Dating vs Marriage

relish5k · 2023-12-30T13:16:53+00:00

I’m in my mid 30s and I know 3 couples who are divorced (couples who are peers, not including boomers):

2 couples where the man cheated within the first year of marriage and the divorce occurred quickly and cleanly (despite in one case, the woman having considerable assets)
1 marriage where the man had a good paying job, married a pretty barista, and had to pay alimony. They were not married very long and had no children. He was very bitter about it. He supports alimony theoretically as a way to support older women who have dedicated their lives to homemaking and struggle to enter the workforce in their 50s, but in his case he feels it was inappropriate and I agree. He was screwed over.

The sad part is he is now with a lovely, kind and hardworking woman (she makes well north of six figures), who desperately wants marriage and a family. They have been together for 7 or 8 years. But he is so put off to marriage by his first experience so he’s against doing it again. She should probably leave him to find a man who wants what she wants be she also loves him dearly and is certainly not as young as she used to be, so finding someone to marry and have kids with is increasingly unlikely. I understand where he’s coming from but it’s still sad to see.

In the USA, marriage is still the foundation of families, and children born to married parents do considerably better than children born to parents who are not married. >90% of my married peers are happily partnered to their first spouse, and 1 of the divorcées just got engaged again. You have to put your faith somewhere.

grillopie · 2023-12-30T13:32:48+00:00

if you cant see it as equal, dont get married. if you’re really only interested in romance, sex, etc. dont get married. marriage is for building a complicated life together. if you’re going to ask someone to move across the country, or to other countries with you, that conversation will go easier with the assurance of marriage. if you’re going to ask someone to take a year off work for kids, that’s going to be easier with marriage.

velvetalocasia · 2023-12-30T12:10:27+00:00

So if everything was so bad, why did your peers marry again?

MidoriEgg · 2023-12-30T17:56:03+00:00

This is easier to do if both parties are working independent jobs and there’s no kids involved. In situations where they both wanted children and one spouse agreed to limit/stop their own career in order to raise the kids so spouse 2 can focus on their career, it makes sense that spouse 1 may get alimony.

Or what about cases where 1 spouse enters the relationship owning a house, but spouse 2 has lived with them and helped them pay off the mortgage for 10+ years, are they not entitled to a portion of the equity of that house?

What if Spouse 1 worked full time and financially supported spouse 2 to follow some sort of dream (idk, run a business or be a singer) when spouse 2 becomes successful they want to divorce spouse 1. Would spouse 1 be entitled to some sort of alimony or compensation?

When you intwine your life around someone else’s for years unfortunately sometimes a clean break isn’t so easy.

Educational-Peace729 · 2023-12-30T15:07:02+00:00

Marriage creates families. It creates lineage, traditions, and bonds. It’s a tangible thing, not just an idea. Think about it this way - around 93% of communication is nonverbal. We are all very good at understanding underlying messages, not just what is said. What are you saying to a partner when you refuse to commit to them through marriage? Exactly. They will not rise above the limiting spot you put them in. Your wife won’t just be your wife, she’ll be a daughter in law to your parents, and therefore LIKE a daughter. Same with other relationships.

As someone who is happily married, my advice is that more and more people need to stop worrying about how marriage ends and adopt behavior that stop it from ending.

AngeCruelle · 2023-12-30T13:58:59+00:00

That sounds nice and secular and everything but for religious people this isn't necessarily an option if you want to have sex and raise kids.

DreaminInChocolate · 2023-12-30T15:31:29+00:00

I love my relationship and the family that we have built over the last 10 years. I don't want to get married and our finances are kept completely separate. Separate to the point that he pays child support for the kids and he pays the utilities as his financial contribution living in the house. I own the house and paid for it completely on my own. I use the child support to buy groceries and clothes for the kids. There's never any arguments over money because of the way things are set up. He has his money and I have mine. We have a custody plan if we ever split up. We're together because that's what we both want and it's worked out great. I can see why some people wouldn't want that too. Some people have said it seems business like, but we prefer to keep those things away from our relationship as a couple.

boom-wham-slam · 2023-12-30T12:05:31+00:00

Idk why this is so secretive and controversial. It's super publicly known and essentially all data supports this.

