New divorce app to help couples split assets in New York without lawyers
resolvy.com
resolvy.com
I hope that the new app will help divorcing couples to work through the divorce with less pain on both sides. But is what every party thinks that he or she wants?
Insert a gun into a frustrating situation for no reason. What an a-hole.
IMHO that's the main reason everyone having a gun with zero training is one of the stupidest things ever. People are dumb, people are brash, people make mistakes, people argue over everything. Why introduce a lethal component to every confrontation and bar fight? Because a piece of paper written 200 years ago says that it will be needed to protect the country doesn't really sound like a good enough reason for all the useless deaths.
But gun owners in US have this knee-jerk end-of-the-world reaction at any attempt to change anything, regardless of all the school shootings and overall ridiculously high murder rate. Tunnel vision that guns are the most important thing in the world and who doesn't restrict them is the best politician.
I lean in my opinions more towards right but due to this I would never ever be republican if I were in the US. Voting for the same people as vast amounts of bible belt gun nuts whose wet dreams are mostly about their property being invaded by some thugs (or anybody really) so they can finally defend themselves with one of the 50 guns they have mostly for this purpose, and the spend significant amount of time and money on preparing exactly for this scenario... that would be insulting.
I really cannot comprehend why there is no punishment for things like that.
Sure, was he at risk of the other person grabbing the gun? Probably. But why did he have to unnecessarily bring a firearm into a heated and emotional argument in the first place? What was supposed to happen?
It feels so psychotic to me, like taunting someone with the intention to bait them into their death. Those kids lost their parent for no good reason :(
And I've practiced administrative law which, since they are not established under Article III of the Constitution, can be pretty cowboy and roughshod. I've also appeared in tribal court which seem to frequently take cues from TV courts. But they are not frivolous, not at all. Administrative hearings can and do determine the liberty of people every day. Same for tribal courts. There's something farcical about all 3 types of proceedings but family court just hits the perfect note of "legitimate", "important", and "farcical" to me, even though they are undoubtedly important. I can assure you that no immigration or NLRB hearings, the administrative courts in this country with teeth, sink into farce at a similar rate.
At one point there were some half-joking talks about finding an agreeable local tribe to partner with us to open a startup that allow same-day in-app divorces. Sadly even with introductions and approaching tribes in several states they all ended up saying no. There's a free idea for y'all, business-wise, if you can pull it off.
The number one thing to know about divorce with kids is that you lose control. They couldn’t stand that. The idea that the other person was 100% in charge of the kids.
They began making extremely vague allegations of how the other parent does unspecified “bad things” that need to be “reported.”
They eventually ended up believing their own propaganda and are convinced the other parent is abusing the kids on their days.
It’s a total mess.
The only debtor's prison there is in the US is the one for people with <50% custody. Therefore if the other parent makes claims of abuse, it's imperative you have counterclaims to make sure the other parent is in just as bad light to make sure you won't be subject to imprisonment at the whim of a judge at any misfortune you have.
Neither party cared about child support or alimony. Or money, at all.
Also, you’re not accurately describing how things turned out.
One of the parents wound up having very little custody time, and very little child support.
Restraining orders are not easy to get either. It can take quite a lot of fight even in cases where actual stalking and threats of violence are going on.
Do you have a source for this? In my state, and many others, temporary protection from abuse orders against spouses are very easy to get just by saying the right things without any real evidence. Those stay in effect for a couple of weeks until a hearing. Then it's difficult to get them overturned unless you have physical proof because the course want to "err on the side of caution".
There are divorce lawyers who actually recommend filing false protection orders during divorce, for the very reasons stated by the previous commenter. It's well known amongst divorce attorneys that some in their profession do this. There is generally no punishment for those attorneys since you can't prove their involvement easily, nor for the false filer in many cases. After all, if your spouse is a felon (perjury) the courts will likely make you pay more in child support and alimony due to their limited earning potential.
Once officialdom realizes there is a divorce in progress, they become much, much, much less inclined to take sides.
