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this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
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I have never heard anyone complain about a 50-50 split laws.
You clearly have a strong opinion about it. If you're willing to share, do you believe that "gold-digging" is such a prevalent problem that the default 50-50 split needs to change? What are you proposing as an alternative? If you're worried about "gold-digging" how do prenuptial agreements not mitigate this already?
My mom slept around for 20+ years of marriage, was emotionally abusive to her kids, and never did much if it didn't further her public image. From the outside she looked great, but now she is on the never talks to me again list. My dad was the primary breadwinner by a large margin, cooked dinner every night, coached multiple of our sports teams, taught us to drive, volunteered at our school several times per year, and was so calm I can only remember one time where he lost his temper. He basically raised us as a single father and never wanted to divorce because he was determined to break the cycle. He sounds fake when I type it out.
The settlement after two years of lawyering, and only one of the kids being not an adult at 17 years old, was ridiculous. He took on all of the debt, took care of all the kids, paid all 3 kids child support until we were 21, paid my mom alimony of over $2k, she took half the shit out of our house, and gave her a free basically new car. Oh and he paid for her apartment for a year. This was after talking the judge down for months.
We were firmly middle class, like $150k gross in the 2010's when this played out. I had to pay for our groceries a few times because of this fucked up system. It basically fucks the good parent into the ground for a sense of equality.
First, let me say that I feel for you and your father in trying to do what he felt was right and honorable.
50-50 split isn't where one person takes all the debt, then the assets are split 50-50. What you're describing sounds like your father would have benefited from 50-50 split. He clearly didn't get half.
It was about 70/30 in my mom's favor. The big problem with no fault is it massively favors the mom.
I don't feel strongly either way here, but want to point out that something doesn't need to be a big, prevalent problem before you advocate for change. If it's a problem for someone, somewhere, and you can solve the problem without introducing new problems for others, that should be enough.
As for the 50-50 split, I intuitively think it would make sense to have some kind of clause regarding what each part brings in to a marriage. If one part brings in a house, while the other just got their first job, it doesn't make sense to me that the default upon a divorce should be that they get equal parts of the house. Of course, implementing a good solution in practice can be anything but simple.
It already doesn't work like that in most places in the USA. If the house is still in the name of the person that owned it to begin with, generally that person keeps the house after the divorce. Do some googling on "premartial assets".
I'm by no means well versed in US divorce law. My primary point was that I can imagine situations where something other than a default 50-50 split would make sense, and that crafting a good solution in practice is probably difficult. An alternative situation to the one mentioned above could be:
Two people have wildly different incomes, they take up a loan and buy a house together, where one of the two makes the 75 % of the down-payments. If they get a divorce, should the value of the house / loan be split 50 / 50? I think it's a question that can be open for discussion, even if "gold digging" isn't a prominent issue.
I’m not at risk of it, in case you’re wondering if I have a personal stake. But I’ve always found the notion of a person taking 50% of another’s accomplishments simply because they managed to get them to fall in love with them tantamount to rape. I have very strong opinions about rape too, by the way.
Prenuptial agreements are nice, but the truth of the matter is that 50/50 should not be the default and people shouldn’t have to take preliminary measures to protect themselves. It’s not about the prevalence of the problem; rape isn’t actually that prevalent if you look at the full scope of human sexual interaction. Nonetheless, that it occurs at all is abhorrent. That alone justifies action and legal protection. The alternatives are extrajudicial negotiation via lawyers and court judgments if that fails. Plenty of states have this system; only nine have 50/50 laws. Thankfully, it seems most people can see their stupidity. I’d rather see resources split equitably according to needs and what people deserve than a completely in-arbitrary split that’s sole purpose is to spare court time and resources.
And if you don’t think my comparison to rape apt, I can assure you I don’t mean to equate the two in every aspect, obviously. But it’s been said by many others that this is the principal way in which women take advantage of men, and I do consider it severely psychologically damaging, even if the outcomes aren’t the same (e.g. PTSD). Legally stealing a person’s earned income isn’t just about money; it’s a slice at their very life’s work, and that is about far lore than the material goods it’s associated with.
This seems kinda ignorant about how married families work. So much that I don't even know where I'd begin setting things straight. My wife spent years not working, not advancing her career, not contributing to the financial bottom line further than doing all the work necessary to make the household function so that I could focus on my own career growth and money. Even now, I make twice what she does even though she is probably the more generally competent of us, because she effectively had no career growth for about fifteen years.
