[chrsig]

It shouldn't be that scary. I've been married coming up on 10 years in January. I've been the sole income provider for a large majority of the marriage.

I wouldn't be able to make the income that I do without the contributions my wife has made to making my life easier, and in general keeping the more administrative aspects of life under control.

I'm in a marriage with her because I love her and respect her. Part of that is recognizing that it is our income. Part of that is recognizing that even if our marriage were to decay to the point of divorce that I would still care enough about her as a person to want her to be able to establish a new life.

I'd advise the friend of yours to create a relationship their spouse wants to be in. That's how you prevent the downsides of alimony.

[Broken_Hippo]

I'd advise the friend of yours to create a relationship their spouse wants to be in

This just isn't always possible. Sometimes, folks change and want different things in life. For example: If my spouse suddenly decided he wanted children, that would end the relationship for me. I could not expect them to go without something they are finding critical to their happiness, but I'm not willing to bear children for someone else's feelings either.

And honestly, this is what being respectful in a relationship actually is.

But all that said, would one of us qualify for alimony or need some help getting on our feet? Yeah. One of us stays home, after all, and would need the assistance (though I'm not convinced it should be alimony, per se - not at our income level).

[chrsig]

sure, people aren't static, and needs and wants change over time. sometimes they diverge.

I certainly didn't mean that one should betray their own needs or boundaries to accommodate their spouse. My intent was more to convey that fostering a caring, loving, respectful, and interdependent relationship drastically lowers the probability of a divorce. Life still happens.

Of course our existing systems aren't perfect either. I do think there's probably a case for a lower bounds on when alimony is viable. e.g., if the paying party is/would be below the poverty line, but I'm far from well enough informed to speculate what a good system would be.

[rokhayakebe]

As Chris Rock says, the problem is not having to give up half of 15M. The problem is having to give up half of 35,000.

[lelanthran]

> As Chris Rock says, the problem is not having to give up half of 15M. The problem is having to give up half of 35,000.

I don't understand - are the stakes much higher when fighting for half of 35K than when fighting for half of 15m?

It seems to me that it is, but if you have a link to the video I'd appreciate it.

[Broken_Hippo]

If you have 15m and lose half of it, you are still pretty well off with the 7.5m you retail. Even a quarter of that would get you a house and you probably won't have issues having a stable life, even though both parties have to set up house again.

Half of 35000k - 17.5k - might be the difference between living on your own and having to move in with relatives.

It is basically the difference between some money when you are nearing poor and money while rich - the poorer you are, the more you are going to depend on the money and the bigger difference losing/having it will have on your life.

[philliphaydon]

You don’t have to answer but I would like to ask.

> I wouldn't be able to make the income that I do without the contributions my wife has made to making my life easier, and in general keeping the more administrative aspects of life under control.

If you were to divorce would you find it reasonable for her to get 50%?

Because I would seem as tho she gave up (willingly in support of you) a career for you. And after divorce wouldn’t be able to maintain any sort of lifestyle as a result of having no career or work experience?

[notch656a]

Seems reasonable to me she would get the 50% from during the marriage, but nothing after. Most people agree to share resources from during the marriage, not after the marriage. If the bread winner owes alimony, then the house-maker should owe maid service or something, but yet you never see that in the court order.

[s1artibartfast]

It is especially scary when you consider that some people get locked into a career or job they hate to pay alimony which cannot be reduced if they change jobs

[chrsig]

I think you have a flawed mental model of alimony. Try modelling it more like a severance package. Should you keep working for your employer after they've terminated the employment agreement, but agreed to give severance? The universal answer is a resounding 'no'.

[notch656a]

I see marriage as an equal partnership, so if there is a post-marriage 'severance' (beyond 50/50 asset disposition noted above) it would be bilateral (bread winner gives money to home-maker, home-maker gives maid/home-making service to bread winner). Seems cleanest at all just to cut ties though.

[chrsig]

It's not a symmetric exchange though. One person has decidedly more capability to start a new life than the other. The 'severance' is intended to help them establish that new life (e.g., acquire training, housing, etc)

If they're continuing to perform home making duties, they don't have the time to build that new life. And you're essentially keeping them trapped in the relationship even after a divorce.

You're of course welcome to negotiate anything with a potential spouse before marriage and encode it in a prenup.

[s1artibartfast]

I find it odd that the law considers the contributions during marriage symmetrically, but losses of each party asymmetriclly. That is to say, the contributions of a homemaker are equal to that of an income earner during marriage, but there is no harm from losing the expected support of the homemaker.

The homemaker can continue to be a homemaker for themselves exclusively, while receiving half an income. The income earner needs to work while homemaking, or work while supporting a 2nd homemaker.

The legal situation is complicated because the courts try to balance conflicting objectives. One is to help the homemaker reestablish themselves, the other is to maintain a lifestyle they are accustomed to. If it was only the former, some sunset duration would be appropriate, I think.

The reality is that it is often a distinctive. If the partner receiving alimony starts a career or remarries, they will lose the revenue stream.

[notch656a]

>One person has decidedly more capability to start a new life than the other.