The general attitude is: “You’re going through a divorce. We aren’t going to take your word for it. If we didn’t see it, it didn’t happen.”
This is a well known issue that may be more prevalent in some states than others, but is certainly a national issue.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/order-of-protection-and-j_b_9...
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-worst-thing-a-woman-c_b_8...
The unreasonably high stakes of “losing” a divorce case make it more like a no-holds barred cage match. I think America likes it this way because on some level it believes people must suffer for getting divorced.
Completely agree. However, the underlying reason for many divorces is that they no long have the ability to cooperate or view things rationally.
We just both recognized that the process was about separating our lives, not resolving our feelings about one another. And that's pretty much always why it goes wrong - people want to use court proceedings as a substitute for therapy.
I know lots of people that are divorced, with partial custody. Most like the situation better than when they were married.
I don't think thats how child support works in most states. Income shares model basically looks at the cost of raising a child in a particular jurisdiction then pro-rates that based on the parents income. For instance if the cost of child per month is 1k and the man earns 50k and the woman earns 100k (assuming woman has custody), the man would pay $333 a month (50 / 150 * 1k)
https://www.thebalance.com/how-child-support-payments-are-ca...
"OH look, you made $100k this year and have a masters in IT. You should be able to earn that forever to pay child support and/or alimony." ...is basically how it goes.
The amount of people in county jail due to failure to pay child support is shocking. It is one of the best kept secrets in the jail system. The numbers are hidden since they are often bailiff arrests not integrated with sheriff stats [operates jails] under civil contempt. Once you are caught into this system and serve jail time you will most likely lose your current job. Thus begins a debtors spiral: Appear in court, can't pay, jail, release, appear in court, can't pay, jail - you will face ever increasing penalties and bizarre state punishments like having your drivers license suspended.
This system is particularly cruel to High cost of living / High paid individuals. EG. If you make 100k per year and finalize your divorce [lose house, 1/2 savings, 40k in lawyer fees, begin renting in high cost area, forced private school tuition] - alimony with child payments could be ~3k per month post tax. You might be able to swing this a few months. However, stress from the divorce could result in job loss. In the state of Florida for example, just being behind $2500 is a felony (they haven't updated their law). If you attempt to go to another state to find work it is considered fleeing (another felony).
It's hard to find evidence or tape of anything I said since cases are buried in confidential family courts, here is one example of an unrepresented person in the debt spiral. Watch until the end: jail. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvOIdhJg1As
Fortunately it encouraged reform.
But neighboring states still issue automatic arrest warrants, and out state is required to serve then even though we are disgusted by it.
It’s always: young, impoverished black male with a warrant from a neighboring state.
Many local police are disgusted by it. But they don’t have a choice: warrants are warrants.
https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19901216&slug...
It won't. The people who fight over used dish soap and other petty things will continue to have issues.
The other part is people having an incorrect perception of what they are entitled to in a divorce. The app or a lawyer will be able to show them how wrong that perception is, but it won't dull the pain.
What would actually help is forming a prenup while both parties are happy, before vengeance, winning, or whatever emerges from the failed marriage.
The problem isn't the divorce process, it's the people involved, either the parties to the divorce or their attorneys.
Say if you brought assets into the relationship, a house, retirement fund fund, an inheritance. I’m sure you don’t want your ex-partner to get half of that. You’re entitled to keep a larger portion of it (as you get a credit for it). So our app helps people understand that better.
Some people who split everything equally may be giving more away than they should.
This is our version one. I have no idea how it will evolve.
But yes, if you want it done quickly - a lawyer is better at this stage.
May I ask if you went through a divorce?
Doesn't this depend on if you have a pre-nup especially in states like CA? I got married super early and had to divide everything equally even though I earned much more than my spouse.
The rules in Community Property states is marital assets have to be divided equally (50/50) in non-Community Property states they must only be divided up "equitably."
As you can see this represents a large percent of the total U.S. population.
Arizona. California. Idaho. Louisiana. Nevada. New Mexico. Texas. Washington Wisconsin
Also, "The states of Tennessee and South Dakota have passed elective Community Property Laws."
