[dijit]

My ex wanted to get married and I was keen on the idea.

But it is a scary endeavour with no practical upside, high financial cost and absurd legal risk.

Why would I get married? Love? You can love without marriage.

If marriage is to prove you love someone then I don’t think I want to bother loving anyone.

[bobsmooth]

>no practical upside

There's tax incentives and you become each other's medical proxy, among other things.

>high financial cost

The paperwork is cheap. Weddings are as expensive as you make them.

>absurd legal risk

That's true, divorces are expensive.

[Dracophoenix]

If you're speaking about the United States's the (relatively small) tax gains, they only become advantageous for a marriage between a stay at a non-earning stay at home spouse and a high-earning breadwinner. Any other paring creates a tax penalty.

[throwoutway]

How so? It’s a progressive bracket both ways? Wouldn’t you want your spouse to earn more income, regardless of 30% tax?

[Dracophoenix]

You're forgetting about FICA/Social Security which can be as high as 12.4% of AGI for every dollar earned below $150k or thereabouts. A stay-at-home spouse doesn't pay social security but nonetheless benefits from it (and in certain states, can do so tax free) upon retirement or death of the breadwinner. That's not a discount available to an individual taxpayer or a double-income household.

Filing as married allows for higher tax exemptions, in many cases around double the individual tax exemptions. For a high earning breadwinner this is as much as twice the "normal" buffer of untaxed income for investment before incurring a phase-out. If both spouses were high earning there wouldn't be much of a difference between the average exemption per spouse and the exemption provided to an individual taxpayer. Sometimes it's even less than if each spouse had filed seperately.

[dijit]

> There's tax incentives

That’s not universal, it’s not the case in Sweden for instance as far as I can make out.

But, the rest of what you said is true.

Though it’s unlikely that both partners who want to get married would want to forego a wedding ceremony.

[saiya-jin]

I was 50-50, but wedding surprisingly ended up one of the nicest experiences of my life, and there is plenty to compete for that spot. People tend to forget its not for the couple but for everybody else.

Wedding creates additional bonds. I didn't expect it, but it did. You want to have strong bonds in marriage, the more the better, because tough times will inevitably come. Bonds can be created in other ways (ie intense adventure experiences together), but they are different. It also covers things when SHTF - visits in hospitals, inheritance etc.

Divorces are expensive if people make them expensive when going down revenge rabbit hole. It can be as simple as 2 signatures on 1 paper and that's it. Choosing spouse is the most important choice in life and tons of folks don't do wise choices in this, with results all around. With kids divorce becomes more complex, but then even without marriage its complex depending on local laws.