In one of his books, Gerald Weinberg said that his sister decided that it was time to give up divorce work when one of her clients (or the client's adversary) produced a list of goods for partition including a partly used container of dish soap under the sink. And my brother (a lawyer) told me of an attorney in the Mountain West who gave up divorce work as too stressful and went on to defending clients on capital charges.
I hope that the new app will help divorcing couples to work through the divorce with less pain on both sides. But is what every party thinks that he or she wants?
I just watched friends divorce. They brought a lot of unnecessary suffering in themselves. They didn’t want an app.
The number one thing to know about divorce with kids is that you lose control. They couldn’t stand that. The idea that the other person was 100% in charge of the kids.
They began making extremely vague allegations of how the other parent does unspecified “bad things” that need to be “reported.”
They eventually ended up believing their own propaganda and are convinced the other parent is abusing the kids on their days.
Once you understand child support payments, and thus the ability to be jailed and eventually charged with a felony and have your civil rights revoked, are tied to custody you'll understand part of the reason for the high stakes. If you end up with <50% custody, you have to keep a job that pays at least as good as your current one for 18 years, pray a judge believes you when you have trouble with work, or expect to end up in a jail cell with your license, property, passport, and civil rights revoked.
The only debtor's prison there is in the US is the one for people with <50% custody. Therefore if the other parent makes claims of abuse, it's imperative you have counterclaims to make sure the other parent is in just as bad light to make sure you won't be subject to imprisonment at the whim of a judge at any misfortune you have.
"The only debtor's prison there is in the US is the one for people with <50% custody."
The amount of people in county jail due to failure to pay child support is shocking. It is one of the best kept secrets in the jail system. The numbers are hidden since they are often bailiff arrests not integrated with sheriff stats [operates jails] under civil contempt. Once you are caught into this system and serve jail time you will most likely lose your current job. Thus begins a debtors spiral: Appear in court, can't pay, jail, release, appear in court, can't pay, jail - you will face ever increasing penalties and bizarre state punishments like having your drivers license suspended.
This system is particularly cruel to High cost of living / High paid individuals. EG. If you make 100k per year and finalize your divorce [lose house, 1/2 savings, 40k in lawyer fees, begin renting in high cost area, forced private school tuition] - alimony with child payments could be ~3k per month post tax. You might be able to swing this a few months. However, stress from the divorce could result in job loss. In the state of Florida for example, just being behind $2500 is a felony (they haven't updated their law). If you attempt to go to another state to find work it is considered fleeing (another felony).
It's hard to find evidence or tape of anything I said since cases are buried in confidential family courts, here is one example of an unrepresented person in the debt spiral. Watch until the end: jail. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvOIdhJg1As
There was a case near where I live where a guy with severe mental illness - not understanding where he was - was arrested for failing to pay child support.
Fortunately it encouraged reform.
But neighboring states still issue automatic arrest warrants, and out state is required to serve then even though we are disgusted by it.
It’s always: young, impoverished black male with a warrant from a neighboring state.
Many local police are disgusted by it. But they don’t have a choice: warrants are warrants.
They'll even imprison you for late child support if you were brutally and publicly held hostage overseas and physically have no possible way to pay. (the whole reason he was overseas was in part to perform contracting to pay his child support).
> The sort of rational thinking you are describing was completely absent from this process
The unreasonably high stakes of “losing” a divorce case make it more like a no-holds barred cage match. I think America likes it this way because on some level it believes people must suffer for getting divorced.
Not everybody's divorce is like this. My ex and I went through voluntary mediation and came to a mutually agreed settlement, with shared legal custody.
We just both recognized that the process was about separating our lives, not resolving our feelings about one another. And that's pretty much always why it goes wrong - people want to use court proceedings as a substitute for therapy.
That doesn't make any sense, because it being a "no-holds barred cage match" makes it more likely for one party to lose. Going in with a co-operative mindset (at least until the other party demonstrates they are not) should be win-win.
Accusations of abuse seem pretty rational to me in a custody battle. It's one of the best ways to get custody. Come up with some 'witnesses', trick the kid into testifying on your side. Have the attorney write up the sob story and blindside the other partner so they're left defenseless. Bonus points if you can get a restraining order in the process so custody is lost and continuity is maintained by continuing the custody terms of the restraining order -- also a good way to destroy means of defense as in some states a spouse has their firearm rights suspended during the order.
it is actually not. Courts tend to punish those if they don't believe them - accusing partner of abuse is fairly often how you get less custody.
Restraining orders are not easy to get either. It can take quite a lot of fight even in cases where actual stalking and threats of violence are going on.
You're the judge and I'm a 'battered wife.' In this fiction: I self-harm myself (claim it was the husband), come up with a terrible and fairly convincing but unverifiable story of abuse and be sure to mention to you my husband has several guns and has threatened me and the kids with them. Do you choose to issue a restraining order, or do you roll the dice and hope nothing bad happens?
"Going in with a co-operative mindset (at least until the other party demonstrates they are not) should be win-win."
Do you have a source for this? In my state, and many others, temporary protection from abuse orders against spouses are very easy to get just by saying the right things without any real evidence. Those stay in effect for a couple of weeks until a hearing. Then it's difficult to get them overturned unless you have physical proof because the course want to "err on the side of caution".
There are divorce lawyers who actually recommend filing false protection orders during divorce, for the very reasons stated by the previous commenter. It's well known amongst divorce attorneys that some in their profession do this. There is generally no punishment for those attorneys since you can't prove their involvement easily, nor for the false filer in many cases. After all, if your spouse is a felon (perjury) the courts will likely make you pay more in child support and alimony due to their limited earning potential.
Things can vary by state. However, I don't know of any state that isn't going to take sides (literally why the judge/master is there if it comes to a trial). Courts are generally not going to ignore any claims about abuse.
This is a well known issue that may be more prevalent in some states than others, but is certainly a national issue.
> If you end up with <50% custody, you have to keep a job that pays at least as good as your current one for 18 years, pray a judge believes you when you have trouble with work, or expect to end up in a jail cell with your license, property, passport, and civil rights revoked.
I don't think thats how child support works in most states. Income shares model basically looks at the cost of raising a child in a particular jurisdiction then pro-rates that based on the parents income. For instance if the cost of child per month is 1k and the man earns 50k and the woman earns 100k (assuming woman has custody), the man would pay $333 a month (50 / 150 * 1k)
That is how it initially gets set. It's a mess to have it reset though. If you lose my job and it takes 6 months to find another one, you have to keep paying. If the new job you find pays 75% of your old one, you still have to pay the old amount. You can petition the court to change it, but they are reluctant because some people take lower jobs to spite an ex. So instead they tend to set it based on "potential earning capacity".
"OH look, you made $100k this year and have a masters in IT. You should be able to earn that forever to pay child support and/or alimony." ...is basically how it goes.
I wanted to add also, that I wonder how this affects people who reasonably can't maintain that level. For example, if I were to get divorced it would crush me. I'm barely holding on at my job now (meh to bad reviews, I hate the place, I have no marketable skills to get hired anywhere else). I'm pretty sure the added stress of a divorce would lead to even further performance issues and being fired.
