So You Want to Get Married?

You are here because you are thinking about getting married. Perhaps one of your friends did you a favor, and sent you here. If you are going to be the higher-earner spouse in the marriage, then this article is for you.

Taking the Plunge

Before you take the plunge there are a few things about marriage that you need to be aware of. The institution of marriage as we know it is no more. It has undergone drastic changes in the last 50 years. What used to be a life long commitment, unbreakable barring the most severe circumstances, has been relegislated into something entirely new thanks to the lobbying efforts of radical feminists and the divorce industry. In trying to to make divorce “fail-safe” for homemaker / lower-earner spouses, the bad ones included, they have made marriage “unsafe” for virtually everyone else.

Marriage today is a temporary union of two individuals where the exit costs are highly asymmetrical. What does that mean? It means that upon the dissolution of the marriage, one spouse generally makes off like a bandit, while the other is pushed into a life of unending poverty, abridged civil rights, and being two paychecks away from arrears, contempt, and prison.

If someone is made to suffer like that upon the divorce, you probably think that he/she deserved it. Perhaps they were a terrible spouse? Perhaps they cheated? If only this was so. Karma, you see, has nothing to do with it. That was the case during the olden days of “fault-only” divorce when the spouse who was at fault for wrecking the marriage got penalized during the divorce. With those old divorces , if the at-fault party was the higher-earning spouse, they were made to pay alimony and surrender many marital assets over to the wronged party. Similarly, if the at-fault party was the homemaker/lower-earner spouse, then they were made to forfeit any alimony and forced to accept a smaller share of the martial assets. Morality was a big factor in who made out better and who made out worse.

Enter Marriage 2.0

During the second half of the 20th century all of the ground rules governing marriage were changed. The laws were changed to such an extent that that we can no longer call it “marriage” as it was known through the millennia. We have to distinguish this mutated institution with a new name. We will call it Marriage 2.0.

Today all that stuff about the moral carrot and stick is out of the window. Basically the higher-earner spouse is always at-fault (i.e. made to hand over assets and pay alimony), and the lower-earner spouse is always the “innocent one” (i.e. gets most of the assets and a cut of the ex’s future salaries). It doesn’t matter if the lower-earner spouse was the one having an affair or is the one filing the divorce. Therein lies the problem with modern family laws. You can be the best breadwinner spouse in the world, take good care of your family, and stay true to your marriage vows, and you will still get shafted in the divorce. It’s a suckers bet for the good guy (or the good gal).

Here are some things working against you, when you are the primary breadwinner spouse within Marriage 2.0, and your spouse decides to walk out (cash out?) on you:

1. Women Filing Majority of Divorces – 80% of all divorces are now filed by wives. Publications like Cosmo love to harp on men for having a “fear of commitment”. Guys must ask themselves, why commit when it’s the other party who can’t live up to the commitment 3/4 of the time?

2. Unilateral Divorce – This is also known as no-fault divorce, with no recourse for the other spouse. There is nothing you can do legally speaking to stop a divorce.

3. Domestic Violence Fraud : Presumed guilty until proven innocent DV laws are now widely used as the “opening chess move” of many divorces. Once the husband is removed from the primary residence he never comes back, and she gets the primary residence in the asset split. Also known as the Federal VAWA Legislation, this new unconstitutional law has been fraudalently misused by divorcing spouses ever since it came out. There are no equivalent laws to protect men in abusive situations.

4. Decriminalization of Adultery – Adultery is no longer a crime. However the failure to pay alimony to an adulterous spouse is. Go figure.

5. Losing Custody of Children – Custody of the children is most often awarded to the lower-earner spouse in family courts. Basically this amounts to: Goodbye Daddy, hello ATM. When you read of cases like this October 2009 case where a little boy’s mother was arrested for prostitution and his stable/employed dad was still denied custody, you quickly understand how this loaded dice always rolls.

6. Nonenforcement of Visitation Rights – States enforce payment obligations by non-custodial parents with an iron fist, however they are hesitant to enforce the other side of the bargain, which is the visitation rights of non-custodial parents. If you are going to police one parent’s obligation to pay, why not police the other parent’s obligation to allow regular meaningful access to one’s children?

