
The Marriage Decision: Everything Forever or Nothing Ever Again (2016) - rerx
https://waitbutwhy.com/2016/09/marriage-decision.html
======
dbcurtis
The "deal breakers" checklist skirts the true issue.

I have been married longer than most HN members have been alive, which is no
accident. So I'll temporarily be arrogant enough say my peace on the theory
that someone might find it useful, and then duck and cover.

There really is only one thing that matters: You and your partner must share
the same value system, or at least if not identical, then there must not be
core values in conflict.

Why? If you agree on core values, then any disagreements (and there will be
many) will be about _implementation_ , not about the desired end state. Those
are healthy discussions, even if stressful. It is possible to both be "on the
same side of the problem" \-- it is the two of you against the problem, and
the disagreement is about how to get from point A to point B.

On the other hand, when a core value is in conflict, the only way one person
can be happy is if the other person gives up a part of themselves. That is at
the very least the seed of resentment, and can't help but be a wound that will
not heal.

So.. Step 1: Clarify in your own mind your own values. Until you have done
that, you have nothing to go on. Step 2: Get to know your potential partner
well enough that you both understand each other's core values. Make sure they
are compatible.

I wish I could say I did this, but in all honesty I had been married for 20
years before I understood it. I just happened to get lucky -- growing up under
similar circumstances as my bride has given us common touchstones.

~~~
01100011
The problem is people often change in fundamental ways. It is difficult to
choose a partner in your early 20s who will retain the same value system
throughout their life. Both myself and my ex are very different people from
what we were in our 20s.

There are many factors that contribute to a successful marriage. I'd say
commitment is one - you have to _want_ the marriage to work. You have to
accept that the other person is an individual and accept that they aren't your
twin and also that they are free to grow. You may disagree, for instance
politically, yet you have to respect them and allow the differences. It's
tough to run a 3 legged race for 30-40 years.

~~~
dsajames
I find that people who marry young grow together. The post about core values
hits it right on the head in my years of experience.

Nothing has come close to ruining my marriage as much as that.

------
01100011
<Ctrl-f>divorce

Hmm.. no mentions in the entire article? I think the author has something to
address.

Keep in mind when you get legally married you are signing a legal contract
that entitles that other person, in most states, to half of everything you
earn during the marriage. They also earn an entitlement to continue that
support for something like half the duration of the marriage, or more, if the
marriage falls apart.

I spent 19 years married in California to a spouse to refused to work for the
final 10 years of the marriage. I now have to pay $40k/year indefinitely after
losing half my savings and retirement. I had to sell my home to pay her share.
Now, on the flip side I have a girlfriend who is half my age and I'm finally
free of my ex which is worth every penny, but starting over at 42 just sucks.
The state has no concept of a spouse refusing to work. They assume that
because she wasn't working it must have been my decision to force that upon
her. By the way, we don't have kids. My friends who have divorced with kids?
$7k+/month.

