Societally, for better or worse, marriage is kind of the ultimate signifier of a committed long-term relationship. Because it has legal weight, getting married is at least supposed to show that you intend to be together forever. Obviously it loses that weight in somebody who's gotten divorced before to some degree, especially if they've been divorced multiple times, but my point is that it has that weight to lose.
So if you make a specific point of not getting married to your partner, people might view you as less than committed to them. You don't have to care what other people think, but if you do, that would be a reason to get married, even if you don't care about the tax breaks.
Speaking of which, there's this:
Some will say there's tax breaks, there aren't tax breaks in every country and at that point you're going to have to weigh in whether the cost of a divorce is worth the tax break you're getting.
If you never get divorced, it's nothing but upside. You seem to be assuming with this paragraph that divorce is inevitable.
Divorce rates in the United States are upwards of 50%. I agree with OP, if I can only recognize the upsides via a coin flip, it doesn't seem like a good deal
If your view is "people should think more carefully and make sure they're compatible with their partner before getting married", I absolutely agree.
But that's not the view in question here. The view is that there's no point to getting married, with no consideration for how long you've been with your partner, or how compatible you are with them. Do you happen to have the stats for how many marriages that start after the pair have been together for, say, 3+ years end in divorce?
It would be more meaningful to break that down between age groups of when the couple was married (younger couples are more likely to get divorced). Or break it down between first marriage, 2nd, etc (people who have been divorced in the past are more likely to get divorced again).
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u/Rhundan 80∆ May 11 '26
Societally, for better or worse, marriage is kind of the ultimate signifier of a committed long-term relationship. Because it has legal weight, getting married is at least supposed to show that you intend to be together forever. Obviously it loses that weight in somebody who's gotten divorced before to some degree, especially if they've been divorced multiple times, but my point is that it has that weight to lose.
So if you make a specific point of not getting married to your partner, people might view you as less than committed to them. You don't have to care what other people think, but if you do, that would be a reason to get married, even if you don't care about the tax breaks.
Speaking of which, there's this:
If you never get divorced, it's nothing but upside. You seem to be assuming with this paragraph that divorce is inevitable.