Well the simple way to get around this is to just not have kids. It’s easy! Just don’t have them and your life will be great. Happily married, 0 kids. 1 vasectomy.
This isn't how divorce or child support payments work. This is just a popular line of reasoning in Men's Rights circles. It's certainly possible but very unlikely.
I know lots of people that are divorced, with partial custody. Most like the situation better than when they were married.
Tell that to my dad, who dealt with a vindictive ex-wife who cleaned him out and used my sister as a pawn against him. My sister still hates my dad to this day due to the lies she told her about him.
for every story like this there’s an opposite, my dad left the state to avoid child support, worked under the table to avoid wage garnishment, and I got to watch him buy expensive cars for girlfriends from afar while my mom worked 60 hours a week to keep us barely above the poverty line
They also generally desire to harm the other party more than get assets for themselves. If just one part is willing to spend a dollar to make the other party lose a dollar, you’re gonna have a bad time.
friends of mine divorced recently. they were on good terms, but were getting egged on by their lawyers. the lawyers very much preferred a long drawn-out divorce. luckily my friends were on good terms and they discussed about what their lawyers were telling them. which were mostly falsehoods. stuff like “are you sure the other party hasn’t hidden funds from you?”. so i’m sure there are horrible divorces, but i’m also sure there are horrible lawyers as well.
My decision to at least exclude family law, beyond the divorce of my parents when I was a teenager being fairly ugly (although now with a larger sample size I've observed, relatively tame), was cemented by sitting through a whole session where the only property that needed to be split were a pair of season tickets to my school's men's college basketball team. While the school's team is quite good, we've never won a championship, at the time of the proceedings we've only been AP #1 for a week and then was almost knocked out of the tourney by a 16 seed, and in open court both parties acknowledged that they don't go to all of the home games and are seeing other season ticket holders, meaning that neither party needed to have both sets of tickets just to go watch the games live. The only advantage is that the seats would be together, but I've been to a lot of games of just about every North American professional sport (yes, including Arena Football) and seat swapping is ubiquitous whether the place is sold out or a quarter full. I've litigated my own case in small claims court and can honestly say that there were cases far more consequential there than the acrimonious splitting of a pair of basketball season tickets. It's not exactly kafkaesque - the criminal justice system fits the bill better - but it's at least... Dadaist in an un-self-aware way? I've appeared in undergraduate musicals written by my classmates that were less cringeworthy than that.
And I've practiced administrative law which, since they are not established under Article III of the Constitution, can be pretty cowboy and roughshod. I've also appeared in tribal court which seem to frequently take cues from TV courts. But they are not frivolous, not at all. Administrative hearings can and do determine the liberty of people every day. Same for tribal courts. There's something farcical about all 3 types of proceedings but family court just hits the perfect note of "legitimate", "important", and "farcical" to me, even though they are undoubtedly important. I can assure you that no immigration or NLRB hearings, the administrative courts in this country with teeth, sink into farce at a similar rate.
At one point there were some half-joking talks about finding an agreeable local tribe to partner with us to open a startup that allow same-day in-app divorces. Sadly even with introductions and approaching tribes in several states they all ended up saying no. There's a free idea for y'all, business-wise, if you can pull it off.
"I hope that the new app will help divorcing couples to work through the divorce with less pain on both sides."
It won't. The people who fight over used dish soap and other petty things will continue to have issues.
The other part is people having an incorrect perception of what they are entitled to in a divorce. The app or a lawyer will be able to show them how wrong that perception is, but it won't dull the pain.
What would actually help is forming a prenup while both parties are happy, before vengeance, winning, or whatever emerges from the failed marriage.
This. My ex-wife and I split amicably and without lawyers, it was a really easy process in my state. Not having any assets made things easier but we were mature enough to be adults about it all.
The problem isn't the divorce process, it's the people involved, either the parties to the divorce or their attorneys.
thank you - I hope so too. When people are separating and fighting over kids, that can get intense too. This tragic story has stuck me for a long timehttps://nypost.com/2021/11/26/texas-man-shoots-partners-ex-a.... If people understand their rights better, they can avoid taking things into their own hands.
In my experience, it’s less about knowledge and more about emotional regulation - lack of it is often why it happens, and why it is so hard to deal with overall.
> Insert a gun into a frustrating situation for no reason
IMHO that's the main reason everyone having a gun with zero training is one of the stupidest things ever. People are dumb, people are brash, people make mistakes, people argue over everything. Why introduce a lethal component to every confrontation and bar fight? Because a piece of paper written 200 years ago says that it will be needed to protect the country doesn't really sound like a good enough reason for all the useless deaths.
Gun ownership can be done well, with most people being minimally restricted. I really don't see why psycho-tests and some minimal level of gun manipulation skills shouldn't be a prerequisite. I mean do you want to live around a person who can't pass that but bought yesterday AR-15 with ten 40-round magazines and 2000 bullets?
But gun owners in US have this knee-jerk end-of-the-world reaction at any attempt to change anything, regardless of all the school shootings and overall ridiculously high murder rate. Tunnel vision that guns are the most important thing in the world and who doesn't restrict them is the best politician.
I lean in my opinions more towards right but due to this I would never ever be republican if I were in the US. Voting for the same people as vast amounts of bible belt gun nuts whose wet dreams are mostly about their property being invaded by some thugs (or anybody really) so they can finally defend themselves with one of the 50 guns they have mostly for this purpose, and the spend significant amount of time and money on preparing exactly for this scenario... that would be insulting.
I really shouldn’t have clicked the article, honestly. I have become so desensitized to everything on the internet at this point, but something about parents always makes my heart ache so baddddd. I totally struggle to not to insert my own mom or dad. It’s just tragic.
I really cannot comprehend why there is no punishment for things like that.
Sure, was he at risk of the other person grabbing the gun? Probably. But why did he have to unnecessarily bring a firearm into a heated and emotional argument in the first place? What was supposed to happen?
It feels so psychotic to me, like taunting someone with the intention to bait them into their death. Those kids lost their parent for no good reason :(
We just launched Resolvy. It helps anyone going through a divorce understand what portion of the assets they can keep, and what portion is to be divided with their spouse. Deals with child support and alimony too. Currently only works in New York. Free to use. Can save Anyone going through a divorce in New York on legal fees.
Have you ever been through a divorce? Splitting assets equally is an after thought for most folks. They (or the one that filled) just want to get the thing over with, quickly, and a lawyer makes that happen.
I have not personally (still happily) married. My cofounder went through a divorce. He is a divorce lawyer (and his wife at the time a lawyer too). They divided everything smoothly - sounded like it was quite clinical and unemotional from what he told me.
Say if you brought assets into the relationship, a house, retirement fund fund, an inheritance. I’m sure you don’t want your ex-partner to get half of that. You’re entitled to keep a larger portion of it (as you get a credit for it). So our app helps people understand that better.
Some people who split everything equally may be giving more away than they should.
This is our version one. I have no idea how it will evolve.
But yes, if you want it done quickly - a lawyer is better at this stage.
> You’re entitled to keep a larger portion of it (as you get a credit for it).
Doesn't this depend on if you have a pre-nup especially in states like CA? I got married super early and had to divide everything equally even though I earned much more than my spouse.