I don't live in New York and wish to never have to use a similar service but Goodluck nonetheless!
(He also has a more elaborate one, where the partners do a virtual auction of all items among themselves, to account for cases where particular items are worth a lot more to one of them. I believe it’s in his book “How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World”).
The reason I now advise folks to do a pre-nup is that when things are getting tense, everyone feeling insecure about their future actually increases the pressure and therefore the possibility of a divorce.
Write your pre-nup however you want, but save yourself the possibility of huge additional and unnecessary stress/uncertainty at a time when the relationship can least afford it.
If you have partner who you are not married with, you can't bring them in whatever country you are emigrating to.
> And for sure I was never asked about my marital status for traveling.
Then you have not traveled to muslim countries with your partner.
I've also traveled to Muslim countries, latest of which Morocco. There might be some restrictions here and there but the way you speak of marriage it makes it sound like it's the 14th century.
How? Taxes for couples are generally just doubled. You can actually save on taxes by not being married and maneuvering who claims what (house, dependants, etc).
Some major tax deductions like the mortgage deduction are per person as well, so two people with a shared income get twice the deduction as one person with an income
This doesn't sound right.
"so the overall rate is higher for one person then two splitting."
That depends if that one person is the higher or lower earner. This statement really only works if you have two unequal salaries. Since it's progressive, you're only paying the higher taxes on the amount that is over the threshold.
I don't know what to tell you. The code is pretty straightforward. You can deduct the mortgage interest on 375 k per person. You get twice the tax deduction with two people as one.
Regarding the general taxes you are correct in that it only helps if you have two people in different tax brackets. This is extremely common
We should all strictly optimize for maximum utilization of resources.
Beep boop.
When you get married you have the option of writing the agreement between yourself and your partner (a prenup) or just accepting the one-size-fits-all government boiler plate.
Maybe you think there's nothing special about your situation. Maybe you think the government rules will work fine enough. Wouldn't you at least like someone to review them with both of your first so you know what the contract you're signing says? That still involves getting a prenup.
The prenup process also has a few additional advantages.
First, it forces transparency with finances. A stunning number of couples never fully disclose their financial state to each other. They don't know about that credit card debt their partner is holding or the student loans, or the jewelry they inherited from their grandmother worth $30k or whatever. Having those discussions about money with a neutral third party can actually help your relationship succeed and it provides insurance against not only surprises but also having to have those discussion while your relationship is failing which will be a much more stressful time.
Second, it forces conversations around expectations for the relationship, big life decisions, etc. I know many religions enforce pre-martial consoling that's similar but in today's secular world there's a good chance you might get married without having those discussions or without having a neutral third-party present to oversee the process.
In short, prenups are not about divorce, they're about the terms of the legal agreement you're signing.
In many cases and jurisdictions, things like unvested RSUs have never been litigated.
So it’s like, do we want to choose, or roll some dice if it doesn’t go well?
Or unfair to those who simply choose not to save (without staying home with kids).
"Earned before/during marriage doesn't matter in this case."
That sounds like a terrible and unfair place. Where is that?
Retirement saving is mandatory just like elsewhere in Europe and taken automatically, so you can't avoid that part if you actually work. There is additional voluntary pillar but that's a minor sum compared to mandatory ones.
Absent a disparity in the pre-marriage estates, I doubt anyone would have the inclination to push the issue.
https://mobile.twitter.com/gselevator/status/698952591963598...
I always find it kind of counter-intuitive that the Western far-right routinely complains about “creeping Sharia Law”.
If those folks red the Koran they’d agree with it!
Money comes and goes. It can be a great help, but it behooves anyone who has any to prevent it becoming a hinderance on the road to happiness.
There's some language on your site that suggests that this can help you understand how your various assets will be treated in a divorce, which could be good if it's contentious, but if you have a lot of assets you're still going to want a lawyer.
I guess what I'm wondering is who your target audience is, as well as how you'd plan to monetize this?