It is especially important to keep this in mind if you are a well paid earner.
I know a lot of engineers making big bucks who let their spouses stay home or
pursue goofy home based businesses or careers as 'artists'.

~~~
shadowfiend
This is a perfectly reasonable setup for these agreements. If your spouse is
not working and you are married, it is either through mutual agreement or
inaction. Fundamentally a marriage is about mutual navigation of life. If you
are failing at this, a divorce is an option, as are other avenues (marriage
therapy, etc). The point of a* marriage contract working this way is exactly
the flip of it: to go extreme, if you are abusive in the relationship and will
not let your spouse out of your joint home, and they eventually manage* to get
a divorce, they are now attempting to operate without the last N years of work
history. How does your spouse get back on their feet now? The person who is
taking advantage of the marriage can be the breadwinner, and the breadwinner
(if there is only one) provides the means of survival.

Marriage is a life plan. You say that jointly and indefinitely, you will
navigate life together. This means both of you are (should be?) planning with
both of your current and future states in mind. If one isn't working, they are
planning on the other's income to continue life. It's perfectly reasonable for
the baseline of a marriage contract to be shared income and a reasonable time
to adjust to the loss of shared income should you get divorced (and that this
reasonable time grows the longer you are married). You might say, half of the
duration is too much! Then propose something better, and adjust the contract
accordingly. You might say, that jeopardizes my wedding, it seems like I don't
love my future spouse! If this is important to you, that is something you must
work through.

Now, it's also an emotional thing, so it can be hard to abandon ship and get a
divorce when it's clear your life plans have utterly diverged; I'm not trying
to trivialize that decision. But for the default case of marriage to be “you
have understood your mutual obligations and the fact that you are embarking on
a mutually navigated life” seems perfectly reasonable to me. As for kids… Kids
cost money and time, which our society for better or worse equates with money.
So of course kids add to the number.

Engineers who make big bucks and “let” (!?) their spouses stay home or pursue
careers as ‘”artists”’ (?!?) are _making that choice_ , either explicitly or
by not having the conversation. If you don't steer your life, you let your
life happen to you. And if you let your life happen to you, sometimes it will
happen poorly. If they _are_ having the conversation, then there's mutual
agreement that this is what's best for the family, and no one is _letting_
anyone do anything. It's absurd to talk about anyone “letting” their spouse
stay home as if they have some sort of ownership over them, or passing
judgement on the value of an artistic career choice from the outside.

Is there a human aspect to this, a fuzziness to it all? Of course. But feeling
incensed on behalf of others because their marriages are operating in a way
you don't approve of because of how you got burned… I don't know how useful
that is.

~~~
roenxi
> It's perfectly reasonable for the baseline of a marriage contract to be
> shared income and a reasonable time to adjust to the loss of shared income
> should you get divorced

You are positing a right without a responsibility. Why should a spouse with no
earning power be given a free pass on having obligations?

The only answer I would readily accept is that one partner is responsible for
earning and the other is responsible for children, but outside that the
situation is hard to justify.

> How does your spouse get back on their feet now?

Claiming that being married disqualifies someone from the workforce is a relic
of an era that is long past. In the absence of some hefty commitment (ie,
children) it isn't true.

~~~
shadowfiend
Your spouse does not have a free pass, you and your spouse have agreed that
the family has one of you working and one not. It doesn't require
justification beyond that being the mutual agreement, and mutual agreement is
how marriage moves forward through time.

Being married doesn't disqualify someone from the workforce, but not working
for an extended period of time through the above mutual agreement does leave
them with little work history, possibly reduced education, certainly reduced
experience, etc. They made those decisions in the context of a reality that is
changing due to divorce, and that change can have radical life results. As
such, having a default agreement whereby that change is not abrupt and
immediate is perfectly reasonable.

A prenuptial agreement modifies this by setting different expectations up
front, and allowing everyone involved to adjust their decision-making process.

~~~
poulsbohemian
I think you might be missing something that 01100011 experienced, which
frankly sounds a lot like what happened in my case as well. My ex became very
mentally ill and had no desire to do anything about it - because she knew that
either I would suck it up and carry on for the good of the kids, or that in
the case of a divorce that she would walk away with anything she wanted
anyway. So she had no incentive to go back to work, to get out of bed, or to
do anything at all. Your words sound much like multiple lawyers I consulted,
that somehow it was my fault because I was complicit in not forcing her to
work. And like 01100011 said, how the eff was I supposed to do that?

~~~
Tomte
Mental illness is obviously a whole different category.

Would you also slam her as lazy if she got crippled in a car accident?

Have you tried to get her help, in the form of therapy?

That's actually what "in bad times" means. It's probably okay to discover
you're not up to the task, but it's not okay to diss her on message boards.