Not in NY, an “equitable distribution” state. Our mediator informed us that my wife was entitled to maybe 10% of my ipo stock since she didn’t sacrifice or contribute to it (I had a normal salary). Sounds like ny is an exceptionally fair state!
Wow...that does sound quite exceptional. My wife got 50% of all my RSUs and all other equity I earned throughout my career. Nothing I could do about it since it was earned during our marriage and that's the law in CA.
California is a Community Property state, New York is not.
The rules in Community Property states is marital assets have to be divided equally (50/50) in non-Community Property states they must only be divided up "equitably."
Most states with historical ties to Spanish civil law are community property, and a few oddballs too. IRS (U.S. federal tax agency) Publication 555 explains a lot of the basics of community and separate property, including how taxation works in case of divorce. (It is not specifically about divorce, however).
As you can see this represents a large percent of the total U.S. population.
Arizona.
California.
Idaho.
Louisiana.
Nevada.
New Mexico.
Texas.
Washington
Wisconsin
Also, "The states of Tennessee and South Dakota have passed elective Community Property Laws."
I believe if you earned during the marriage that’s marital property unless otherwise agreed in a prenup (maybe some states are weird but I think that’s the norm). The scenario is more like owning the house you live in before the marriage, then using marital proceeds for stuff like maintenance and taxes. The increase in value since the marriage might be considered shared, because you both contributed towards it.
This doesn’t sound right at all. The classic story is “he/she took me to the cleaners”, fighting over every possible asset, being forced to sell a house or property you don’t want to because the spouse demands half. I don’t know the frequency but it happens. My own parents fought hard over the house in particular and my mother ended up having to buy my father out at a huge loss to avoid selling it.
Divorce does force people to make tough choices. Both people are entitled to a share of the assets they jointly accumulated over time, separate their finances and make a fresh start independently. Keeping or selling the house (the biggest asset) is a hard decision. Selling often means disrupting the lives of the children etc. If property has negative equity, then it becomes even more challenging. In NY, couples can enter into an agreement where they keep joint ownership of the house for a while (eg until the kids grow up). This can only work if they’re amicable. Lots of people don’t want to continue holding a joint mortgage with their ex-partner, so it’s often a decision between sell the house or one person taking over the mortgage.
Many people live near their means. It makes sense that doubling costs like housing, property taxes, and utilities would likely require downsizing or hard choices.
Harry Browne had a technique for splitting up assets: One partner does the splitting. And the other partner gets to choose who gets which pile.
(He also has a more elaborate one, where the partners do a virtual auction of all items among themselves, to account for cases where particular items are worth a lot more to one of them. I believe it’s in his book “How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World”).
The first one is a very common technique among siblings too, let one of them split a cake and the other one gets to pick the piece. Applied game theory.
This is slightly tangential, but I went through a no-prenup divorce. My intentions were good in not wanting a pre-nup, but I’ve changed my advice for a reason that surprises a lot of people.
The reason I now advise folks to do a pre-nup is that when things are getting tense, everyone feeling insecure about their future actually increases the pressure and therefore the possibility of a divorce.
Write your pre-nup however you want, but save yourself the possibility of huge additional and unnecessary stress/uncertainty at a time when the relationship can least afford it.
I thought prenups were for couples where one or both parties are bringing assets into the divorce? Like, I'd consider one if I had any real assets or savings beyond my retirement accounts, but at the time I got married I didn't.
Marriage is first and foremost a legal and financial arrangement.
When you get married you have the option of writing the agreement between yourself and your partner (a prenup) or just accepting the one-size-fits-all government boiler plate.
Maybe you think there's nothing special about your situation. Maybe you think the government rules will work fine enough. Wouldn't you at least like someone to review them with both of your first so you know what the contract you're signing says? That still involves getting a prenup.
The prenup process also has a few additional advantages.
First, it forces transparency with finances. A stunning number of couples never fully disclose their financial state to each other. They don't know about that credit card debt their partner is holding or the student loans, or the jewelry they inherited from their grandmother worth $30k or whatever. Having those discussions about money with a neutral third party can actually help your relationship succeed and it provides insurance against not only surprises but also having to have those discussion while your relationship is failing which will be a much more stressful time.
Second, it forces conversations around expectations for the relationship, big life decisions, etc. I know many religions enforce pre-martial consoling that's similar but in today's secular world there's a good chance you might get married without having those discussions or without having a neutral third-party present to oversee the process.
In short, prenups are not about divorce, they're about the terms of the legal agreement you're signing.
In place I currently live even retirements savings are part of divorce split, and I don't think any prenup can affect that. They basically add them together and split 50:50, which is often more fair to women who skipped years of work and career building and stayed with kids. Earned before/during marriage doesn't matter in this case.
Switzerland, hardly a terrible place, in contrary. And as fair as one can possibly hope on this planet.
Retirement saving is mandatory just like elsewhere in Europe and taken automatically, so you can't avoid that part if you actually work. There is additional voluntary pillar but that's a minor sum compared to mandatory ones.
In general Switzerland seems like a nice place. I don't really agree that premarital assets should be split in a divorce. That doesn't seem like a fair thing if one party comes into it with significantly more.
Islamic laws on such matters are "surprisingly" progressive - as one of the few religions that recognises and accepts divorce, it is the only one I know that also insists on a prenup which specifies a lump sum a prospective bride is entitled to if the couple divorce in future. (This is negotiated between the families before the marriage). Note that in Islamic laws a muslim man has implied responsibility to care for his child, divorced or not and whoever has custody, and thus this is not a part of the prenup.
Judaism also recognizes divorce. Among the abrahamic religions, it's only Christianity that traditionally insists on continuing the marriage once the participants want out.
If you intermingle finances or kids or property ownership then you have all the problems of a divorce except no legal framework to handle them in. Which makes for an even worse splitting process rather than a better one.
Right, you potentially miss out in cases that can really matter (e.g. power of attorney, things related to children) and you might find you fail to avoid the things you’re trying to avoid (e.g. governments/courts giving some recognition to long-term relationships)
Then you have to pay more in taxes, having kids is more challenging, getting a mortgage becomes more expensive, immigration becomes impossible, and in some countries even travel becomes difficult.
We might be thinking of very different countries. Taxes are largely the same in most developed countries for couples or singles. Couples just have double the allowances. I'm not sure if you meant emigration, but I've lived in 3 countries while single, and I never heard this being easier married. And for sure I was never asked about my marital status for traveling.
Yes we can, we just apply independently, at the same time, as independent adults that we are, we've moved together all those times.
I've also traveled to Muslim countries, latest of which Morocco. There might be some restrictions here and there but the way you speak of marriage it makes it sound like it's the 14th century.
How? Taxes for couples are generally just doubled. You can actually save on taxes by not being married and maneuvering who claims what (house, dependants, etc).
Taxes are generally Progressive actually so the overall rate is higher for one person then two splitting.
Some major tax deductions like the mortgage deduction are per person as well, so two people with a shared income get twice the deduction as one person with an income
"Some major tax deductions like the mortgage deduction are per person as well"
This doesn't sound right.
"so the overall rate is higher for one person then two splitting."
