A mentor once shared this wisdom, "In experimenting in human relationships, there is always an emotional outcome over time: lonely and irritated." Certainly, they were right.
Certainly, many married people feel lonely and irritated too.
The Never Married, a New Normal
31–40 of 450 posts
Re: The Never Married, a New Normal
#32My partner and I have been together for 7 years, we bought a house together, haven’t found a compelling reason to get married. Marriage is a complex and binding contract that for two high earners is a tax disadvantage. The most prominent benefits I’ve learned are some situations around visitation rights, and avoiding being compelled to testify against your spouse. It comes from a very dubious history of the husband e…
Bought a house together and are high earners? I thought marriage was the best way to buy a house with someone, because of all the default legal considerations. For example, if you die, in marriage the house easily passes to your partner. Otherwise, it may go to next-of-kin. Also divorce offers a structured way to manage ownership after a break-up. I am not particularly fond of our marriage system, but LGBTQ fought fo…
The house purchase documents reflect an equal ownership share between the buyers - same as any other joint ownership situation that happens. We’re both on the deed, etc.
We both have wills, which deals with with the probate issue of our ownership shares. You should have a will, even if you’re married! Probate can be expensive for your successors and family, and the process without a will is much more involved with the state. I also recommend establishing a revocable trust for these reasons.
I think the idea of a legal structured process for other belongings in event of a break-up sounds appealing in some regards, but reviews from friends who have been through the process rate it at “0 out of 10 this SUCKS” and “now I owe alimony for the rest of my life-ish because my ex decided to quit their job and become a grad student before we split”. In any event if we break up acrimoniously, we can still hire lawyers…
Re: The Never Married, a New Normal
#33"In fact, most never-married individuals come to see me for help dealing with parents or family members who insist that they live a more conventional lifestyle, not because they are unhappy with their choice of marital status, a lot of married people cannot say the same." That took an unexpected, refreshing, turn. It seems to me that the legal system around marriage is outdated and flawed compared to societal norms t…
> It truly baffles me how alimony is even legal today. Based on how alimony is treated, marriage is essentially indentured servitude.
The US has no guaranteed parental leave. If you have a kid and want one parent to spend any significant time with that kid, someone is sacrificing their career advancement. This usually hits women harder.
If you want to see the end of alimony, you’d need to make it easier to choose to have kids. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be a priority in the US.
Re: The Never Married, a New Normal
#34"In fact, most never-married individuals come to see me for help dealing with parents or family members who insist that they live a more conventional lifestyle, not because they are unhappy with their choice of marital status, a lot of married people cannot say the same." That took an unexpected, refreshing, turn. It seems to me that the legal system around marriage is outdated and flawed compared to societal norms t…
> process that typically costs as much as each party buying a car, and takes months or years to complete
Isn't that the nature of the beast? When you get married everything is easy; you're happy and cooperating. When you're getting divorced you're upset and fighting.
If everything was ended amicably without lawyers you'd only be out a few hundred bucks.
Re: The Never Married, a New Normal
#35A mentor once shared this wisdom, "In experimenting in human relationships, there is always an emotional outcome over time: lonely and irritated." Certainly, they were right.
I can't tell what "experimenting" means here.
Re: The Never Married, a New Normal
#36"In fact, most never-married individuals come to see me for help dealing with parents or family members who insist that they live a more conventional lifestyle, not because they are unhappy with their choice of marital status, a lot of married people cannot say the same." That took an unexpected, refreshing, turn. It seems to me that the legal system around marriage is outdated and flawed compared to societal norms t…
> It truly baffles me how alimony is even legal today. Based on how alimony is treated, marriage is essentially indentured servitude. The US has no guaranteed parental leave. If you have a kid and want one parent to spend any significant time with that kid, someone is sacrificing their career advancement. This usually hits women harder. If you want to see the end of alimony, you’d need to make it easier to choose to…
> you’d need to make it easier to choose to have kids. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be a priority in the US
This seems to be the case in every “developed” country
Society turns into a work machine that devalues having and raising kids
The US is particularly bad, but this is happening everywhere
Re: The Never Married, a New Normal
#37My partner and I have been together for 7 years, we bought a house together, haven’t found a compelling reason to get married. Marriage is a complex and binding contract that for two high earners is a tax disadvantage. The most prominent benefits I’ve learned are some situations around visitation rights, and avoiding being compelled to testify against your spouse. It comes from a very dubious history of the husband e…
Married people report significantly higher levels of happiness/life satisfaction in the middle and later stages of life than non married people. This is a durable finding across many studies.
I think a significant chunk of people will say and believe that they're happy because they checked some of the life-milestone boxes that are supposed to make them happy.
How many people are going to choose to have a mid/late-life crisis because a survey made them wonder if they were truly happy with their huge, life-changing and nearly irreversible decision to be married?
Re: The Never Married, a New Normal
#38Marriage is a tough proposition in the west these days. The cost of childcare has never been higher, both in terms of dollars and opportunity cost, not to mention housing. Of course there are other benefits to getting married, but without the goal of family feeling attainable to many, a major driver for marriage is gone.
Why is marriage is a prerequisite to children? As far as I can tell, being unmarried or even single doesn’t prevent pregnancy.
Because its kinda frowned upon for a man to bail and leave the mother and children to fend for themselves.
Re: The Never Married, a New Normal
#39My partner and I have been together for 7 years, we bought a house together, haven’t found a compelling reason to get married. Marriage is a complex and binding contract that for two high earners is a tax disadvantage. The most prominent benefits I’ve learned are some situations around visitation rights, and avoiding being compelled to testify against your spouse. It comes from a very dubious history of the husband e…
Married people report significantly higher levels of happiness/life satisfaction in the middle and later stages of life than non married people. This is a durable finding across many studies.
Survivorship bias?
Re: The Never Married, a New Normal
#40I imagine there's a bimodal distribution at work here: wealthier couples could choose to get married in a traditional ceremony (which is often an economic flex as much as anything else), although in such circles prenup agreements related to divorce-related division of wealth seem increasingly common. If you're going to have a prenup, why get married at all? There are issues related to end-of-life-decisions but the living will solves that problem. This is where 'changing social values' apply, in that non-married living arrangments don't lead to social ostracization as they might have in the past.
The other side is simply economic - getting married and raising a family is an expensive proposition that many people (at least in the United States) can no longer afford, and there's no real social safety net that ensures medical care and quality education for low-income families - so raising a family in poverty is not an attractive proposition. There's also good evidence that birth rates track economic recessions pretty closely:
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2010/04/06/us-birt...
This economic factor seems universal, as the high cost of housing in China is associated with a decreased marriage rate (although unequal numbers of men and women related to the now-defunct One Child policy is another issue):