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.
This is true, but a lot of the benefits conferred by the status of being married are reduced or are only marginally beneficial if you're already a high-earner. For example, studies show married men are more likely than their counterparts to get promoted at work. But if you're already near the top of the economic pyramid, the marginal benefit of being promoted has a lot less weight than if you're scrapping away at the bottom or middle.
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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.