That depends if that one person is the higher or lower earner. This statement really only works if you have two unequal salaries. Since it's progressive, you're only paying the higher taxes on the amount that is over the threshold.
I don't know what to tell you. The code is pretty straightforward. You can deduct the mortgage interest on 375 k per person. You get twice the tax deduction with two people as one.
Regarding the general taxes you are correct in that it only helps if you have two people in different tax brackets. This is extremely common
That’s a unique take on it, so getting a prenup can help prevent divorce. This will be a good counter argument for when women argue that a prenup just means you’re eventually planning to get divorced.
The issue with this seems to me to be that if you're having an amicable divorce, you don't need to spend a lot on lawyers anyway, so this doesn't really help. If you're having a contentious divorce, the other side's going to get a lawyer, so you need to get a lawyer too.
There's some language on your site that suggests that this can help you understand how your various assets will be treated in a divorce, which could be good if it's contentious, but if you have a lot of assets you're still going to want a lawyer.
I guess what I'm wondering is who your target audience is, as well as how you'd plan to monetize this?
My ex and I split amicably and looked around for a facilitator to help with the paperwork. We hired a woman who seemed like she knew what she was doing, met with her, and as we had already been separated for years, we didn't think about it much and just sat back and waited. And waited. And waited. We'd call and she'd say she was waiting on the courts. Checking online would only get back some cryptic pending notice. After over a year and a half, we finally get a stern letter from the court, "Get your asses down here, the judge wants to speak to you idiots." (That's a summary, of course.)
What happened was the woman we hired had filled in the wrong county on all the forms. The court sent them back, with a note explaining the error. She submitted them again, untouched. They bounced the papers back to her. She did it twice more!!!
We had no idea until we're literally standing wide-eyed before the bench and the judge basically says (again, a summary), "Why are you two morons wasting the court's time? What the hell is wrong with you? Fix it. Or else."
Neither of us had been in court before, and my ex is from Spain and unfamiliar with American justice, so the experience was a tad intimidating, to say the least. There's a sense of seriousness in a court that really isn't something you regularly experience outside a funeral parlor. We immediately hired someone competent and were divorced within like 3 months.
So, I think this is actually a pretty useful service!
But that sounds like it has nothing to do with splitting assets, which is what this service is about. Your problem was with administrative legal tasks, and you hired someone who wasn't competent at them. You could still make the same mistake even if you were using this service.
We want to target people who are amicable (to start with). Definitely not anyone who is contentious. Hoping to expand to contentious divorces in the future of course (and help people actually negotiate without a lawyer). I would love the system to give prompts to people on whether they're asking for too much or if they're in the ballpark.
If you're amicable, there is still a lot of benefit in checking whether what you've agreed to divide with your spouse is fair from a legal perspective. You could be giving too much away. Eg. If you had a retirement/pension fund before the marriage, do you want to split that equally down the middle - no. You'll be entitled to keep a bigger slice of that (but you may have to give some away of course). Same with any other assets you had before the marriage, or inheritance you received during the marriage, or if you’ve used pre-marital funds to buy assets during the marriage. All these things could move it away from a 50/50 split.
Monetising will be the next step. We just want to figure out if this is useful for people first.
We have a few ideas, eg once Resolvy gives you the information (or prepares the divorce documents) we can advertise attorneys who can check everything for you to make sure it’s correct. We'll try keep it a free service for as long as we can (and figure out revenue models from businesses)
Thanks for the reply - this all makes sense, though I might considering changing the way you message it a bit. If you pitch it as a tool to check whether what you've already agreed upon is fair, then you potentially cause conflict if your assessment says the agreement isn't fair. Rather, it might be better as a starting point - if you don't know how to divide your assets, this tool will tell you what the law would default to, and then you can adjust from there.
Does this handle potential alimony? That’s the thing that scares me about getting divorced. A friend of mine confided in me that their partner hasn’t worked since they been married and is afraid that ending the relationship would put them in a deep alimony situation. Unfortunate side effect of living in a high cost are sure but I understand their frustration
It shouldn't be that scary. I've been married coming up on 10 years in January. I've been the sole income provider for a large majority of the marriage.
I wouldn't be able to make the income that I do without the contributions my wife has made to making my life easier, and in general keeping the more administrative aspects of life under control.
I'm in a marriage with her because I love her and respect her. Part of that is recognizing that it is our income. Part of that is recognizing that even if our marriage were to decay to the point of divorce that I would still care enough about her as a person to want her to be able to establish a new life.
I'd advise the friend of yours to create a relationship their spouse wants to be in. That's how you prevent the downsides of alimony.
I'd advise the friend of yours to create a relationship their spouse wants to be in
This just isn't always possible. Sometimes, folks change and want different things in life. For example: If my spouse suddenly decided he wanted children, that would end the relationship for me. I could not expect them to go without something they are finding critical to their happiness, but I'm not willing to bear children for someone else's feelings either.
And honestly, this is what being respectful in a relationship actually is.
But all that said, would one of us qualify for alimony or need some help getting on our feet? Yeah. One of us stays home, after all, and would need the assistance (though I'm not convinced it should be alimony, per se - not at our income level).
sure, people aren't static, and needs and wants change over time. sometimes they diverge.
I certainly didn't mean that one should betray their own needs or boundaries to accommodate their spouse. My intent was more to convey that fostering a caring, loving, respectful, and interdependent relationship drastically lowers the probability of a divorce. Life still happens.
Of course our existing systems aren't perfect either. I do think there's probably a case for a lower bounds on when alimony is viable. e.g., if the paying party is/would be below the poverty line, but I'm far from well enough informed to speculate what a good system would be.
If you have 15m and lose half of it, you are still pretty well off with the 7.5m you retail. Even a quarter of that would get you a house and you probably won't have issues having a stable life, even though both parties have to set up house again.
Half of 35000k - 17.5k - might be the difference between living on your own and having to move in with relatives.
It is basically the difference between some money when you are nearing poor and money while rich - the poorer you are, the more you are going to depend on the money and the bigger difference losing/having it will have on your life.
> I wouldn't be able to make the income that I do without the contributions my wife has made to making my life easier, and in general keeping the more administrative aspects of life under control.
If you were to divorce would you find it reasonable for her to get 50%?
Because I would seem as tho she gave up (willingly in support of you) a career for you. And after divorce wouldn’t be able to maintain any sort of lifestyle as a result of having no career or work experience?
Seems reasonable to me she would get the 50% from during the marriage, but nothing after. Most people agree to share resources from during the marriage, not after the marriage. If the bread winner owes alimony, then the house-maker should owe maid service or something, but yet you never see that in the court order.
It is especially scary when you consider that some people get locked into a career or job they hate to pay alimony which cannot be reduced if they change jobs
I think you have a flawed mental model of alimony. Try modelling it more like a severance package. Should you keep working for your employer after they've terminated the employment agreement, but agreed to give severance? The universal answer is a resounding 'no'.
I see marriage as an equal partnership, so if there is a post-marriage 'severance' (beyond 50/50 asset disposition noted above) it would be bilateral (bread winner gives money to home-maker, home-maker gives maid/home-making service to bread winner). Seems cleanest at all just to cut ties though.
