[PAPERS SHUFFLING]
I'm in my early 30s, and I've been happily married
for four years.
I went into my marriage for what were, in my opinion,
good reasons.
My husband and I were and are in love with each other-- yes--
but we also cohabited well, shared many of the same values
from remaining in the non-car dependent city
we live in to our relationship with our careers
to our visions for retirement, and ultimately, we
weer very compatible when it came to financial planning.
But in that time period, I've also
seen more people close to me go through divorces
or other life-altering breakups, many of which, I'm sure,
were brought about by the pandemic,
and how it forced all of us to reassess our lives and values.
And I've seen that, even in the best of cases,
divorce can bring out the worst in people,
and the financial implications can be surprising,
no matter how well-prepared you were from the beginning.
While I have no desire to get divorced,
I can honestly say that I've learned the most about marriage
since being married.
And there were things that I was really naive about beforehand,
especially after seeing loved ones go
through contentious divorce battles.
Here are three considerations I think
more people should talk about before deciding to get married.
Number one-- even if you keep your finances separate,
the state will see them as combined.
Of course, this mostly applies to people
without ironclad prenups, but I think
some people are under the assumption
that keeping finances separate in a marriage means
they can be kept separate in a divorce,
and I've seen that, that's just not the case.
It surely depends on your own state's laws,
but where I live, in New York, I know
that it doesn't matter where you kept your money
or how you managed it during your marriage.
The state views all of and your spouse's assets as shared.
Also, I personally didn't understand
how settlements work until I saw a friend deal with paying one
to her now ex-husband.
Basically, there's an intense equation
used to calculate who owes which partner money, in order
to make up for the drop in quality of life
they will experience by not being married to this person
anymore.
Typically, that means the higher earner will pay a settlement
to the lower earner, but there are a lot of other factors
that are considered, like, each of your total assets
and debts, your current age and employment status,
and whether or not one spouse was at fault for the divorce,
depending on the state you live in.
And beyond that, with lawyer fees and everything,
it's just really, really expensive.
Number two-- not getting married can
be just as intentional of a decision as getting married.
We view married couples as having it
more together in their relationships,
but that doesn't mean it's true.
It's impossible to know everything
that goes on in a marriage, unless you're the one in it.
I used to be a bit more judgmental of couples
who stayed together for years without getting
married, thinking it was a sign they were scared to commit
to being serious about their relationship, but in truth,
deciding not to get married when you're not 100% sure It's what
you want can be brave, especially
in the face of societal or family expectations.
I think, it is fully possible to decide
that you love someone and want to spend your life with them,
but know that you are not the kind of person who
wants to entangle all of their finances with someone else.
We look at marriage as the ultimate expression of love,
but really, it is an imperfect institution
that's right for some people, but not everyone.
Number three-- you don't actually have to get married.
It can't be denied that there are
financial and societal benefits to getting married.
From my own experience, I couldn't
get on my husband's health insurance plan
until we were married, thanks to his company's policy.
We ended up saving more money on taxes
than we would have if we weren't married, thanks to his tax
bracket being lowered.
And our relationship is simply treated
with more respect by certain conservative family members
than it was when we were simply dating or living together.
When my husband ended up being in the hospital
amid a COVID outbreak, being married made it possible
for me to visit him,
But there are some benefits we associate
with marriage that can also simply
come from long-term commitment.
Take life insurance.
You can name almost any person as your beneficiary,
depending on where you live, and feel
assured that they'll be taken care of financially
should the worst happen to you, regardless of whether or not
you are married.
You can also open joint account without being married
and name someone in your will without being married to them.
I also cannot understate the value that having a long-term
partner has added to my life.
To feel secure and knowing you have a person who
is your teammate and supports you
and being your best self, and vise versa,
is a huge emotional safety net, but it's not
something you achieve by signing a legal document.
You can build it all on your own.
While I feel lucky that learning all of this
has solidified that marriage was the right option for me,
I should have known all of these things
before making such a huge decision because everybody
should.
Most importantly, I knew that divorce was always
expensive, but only in the most nebulous,
non-specific of terms.
Spelling out the realities of what
it looks like and actually costs is something,
I think, everyone getting married needs to hear.