If you're amicable, there is still a lot of benefit in checking whether what you've agreed to divide with your spouse is fair from a legal perspective. You could be giving too much away. Eg. If you had a retirement/pension fund before the marriage, do you want to split that equally down the middle - no. You'll be entitled to keep a bigger slice of that (but you may have to give some away of course). Same with any other assets you had before the marriage, or inheritance you received during the marriage, or if you’ve used pre-marital funds to buy assets during the marriage. All these things could move it away from a 50/50 split.
Monetising will be the next step. We just want to figure out if this is useful for people first.
We have a few ideas, eg once Resolvy gives you the information (or prepares the divorce documents) we can advertise attorneys who can check everything for you to make sure it’s correct. We'll try keep it a free service for as long as we can (and figure out revenue models from businesses)
Just two cents from a random guy on the internet!
My ex and I split amicably and looked around for a facilitator to help with the paperwork. We hired a woman who seemed like she knew what she was doing, met with her, and as we had already been separated for years, we didn't think about it much and just sat back and waited. And waited. And waited. We'd call and she'd say she was waiting on the courts. Checking online would only get back some cryptic pending notice. After over a year and a half, we finally get a stern letter from the court, "Get your asses down here, the judge wants to speak to you idiots." (That's a summary, of course.)
What happened was the woman we hired had filled in the wrong county on all the forms. The court sent them back, with a note explaining the error. She submitted them again, untouched. They bounced the papers back to her. She did it twice more!!!
We had no idea until we're literally standing wide-eyed before the bench and the judge basically says (again, a summary), "Why are you two morons wasting the court's time? What the hell is wrong with you? Fix it. Or else."
Neither of us had been in court before, and my ex is from Spain and unfamiliar with American justice, so the experience was a tad intimidating, to say the least. There's a sense of seriousness in a court that really isn't something you regularly experience outside a funeral parlor. We immediately hired someone competent and were divorced within like 3 months.
So, I think this is actually a pretty useful service!
I wouldn't be able to make the income that I do without the contributions my wife has made to making my life easier, and in general keeping the more administrative aspects of life under control.
I'm in a marriage with her because I love her and respect her. Part of that is recognizing that it is our income. Part of that is recognizing that even if our marriage were to decay to the point of divorce that I would still care enough about her as a person to want her to be able to establish a new life.
I'd advise the friend of yours to create a relationship their spouse wants to be in. That's how you prevent the downsides of alimony.
If that doesn't happen, yes alimony can get very, very expensive.
> I wouldn't be able to make the income that I do without the contributions my wife has made to making my life easier, and in general keeping the more administrative aspects of life under control.
If you were to divorce would you find it reasonable for her to get 50%?
Because I would seem as tho she gave up (willingly in support of you) a career for you. And after divorce wouldn’t be able to maintain any sort of lifestyle as a result of having no career or work experience?
If they're continuing to perform home making duties, they don't have the time to build that new life. And you're essentially keeping them trapped in the relationship even after a divorce.
You're of course welcome to negotiate anything with a potential spouse before marriage and encode it in a prenup.
I mean possibly, possibly not. For instance, my wife makes bundles more than me and is the bread-winner yet she works a licensed career, with her license restricted to a limited geographic area with not so many jobs. For her to start a new life would be much harder than me even though she is the bread winner. Also worth noting 'home-maker' is an extremely common niche in life so it's unreasonable to believe someone occupying that niche can't find another marriage with another divorced bread-winner seeking to return to the interlocking bread-winner home-maker scenario.
As a second, point, I totally object to the idea someone has an obligation to provide someone a 'new' life just because that person lost opportunities by voluntarily entering a relationship. For instance, people often give up career opportunities to take care of an ailing family member and no judge is going to order the ailing family member pay alimony pay them back to start a new career. In particular, if the vows include 'until death do us part' then that is a pretty explicit agreement not to provide provisions for post-divorce alimony arrangement. Even worse, no one should be in the position to pay for somebody else to get a new life if a partner say cheated on you and then divorced you to chase another partner.
