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Comment by swagasaurus-rex | Hacker News Reader

Women can leave and get alimony, child support, and often times greater custody of the kids.

Men don’t want to take that risk, so many men opt out of marriage as well.

Alimony is temporary and fixed, whereas careers are not only life-long, but have compounding growth.

There is a significant financial gap between a divorced woman in her 50s with only five years of alimony remaining and a career woman in her 50s with a $400,000 401(k) balance.

Western Marriage is a contract where one party is rewarded for breaking the terms. The low marriage rates of Millennials / Elder Z [1] are indicative of this new world order. It isn't just "because men!!".

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/MediocreTutorials/comments/18lhait/...

You forgot to mention child support which is for up to 18 years. Also, nothing stops the woman from having a career, especially if she cooperatively shares 50/50 custody, but often they prefer aiming for nearly 100% custody because it increases their child support payments, and then still have the option to cry victim that they’re a single mother despite getting thousands of dollars a month and they’re actively preventing the father from being involved with the kids. Happens a lot.

As for a stay at home mom who doesn’t get divorced, she doesn’t need to be entirely stay at home for all 18 years.. kids go to school at 5 and can go to after school programs if necessary while she works. A couple years before that if the kids are in pre school she could get a degree or masters degree or work part time. So the career gap could be minimized.

Child support is until the kids become independent not 18 years, which I don’t know if you’ve checked these days but kids stay at home indeterminately

Probably depends on the state, but last time I checked it was until 18 or high school graduation, but not later than 19, in the state I’m familiar with.

In my state Alimony is neither temporary nor fixed, depending on the length of the marriage.

That notion was the origin of the MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way) movement before it got taken over by misogynistic incels that were never going to get a woman anyways. The ultimate in sour grapes mentality. Like saying "You can't fire me because I quit" before you were even hired to begin with.

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