I mean possibly, possibly not. For instance, my wife makes bundles more than me and is the bread-winner yet she works a licensed career, with her license restricted to a limited geographic area with not so many jobs. For her to start a new life would be much harder than me even though she is the bread winner. Also worth noting 'home-maker' is an extremely common niche in life so it's unreasonable to believe someone occupying that niche can't find another marriage with another divorced bread-winner seeking to return to the interlocking bread-winner home-maker scenario.

As a second, point, I totally object to the idea someone has an obligation to provide someone a 'new' life just because that person lost opportunities by voluntarily entering a relationship. For instance, people often give up career opportunities to take care of an ailing family member and no judge is going to order the ailing family member pay alimony pay them back to start a new career. In particular, if the vows include 'until death do us part' then that is a pretty explicit agreement not to provide provisions for post-divorce alimony arrangement. Even worse, no one should be in the position to pay for somebody else to get a new life if a partner say cheated on you and then divorced you to chase another partner.

And a third note, you've totally looked at it from a one-way lense here. The home-maker bread-winner interlocking really is a team equal effort. When the bread-winner loses the home-maker, they may have a lot to 're-learn' -- how to efficiently manage shopping, cooking, cleaning, balancing the budget (possibly). That takes a lot of time and their health may suffer because they no longer know how to say cook nutritiously anymore, so if the bread-winner needs to pay the home-maker to re-tool for a career then the home-maker should be ordered to help the bread-winner re-learn how to cook and other essential tasks (no joke, efficiently performing all the home-maker tasks can take a long time to master!). It really is a bilateral severance, if we want to create a severance fairly.

>If they're continuing to perform home making duties, they don't have the time to build that new life

If they're continuing to perform labor to pay alimony, they don't have the time to build that new life.

>And you're essentially keeping them trapped in the relationship even after a divorce.

But that's what alimony is! I'd support some provision that alimony could be cancelled if they don't want to perform the maid service, so they could avoid being trapped into receiving an alimony payment.

>You're of course welcome to negotiate anything with a potential spouse before marriage and encode it in a prenup.

The counterpoint is here any severance should be arranged in the pre-nup. In the old days in some cultures this was a dowry, which relied on up-front mutual agreement rather than unilateral violence of the state by judge after the fact. The default should be asset transfers and splitting happens during and at the termination of marriage and not after.

[Broken_Hippo]

That's not what alimony is.

The person staying at home has given up work, and cannot enter the workforce in the same way after marriage because they've not been in the workforce for years. They've given up earning potential for you to work and alimony (in theory) is to make sure you are regulating someone to poverty after they gave up that earning potential to be a homemaker without the benefits of employment (days off, insurance, hourly wage).

In states without alimony, you just split the stuff and move on. This is what you describe - divorce without alimony.

[notch656a]

>That's not what alimony is.

Yes I'm aware. I was specifically asked to model it as 'severance.'

Most of the stay-at-home spouses I've met didn't give up work as a gift to their spouse, they did it as a gift to their children. Should children pay alimony to stay-at-home moms for the work opportunities their mother lost out on to take care of them?

[toast0]

> If you were to divorce would you find it reasonable for her to get 50%?

Seems like a good place to start, although it should probably be for a limited time and/or reduce over time. My spouse stopped working shortly after we married, as was mutually agreed and beneficial, and many years out of the workforce likely reduces earnings forever, but 50% of earnings after divorce forever doesn't seem fair; 50% for a limited time is probably less administrative burden than an amount that more fairly or accurately compensates for the lost earnings potential for a longer time. Certainly 50% of retirement accounts, and if there's a pension, 50% of that portion fairly allocated to the marriage (social security has its own rules for spousal allowances in a divorce, which may or may not be fair, but are what they are; I'd assume that's mostly accepted as-is though?)

[chrsig]

50% would be a reasonable starting place. I might factor in her earning potential had she not left her career.

We've discussed getting it codified in a postnup (along with assets), so we would know in advance what any numbers would be should either of us want to terminate the marriage. I forget off the top of my head what number we floated -- she didn't ask for it to be 50%.

[philliphaydon]

I’m in a similar boat but it’s something that just kinda happened as a result of having kids and living in Singapore. In my head I wouldn’t even want to discuss it I would just split down the middle but I read your post and wondered if my thoughts would change /if/ I was going through a divorce.

Hopefully it never comes to down because our relationship is amazing.

[helpfulclippy]

> I'd advise the friend of yours to create a relationship their spouse wants to be in. That's how you prevent the downsides of alimony.

This is simply not true. Your spouse has free will, and can use that free will to make marriage-ending decisions, no matter what you do.

[chrsig]

of course -- read literally, it's not true. I just left a comment[0] that clarifies what my intent to convey was. tldr: it lowers the probability of divorce.

one person can't reduce that chance to zero, because as you mentioned, the other person very much has free will.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32204289

[s1artibartfast]

This assumes that the husband wants to remain married and that the wife is contributing.

Congrats on your loving and supportive marriage, but that is not always the case.

I imagine it's a lot more scary for people in the latter group.

[lazide]

That is good advice. Unfortunately, it also requires both parties to be working towards that goal - which doesn't always happen.

If that doesn't happen, yes alimony can get very, very expensive.