And a third note, you've totally looked at it from a one-way lense here. The home-maker bread-winner interlocking really is a team equal effort. When the bread-winner loses the home-maker, they may have a lot to 're-learn' -- how to efficiently manage shopping, cooking, cleaning, balancing the budget (possibly). That takes a lot of time and their health may suffer because they no longer know how to say cook nutritiously anymore, so if the bread-winner needs to pay the home-maker to re-tool for a career then the home-maker should be ordered to help the bread-winner re-learn how to cook and other essential tasks (no joke, efficiently performing all the home-maker tasks can take a long time to master!). It really is a bilateral severance, if we want to create a severance fairly.
>If they're continuing to perform home making duties, they don't have the time to build that new life
If they're continuing to perform labor to pay alimony, they don't have the time to build that new life.
>And you're essentially keeping them trapped in the relationship even after a divorce.
But that's what alimony is! I'd support some provision that alimony could be cancelled if they don't want to perform the maid service, so they could avoid being trapped into receiving an alimony payment.
>You're of course welcome to negotiate anything with a potential spouse before marriage and encode it in a prenup.
The counterpoint is here any severance should be arranged in the pre-nup. In the old days in some cultures this was a dowry, which relied on up-front mutual agreement rather than unilateral violence of the state by judge after the fact. The default should be asset transfers and splitting happens during and at the termination of marriage and not after.
The homemaker can continue to be a homemaker for themselves exclusively, while receiving half an income. The income earner needs to work while homemaking, or work while supporting a 2nd homemaker.
The legal situation is complicated because the courts try to balance conflicting objectives. One is to help the homemaker reestablish themselves, the other is to maintain a lifestyle they are accustomed to. If it was only the former, some sunset duration would be appropriate, I think.
The reality is that it is often a distinctive. If the partner receiving alimony starts a career or remarries, they will lose the revenue stream.
The person staying at home has given up work, and cannot enter the workforce in the same way after marriage because they've not been in the workforce for years. They've given up earning potential for you to work and alimony (in theory) is to make sure you are regulating someone to poverty after they gave up that earning potential to be a homemaker without the benefits of employment (days off, insurance, hourly wage).
In states without alimony, you just split the stuff and move on. This is what you describe - divorce without alimony.
Yes I'm aware. I was specifically asked to model it as 'severance.'
Most of the stay-at-home spouses I've met didn't give up work as a gift to their spouse, they did it as a gift to their children. Should children pay alimony to stay-at-home moms for the work opportunities their mother lost out on to take care of them?
Are you suggesting the mother derived no benefit from the arrangement, that she continue to pay half the rent, health insurance, groceries, car insurance, gas, etc?
Personally, when my wife didn't work for over a year (more like two), it did fuck all for me. I paid all of the fulltime childcare, took care of the kid before and after school, and paid every single financial interest of my wife except her car insurance and phone bill. I can truthfully and honestly say in my personal situation I got nothing out of it. I paid for her because I love her and wanted her to have the same standard of life I have WHILE WE ARE MARRIED -- but I would be quite displeased indeed if my generosity in marriage is taken to mean I would be so generous after being ditched.
So, you gave her everything but the freedom to get out of the house and the freedom to talk to people as needed, even though she wasn't working at the time? Seriously.. the first thing my spouse did when I moved overseas with them was to make sure I could communicate with folks and have the ability to leave the house on a whim (within reason, I could always do free stuff). This was because these things keep people more free and less trapped in a situation.
And honestly, it sounds like your situation wasn't average: Most of the time, the stay at home parent is an unpaid childcare worker, unpaid cook, and unpaid maid without ever getting days off and often without having spending money of their own unless they save money on groceries. I'd guess that your situation had other factors.
And a note: If your ex lives in poverty after divorce, it means your children live in part-time poverty and I really don't understand wanting that sort of thing.
No she spent pretty much the entire day out of the house pursuing her goals while I financed it and took care of the kid on top of that.