Once the kids from her first marriage were old enough she became a loan officer at a bank. That went out the window when we started having kids of our own and she had to start again from the bottom rung of the ladder in a whole different industry. You're damn skippy she's entitled to half my earnings if we get a divorce. I couldn't have hired someone to do everything she's done for half my salary. Plus it's not like I'd want my kids living in poverty when they were staying with her.
I feel like in your head your are thinking some self-made millionaire tricked into marrying a high school dropout because the pussy is amazing and now she has a half million bucks and her vagina can retire. Maybe that happens but my story is way more common. Plus if the pussy is that good, who's to say it isn't worth $500k? Only Fans incomes suggests that certain pussy is definitely worth that.
My point is just think about what the woman risks and sacrifices before deciding 50/50 is unfair.
Let’s leave aside the fact that all of that assumes a spouse who actually genuinely supports their working partner and doesn’t instead just live off their labor, which I think you may not realize happens more than you might think.
Raising kids and running a household isn’t easy, and nowhere in my comment did I say or even imply it was, so I’m not sure where you get off saying I don’t understand how marriage works. I understand that some couples decide to divide the labor of housekeeping and breadwinning such that one person has to sacrifice their career while the other sacrifices a significant degree of their relationship with their children (but I think you forgot to take that last part into account, if I’m being honest). It’s not ideal, but life is imperfect and we all make sacrifices to achieve our goals.
But what’s the equivalent of alimony for the breadwinner, hm? Do they get their time away from their family back in the event of a divorce? No, of course not. But money—that’s easy to transfer, right? And I’m not against it, not entirely. It makes sense. But only to a point. I don’t care how good a parent you are, your skills, time, and effort are not worth millions of dollars, and let’s not pretend the primary caregivers don’t also get things out of their choice that can’t be quantified in money, so it’s not even like they deserve to be paid in full for their work. These 50/50 laws have no limit, no cap on how much they allot to the homemaker/parent, and that doesn’t make any sense.
I agree the primary caregiver should get something; they do sacrifice, after all. But I don’t think an arbitrary 50/50 split is always justified. That’s all I’m saying. Are you seriously suggesting that such a rubric makes sense in all, let alone just most divorce scenarios? If you are, then I think you’re being even more daft than you’ve accused me of being. It always makes more sense to actually look at a situation and make your judgment based on the particulars rather than apply some context-blind rule.
First, I'm fifty. I have five kids. I know the sacrifices and demands on both partners very, very well. You aren't dropping any knowledge here that doesn't already go into my thinking. And yes, I still think 50/50 is fine. Perfect? No, but arbitrary rules never are and non-arbitrary rules always run into bias. How much money someone deserves becomes a question of who can hire the better lawyer, which isn't a better system than 50/50.
Getting back time lost is a ridiculous suggestion. It can't be done. Time with a fifteen year old is completely different from time with a four year old. So I don't see any reason to try to litigate or compare to the impossible. My wife moved with me to DC and her mom died of cancer. Who's giving her back time with her mom? There is no "fair." Everyone lost opportunities to make other choices and none of that can be undone without a time machine.
It goes back again to the fact that I couldn't decide to do it all without her and just pay for everything she gave me.
The only situation that I can identify with how you describe is military wives, and that's a whole other fucked up thing. Yeah that for sure happens in the military, but god damn that's a whole other shitstorm I could write five thousand words on.
I'm very concerned for you with what you're saying here.
The narrative your creating equating 50/50 split in divorce to rape, ignoring any recognition that marriage is a relationship of equals, and believing that one spouse "sacrifices to achieve [their] goals" sounds like its describing some kind of victim complex.
HUGE CITATION NEEDED here. Don't be shy. Name the "many others". My guess is your sources may also point to the cause you hold this male victim complex.
Are you unaware of the historical context where for a good chunk of modern human history, prior to 50-50 split, women were held in loveless and abusive marriages because if they left they would leave with nothing, and as traditional raisers of children they had few, if any marketable skills to earn a living if they were to divorce?
50/50 split is literally the definition of the word "equitable" where each spouse is treated the same. What criteria is your "what people deserve" based on? Are you suggesting that if one spouse makes more money during the marriage then that spouse should take more money away in the divorce?
You're aware that alimony has nothing to do with 50/50 split of marital assets in divorce, yes?
How charitable of you. Whatever you think they should get, you don't believe its half of the marriage assets apparently.
A marriage isn't supposed to be a transactional relationship. A divorce isn't about rewarding one spouse or the other. Its an act of separating a pair of people that were sharing life and finances (and sometimes children) so they can go their separate ways. They build the marriage together and share everything. When they split they each take half and go on with their lives.