It's not a symmetric exchange though. One person has decidedly more capability to start a new life than the other. The 'severance' is intended to help them establish that new life (e.g., acquire training, housing, etc)
If they're continuing to perform home making duties, they don't have the time to build that new life. And you're essentially keeping them trapped in the relationship even after a divorce.
You're of course welcome to negotiate anything with a potential spouse before marriage and encode it in a prenup.
I find it odd that the law considers the contributions during marriage symmetrically, but losses of each party asymmetriclly. That is to say, the contributions of a homemaker are equal to that of an income earner during marriage, but there is no harm from losing the expected support of the homemaker.
The homemaker can continue to be a homemaker for themselves exclusively, while receiving half an income. The income earner needs to work while homemaking, or work while supporting a 2nd homemaker.
The legal situation is complicated because the courts try to balance conflicting objectives. One is to help the homemaker reestablish themselves, the other is to maintain a lifestyle they are accustomed to. If it was only the former, some sunset duration would be appropriate, I think.
The reality is that it is often a distinctive. If the partner receiving alimony starts a career or remarries, they will lose the revenue stream.
>One person has decidedly more capability to start a new life than the other.
I mean possibly, possibly not. For instance, my wife makes bundles more than me and is the bread-winner yet she works a licensed career, with her license restricted to a limited geographic area with not so many jobs. For her to start a new life would be much harder than me even though she is the bread winner. Also worth noting 'home-maker' is an extremely common niche in life so it's unreasonable to believe someone occupying that niche can't find another marriage with another divorced bread-winner seeking to return to the interlocking bread-winner home-maker scenario.
As a second, point, I totally object to the idea someone has an obligation to provide someone a 'new' life just because that person lost opportunities by voluntarily entering a relationship. For instance, people often give up career opportunities to take care of an ailing family member and no judge is going to order the ailing family member pay alimony pay them back to start a new career. In particular, if the vows include 'until death do us part' then that is a pretty explicit agreement not to provide provisions for post-divorce alimony arrangement. Even worse, no one should be in the position to pay for somebody else to get a new life if a partner say cheated on you and then divorced you to chase another partner.
And a third note, you've totally looked at it from a one-way lense here. The home-maker bread-winner interlocking really is a team equal effort. When the bread-winner loses the home-maker, they may have a lot to 're-learn' -- how to efficiently manage shopping, cooking, cleaning, balancing the budget (possibly). That takes a lot of time and their health may suffer because they no longer know how to say cook nutritiously anymore, so if the bread-winner needs to pay the home-maker to re-tool for a career then the home-maker should be ordered to help the bread-winner re-learn how to cook and other essential tasks (no joke, efficiently performing all the home-maker tasks can take a long time to master!). It really is a bilateral severance, if we want to create a severance fairly.
>If they're continuing to perform home making duties, they don't have the time to build that new life
If they're continuing to perform labor to pay alimony, they don't have the time to build that new life.
>And you're essentially keeping them trapped in the relationship even after a divorce.
But that's what alimony is! I'd support some provision that alimony could be cancelled if they don't want to perform the maid service, so they could avoid being trapped into receiving an alimony payment.
>You're of course welcome to negotiate anything with a potential spouse before marriage and encode it in a prenup.
The counterpoint is here any severance should be arranged in the pre-nup. In the old days in some cultures this was a dowry, which relied on up-front mutual agreement rather than unilateral violence of the state by judge after the fact. The default should be asset transfers and splitting happens during and at the termination of marriage and not after.
The person staying at home has given up work, and cannot enter the workforce in the same way after marriage because they've not been in the workforce for years. They've given up earning potential for you to work and alimony (in theory) is to make sure you are regulating someone to poverty after they gave up that earning potential to be a homemaker without the benefits of employment (days off, insurance, hourly wage).
In states without alimony, you just split the stuff and move on. This is what you describe - divorce without alimony.
Yes I'm aware. I was specifically asked to model it as 'severance.'
Most of the stay-at-home spouses I've met didn't give up work as a gift to their spouse, they did it as a gift to their children. Should children pay alimony to stay-at-home moms for the work opportunities their mother lost out on to take care of them?
Are you suggesting the father derived no benefit from the arrangement, that he continued to do half of the childcare, cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc?
Are you suggesting the mother derived no benefit from the arrangement, that she continue to pay half the rent, health insurance, groceries, car insurance, gas, etc?
Personally, when my wife didn't work for over a year (more like two), it did fuck all for me. I paid all of the fulltime childcare, took care of the kid before and after school, and paid every single financial interest of my wife except her car insurance and phone bill. I can truthfully and honestly say in my personal situation I got nothing out of it. I paid for her because I love her and wanted her to have the same standard of life I have WHILE WE ARE MARRIED -- but I would be quite displeased indeed if my generosity in marriage is taken to mean I would be so generous after being ditched.
I paid all of the fulltime childcare, took care of the kid before and after school, and paid every single financial interest of my wife except her car insurance and phone bill.
So, you gave her everything but the freedom to get out of the house and the freedom to talk to people as needed, even though she wasn't working at the time? Seriously.. the first thing my spouse did when I moved overseas with them was to make sure I could communicate with folks and have the ability to leave the house on a whim (within reason, I could always do free stuff). This was because these things keep people more free and less trapped in a situation.
And honestly, it sounds like your situation wasn't average: Most of the time, the stay at home parent is an unpaid childcare worker, unpaid cook, and unpaid maid without ever getting days off and often without having spending money of their own unless they save money on groceries. I'd guess that your situation had other factors.
And a note: If your ex lives in poverty after divorce, it means your children live in part-time poverty and I really don't understand wanting that sort of thing.
>So, you gave her everything but the freedom to get out of the house and the freedom
No she spent pretty much the entire day out of the house pursuing her goals while I financed it and took care of the kid on top of that.
> it means your children live in part-time poverty
That's what child support is for, for the child to have money even if the parent does not. Also, alimony is a thing even for people without kids. If the father goes into poverty to pay child support nobody gives a fuck, even if that means the child ends up living in part time poverty with the father. You'll hear judges impugn people paying child support all the time because they didn't pay it while eating and putting gas in their car, somebody posted a video here of a judge doing that.
I wasn't trying to make it personal, and your situation does sound unusual; sometimes the stay-at-home partner ends up working more hours than the breadwinner spouse, who might work 40 hours at the workplace and do nothing at home. That doesn't sound like it was the case for you when your wife wasn't working.
I would be quite displeased indeed if my generosity in marriage is taken to mean I would be so generous after being ditched.
I would say to anyone on the default marriage contract, there may well be spousal maintenance in the event of divorce, so if anyone thinks that's unfair, draw up your own agreement.
I think at the societal level though there needs to be a re-adjustment of the family court so that "I will support you to pursue your own goals until whatever arbitrary I time I decide not to" does not default to "I will support you to pursue your own goals, even if you cheat on me and then ditch my ass to get filled up with cum by strangers." That is just an act of tyrannical judges using unilateral violence of the state to pursue their own hate against the generous.
>who might work 40 hours at the workplace
Lol I was working a lot more than that to support a loved but at the time dead-weight wife on top of my kid and paying for full time care workers for my kid. There was one month my fingers and wrist were in such pain from working waking to to night all day everyday I could barely work without being in constant pain.