> it means your children live in part-time poverty
That's what child support is for, for the child to have money even if the parent does not. Also, alimony is a thing even for people without kids. If the father goes into poverty to pay child support nobody gives a fuck, even if that means the child ends up living in part time poverty with the father. You'll hear judges impugn people paying child support all the time because they didn't pay it while eating and putting gas in their car, somebody posted a video here of a judge doing that.
I would be quite displeased indeed if my generosity in marriage is taken to mean I would be so generous after being ditched.
I would say to anyone on the default marriage contract, there may well be spousal maintenance in the event of divorce, so if anyone thinks that's unfair, draw up your own agreement.
>who might work 40 hours at the workplace
Lol I was working a lot more than that to support a loved but at the time dead-weight wife on top of my kid and paying for full time care workers for my kid. There was one month my fingers and wrist were in such pain from working waking to to night all day everyday I could barely work without being in constant pain.
We've discussed getting it codified in a postnup (along with assets), so we would know in advance what any numbers would be should either of us want to terminate the marriage. I forget off the top of my head what number we floated -- she didn't ask for it to be 50%.
Hopefully it never comes to down because our relationship is amazing.
Seems like a good place to start, although it should probably be for a limited time and/or reduce over time. My spouse stopped working shortly after we married, as was mutually agreed and beneficial, and many years out of the workforce likely reduces earnings forever, but 50% of earnings after divorce forever doesn't seem fair; 50% for a limited time is probably less administrative burden than an amount that more fairly or accurately compensates for the lost earnings potential for a longer time. Certainly 50% of retirement accounts, and if there's a pension, 50% of that portion fairly allocated to the marriage (social security has its own rules for spousal allowances in a divorce, which may or may not be fair, but are what they are; I'd assume that's mostly accepted as-is though?)
Congrats on your loving and supportive marriage, but that is not always the case.
I imagine it's a lot more scary for people in the latter group.
I don't understand - are the stakes much higher when fighting for half of 35K than when fighting for half of 15m?
It seems to me that it is, but if you have a link to the video I'd appreciate it.
Half of 35000k - 17.5k - might be the difference between living on your own and having to move in with relatives.
It is basically the difference between some money when you are nearing poor and money while rich - the poorer you are, the more you are going to depend on the money and the bigger difference losing/having it will have on your life.
This just isn't always possible. Sometimes, folks change and want different things in life. For example: If my spouse suddenly decided he wanted children, that would end the relationship for me. I could not expect them to go without something they are finding critical to their happiness, but I'm not willing to bear children for someone else's feelings either.
And honestly, this is what being respectful in a relationship actually is.
But all that said, would one of us qualify for alimony or need some help getting on our feet? Yeah. One of us stays home, after all, and would need the assistance (though I'm not convinced it should be alimony, per se - not at our income level).
I certainly didn't mean that one should betray their own needs or boundaries to accommodate their spouse. My intent was more to convey that fostering a caring, loving, respectful, and interdependent relationship drastically lowers the probability of a divorce. Life still happens.
Of course our existing systems aren't perfect either. I do think there's probably a case for a lower bounds on when alimony is viable. e.g., if the paying party is/would be below the poverty line, but I'm far from well enough informed to speculate what a good system would be.
This is simply not true. Your spouse has free will, and can use that free will to make marriage-ending decisions, no matter what you do.
one person can't reduce that chance to zero, because as you mentioned, the other person very much has free will.
On the other end, some divorces happen when the provider is in a low (e.g. depressed with an unusually low salary, or even jobless). So the other partner has to face almost zero alimony support. Even if the provider is later recovered and well off.
There are people exploiting both scenarios by timing the divorce when it's most convenient for them. This used to be a trope in magazines.
Watching two of the most important people in my life gradually grow to resent each other to the point where they can't stand each other's presence was hard for me even as a thirty year old. I can't imagine what this experience would have done to me as a child, so I'm thankful that they stuck together for as long as they did.
In the end I was actually the one who suggested that they should separate, and I'm almost certain that if I didn't they'd still be together today. But in hindsight I'm glad I did, even though I felt immensely guilty about it at the time, and going through the whole separation process with them brought me to the brink of depression. They're a lot happier today than when they were together.