In b4 the knights for marriage comment.

AceOfSpadesGymBro3 · 2023-12-30T12:48:49+00:00

I mean it's what I always talk about. Learning that you don't need love to be happy. If you tell yourself that you need another person to be happy, this will make you afraid of losing them. People get stuck in unhappy marriages due to kids, shared finances, or just because they fear being alone. Essentially, you lose your leverage and power.

This is problematic for both men and women. We only want what we can't get. So if we know that our partner is stuck with us, that they are too afraid to leave us, we may start taking them for granted. And vice versa.

Novadina · 2023-12-30T18:34:59+00:00

One thing all these relationships have had in common is that things were fantastic when both parties could end the relationship and walk away with what they brought in.

That’s fine for short term relationships. Long term ones that tends to be impossible, because what they have they grew while together. For example my husband and I own a business and multiple properties and retirement accounts and a health savings accounts and stocks. If we “walked away with what we brought in” we’d leave with what we had years ago when we got together, like a few hundred dollars each or something, and none of all that stuff we acquired while together.

Having observed this many times over, I have to admit that as a successful man in today’s society, I simply see massive benefits to keeping a relationship equal(both parties walk away cleanly) rather than entering a contract where the other party is rewarded if the relationship is ended.

But the way most people live, they won’t be able to do that, even if they don’t marry. In US for example, it is common for romantic partners to buy a house together, it is more affordable than living in two separate places, and it is easier to be able to buy a house with two income earners than one. Neither my partner and I would have been able to get our house when we did it we were alone, we did it by working together. Whether we married or not it would be impossible to be able to “walk away cleanly”.

Sure, you can live your life mostly single with short term flings, that’s a valid option. But many people want to form a family unit with a long term partner, especially if they want kids, so they can have a teammate to do things with like raise kids, own a house, etc. But what you are suggesting is not just “don’t get married” but to not do any of the things, like “don’t have kids”, “don’t buy property with someone”, “don’t team up with anyone on anything, do it all on your own”.

Regular_Lettuce_9064 · 2023-12-30T22:40:59+00:00

Twice divorced here. I will never marry again.

The only reason to get married is if you want kids with her and within a legal wrapper. Even then, make sure you have a good prenup in place. Today’s western women can walk away from a marriage for no reason other than boredom or fancying a change, and the courts will still award them a big slug of your assets even if she made no contribution towards building those assets.

WilliamWyattD · 2024-01-01T06:21:20+00:00

Marriage is mostly a piece of paper. Despite a lot of noise to the contrary, prenuptial agreements work pretty well if no kids. So marriage or not, you can engineer a situation where the less wealthy partner is not incentivized to walk away. At the same time, especially if there is a large wealth gap, you don't want to go too far the other way. You want it to be better financially for the poorer partner to stay together, but you also don't want divorce to be financial apocalypse for the poorer partner. This incentivizes gold digging, manipulation and fakery.

baiser_vole · 2023-12-30T12:17:45+00:00

It is all about finding the right person. You can either be with someone who is just as wealthy or someone who would make it into heaven even if you won’t. I believe there are people with good souls. Don’t sign the papers if you think you could be stabbed in the back.

krackedy · 2023-12-30T12:35:28+00:00

I originally never thought I'd get married... but things changed. I wanted more stability for the kids.

I would not have married if I wasn't madly in love and confident about our compatibility though.

Lift_and_Lurk · 2023-12-30T14:47:37+00:00

Other party is rewarded. You mean their attorneys? Cause no side comes out of a divorce going “man that was a good investment in time and money!”
Only ones that do are the ones charging billable hours.