> If you were to divorce would you find it reasonable for her to get 50%?
Seems like a good place to start, although it should probably be for a limited time and/or reduce over time. My spouse stopped working shortly after we married, as was mutually agreed and beneficial, and many years out of the workforce likely reduces earnings forever, but 50% of earnings after divorce forever doesn't seem fair; 50% for a limited time is probably less administrative burden than an amount that more fairly or accurately compensates for the lost earnings potential for a longer time. Certainly 50% of retirement accounts, and if there's a pension, 50% of that portion fairly allocated to the marriage (social security has its own rules for spousal allowances in a divorce, which may or may not be fair, but are what they are; I'd assume that's mostly accepted as-is though?)
50% would be a reasonable starting place. I might factor in her earning potential had she not left her career.
We've discussed getting it codified in a postnup (along with assets), so we would know in advance what any numbers would be should either of us want to terminate the marriage. I forget off the top of my head what number we floated -- she didn't ask for it to be 50%.
I’m in a similar boat but it’s something that just kinda happened as a result of having kids and living in Singapore. In my head I wouldn’t even want to discuss it I would just split down the middle but I read your post and wondered if my thoughts would change /if/ I was going through a divorce.
Hopefully it never comes to down because our relationship is amazing.
of course -- read literally, it's not true. I just left a comment[0] that clarifies what my intent to convey was. tldr: it lowers the probability of divorce.
one person can't reduce that chance to zero, because as you mentioned, the other person very much has free will.
One big problem with alimony is it's often calculated at time of divorce and never updated. Extreme cases are when the provider is at an unusual peak of earnings. Once they are past that peak and can't keep up payments, they are driven into bankruptcy (or even jail!). This is quite common with successful actors and sport stars.
On the other end, some divorces happen when the provider is in a low (e.g. depressed with an unusually low salary, or even jobless). So the other partner has to face almost zero alimony support. Even if the provider is later recovered and well off.
There are people exploiting both scenarios by timing the divorce when it's most convenient for them. This used to be a trope in magazines.
Yep it calculates alimony payments (called spousal maintenance in NY). It's based on income, length of relationship etc. In NY, you can actually negotiate out of alimony (eg trade it for some more assets).
Alimony varies by state. In California if it’s less than 5 years the higher earner will owe alimony for half the length of the marriage. Other states you have to be married X amount of years before it’s obligated.
Watching two of the most important people in my life gradually grow to resent each other to the point where they can't stand each other's presence was hard for me even as a thirty year old. I can't imagine what this experience would have done to me as a child, so I'm thankful that they stuck together for as long as they did.
In the end I was actually the one who suggested that they should separate, and I'm almost certain that if I didn't they'd still be together today. But in hindsight I'm glad I did, even though I felt immensely guilty about it at the time, and going through the whole separation process with them brought me to the brink of depression. They're a lot happier today than when they were together.
This whole experience has really left its scar on me. I shudder at even the thought of ever getting into any kind of romantic relationship myself, let alone marriage, due to fear of having to go through something like this myself, which statistically speaking is much more likely than I'm willing to risk. Even putting aside statistics, the truth is I see enough of both of them in myself that I can easily see myself playing either part in a similar situation down the line.
Thankfully I'm an introvert who actually enjoys being alone with my own thoughts, I have several close friends, money, hobbies, and had a fulfilling career up to this point and have recently embarked on a new journey bootstrapping my own business that deeply excites me. So I have little reasons to doubt that I can find plenty of enjoyment and fulfillment through other means in life.
I haven't told either of them though, because I know it will break their hearts. So far I've been evading the topic whenever it comes up, since at this stage in my life I have plenty of plausible excuses. I don't know how long I can keep this up though.
I know both of them want to see grandkids, and I still dread the day when I have to tell them it's probably never going to happen. The best I can do at that point is probably to make up some other reason why, instead of telling them the real reason: them.
I know they're not going to take it well regardless, and if we get into some heated argument I can totally see myself losing control and letting the real reason slip out, and that truly terrifies me to my core.
Thank you for reading up to this point. I'm not expecting anyone to hand me a solution, or for a solution to even exist. But just writing this out and putting it out there has been really cathartic for me, so I hope reading this might be helpful to someone else in some way.
I'm going to refrain myself from sharing my opinion (only you really know the full context of what you have gone through and how it makes you feel). But if I could champion one advice it would be this: please give psychotherapy a try. There are different types of psychotherapy and different kinds of professionals, but if you find one that clicks with you it could be life changing.
I know it's expensive (depending where you live) and it's more often than not a painful process. But for many people that stick with it, getting to go to a good psychologist/psychiatrist is like having your mind, feelings and ego dumped and analysed by a thorough debugger.
Part of the reason the divorce rate is so high is because people go into it without even knowing themselves who they are.
If you don't know who you are, how can you make a reasonable assessment about what others bring to the table ?
If you can't answer the question honestly:
- What are your flaws
- What are your strengths
- What scares you
- What has possibly scarred you
- What is unacceptable to you
- What is mandatory for you
- Can you answer the same, for someone you love?
You are flipping a coin with regards to marriage.
Helpful hack:
- Don't marry, not right away. Have a relationship and live with someone you really respect. Put your cards on the table. You aren't going to marry, but you will commit for life. For anyone to stay, they need to be on board with being ok with living on a continuous "performance review". That includes you. That is a huge win, as it signals a maturity level for both parties and the ability to accept to being vulnerable. Yes, there may be some truly unique and valuable individuals you miss out that have very tough requirements from relationships (for example, no living together without marriage), but we are assuming those are diamonds and you aren't going to randomly be dating them.
Give time (~3yrs?) in a cohabitating arrangement. This is important because if you truly know yourself, you must also learn to know the other person too. This is only possible with time, especially for someone not very experienced with relationships. To live with someone is critical to really know them... not because they may leave dirty dishes on the sink, or whether they are picking up laundry - but because cohabitating is a truth-teller. You can't put a facade while living with someone else. You can't pretend to be interested in someone as a person, and its impossible to hide insecurities from someone you are spending time, 24/7, for several years.
Learn to accept that every relationship is an investment. Know yourself. Be mature and gracious in defeat. But be hopeful and optimistic of the future.
Not every relationship will work out. Not every person is suited for a loving relationship, and even fewer people are compatible to each other. Yet, its hard to love a cynic.
Take ego out, be vulnerable and find people that accept you for who you are.
My father recently died and one of the strangest emotions that I felt after his death was not of sadness but of relief.
He wasn't old or in pain. It wasn't relief for him. His death was an accident and I'm sad about that for his wife and everyone else including me.
The relief I felt was from expectations lifting. It's made me do a lot of thinking about how I live my life, and the implicit choices I've made due to expectations on me. Most of which I didn't really see as external forces for the longest time.
Whilst it's easy to say, but hard to do, I would suggest you just live life how you want, your parents are adults and are responsible for their emotions.
Again it's easy to say this. Hard to do it.
> I haven't told either of them though, because I know it will break their hearts.
