patrick.net

Do not get married.

You dont need a piece of paper to prove your love.

If you live together and dont need the tax advantage marriage is unnecessary and a strain on your relationship.

You have to work harder without a marriage licence to stay together. Getting married will do you no favors in that department.

If you get married for TAX PURPOSES ONLY get a Prenuptial agreement, especially in California.

100% PRE-NUP

Thank you for the reply.

This will be more effective if everyone who responds lists their marital status and number of years in that status.

121212 says

100% PRE-NUP

At what point is the liquid/asset gap large enough for the pre-nup to make sense? Just as an example, say the following:

Man: $100,000 cash in the bank. Owns a $500,000 house (still owes $350,000 on the loan and the house is valued at $300,000 today).

Woman: $150K in school loans, $0 in the bank.

Pre-Nup? lol

121212 says

You have to work harder without a marriage licence to stay together. Getting married will do you no favors in that department.

With all due respect, that's a bit of a contradiction, isn't it?

You are asking for guarantees and warranties on the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Euphoric love is basically a biologic trap getting individuals to commit for the purposes of viable reproduction. Sociologists have stated that some humans are monogamous, but a good portion are "serially monogamous".

Nature's demand is getting the rug rats to a reasonable age alive, thus the seven year itch.

Women's marketable asset is their reproductive capability, which diminishes as they get older. Vulnerability during pregnancy, birth and child infancy leads them to demand resources and commitment in exchange for sex. Men have to purchase this asset since they cannot reproduce.
After that, relationship viability would rely on companionship potential outside of the biologic contract.

One wag stated that men marry because they think their wives will never change, but they do. Women marry because they think their husbands will change, but they don't.

Whether you have a marriage that lasts or not depends on whether you can remain good friends with your spouse through the historical and biological changes and phases of your relationship. The hormones won't last, nor should you expect them to.

Whether you can remain friends is as unpredictable as anything else, but marriage does tend to be good for the health of men and pooling of tasks and resources has obvious advantages, along with social acceptance and growing of a family. Must be why people keep trying over and over.

Issues of religion are purely personal and depend on individual flexibility.

When you are blinded by hormones and "love", you may tend to underestimate the impact of finances or beliefs. Money is the prime mover of 80 percent of break ups, and what might appear as a small road bump when the hormones are raging will grow into a festering wound once the hormones dry up.

121212 is right about one thing: that when you're not married to the one you love, you try harder.
I've been married seven years. It's not always been easy or fun, but that is mostly my own fault. Guys have this genetic disease where we see something we want, hunt it down, drag it home to the cave, and promptly forget all about it. When that's a woman, we are setting ourselves up for trouble.
Women seem to have this constant need for affirmation, that they are loved, desired, needed, attractive, etc. And here's the rub, they are going to be skeptical of all attempts to tell them or prove to them that this is so. It ain't easy to even remember to do this as often as necessary, let alone come up with new and interesting ways of accomplishing the statement, "I love you."
Learn your wife's love language. It may be affection if you're lucky. Or it might be time spent talking and sharing thoughts. It may be gifts given that make her Believe, or it may be something entirely different. Whatever it is, figure this out! Then do it. Every day. Or at least most days.
Happy wife = happy life.

I can say that the relationship is more rewarding as it matures. Heck, even the sex can still be fantastic after a few kids if she's still in love with you! It will take work, more than you think, but I can tell you that it's worth it. I'm a very happily married man.

BayArea says

121212 says

You have to work harder without a marriage licence to stay together. Getting married will do you no favors in that department.

With all due respect, that's a bit of a contradiction, isn't it?

Nope, I have been married and am happily in a relationship without a licence for 15yrs.

I found that my wife once she was married was not half the woman I used to date. Not being married to a Woman will make them work harder for you and you for them!

I think one thing that has changed, is that marriage was a practical thing before. You got together, life was tough, not this kind of safety net and people really needed each other and the extended family/community.

Nowadays, the govt takes care of everything. If you divorce someone-especially, if they have money-the govt forces you to give up a sizeable fortune in child supprot and alimony. Like that ex of Hulk Hogan who got 70% of his fortune and is shacked up in his house with a 20 yr old kid.

Then there is this idea of soulmate and the one-big deal. You are two people coming together-either you will be divorced or widowed- nothing lasts for ever. The older cultures all looked at it as a practical insititution-if love was there, fine gravy-but otherwise it was a solid insitution- a place you could come home to from the travails of the world and rest.

Now it isn't your own world. The government has control over everything. In CA, if you are a long term term marraige-which is just ten years-the court has jursidiction over you for life and can come and reopen the case and adjust the terms over anytime . So if you are married at 18 and divorced at 29, the court has control over you and your finances, till the day you die-which could be another 60 or 70 years from that date!!

Apparantely CA is one of the better states-states like FL, CO are horrible and several states still have lifetime alimony on their books. At least in CA, you can ask the spouse to get a job and become self supporting under the Gavron warning-but good luck if it is a long term marraige-aka more than 10 years. The spouse can still demand lifetime alimony-of course she doesn't have to do any work in return-just take.

Pre-nups too can be tossed out-if she claims she was emotionally distressed or some such.

Then there is obscene child support-where you are supposed to be an ATM-but have absolutely no say in how that money is spent or why. Just shut up and hand over the money and know your place-which is to hand over your wallet and not be heard . Charlie Sheen is being forced to give 55k a month to each of his exs- 55k a month in tax free child support-I mean -oh well. No country for men.