Safinated · 2023-12-30T18:53:05+00:00

Uh, yes, that is the entire point of divorce — to prevent exploitation, which is why the more advantaged partner will be penalized more. Did you not know this ?

spanglesandbambi · 2023-12-30T12:03:17+00:00

Just get a prenuptial, and then everyone has one it's just by default, depending on where you live.

This should he part of your life discussions loads of marriages fail as they worked when the couple where at x life point. However, now their views on children, or investments, or travel are different. Every stage of life should be discussed before marriage. This includes the what if it all goes wrong. How do we protect ourselves conversation.

I'm a woman who is married we decided not to get a prenuptial as we came into the marriage with similar assets. I sold my apartment and matched what he had put into his mortgage. At the time I earned more then him but we knew Mat leave would mean he would overtake me.

Purple-Poppins · 2023-12-30T19:01:08+00:00

Marriage is about creating a foundation for having and raising children and making decisions for the best of the whole unit rather than having individual negotiating in their own interests. If you dont want to have children, then dont worry about marriage. If you want to have children, then binding yourselves into one legal and economic unit is the best way to start that.

It is a bad decision for a woman to have have children with a man unwilling to marry her. She is tying herself legally and biologically to a man who is unwilling to tie himself to her legally and economically. Once kids are in the picture, there is no going back to the balance that exists between members of a childless couple, and breaking up with kids and no marriage can be just as messy if not messier than divorcing with kids.

Funny_Protection1014 · 2023-12-30T12:05:52+00:00

Yeah, it sucks though.

TSquaredRecovers · 2023-12-30T20:30:37+00:00

A solution to your concern (and that of other men) is to date and marry a woman who makes about the same income as you do. I’ll never understand why so many men in this sub and other pilled spaces are so resistant to this possibility.

You’d want to have a conversation with the woman ahead of time about whether she intends to continue working after marriage and kids. If she plans to continue working, this should alleviate most of your concerns. Since you both would presumably have similar assets accumulated, neither partner would be taken to the cleaners in the event of a possible divorce. The only remaining issue then would be child support.

wtknight · 2023-12-30T15:46:38+00:00

Removed for making a non-neutral post and flairing it with the neutral Discussion flair. Violating this rule again will result in postban.

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tr1xnh0z · 2023-12-30T17:31:10+00:00

course.. u juzt now figure dis out?

Gold_Supermarket1956 · 2023-12-30T18:00:19+00:00

I agree there is 0 tangible benefits to a man if he gets married... If she cheats while you're at work and you're just BF and GF you can tell her to GTFO... A wife she gets to take all your shit since most states are at will states not at fault states and most states don't have infidelity protections to prevent women who cheated from taking her ex to the cleaners

md8716 · 2023-12-31T00:56:42+00:00

If I was going into a LTR with the mindset that I want everything to be equal and be able to walk away cleanly, and my partner felt the same, then that's the kind of relationship we would have. Careful, pragmatic, and guarded. Plus, most normal people are compatible to fit in a relationship like that.

Personally, I would never want a LTR like that. If I'm going to share my life with someone, it has to be a burning lifelong inferno of cult-like devotion and passion where our entire fucking souls are fused together. All marriage did was solidify to our families something we already had. We'd have to be two feet in, ten toes down, we ride together, we die together. Very few people can make something like that work.

If we divorce? Fuck it, she can have my money. I'll start over from scratch. It was worth the ride.

Puzzleheaded_Card_71 · 2023-12-31T05:55:49+00:00

Yup. I made three times what my ex made and despite covering most of the bills (like the entire mortgage, her health insurance, etc) I still paid out heavily on a divorce she initiated because she got bored. I will never lose my ability to walk away ever again. I saw clearly (looking back) how she changed once I couldn’t just walk away. No marriage, no cohabitation.

Title	Dating vs Marriage
Author	Ylduts
Upvotes	27
Comments	220
Date	December 30, 2023 11:54 AM UTC (2 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/18ue23v/dating_vs_marriage/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/dating-vs-marriage.1241901 https://theredarchive.com/post/1241901

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