Thoughts of marriage

[SilverFalcon92]

My thoughts about marriage are kind of scary. I have been hearing that people (especially men) who get married don’t turn out well. I heard that some women will divorce their spouse, and they can take off of everything that the husband owns, alimony. Now I know there’s something that calls a prenup where they can’t take anything once their divorce it’s over, but I heard that it can get thrown out of court, and they can say you force her to sign the papers and all of that. I’m not saying all women have bad intentions and I know not all won’t do that to me. I find marriage to be scary, especially if you don’t know their intentions, which freaks the fuck out of me, and I’m glad I don’t need to get married through the court system. So what’s your opinion on marriage? Is it a bad thing or not? I hope my post doesn’t upset anybody, anyway.

[Latha]

Hello SilverFalcon92,

I'm not an expert on the law, but to my understanding, alimony is not about taking all the money that another person has. Rather, it is a payment that is made during or after a divorce or separation when one partner earns less than another. This is because courts recognize that a marriage is a partnership, and the gains made during the marriage belong to both partners.

When courts order alimony payments, they consider how much money the person receiving those payments actually needs, and whether they can find higher paying work to support themselves. And this provision is gender-neutral, by the way. That means that when a husband earns less than his wife, he can apply for alimony in a separation.

Would you say this seems like a fair system?

I'm curious, where have you heard these narratives about alimony? I'm tempted to ask some questions about them. Why does the husband have all the money in these stories? If wives are the ones applying for alimony, that means they earn less than their husbands. Why does that pattern exist?

It would be scary if you had to marry someone who you don't know and whose intentions you can't judge. But by the time you are thinking about marriage with another person, I think you should know and trust them well enough to feel sure that they would not go out of their way to hurt you. Does that feel possible/reasonable to you?