Are you sure you are doing what's best in this situation and not just shying away from potential confrontation with them? Projecting their reaction which can be far from reality? In my 40+ years of experience with this thing called life I've always ended up with same conclusion - truth deserves to be told, even if its not pleasant. Also, truth will always find its way.
Some people will go to ridiculous lengths and suffering to avoid confrontation with truth, because 1000 small cuts seem less hurtful than 1 larger one and uncertainty it brings. Showing a proper respect and telling hard truth is appreciated by many folks though. Realizing your own child was bullshitting you for decades because of avoiding telling the truth which is anyway inescapable may hurt much more than actual topic in discussion.
> I know both of them want to see grandkids, and I still dread the day when I have to tell them it's probably never going to happen. The best I can do at that point is probably to make up some other reason why, instead of telling them the real reason: them.
I’m sorry to hear you had to experience your family breaking.
Lying to them is a disservice - breaking a marriage has always been taboo for these consequences - risking ruining the childrens future families. Our actions ripple through the generations. The truth may make them feel agony at their realisation of their actions consequences, but without truth, we can not navigate in this world.
This is great - ideally it would evolve to a more generic mediation app. One thing surprising to some folks is that most people, including lawyers actually don't like litigation. Most things are settled out of court, and even more are mediated before a settlement.
Helping people realize the cost ineffectiveness of litigation is honestly a good thing. Obviously for corporations and businesses the logic is different but I believe for most we should be discouraging using courts.
There is a simple reason it isn't cost effective. A split achieved with litigation is necessarily a split of the assets left after the cost of said litigation.
Even a horribly unfair split without litigation often leaves you with more than "winning" litigation!
The is tied to the old question, "Would you accept a million dollars knowing that your worst enemy will get 2 million?" If you're so inclined to cut off your nose to spite your face as to turn down the million, maybe litigation makes sense to you. But it doesn't to me!
My dad knew a contractor once who said “you get everything, but I keep my truck, tools, and the clothes on my back.” Years later, “everything” became practically nothing on his ex’s side, yet he had restored his former standard of living. She dragged him back to court for more and after the judge looked over the original settlement, he threw the case out.
Initially read "mediation" as "meditation" and genuinely thought it'd be a good idea! I speculate that if more people meditated more frequently, we might have fewer divorces!
I once worked for a Candian startup whose main product was (at least initially) an app that did the same thing. Slick UI, PDF parsing, the whole thing was fairly polished, and if the press releases were to be believed, our product had captured something like 10% of the province's whole amicable divorce market.
Unfortunately, the product ended up not being viable. The company pivoted around the end of my short time there. Hope this one has more luck.
I've gone through a divorce that went through the courts. I've also gone through mediation that was required by that court. For unrelated matters, I've gone through mediation, court proceedings, expert witness testimony, etc.
My first advice is to never go through a court proceeding when it can be avoided. My second advice is to speak to a lawyer - early - to preserve your rights and those of your children. That's non-negotiable. Always preserve your rights and those of your children.
Those two advices can often contradict each other, so consider and take them how you will. Until the dust settles, you won't know which will cost more, a lawyer or not contacting one.
Good advice about talking to a lawyer and not going through a court proceeding.
I suspect you will never know which cost more, but you can reduce the cost of any single path by finishing it as quickly, and with as few twists and turns, as possible.
I absolutely agree. Nobody goes into a divorce thinking they want it to take a long time. Just get it over with, and keep as much trust as possible. That goes double when children are involved. It's not the kids' fault their parents are getting divorced, but they are the ones most impacted.
I would like to propose a caveat: some people go into a divorce with the intention to ruin the other person. This can make divorces long and ugly, because the purpose isn’t to get it over with but to right some perceived injustice by punishment.
The site doesn't seem to be proofreaded very well. For instance the text under the "Marital Property" section is identical to the text for "Separate Property".
Useless. A friend of mine mediated and agreed on a specific division of assets in a NY divorce. His ex wife talked to a friend who encouraged that she could get more. She hired a lawyer, nullified the previous agreement, and demanded cash payment half of his net worth. He lost, had to pay, and got fucked.
Courts heavily favor women in divorce. Time to fix this, and bring equality to men. They had no kids.
The government should provide the model for this: enter data, here you go and here are the justifications for it. Want to pay, you can see a judge at your own cost. You walk into the lawyers office, they just sign off.
The government should maybe replace much of its inefficient court system with self-serve computers, and use the savings to cut taxes. But I hear that’s not the kind of thing governments do.
I watch my parents spend more money on lawyers than either of them stood to gain from winning. Is it possible to have a prenump that declares a fair method of splitting assets and prevents the lawsuits?
Yes, it's called postnup. You do a prenup and after marriage do a postnup. This pretty much binds contract in stone since partner accepted the terms even after the marriage contract was in motion.
All in all marriage seems like a lot of contracts for no good benefit.
Interesting way to think about it. It's also interesting to think about how many institutions and businesses exist to facilitate a marriage, and how few exist to end one. Easy in, hard out.
It's not a YC company. "Launch HN's" are one of a couple of perks reserved for YC companies. "Show HN's" are open to all comers, but only if you have an app people can play with right away (this is more of a landing page), and they're not ranked the same way normal posts are --- this post is doing great on its own, so their choice not to do a "Show HN" has paid off.
Separately, as advice to potential couples: get a pre-nup. Resolves any awkward beliefs about money up front. Discloses assets and liabilities so no financial skeletons in the closet. Establishes who has what before the nuptials and frankly fast forwards your relationship to see if it is strong enough to handle a "difficult" conversation and negotiation. Lets you establish what claims your spouse will have to your future earnings, and how you will resolve paying for joint assets.
Money is one of the top things couples inevitably have disagreements about and resolving this up front saves a lot of future angst.
Ounce of prevention is a pound of cure as they say.
I mean this is a decent point, but I have to point out the following:
>Lets you establish what claims your spouse will have to your future earnings
A pre-nup can't really cover this base. For the typical working class folk the way future earnings after divorce are extracted are through child support, which in its current incarnation functions as back-door alimony and can't be cancelled through a pre-nup.
I'll do one better, just don't marry. Pre-nups are routinely thrown out by divorce courts.
Unless the guy is extremely poor and marrying a high net-worth woman, there is just no point in marrying, you gain absolutely nothing (except for pithy tax benefits in some cases).
> I'll do one better, just don't marry. Pre-nups are routinely thrown out by divorce courts.
That's not a good idea in many jurisdictions - after a predetermined number of years of living together as a couple (man and wife), you are considered to be married in community of property anyway[1].
It's safer to simply get married with a prenup; at least that requires either party to spend money and effort nullifying it.
If you don't want to take the risk, just don't move in together at all.
Feedback about your web site: there are still plenty of people out there using browsers that don't support WebP. None of your images load for me (Safari 15.5 on macOS Catalina). You should use (or at least fall back to) wider-supported formats.
The huge problem in many US states is that nothing is well defined in family courts. Virtually all answers from lawyers is “court can do anything”. For example, there is a good definition of separate property but it still doesn’t mean that court isn’t going to dip into that to give more assets to opposing party. Except for few US states, there is no real law except some hand wavy guidelines like “need and ability” for community division and maintenance. I don’t know why law makers don’t get their shit together and make things predictable.