This whole experience has really left its scar on me. I shudder at even the thought of ever getting into any kind of romantic relationship myself, let alone marriage, due to fear of having to go through something like this myself, which statistically speaking is much more likely than I'm willing to risk. Even putting aside statistics, the truth is I see enough of both of them in myself that I can easily see myself playing either part in a similar situation down the line.
Thankfully I'm an introvert who actually enjoys being alone with my own thoughts, I have several close friends, money, hobbies, and had a fulfilling career up to this point and have recently embarked on a new journey bootstrapping my own business that deeply excites me. So I have little reasons to doubt that I can find plenty of enjoyment and fulfillment through other means in life.
I haven't told either of them though, because I know it will break their hearts. So far I've been evading the topic whenever it comes up, since at this stage in my life I have plenty of plausible excuses. I don't know how long I can keep this up though.
I know both of them want to see grandkids, and I still dread the day when I have to tell them it's probably never going to happen. The best I can do at that point is probably to make up some other reason why, instead of telling them the real reason: them.
I know they're not going to take it well regardless, and if we get into some heated argument I can totally see myself losing control and letting the real reason slip out, and that truly terrifies me to my core.
Thank you for reading up to this point. I'm not expecting anyone to hand me a solution, or for a solution to even exist. But just writing this out and putting it out there has been really cathartic for me, so I hope reading this might be helpful to someone else in some way.
I'm going to refrain myself from sharing my opinion (only you really know the full context of what you have gone through and how it makes you feel). But if I could champion one advice it would be this: please give psychotherapy a try. There are different types of psychotherapy and different kinds of professionals, but if you find one that clicks with you it could be life changing.
I know it's expensive (depending where you live) and it's more often than not a painful process. But for many people that stick with it, getting to go to a good psychologist/psychiatrist is like having your mind, feelings and ego dumped and analysed by a thorough debugger.
The relief I felt was from expectations lifting. It's made me do a lot of thinking about how I live my life, and the implicit choices I've made due to expectations on me. Most of which I didn't really see as external forces for the longest time.
Whilst it's easy to say, but hard to do, I would suggest you just live life how you want, your parents are adults and are responsible for their emotions. Again it's easy to say this. Hard to do it.
If you don't know who you are, how can you make a reasonable assessment about what others bring to the table ?
If you can't answer the question honestly: - What are your flaws - What are your strengths - What scares you - What has possibly scarred you - What is unacceptable to you - What is mandatory for you - Can you answer the same, for someone you love?
You are flipping a coin with regards to marriage.
Helpful hack: - Don't marry, not right away. Have a relationship and live with someone you really respect. Put your cards on the table. You aren't going to marry, but you will commit for life. For anyone to stay, they need to be on board with being ok with living on a continuous "performance review". That includes you. That is a huge win, as it signals a maturity level for both parties and the ability to accept to being vulnerable. Yes, there may be some truly unique and valuable individuals you miss out that have very tough requirements from relationships (for example, no living together without marriage), but we are assuming those are diamonds and you aren't going to randomly be dating them.
Give time (~3yrs?) in a cohabitating arrangement. This is important because if you truly know yourself, you must also learn to know the other person too. This is only possible with time, especially for someone not very experienced with relationships. To live with someone is critical to really know them... not because they may leave dirty dishes on the sink, or whether they are picking up laundry - but because cohabitating is a truth-teller. You can't put a facade while living with someone else. You can't pretend to be interested in someone as a person, and its impossible to hide insecurities from someone you are spending time, 24/7, for several years.
Learn to accept that every relationship is an investment. Know yourself. Be mature and gracious in defeat. But be hopeful and optimistic of the future.
Not every relationship will work out. Not every person is suited for a loving relationship, and even fewer people are compatible to each other. Yet, its hard to love a cynic.
Take ego out, be vulnerable and find people that accept you for who you are.
Aren't there studies showing people who marry after to moving in together divorce a lot more?
I guess there could be lurking variables?
I’m sorry to hear you had to experience your family breaking.
