This was a hypothetical question, but it was intended to point out that one of the side-effects of being in a long-term, adult relationship (whether it's memorialized in a marriage or not) is that major sacrifices are a part of life. Part of the intent of alimony is to allocate that risk appropriately. To answer your questions, though, no, I did not have to beg her. We could have probably stayed in Dallas and been content with ourselves, but I would have sacrificed a major career opportunity that ultimately benefited both of us. I did in fact promise to support us...it wouldn't really be fair to ask her to quit her job and move with me without being willing to pay more than my fair share. We wanted to be together, and it came down to a pretty cut-and-dry decision as to how we could continue to be together and flourish financially at the same time. To answer your second question, yes, of course we would have stayed in Dallas...but that wasn't the case. People in relationships have to make relocation decisions around career opportunities all the time. Unfortunately, it's very rare that both come up with equally-improved opportunities in the same city at the same time. The 2 moves we made over the past 4 years have more than tripled our income. If my wife didn't want to work, she wouldn't have to (but she chooses to). I am well aware of the fact that if we got divorced today, she would be entitled to half of it. I love my wife, and I wanted a partner. Don't you think it would have been a huge pussy move if I had asked her to make these moves with me, but told her I didn't want to get married because the statistics were against us and I didn't want her to be entitled to the lifestyle I created? What's the point of being in a relationship (married or not), if there's not some semblance of equity?
What it sounds like you're really trying to say is that you're not against the idea of marriage, you're against the idea of non-financially-equitable relationships altogether. Marriage just gives each party the legal right to half of your shit. But not being married doesn't preclude you from the responsibilities of being in a committed, adult relationship (many of which do not often work out). People who get divorced might be really fucking pissed off that they have to give up half of their assets, but it's fair, like it or not. People who date somebody for 10-15 years, share a lifestyle, and then leave them high and dry are just huge pieces of shit who wanted to hide behind the absence of a legal technicality. If the financial issue is really your key sticking point, why not just get a pre-nup? Nothing says I love you like a pre-nup. Or telling them you don't want to get married at all, because the statistics are against you.
Are we actually having this conversation, you greedy bastards? Not getting married because of potentially having to pay alimony is as disgusting as purely marrying rich. Let's pretend you are in a relationship. One would assume you like sharing experiences, spooning on cold nights, and getting it in every so often. There are so many non-financial benefits of having a partner by your side. To sway one way or the other, based solely monetary gains or losses is as ugly as yo momma's face.
VI, getting into a flame war about this is dumb, but the overwhelming consensus in the field is that 50% is far too high of a number, and is dramatically misapplied. That one professor (note that he's emeritus, meaning retired rather than actively doing research; also, he's making unsubstantiated claims with no data to support his statement) is an outlier both in the context of the article he's quoted in, and in the larger academic discussion around the topic. Are you clinging to the 50% number because you really believe in it, or because it supports the pessimistic story you want to tell?
See to me, getting a pre-nup is saying "if the shit hits the fan, I trust that you'll choose to give me a fair share of money so that I can live a comfortable life, that way we don't need to get lawyers involved in the split." Refusing a pre-nup is saying "I think you're a greedy piece of shit and don't trust you to look out in my best interest, I want lawyers to parse out our financial information and get as much as I can." Maybe it's my anti-governmental involvement bias, but if you're really a good person and things don't work out, why do you need the government to step in in the first place instead of working it out like adults? I think people would have a very different view if a pre-nup was something you had to opt out of, not opt into.
You'll still need to get lawyers involved in the split. A marriage is a civil contract. You can break it only one of two ways: dying and divorce. Either way lawyers and courts are necessary. The pre-nup may make things easier, but you will still need a Court to sign off on the divorce. As for alimony, just move to Louisiana. We don't have alimony here anymore. Unless, of course, you are entirely free from fault in the breakup of the marriage.
All else being equal, I would prefer to enter a pre-nup. Hell, I would prefer to enter the marriage w/ a prenup even if my spouse outearned me, as I'd prefer to decided as much as possible when we didn't want to kill each other. But that being said, pre-nups are almost never going to be approached from this sort of emotional detachment in reality. More often than not, one member of the relationship is going to view the pre-nup as a signal of a lack of good faith. If you're entering with an expectation of bailing out later, the thinking goes, how committed are you in the first place? It also doesn't help that the majority of social discussion of prenups is centered around "them golddigging bitches," so the offer is often going to be seen as an insult. Is this reasonable? Probably not. But that's the context that they exist in, so it's sort of unrealistic to ignore it.
Maybe it should become a cultural thing that part of the role of the Best Man and Maid of Honor is to get together and jointly force the couple to have the prenup discussion. That way neither of the engaged parties is demonstrating a lack of faith in the marriage by initiating the discussion.
Argument: the odds of your marriage lasting until death are XX%! Counter-argument: the odds of your non-committed relationship lasting until death aren't any higher, either.
Just chiming in to say that NO research ever claimed that half of all marriages ended in divorce. Idiots who misread statistics drew this conclusion. Actually, there were a few studies that determined in some odd years (2005, 2006, 2008, I don't fucking remember) --- that the number of marriages in that year was roughly TWICE the number of divorces. Notice how in that year, it doesn't say that that year's divorces came of that year's marriages. And probably very few of them actually did. Also, it doesn't take into account the various population sizes of various ages. Of course there are probably a great deal more boomers, who are divorcing, these days then young people population, which probably account for a large portion of marriages. So what. I'm just saying, with that data alone, you can't say half of marriages end in divorce. That is a very infantile misreading of the statistics, an error which this retarded, low IQ country would readily make again and again.
See to me, getting a pre-nup is saying "if the shit hits the fan, I trust that you'll choose to give me a fair share of money so that I can live a comfortable life, that way we don't need to get lawyers involved in the split." Refusing a pre-nup is saying "I think you're a greedy piece of shit and don't trust you to look out in my best interest, I want lawyers to parse out our financial information and get as much as I can." Maybe it's my anti-governmental involvement bias, but if you're really a good person and things don't work out, why do you need the government to step in in the first place instead of working it out like adults? I think people would have a very different view if a pre-nup was something you had to opt out of, not opt into.[/quote] All else being equal, I would prefer to enter a pre-nup. Hell, I would prefer to enter the marriage w/ a prenup even if my spouse outearned me, as I'd prefer to decided as much as possible when we didn't want to kill each other. [/quote] This. There is no place on Earth more unfriendly to a man that civil court. If I ever get married, this is a must. Not for any sort of financial security, but because divorce lawyers are some truly evil fucks ("the court will side with us if you accuse him of child abuse") and having it written out in advance means less bloodshed on both sides.