[chasd00]

My boys will be in college in about 6 years. My wife and I have been talking about what comes next for us. I would really like to make a significant career change but, yeah, it’s pretty scary. My current job is pretty secure, good pay, good benefits but brutally hard. I work leading delivery in consulting for very large projects. Pretty much the hardest role in the most cutthroat industry. It takes a toll.

[ty6853]

This is why spouses sometimes divorce anyone leaving a high pay industry to rest. They have to act quickly to lock in high alimony/child support to maintain their standard of luxury at high imputed income so the spouse will go to jail if they don't continue their stressful job.

[SketchySeaBeast]

Man, this is a misanthropic take on things. Do you have any data for this?

[ty6853]

If you want the mountain of data showing correlation of divorce with shutdown of plants, unemployment etc I will find it. But it's common knowledge. You only have a couple years to easily lock in imputed income at their high earnings.

[SketchySeaBeast]

Even if you provide that data that divorces spike due to shutdown of plants or unemployment that won't directly prove your case.

Looking around the internet, I see sources ranging from 20-60% of divorces being caused at least partly by financial issues, and that makes sense, to be poor is to be stressed, and to be unemployed is to be stressed, and to be stressed is to fight, but that doesn't provide strong evidence for a "they are locking them down to force them to work so I can live in luxury" narrative.

I really struggle with believing it as being a widespread phenomena.

[ty6853]

You're not convinced, that's fine. You're open either possibility and asking for proof. To prove something happens at least sometimes I need at least say 2 anecdotes, which I could scrounge from some forum. But you have already decided it's misanthropic without proving that either, you are just rigging the game to play the fuck fuck game where you want it proven to some level of scientific rigor beyond what's quickly communicated on a tech bullshitting forum, while simultaneously claiming misanthropy without the level of rigor you demand for claiming so.

There are claims made by divorced people. Sometimes is not any exact percentage. The peer reviewed studies have conclusions like "the results [ of studying post earnings loss divorce ] are, however, consistent with role theories, in which the husband’s attractiveness declines if he fails to fulfill a traditional role as a breadwinner."

What would be hard to believe is that people _dont_ sometimes use the courts to lock into income streams they are loosing. That borders on extraordinarily improbable.

[SketchySeaBeast]

I'm unsure what the "fuck fuck game" is, but I honestly think HN tries to be more than just a "tech bullshitting forum". I think there's hope that you put some thought into what you say and how you say it.

Sure, there are certainly marriages for financial convenience, but you presented this like a widespread phenomena, so much so that you felt like you wanted to warn people about it.

You said so yourself, it's well documented that spouses divorce because of a change in finances and you could provide the evidence yourself of that, but, to my knowledge, not well documented that it's a common reason that spouses divorce because they want to force the unemployed high earning spouse into miserable work.

I'm not looking for a direct scientific study, but it would be nice if you could provide some sort of news article or the like about this phenomena. I'm sorry that I didn't just uncritically accept your anecdote as being true.

[ziddoap]

Someone says they're looking at what to do after their kids go to school and your reply is basically "well, if you think you're going to quit your current job, just so you know your spouse might divorce you for the money before you get a chance to quit".

Wow.

[ty6853]

It happens, sometimes, as i said. Probably not to them, nor did I claim it would.

[ziddoap]

You didn't directly say "this will happen to you", but you are certainly implying that it is something the parent commenter should be worrying about.

It's weird. It's like telling random strangers, who you know nothing about, that they might get cancer. Is it true? Sure, cancer happens, sometimes. But it's weird to remind people about it unsolicited.

[ty6853]

If someone has the power to have a judge order you to pay 20+% of your income, and that income is imputed meaning a lower income may leave you in an impossible position, it is smart to always keep it in mind. I also keep cancer screening in mind.