Lying to them is a disservice - breaking a marriage has always been taboo for these consequences - risking ruining the childrens future families. Our actions ripple through the generations. The truth may make them feel agony at their realisation of their actions consequences, but without truth, we can not navigate in this world.
Are you sure you are doing what's best in this situation and not just shying away from potential confrontation with them? Projecting their reaction which can be far from reality? In my 40+ years of experience with this thing called life I've always ended up with same conclusion - truth deserves to be told, even if its not pleasant. Also, truth will always find its way.
Some people will go to ridiculous lengths and suffering to avoid confrontation with truth, because 1000 small cuts seem less hurtful than 1 larger one and uncertainty it brings. Showing a proper respect and telling hard truth is appreciated by many folks though. Realizing your own child was bullshitting you for decades because of avoiding telling the truth which is anyway inescapable may hurt much more than actual topic in discussion.
https://www.cnn.com/style/amp/barbara-iweins-photo-series-ka...
Helping people realize the cost ineffectiveness of litigation is honestly a good thing. Obviously for corporations and businesses the logic is different but I believe for most we should be discouraging using courts.
Good work!
Even a horribly unfair split without litigation often leaves you with more than "winning" litigation!
The is tied to the old question, "Would you accept a million dollars knowing that your worst enemy will get 2 million?" If you're so inclined to cut off your nose to spite your face as to turn down the million, maybe litigation makes sense to you. But it doesn't to me!
Unfortunately, the product ended up not being viable. The company pivoted around the end of my short time there. Hope this one has more luck.
My first advice is to never go through a court proceeding when it can be avoided. My second advice is to speak to a lawyer - early - to preserve your rights and those of your children. That's non-negotiable. Always preserve your rights and those of your children.
Those two advices can often contradict each other, so consider and take them how you will. Until the dust settles, you won't know which will cost more, a lawyer or not contacting one.
I suspect you will never know which cost more, but you can reduce the cost of any single path by finishing it as quickly, and with as few twists and turns, as possible.
also, do this years before a relationship so you set up your finances and asset structures before all of this starts getting built in a marriage!
pre-emptive legal help is orders of magnitude more powerful than reactive legal help
Courts heavily favor women in divorce. Time to fix this, and bring equality to men. They had no kids.
All in all marriage seems like a lot of contracts for no good benefit.
Can you explain why this means more than just getting a prenup? I really don’t get it. If you agree to a prenup then you agreed to the prenup, no?
It seems overly complicated to divorce in parts of the US, and I can imagine lawyers make a lot of money on the whole drawn-out process.
In my culture, each spouse has their own custody and assets, it's never the "household"'s assets
Western legal frameworks sounds harmful on the long run
A freedom loving state should also love the freedom to end marriages.
Money is one of the top things couples inevitably have disagreements about and resolving this up front saves a lot of future angst.
Ounce of prevention is a pound of cure as they say.
>Lets you establish what claims your spouse will have to your future earnings
A pre-nup can't really cover this base. For the typical working class folk the way future earnings after divorce are extracted are through child support, which in its current incarnation functions as back-door alimony and can't be cancelled through a pre-nup.
Unless the guy is extremely poor and marrying a high net-worth woman, there is just no point in marrying, you gain absolutely nothing (except for pithy tax benefits in some cases).
That's not a good idea in many jurisdictions - after a predetermined number of years of living together as a couple (man and wife), you are considered to be married in community of property anyway[1].
It's safer to simply get married with a prenup; at least that requires either party to spend money and effort nullifying it.
If you don't want to take the risk, just don't move in together at all.
Apps like this is good start to get neutral picture.
Is this ad supported with discount codes for services I'm probably going to need, like dating sites (get back out there champ!) or cheap single dad studio apartments?
Is there a premium version that ties into my calendar so I know what weekends I get the kids?
What about a recipes page to stretch the ramen noodles to several meals?
> Divorce almost never ends with a 50/50 split of everything you own with your ex-partner.
Yeah maybe that why lawyers typically get invovled.
I think this model in western society has a long way to go in each of the above areas open for disruption some form or other.