Is Marriage Really Worth the Financial Risk?

[JohnSmith0909]

How can marriage possibly be worth it? With the divorce rate being over 50 percent, people are more likely to have their marriages fail then not? Why get married if I'm more likely than not to loose hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process? Make sure you marry the right person? Well at least in theory, I'd like to hope at least, that most people who get married think they have found the right person, and want to be married to them.

Don't think of marriage as and chance of failure a probability that you have no control over? Why not? With no fault divorce, your significant other can just wake up one day and want a divorce at no fault of your own. You have to rely on someone else to have a successful marriage so it's not in your hands at all. I agree that if someone doesn't want to be married to someone, then they should be able to get a divorce at no fault to the other person and not forced to be married to them.

However, I disagree that it is ok for someone to loose hundreds of thousands of dollars at no fault of their own. How can anyone honestly believe that is ok? It gets even worse if you have kids and you may get screwed over with visitation rights and barley even get to see YOUR kid.

Would you enter a business deal that was more likely to fail than not, and if failed you would loose half, maybe even more, of your net worth? Would you enter a car that had a 50 percent chance of failure?

Marry for love not money! Agree completely. However, you must consider the ramifications of a failed marriage and loosing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Unfortunatley loosing so much of your net worth is catistrophic, to not worry about it, especially sense it's more likely to happen then not, then it would be foolish to not consider what impact it would have on your financial life

Please enlighten me. I don't see the 52 percent probability of taking on the financial risk of loosing half your net worth, maybe even more, worth it. If you remove marriage from it and use something else that had the same probability of failure and the consequence of loading so much of your net worth, an idiot would take on that risk! It would be similar to investing all of my networth into a single stock, which has a 52 percent chance of decreasing in value by half. Only a fool would do such a thing.

 

[phinds]

Marriage - Not Worth it? ... Only a fool would do such a thing.

I think you've answered your own question. You should not get married.

 

[Drakkith]

You have to rely on someone else to have a successful marriage so it's not in your hands at all.

And the same is true for the other person. Hence why marriage, and all relationships, require trust, communication, and a thousand other things to work well.

However, I disagree that it is ok for someone to loose hundreds of thousands of dollars at no fault of their own.

*shrug* Okay. Don't get married.

It gets even worse if you have kids and you may get screwed over with visitation rights and barley even get to see YOUR kid.

Yes, I agree that this is a serious issue, but I don't see a good solution that doesn't require the government to step in far more than they already do in such situations.

Would you enter a business deal that was more likely to fail than not, and if failed you would loose half, maybe even more, of your net worth? Would you enter a car that had a 50 percent chance of failure?

Marriage is not a business deal (well, not here in the U.S. at least), so thinking about it in terms of a business is utterly pointless.

Marry for love not money! Agree completely. However, you must consider the ramifications of a failed marriage and loosing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Yes you should.

Unfortunatley loosing so much of your net worth is catistrophic, to not worry about it, especially sense it's more likely to happen then not, then it would be foolish to not consider what impact it would have on your financial life

Yes, it would be. That's one of the things you should think about before getting married.

Please enlighten me. I don't see the 52 percent probability of taking on the financial risk of loosing half your net worth, maybe even more, worth it.

Marriage isn't usually about money. Since you are viewing this primarily from a standpoint of money, of course it doesn't make sense.

Only a fool would do such a thing.

Then be the fool. There are many benefits to marriage anyways (financial or otherwise). Here's a list of financial benefits: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/marriage-rights-benefits-30190.html

Here's info on prenuptial agreements: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/prenuptial-agreement

 

[jtbell]

Why get married if I'm more likely than not to loose hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process?

That's what pre-nups are for. Otherwise, you're best served financially by marrying someone with similar income and attitude towards finances, as my wife and I did. We were both college professors. When we married more than thirty years ago, she had a bit more saved than I did because she's a few years older and had been teaching that much longer. Now that we're both retired, we have roughly the same amounts in our retirement accounts and collect (or will collect) about the same amount of Social Security.

Or, of course, you could "marry upward".

 

[Vanadium 50]

Or, of course, you could "marry upward".

If you marry for money, you'll be earning every penny.

 

[jedishrfu]

Let's not forget the three rings of marriage:

Engagement Ring, Wedding Ring and Suffering...

although your results may vary. In my case, suffering is more aptly replaced with comforting.

If you question the validity of marriage as an institution then by definition you should not get married. While its true that many marriages fail, but so do unmarried relationships.

If you're in a relationship with children too then for them you should get married as it takes care of the many legal, moral and social issues that kids need to navigate life to adulthood. However, in today's world (US) many choose to have kids but not get married and it can get complicated for everyone when you have to decide on the last name or provide identification to prove you're the kids parent when different from your own.

Lastly, since you've received many good responses here already it's time to close this thread and thank everyone who contributed to it.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

How can marriage possibly be worth it?

The important part is making sure you're marrying the right person. I did and my life is infinitely better for it.