Mathematics of dating

[bryan]

There's a season 4 Black Mirror episode on dating.. pretty good.

The state and society do not penalize individuals very harshly for divorce. I think self-filing my divorce in a no-fault state after our youngest child turned 19 probably cost approximately $241. When people say that divorce is expensive, what they should usually really be saying is that a bad marriage is expensive, but sometimes you don't know just how expensive until you get the final bill. Otherwise, the main expense of divorce is simply equal to once again assuming the separate expenses of two single people, combined with maybe a bit of a leaning curve on how best to do that these-a-days-at-this-age. As far as social costs, among my peer group, one divorce would still generally be regarded as more "normal" than "never married."

Edit:
I agree on the cheapness of divorce these days
...
So long story, short, prenup - and expect to share after that!

Tell that to my sister and her ex (or perhaps more accurately, their parents..). Both had almost no assets yet tens of thousands were spent. Battling for custody will do that I guess?

What would be reasonable causes for a prenup, assuming folks are actually OK with splitting everything acquired/spent during marriage 50/50? I thought parties already get to keep pre-marriage assets so long as things don't get co-mingled (I'm always confused by the contrast between what I read online and what I see in news from celebrity/wealthy divorces). Maybe time-delayed things like a probable inheritance.. Personally, I was concerned about 1) one person has significant debts while the other has significant assets (how is it handled w/o prenup, what would the prenup provision be? since debts get paid from marriage income) and 2) starting a business while married (from what I've heard, there should be various buyout clauses written into the business?)

[7Wannabe5]

@bryan:

I am not a lawyer, just a woman who has listened to a good many recently divorced men grousing , but one important thing to note would be that it varies, sometimes significantly, from state to state in the U.S. and across international borders. The tricky thing is even if you think you are dead clear on what kind of default contract you entered into when you married in Colorado, you might be very surprised to learn about what kind of divorce terms you may fall subject to 25 years later in Massachusetts. IOW, you need to stay aware of in what realm you are conducting your marriage, just like with a business.

Also, life itself becomes reasonable cause for a pre-nup once you get to a certain age. A lot of people choose not to marry, or marry again, past mid-life just because it's less of a hassle to make small contract where wanted than pre-nup large contract. Inheritance is a major problem, both coming in and going out. For instance, my "ex" changed his will to leave me 1/3 interest in his primary residence, leaving 2/3 interest and his rental properties to his daughters. I wasn't about to look a gift inheritance in the mouth, but I did wonder why he didn't just leave me half of one of his duplexes, rather than set up a situation where his daughters might be eager to give decrepit version of me the boot

That said, I think marriage is something that just about everybody ought to at least give a whirl once in their lives. Bob Hope was apparently a hopeless philanderer, but he came to an agreement with his wife prior to marriage, and they were happy for over 60 years, and he once said that he couldn't imagine having a better life than the one that he had. Now that we've progressed to more gender equity, females who are hopeless philanderers can hope to reap the emergent benefits of long-term relationships concurrent to short-term contracts too!

[Jason]

I am frequently amazed at how many people get divorced well into and beyond middle age.

I once asked an older divorced person why they divorced in their 60's. She said "When they used to say 'until death do us part', they didn't care because no one was living that long." I think there's a lot of truth to that.