, not berate people who have the gall to question a tradition.


actually, I agree 100% with OE here - if you are worried about your assets, you probrably shouldn't be marrying that girl.

there are plenty of things that my wife and I do diferently, or dont agree on. I probrably have tossed several years worth of income away due to decisions that I made to make her happier. I don't regret them at all (or not much...) she has born 3 children for me, and effectivly gone from being a college proffesor and museum currator to being a milk machine. such is life. if you are worried about how marrige will affect your 401K, don't get married.

 

[odoreater]

Originally Posted by aybojs

So are you going to offer anything to the discussion except ad homs? There are very valid points with real world ramifications being raised here, and your attempts at macho bullshit aren't really impressing or convincing anyone. I understand that the decision to get married isn't always going to be made on purely rational grounds, but the point of this thread is to fish out arguments over why the formality of marriage is perceived by some to offer so much more than an existing long term relationship that seemingly already provides many of the benefits, not berate people who have the gall to question a tradition.

I'm not quite sure why you consider what I said an ad hom. Do you feel that I was trying to insult you by what I was saying because if you do, I think that says more about you than it does about me. What do you want people to tell you? I stand 100% behind my comment that if you're so worried about the ramifications your marriage will have on your assets or your income when the marriage dissolves, then you probably shouldn't get married. Why is that insulting to anyone? What do you consider so macho bullshit about what I'm saying? It's not macho at all - it's just common sense and I don't really understand why it angers you so much as to resort to calling what I said bullshit.

Benefits of marriage: status as next of kin, joint insurance policies, dissolution protection, automatic inheritance, rights of survivorship, benefits (pensions, medical benefits, social security, etc.), tax benefits, wrongful death benefits for surviving spouses, sick leave to care for partner, automatic decision-making power on death, automatic decision-making power for end of life decisions, joint filing of customs claims when travelling, loss of consortium tort benefits, evidentiary immunity. Is that the kind of answer you wanted?

If protecting your assets is more important to you than the tangible (described above) and intangible (love, companionship, solemnity, officiality, etc.) benefits of marriage, then don't get married. Quite simple actually.

 

[Nantucket Red]

Originally Posted by ken

You can't take any of that with you, but you can take a cemetary plot next to your wife's, and lay and be buried and decompose and sprout millions of worms and their children together for all eternity.

Why would you pass that up?

Besides, marriage keeps the woman you really want forever out of your reach.

 

[GQgeek]

Originally Posted by Quirk

At some point it becomes like trying to figure out why someone would want to pay $5,000.00 for a bespoke tuxedo...There's nothing wrong with renting from 'Formals R Us' -- it actually makes more 'sense'.

I'll give you a pass, this time. You only get one.

As for the OT, I go back and forth on the issue. Despite my dating habits, I like the idea of marriage, but I also can't help but question the rationale of it in the same terms that aybojs does. I can't remember if i saw this in a movie or read about it, but someone once said "when you think you're ready to be married, take a look at your car, your house, your boat and then consider how you feel about dividing it all in two." Men get bent-over backwards way to often to be comfortable about going in to a marriage without a pre-nupt. And on that topic, I have to wonder what that does to the relationship.

My parents' marriage was "good" for about 10 years. The following 15 were miserable but they stuck it out until the youngest kid was mid-teens. The divorce still isn't final and the process has been been dragging on for 2-3 years. The marriage has ruined my father's financial prospects and he always had very high-paying jobs. He was just too trusting and too lenient.

I also have a friend that got his ex pregnant on their last **** and ended up with a kid. Now he's stuck paying child support, which he wouldn't mind, except for the fact that he never gets to see the kid. And since the kid is living with her mother all the time, who's also a complete *****, the mother gets to poison her relationship with her father. What's even more of a joke is that the more he makes the more he has to pay, yet she chooses NOT to work, which also means he has to pay more money.

I'm no lawyer but the laws seem to be completely skewed in favor of women so men need to be extra careful. I firmly believe in planning for the worst.

Besides a pre-nupt, anyone with significant capital should look in to various asset protection strategies before they tie the knot or start co-mingling finances.

 

[itsstillmatt]

Everybody misses being single sometimes.

I had much more money than my wife going in, and I continue to make much more than her each year. I do continue to urge her to keep up, but she is oviously not trying hard enough. I guess the fact that she works in education doesn't help.

No matter our financial situation, I conside that I got the better part of the deal. She is smart, pretty, fun and simply the finest person that I have ever met. I can hardly imagine questioning whether I would want to be married to her.

What Odoreater says is righ (as usual) about the financial benefits of marriage. I may question whether they are just as far as economic policy goes, but they are in existence.

Finally, I am married because it is a way that I can express my feelings for her. I assume that she is married for a similar reason, but perhaps not

. I am proud each day that I wear a ring that signifies this reality. If you are questioning whether marriage makes sense for you, perhaps you have not found somebody worth marrying.

 

[GQgeek]

Originally Posted by iammatt

If you are questioning whether marriage makes sense for you, perhaps you have not found somebody worth marrying.

I'm sure that's a big part of it. I dated a jewish girl a while back that I really liked and who got me thinking about the whole marriage tihng. Unfortunately the timing was really bad. Some guy she'd known her whole life moved back to town and they were married 6 months later ;p

 

[lawyerdad]

Originally Posted by GQgeek

I'm sure that's a big part of it. I dated a jewish girl a while back that I really liked and who got me thinking about the whole marriage tihng. Unfortunately the timing was really bad. Some guy she'd known her whole life moved back to town and they were married 6 months later ;p
I'm trying to figure out where the jewish part fits in.

 

[Quirk]

Originally Posted by lawyerdad

I'm trying to figure out where the jewish part fits in.

Ok, so it wasn't just me. I just wasn't up for another big defensive "what are you accusing me of?" scenario, so I left it to some other over-sensitive politically-correct bleeding heart to call him out.

I'm logging off for the day -- can't wait to catch up tomorrow!

 

[GQgeek]

Originally Posted by lawyerdad

I'm trying to figure out where the jewish part fits in.

I just liked her family and her upbringing. Her values stemmed in large part from living in a mainly orthodox jewish community. She was younger than I but her values were in stark contrast to those of any other girls i've dated, especially for her age. It was quite refreshing and caught me a bit off-guard.

Unfortunately, her religion also added a layer of complications. I just find it ironic that the one girl I've had these sorts of thoughts about was an orthodox jew while I'm a stone-cold aetheist.

Anyway, I don't have a large enough sampling size to make any meaningful insights, but I've met a number of jewish girls and they all seem to have their priorities straight compared to girls that grew-up in less-regimented households which are more and more common these days.

As I said, despite my antics, I like the idea of marriage, but i'm also not going to rush in to anything stupid.