~~~
poulsbohemian
You are using hyperbole and are reading into the discussion your own meaning.
You are being deliberately insulting and using a personal attack, whereas both
the parent poster and I experienced a similar behavior from our spouses and
faced the same legal dilemma.

~~~
Tomte
I'm taking your very literal expression "mentally ill" at face value, as I do
your other words. I haven't assumed a single thing, nor have I been injecting
"my own meaning".

I'm sorry your marriage ended badly, I'm sure that can be very stressful.

But the only insults here are yours.

------
azernik
> Society, in most parts of the world, doesn’t like when a relationship lasts
> too long. To society, a relationship is simply a testing ground—an incubator
> that prepares you for The Decision. And if too many years go by in a
> relationship without The Decision being made, society decides that something
> must be wrong. To help right the wrong, society will begin to apply pressure
> on the couple, from all angles.

In polyamorous circles, this is called the "relationship escalator" \- the
idea that a relationship must escalate up to marriage or be considered a
failure. In the polyamorous context this is considered a fallacy, because you
can still have another live-in, child-raising relationship while this one
ceases to escalate; but in a monogamous context there are real reasons to
"fish or cut bait" other than just social pressure. If you're looking to have
a married-and-settled-down life and that's not happening with the current
partner, you need to pursue that end-state with someone else, and monogamy
requires you to break up the non-escalating relationship before you can do
that.

------
radiantswirl
I found this article to have zero value and zero cogent information because he
boils the whole thing down to “gut check” (instinct — no real information
here) plus “dealbreakers” (a nebulous category that he makes clear is always
changing for everyone so there’s not really any useful info there either).

This reads like a long hemming and hawing written by some dude who probably
shouldn’t marry his partner but he’s trying to convince himself it’s a good
idea and seek validation for his bad decision by writing a long abstract post
justifying it.

Pro tip to the author, if your relationship prompts you to write a long
article justifying your decision-making process about whether or not to marry
your partner, then your partner has failed the gut check and you shouldn’t
marry them.

4/10 article, interesting concepts but zero actionable or new info that isn’t
already common/universal knowledge in western societies.

It’s also just plain weird that he would write an article that long which is
clearly based on his life experiences but not share any of his specific life
experiences or anything about him. Maybe he thinks subtracting the self from
the article makes it “more universally applicable,” but really his decision
not to include any info about his personal relationship history just makes it
less relatable and thus FAR less applicable to anyone.

------
somberi
To quote the comedian Chris Rock:

You have two choices. Single and lonely. Married and bored. Ain't no happiness
anywhere.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6X0Qqxx3f0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6X0Qqxx3f0)

------
woodandsteel
Lot of interesting ideas here. I would just add a few points.

On listening to your gut when you are a brain person, this is actually
trainable, check out the book Focusing by the University of Chicago
psychologist and philosopher Eugene Gendlin.

On deciding, it seems to me the two most important things are if the two of
you have reasonably common values about how you want to live your lives, and
if you trust the other person's moral character and ability to act rationally,
at least when it comes to something really important. If the two of you have
these, then you can probably work out the difficulties.

Thirdly, you stand a much better chance of settling problems small and large
if you take a course in interpersonal relationship and conflict resolution
skills. See for instance Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg.

Lastly, you need to have some larger philosophy or religion to keep things in
perspective and as basis for personal value beyond how much your mate loves
you, otherwise you will either be their puppet or try to be their master.

~~~
tomcam
Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg changed the way I thought.
However, it, ah, doesn't matter at all if both parties don't buy in.

------
rayiner
It's interesting to me that people in the U.S. (maybe all the West, I just
have experience with the U.S.) spend so much effort trying to find a marriage
partner. But it does not appear to me that folks are happier in their
marriages than in countries where some form of arranged marriage (not
necessarily a "big A" arranged marriage, but maybe a "little A" arranged
marriage) is common.

