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The Never Married, a New Normal

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Re: The Never Married, a New Normal

#401

Post by emodendroket »

cmcaleer wrote: post #279
emodendroket wrote: post #127

> Cohabitation has become a popular alternative; living together is a less complicated relationship model that comes with an easy escape hatch (compared with marriage) if the relationship fails This seems like a bit of a false promise... Once you commingle finances, own a house together, have children, and so on, there's no "easy escape hatch." Plus thinking of having an "easy escape hatch" probably does not do wonde…

> thinking of having an "easy escape hatch" probably does not do wonders for the relationship I actually totally disagree with this. The difference between “I’m in this relationship because I love this person but also I have to be for my visa/finances/friendships” and “I’m in this relationship because I love this person and I can leave tomorrow if I want to” for me has been night and day. Neither my partner nor I is…

I guess I don’t quite see how your analogy fits. If we’re going for a job analogy it’s like being on a permanent “probation period.”

Re: The Never Married, a New Normal

#402

Post by slavboj »

pixodaros wrote: post #136
slavboj wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no state in the US that does not recognize a marriage by a judge or self-certified "minister" of no particular religious affiliation. There's also no requirement to be married in one's state of residence, or even country. It's absolutely trivial to arrange the legal status of marriage.

For many Americans, travelling out-of-state is a big deal. If its important enough many of them can make it happen, but many seem to have decided that formalizing their relationship in one legal category is not that important. There are other reasons why Americans might become less likely to choose one legal form for their marriage, like an American friend of the right-libertarian persuasion who does not just object…

Name a state that doesn't have civil marriage. This is a non issue.

Re: The Never Married, a New Normal

#403

Post by deprecative »

illiac786 wrote: post #379
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read HN posts on climate change. On almost every one, there will be a subthread on "don't have kids because of environmental impact" (and another one that says not to have kids because they're doomed).

Interesting, somehow this doesn't reflect in birth rate decline. The decline has started long ago and continues roughly at the same pace, no massive acceleration [0]. [0] https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/1_Demographic%20Profile...

My ignorant as all hell take is that this is tied to the collapse of the enforced nuclear family social construct. Women grew their careers and were able to have financial independence. As women began to have the option to choose not to have children many decided to take that approach. Once the decline really sets in it's during the wealth extraction of the middle and lower classes by Reagan and the destruction of leftist and minority family units through the War on Drugs in the '80s and starting in the '70s respectively. By the time the '90s roll around the trends are entrenched and here we are.

Re: The Never Married, a New Normal

#404

Post by thefz »

throwaway1492 wrote: post #49

I’ll risk it and defend marriage to this crowd. To me getting married was about getting out of myself. As someone who got married later in life, I’d spent decades living only for myself, doing what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. Relationships were shallow and lasted only so long as convenient. By choosing to get married and intentional build a family, I knew I was sacrificing a lot of ego and choosing to give…

> Relationships were shallow and lasted only so long as convenient.

Some people don't value that and so, a life married would be a burden.

Re: The Never Married, a New Normal

#405

Post by slaw »

cableshaft wrote: post #344
slaw wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot file as single while married.

You can file as 'Married, filing separately', at least in the US. We considered it last year, but jointly ended up saving us a bit of money in our situation (I was surprised, I assumed based on something in our circumstance I don't remember offhand that it would be the other way around).

You will pay more tax than file as single.

Re: The Never Married, a New Normal

#406

Post by 35997279 »

giantg2 wrote: post #81
jeroenhd wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This seems very biased to me since it's often that both parents make career sacrifices, not just one. With adoption, maybe, but carrying and bearing a child has a life-altering impact on a woman's body. It's not like you can give birth and go back to the office on Monday. It takes months to recover and even after that you likely won't be at full performance like you were before the pregnancy. Common side effects li…

"It takes months to recover and even after that you likely won't be at full performance like you were before the pregnancy. ... Quality of life is also quite terrible for the last while before giving birth, not just because of changes in physical size but also the lack of sleep and what a mental impact that could easily be described as mental illness if it wouldn't coincide with pregnancy." That's not a typical exper…

The extreme emphasis on monetary earnings is precisely the reason alimony exists. Not all labor is paid for with money. Emotional labor, child rearing, homemaking — these are difficult to quantify in monetary terms but certainly play a role in the “success” of the household.

Re: The Never Married, a New Normal

#408

Post by ux-app »

midoridensha wrote: post #290
ux-app wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No need to risk half of my current assets and future income life is risk. marriage is a great way to de-risk many aspects of your life. 2x income for only 1.3x increased expenses. Easier debt/mortgage access. Support (financial/emotional) in case of illness or income loss. >other person, who probably doesn't like me very much anyways Marrying the right person is the key (hanging out with your best friend forever is…

>marriage is a great way to de-risk many aspects of your life. 2x income for only 1.3x increased expenses Then what happens when you get married, and your spouse soon quits their job or is fired because they're a terrible employee, and you didn't see signs of this while dating? Now you have 1.3x expenses on 1x income. Worse, what if your spouse is terrible at money management? Now you have 2-3x expenses on 1-2x incom…

that's a lot of what ifs.

we don't live in the 50s any more. My wife and I were living together for 8 years before we got married. That sure would have been one doozy of a long con if she turned around and suddenly became a totally different person once the ink dried on the marriage certificate.

Picking the right person is not the same as buying a lottery ticket, lol.

Re: The Never Married, a New Normal

#409

Post by saghm »

cultofmetatron wrote: post #394
saghm wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue isn't that you're afraid of getting married, it's that you're so fixated on lumping together entire 50% of the population into a bucket that you don't realize you don't marry an entire gender, you marry an individual. If you aren't able to get to the point with a potential spouse that you view them as unique and special to you and worthy of trust regardless of what demographic groups they happen to be a mem…

> fixated on lumping together entire 50% of the population into a bucket its not about fixating 50% into the bucket. its about incentives. there are plenty of good women for sure. the issue is there's a lot of predators out there too. And they will look and act like someone you'd want to marry. right up till its too late. You want to deny that most divorces are initiated by women? that women get custody (and the hous…

I don't know what your standards are in terms of someone looking like "someone you'd want to marry" are, but if you think that the amount of depth most people want in a relationship with their partner is something that a non-trivial number of people could fake over a multiple year relationship, you're wildly off base. You're either grossly underestimating the degree of emotional connection that some people (including myself) would require for a long-term relationship or you're grossly overestimating the proportion of the dating pool who are highly skilled, manipulative sociopaths willing to spend years on con with a high risk of no payoff.

Re: The Never Married, a New Normal

#410

Post by Prickle »

bennettnate5 wrote: post #399
Prickle wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Statistically speaking, Mormons have one of the lowest rates of divorce among religions in America, at least when looking at marital status [1]. Only Hinduism has a lower rate of divorced individuals. That being said, I'm sorry that was your personal experience growing up. Statistics don't change the fact that individual experiences can really suck, and if it was the case that most of the Mormon membership around you…

Naturally, these are personal anecdotes.

But I'm fairly certain the divorce rate is severely affected by scripture. I have seen a decent number of unhappy Mormon marriages in my admittedly short time.

The individuals that divorced were usually not allowed on the premises or excommunicated.

(Or whatever the more appropriate term is for cutting them off from the church without ceremony)

There were people who were more afraid of divorce than anything else. Personal happiness was secondary.

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