Apps like this is good start to get neutral picture.
Is this ad supported with discount codes for services I'm probably going to need, like dating sites (get back out there champ!) or cheap single dad studio apartments?
Is there a premium version that ties into my calendar so I know what weekends I get the kids?
What about a recipes page to stretch the ramen noodles to several meals?
Divorce is a legal process for ending a civil marriage. It should be easy to accomplish for those interested in doing so. There's no point in instituting roadblocks for the sake of preserving a union, especially when its constituents despise each other.
> There's no point in instituting roadblocks for the sake of preserving a union, especially when its constituents despise each other.
There is. To prevent ephemeral emotions from breaking the bond. Obviously, if the couple genuinely despise each other, there's no point in making them live together. But societal barriers to divorce serve a real purpose.
More importantly it's not the state's business to override the desires of citizens to end a domestic partnership.
For some reason Americans in particular who won't shut up about "my freedoms" completely forget about it when the opportunity to play relationship counselling at gunpoint comes up.
> More importantly it's not the state's business to override the desires of citizens to end a domestic partnership.
That's just the liberal view. There are alternatives.
> For some reason Americans in particular who won't shut up about "my freedoms" completely forget about it when the opportunity to play relationship counselling at gunpoint comes up.
Well, they also don't shut up about family values. You can value more than one thing.
> More importantly it's not the state's business to override the desires of citizens to end a domestic partnership.
There is significant evidence that divorce frequently has long-term (indeed, life-long) negative impacts on children. A recent meta-analysis [0] concluded that:
> A significant association between parental divorce and every aspect of mental health was found with the following pooled ORs (95% CIs): Depression 1.29 (1.23–1.35), anxiety 1.12 (1.04–1.12), suicide attempt 1.35 (1.26–1.44), suicidal ideation 1.48 (1.43–1.54), distress 1.48 (1.37–1.6), alcohol 1.43 (1.34–1.53), smoking 1.64 (1.57–1.72) and drugs 1.45 (1.44–1.46) could be estimated... The results of the meta-analysis show a consistent direction of influence regarding the long-term effect of parental divorce on their children. Individuals affected by parental divorce have a higher risk of developing a variety of mental health conditions...
Another study on this topic (of which there are numerous) [1] says:
> Controlling for age, race/ethnicity, gender, and childhood socioeconomic position, respondents who recalled a parental divorce during childhood had increased risk of mortality compared to those with no separation. The association was stronger for premature mortality and deaths due to cardiovascular disease. Divorce in childhood was also associated with lowered adult education, fewer social network ties, more depression, and worse health practices... Parental divorce in childhood is associated with lowered well-being in adulthood and long-term survival...
Given the well-established reality of the potential life-long negative impacts of divorce on children–which, as a child of divorce myself, I see as not just something established by research, but also supported by my own life experiences–why doesn't the state have a legitimate interest in discouraging couples with children from pursuing divorce for insufficiently weighty reasons?
Because it's the state using it's monopoly on violence to interfere with the intimate lives of private citizens.
The government doesn't have a right to tell you which consenting adults you can be in a relationship with or have sex with, which is what interfering with divorce is trying to do.
If the state wants to protect children, then it can focus it's efforts on that and maybe start by not trying to force people who don't get along to live in the same house - again - by it's monopoly on violence. At gunpoint.
> Because it's the state using it's monopoly on violence
> At gunpoint.
You could say that about almost all functions of the government. Not the least because it's almost entirely funded by taxes, which are collected "at gunpoint".
> If the state wants to protect children, then it can focus it's efforts on that
Because there are other ways to protect children, that doesn't mean stable families shouldn't a social policy goal.
> Because it's the state using it's monopoly on violence
Divorce is itself an instance of the state’s “monopoly on violence”. A state agent (a judge) will decide on issues such as property and custody, and then the state’s “monopoly on violence” will be used to enforce that judicial decision. “At gunpoint” even. Or else, the parties may reach an agreement, a settlement - coerced by the threat of a judge deciding it if they don’t - and then the “state’s monopoly on violence” will be used to enforce that agreement, and in particular the state’s interpretation of it.
Frequently, divorce is forced by the state’s threat of violence on an unwilling spouse. I saw with my own adolescent eyes how my mother used the state’s monopoly of violence to force divorce on my father even when he didn’t want it, and when he was the victim of her adultery-a fact about which the state chose not to care. My father was the victim-and I believe that my siblings and I are victims of her adultery too-my mother the perpetrator-and the state used its monopoly of violence to help her in victimising us. And while I never saw a gun in the whole sorry saga, state agents with guns were only ever a phone call away.
If you despise the violence the state used to make you and your father miserable, the consistent position would be to advocate for doing away with the state's monopoly on dictating the terms of marriage (and, consequently, divorce) in the first place.
> the consistent position would be to advocate for doing away with the state's monopoly on dictating the terms of marriage (and, consequently, divorce) in the first place.
Maybe, but that's not the pragmatic position. In foreseeable future, it's unlikely that you can decouple marriage from the state's legal understanding of it.
Marriage has long preceded the existence of the state and organized religion. The state's "legal understanding", as you put it, is fiction. The pragmatic position isn't to cower in fear and ignorance, but deny and disprove the state's dogma.
What exactly are you advocating here? Anarcho-capitalism? The state outsourcing marriage and divorce law to religious groups (as is done in Israel or Lebanon, for example)? “Marriage privatisation”?
If we accept the reality that a “monopoly on violence” is the very definition of “the state”, it isn’t unreasonable for people who feel harmed by the state exercising that monopoly in particular ways, to call for it to be exercised differently.
I'm advocating for the deinstitutionalization of marriage and divorce. Ideally this would result marriage by individual contract. However beyond deinstitutionalization, I'm not too particular about how marriage should be handled, so long as every relevant party knows what he or she is agreeing to beforehand.
> It we accept that a "monopoly on violence" is the very definition of "the state"
The state is not itself a monopoly on violence. You're conflating function with identity. The state is a collection of people not substantially different from a corporation in how it is organized. It has many powers outside of violence. All of them are ideally acquired by the consent of the governed and and yet limited by the rule of the law and the respect of individual rights.
> It isn't unreasonable for people who feel harmed by the state exercising that monopoly in particular ways, to call for it to be exercised differently.
You can call for it. But why would expect your views to be accepted without scrutiny. Your position lacks consistency. Initially, your complaint stemmed from harms perpetrated by the state. Now, you say that the state has a right to deploy its violence, but in manner that would have benefitted you and your father. You're engaging in a contradiction. If you desire a Hobbesian legal system, then you must accept in all cases that victory is justice and weakness is sin and not just when the outcome suits you.
Divorce as a service. We already have marriage as a service in the form of “open relationships” one can argue. How about child bearing as a service? Perhaps in the form of surrogate or finding willing donors/carriers? And then child care as a service under the umbrella of adoption as a service, child rearing/daycare as a service (for example an app that allows each party to sign up when and how they would split the time spent with the children.
I think this model in western society has a long way to go in each of the above areas open for disruption some form or other.
I hope that the new app will help divorcing couples to work through the divorce with less pain on both sides. But is what every party thinks that he or she wants?