7. Children as Cashcows – The National Organization for Women (NOW) has been lobbying against Shared Parenting bills in many states. Why would NOW do that? What is more equal than shared parenting? The reason is that NOW’s brand of feminism is no longer about equality, but about a zero-sum game for resources. Children are cash-cows, and NOW will be damned if they allow Shared Parenting to stop the cash-flow.

8. No-Fault Alimony – In many states, fault is no longer a factor in awarding alimony. So there are plenty of cases of “spouse-A cheats, but spouse-B pays”. In what other area of contract law does the party breaking the contract gets paid, and the innocent party gets punished? Only in Marriage 2.0!

9. One Sided Alimony: Ok so the ex-wife got used to a certain standard of living, so we will make the ex-husband pay alimony. Fine. But how about the things the ex-husband got used to? Do men have a right to be “accustomed” to stuff too? If not, why not? Shouldn’t there be some sort of reciprocal reverse-alimony payment by the ex-wife in the form of weekly cleaning, a hot meal 7 nights a week, and “romantic companionship” services for the ex-husband? How come one spouse is obligated to provide something that the other was used to during the marriage, and the other isn’t obligated to provide anything? (see the Chris Rock clip below)

10. Lifetime Alimony – Contrary to common belief, Alimony isn’t on its way out. There was a period in the 1970’s when no-fault laws were first enacted when a few states put limitations on how/when it could be awarded. However since then there have been a concerted effort by powers that be such as the influential American Law Institute (ALI) for bringing alimony back in a big way. Here is a New York Times article covering the release of a landmark 2002 ALI report which recommended broadening and deepening alimony awards across all 50 states. Right on queue there are now reports of alimony horror stories coming out from many states where the breadwinner ex-spouses are ordered to pay lifetime alimony. There are also cases like the on in this Wall Street Journal article where long settled divorce cases are re-opened and modified under the new pro-alimony paradigms. Paul Taylor featured in the WSJ story had his ex-wife take him back to court in 2009, three decades after their original 1982 divorce when both parties had agreed to waive all past/present/future alimony. The court reversed that original 1982 divorce judgement and awarded lifetime alimony to the ex-wife. It was ordered that this new alimony be deducted out of Paul Taylor’s pension and paid monthly to a woman he hadn’t even seen in three decades. Mr Taylor is now in bankruptcy and can look forward to spending his golden years working as a Greeter in Wal-Mart.

11. Paternity Fraud – If you didn’t catch right away that your kids aren’t really your kids but instead were “sired” by some guy that your wife was having an affair with, you are out of luck in most states. What’s worse if your cheating wife divorces you, you can bring the DNA tests to court, and you will still be forced to pay 18-23 years of child support for these kids who are some other guy’s spawn. Read this case of the Toronto man forced to pay child-support for twins that even the court acknowledged are not his but ordered him to keep paying anyway. In no other area of the law do we punish the innocent victim for the conduct of two other people

Even more shocking is this New York Times article about a Pennsylvania man ordered to keep paying child support after his adulterous wife divorced him, and married the very guy she had the affair and conceived the child with. Today the bio-father, the ex-wife, and their bio-child live together under a single roof as a biologically intact family and guess who is still paying them monthly child support? Yes, the cuckold ex-husband still has to pay every month or go to jail. You can’t make this stuff up. Even cuckold porn doesn’t get this vile.

Conclusion

Marriage 2.0 is a very unequal contract where the legal power balance both within the marriage and after the divorce is heavily biased against the primary breadwinner. Given that this is today’s legal reality why would you want to sign such a one sided contract? There are simply no benefits in marriage for the primary breadwinner under these Marriage 2.0 rules. None whatsoever. Ask yourself now: “What is in it for me?”. If the above hasn’t yet convinced you to avoid this mutated institution that has become a a giant legal trap, then you owe it to yourself to keep learning more about the risks of saying “I do”.

A great place to start learning more is the Don’t Marry Blog. Also be sure to check out this colorful piece explaining why Marriage = Fraud.