This becomes even more unrealistic when you introduce the concept of a “homemaker.” Usually that involves kids but it doesn’t necessarily have to. If a couple decides to have one get an education and a paying job and the other has responsibilities around the home then that is how they’ve chosen to divide their labor. You can’t just maintain a balance for your marriage but come divorce time say “oh well, they can take care of themself.” The working spouse has a massive head start and the non-working spouse has (possibly unwillingly) had a massive downgrade in QOL forced on them.

Alimony seeks to create equality. Either equality in success or equality in hardship. It probably isn’t a perfect system and I’ve seen instances where it is massively abused but I don’t think the concept or execution is overly flawed. Perhaps too many adults are jumping into marriage without fully understanding what it means and how it might end.

Alimony was not obvious to me as a 21 year old introverted virgin getting married.

If you want a specific arrangement then you should draft it in your marriage contract. It should not be the default assumption imposed by the state under the threat of incarceration.

Alimony is an antiquated concept based on outdated gender stereotypes and not in line with the modern workforce. Alimony seeks to create equality when none should exist. Alimony rewards deadbeats and forces exploitative relationships to continue, often indefinitely or without end. It is abusive to many, it is unjust, and it must be reformed.

Get married to a person who refuses to work and then get a divorce. Guess what? They will, by default, be entitled to the standard of living established during the marriage.

There are special exemptions on inheritances that happen during the marriage, but you have to be careful with commingling assets and it depends state to state. Like if you provide the down payment, but split the mortgage, the house is 50/50 owned

In California and many states, inheritance and gifts are always sole property of the recipient and not considered community property. My ex was gifted property from a relative during the marriage(so they could illegally claim state benefits, but that's another story), and it was not even on the table during the divorce.

In CA, if you provided the down payment on the mortgage with non-community money and then used community money to pay th mortgage, you could ask for the non-community down payment back and get 50% of the community interest in the home after that.

This is false. Courts generally uphold prenups. You only hear about the times they don't because that's news. See, for example, the McCourt divorce (upholding a postnup).

I’m not that familiar with the standard of living laws but if my wife and I broke up I would feel horrible if she had to severely down grade her lifestyle. I hold the position of the primary earner. My salary is several factors bigger than what she makes. However, she takes care of so many things for me that I can focus on earning. We are partners. She has easily earned her way. If we got divorced, I would still get to benefit from the position I was able to rise to with her help. She deserves to be taken care of.

Would that not depend very much on the reason why you broke up? If it was because of a mutual conclusion of the relationship I can imagine this would be true. If you break up because you found out she'd been cheating on every occasion, shuffling money and attention towards her many side affairs, spreading rumours about your you and otherwise doing her best to play the black widow you probably would reconsider. If not, why not?

Someone once said, “when you forgive someone you let a prisoner free. The surprising thing is that prisoner is yourself”. So I hope I would have the strength to forgive her, and hope the best for her life going forward.

It is extremely rare for people to kill and eat their spouse. What a weird metaphor.

We had been dating for a little while and were definitely in the “pre-engagement” phase but knew where things were headed.

We both were laid off when the company we worked for went out of business. She already had a job lined up making less, but she couldn’t afford to be without health insurance. I had a contract lined up making more. I promised her if she took the job, I could make up the gap and I did.

A few months later, one week after I proposed, my contract abruptly ended. She said, forget about the ceremony, let’s go to the courthouse, get married so I could get on her insurance. I found another contract shortly thereafter.

Six months later, I had a full time job, and her hours were crazy (tech support for a carrier) and my (step)sons were missing her and it wasn’t helping our marriage. We talked about her quitting and finding something with better hours for the sake of all of us.

Fast forward seven years later. We are both working and she is back to making what she was before we got married. The hours weren’t bad, but it still caused a commute and our youngest son was going through teenage issues. Again we decided for her to take a lower paying job closer.

The job paid less, but had good benefits. That allowed me to leave a full time job to take a contract to perm job that would let me lead two green field projects. It would be a great career booster.

Four years later, that led me down the road of having a job making $100K more. Covid hit, her job would have involved her being in the school system. We talked, and again, it wasn’t best for any of us for her to be exposed. She quit her job before school starts back.

Of course by now we have the big house in the burbs. Our lives and her decision to make herself completely dependent on me was based entirely on her trusting me and taking me at my word. On the other hand, there is a direct line to my current income from here supporting me. How is it right for her to be left on the street penniless when she would be in that position solely because she trusted me?

Do you often feel that the highly specific situation you find yourself in should be the basis for laws applied without cause to the rest of society?

If you have an arrangement like that, put it in a contract yourself. Don't ask the government to force me to live by your rules.

Do you often feel that the highly specific situation you find yourself in should be the basis for laws applied without cause to the rest of society?