I suspect:

1) We're not special and in fact there are a wide range of people we'd be
relatively happy being married to;

2) It does not take that long to figure out whether our partner falls into
bucket (1);

3) To the extent that initially happy marriages sour, it's because of changed
circumstances, and there is little you can do at step (1) to prevent those.

~~~
tptacek
Strongest possible agree. My wife and I were together for 3 weeks before we
eloped in Reno (we both broke up with previous partners to be together). We're
celebrating our 20th in a couple weeks. And for about half that time we've
also worked together.

There's a dude on this thread who has apparently been married longer than I've
been alive and my 20 years makes me a marriage piker, but I suspect the real
secret is that a marriage is something you build, not something you discover
in some godawful dating treasure hunt.

~~~
rayiner
Congrats!!

------
homonculus1
I have trouble understanding why people buckle to social pressure in this day
and age. If you aren't Amish or JW risking your entire livelihood and social
circle... is it really that hard to tell you're relatives you just aren't
ready to be married?

~~~
mirimir
In most of the US, if a relationship lasts long enough, it doesn't matter much
whether you "get married" or not. As far as the state's concerned, you _are_
legally married.

~~~
pmiller2
What are you referring to? Common law marriage? That’s only valid in 8 states
and DC (California is not one of those states, FYI).

Edit: Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas,
Utah, and the District of Columbia are the only US districts where one can
enter into a common law marriage today. Such marriages are, of course,
recognized by other states, but you won’t end up “accidentally” married by
doing nothing in New York, for instance.

~~~
poulsbohemian
Add Washington state to your list. There is case law here whereby if you live
together or demonstrate that you are in a domestic partnership, you can be
liable for spousal support, using the same guidelines as divorce. And this is
without signing any documents or anything “official” to mark the partnership.

Edit: in fact, to make this even more messed up - Washington state had a
domestic partnership law, then got rid of it. So now there is a giant legal
grey area where the courts have basically said “we know it when we see it.”

------
cm2012
Some quick stats on marriage in a cynical thread:

1) Only 40% of marriages end in divorce these days.

2) Divorced people are much more likely to divorce multiple times, so first
marriage success rate is closer to 75%.

3) In job cross splits, software developers have much lower divorce rates than
the general pop.

As an unmarried HN reader, you probably have a an 80% chance of lifelong
marriage.

~~~
01100011
Just anecdotal evidence, but during my divorce 2 other SW engineers I know
also got divorced and another one asked me for advice on how to get it
started. I know lots of SW guys with stories of horrible divorces and insane
legal bills which took decades to pay off. Maybe it's because I'm in Southern
California where the divorce rate is something like 75%.

------
hardwaresofton
This is the kind of thing everyone _should_ think through post-
highschool/college/in their 20s -- glad someone's written it out. I would love
another guide/write-up like this for friendship -- it seems like people my age
(late 20s/early 30s) and younger are in this world where "friendship" means so
little (as used by Facebook) and yet so much (as used by your actual friends
who you make efforts to see and enjoy spending time with).

Finding people that have actively thought through many of life's quandaries
(should you eat meat? how should governments be run? what do you want out of
life?) and have formed opinions backed by mostly fact but who are ready to
change in the presence of new data is so difficult though. I have a hunch I'm
not looking in the right places but even in my late 20s I run into so many
people who just haven't thought about most of the important shit and are just
looking to glob onto someone for the rest of their life. Like sure, listening
to music and digesting memes is great, but if you can't align or at least come
to reasoned disagreement with your partner on shit that really matters, what
is everyone doing.

------
djrogers
> I’m not an expert on this, nor am I married—but I’ve read a lot about it

Ooookaaaay.... Sorry, but you have lost what little credibility you might have
had right there.

~~~
black6
That’s where I stopped reading, too.

------
jancsika
Just marry someone who a) deals with their shit and b) doesn't drive you
crazy.

If you're not sure your love interest is doing "a", find a mouthy asshole you
trust and mention things about your relationship to them. If they don't
convincingly criticize your love interest (or you) then you're probably ok to
get married.

If you don't yet know what drives you crazy: stop. You are too young to get
married.