It’s highly specific for married couples to work together and make choices that benefit the household as a whole, but puts one at a financial disadvantage if they separate? That’s kind of a sad outlook on life and marriage. Yes, I am on my second marriage. I know the realities of divorce.

Is it also highly unusual for one spouse to stay at home or take a lower paying job because it is beneficial to the family as a whole? (No, people go into education all of the time for just that reason).

Is it very specific for one spouse to take a job just for the benefits while the other is able to make more by being self employed or starting a business?

If a couple is not working together for the benefit of the family unit as a whole, something is wrong.

Beats me.

> If I “wrote a contract”, should we have changed the contract every time that we made a decision for both of our benefit long term?

That should be up to you. I'm not trying to tell you what you have to do. That's the point.

> puts one at a financial disadvantage if they separate

Why is this a given? Your wife is still entitled to half of your accumulated wealth during the marriage. That's not what alimony is. Alimony is the continued support you are forced to provide.

The examples you state are not a given and should not be the default assumption of a marriage contract.

> If a couple is not working together for the benefit of the family unit as a whole, something is wrong.

That's your opinion and should not be assumed by the state.

Why is half the wealth accumulated during a marriage not restitution enough?

Besides that “accumulated” assets are just that, “accumulated” over a span as your income increases.

Would you be okay if you were 50/50 in a startup, worked hard early on and then when the other partner saw that the result of the early work was about to make a massive amount of money but hadn’t yet, they pushed you out, split the early assets and were able to enjoy the growth without you? Wouldn’t you feel entitled to the income stream?

The stereotypical example is the wife working, while the husband goes to medical school and when they graduate, they leave the wife. At that point, they haven’t accumulated much in assets.

Lets say you were 50/50 in a startup. You worked your youth away, sometimes 80 hour weeks. The other partner hung around and then did nothing but generate empty platitudes and empty promises for the next few years. Would you be ok if that partner sold their half of the company you built and then demanded indefinite royalties from you?

The stereotypical example is just that. It is not true in many modern cases. It should not be the legal default. In my case, my partner started working and had a career when we met. I developed my skills while they sat idle. My income grew. They stopped working and made endless promises of building home based businesses that ate thousands of dollars and never went anywhere. To avoid having to follow through, they eventually got a minimum wage job again. I was at fault for not leaving sooner, but I believed in their talent and wanted to help them succeed. There was no 'family' for them to care for. I did my share of the chores and cooking, while spending my free time renovating the family home. For all my patience and work, I am now punished severely by the state.

So you think that your example is so representative of the majority of marriages that your view should be forced on every young couple in America. Ok fine. So when the marriage ends, how long do you think that support should continue for? Should the state be able to force the high-income earner to work against their will as is the case now? Should the behavior of the low-earner during the marriage be a factor at all, as it currently is not?

If that was the initial legal agreement? Yes. You went in knowing the terms of the agreement and you took the risk.

I was at fault for not leaving sooner, but I believed in their talent and wanted to help them succeed.

I made the same mistake, I was an idealistic 28 year old, tired of the dating game and she wasn’t the right person but came along at the right time. She didn’t do anything to help me too much. I filed for divorce four years later, I knew the longer we stayed married, the more risks I had of long term consequences - taking more of my net worth, child support (we didn’t have kids), etc.

My previous post was about my second marriage.

Ok fine. So when the marriage ends, how long do you think that support should continue for?

You act as if the law is one size fits all. It’s a “judgement” call. That’s why we have judges, lawyers, etc.

Of course no one is going to be married for a year and have to pay alimony for the rest of their life. I didn’t pay any alimony. Then again we were only married for four years and she couldn’t realistically argue that she helped me succeed.

But in general, pay alimony long enough for them to conceivably get on their feet. Four or five years maybe. But the longer you are married, the more it is going to cost you.

I certainly didn't. In talking with people, I find most people do not as well.

> That’s why we have judges, lawyers, etc.

Yes. The lawyer I spoke to said typical court costs are $10k per day. Family court judges rotate in from other branches and often do not know the law(statutory or case law). Vocational evaluation is $2,500+.

> pay alimony long enough for them to conceivably get on their feet.

So why not codify this in law? Why not force disclosure when obtaining a marriage license?

So if you make $150,000, and pay $65,000 of that in alimony to your ex, your ex can end up with a higher net income.

I can’t remember where I read this but I’ll see if I can track down a source.

Let's see an example. Say that the payer earns 120k pre-tax. Now:

a) If you tax the recipient the judge orders a 60k/60k split. After the split both parties get taxed for 60k, which lands them on the 22% marginal tax rate bracket. In the end each party effectively pays 11k in taxes, and hence gets 49k post-taxes.

b) If you tax the earner they pay taxes first, hitting the 24% tax rate bracket and effectively paying ~29k in taxes. So you spit the remaining 91k and each party gets 45.5k post-taxes.

Definitely a lose-lose.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_State...