Simplified Explanation: Marriage is a culturally recognized union between two people, called spouses, that establishes rights and obligations between them, their children, and even extended family. This brings on the financial, emotional, and physical support of the other person. Some people do this differently but most times, finances stop becoming hers and mine, ownership becomes ours, and families are to work together to succeed in all areas of the family.
Divorce, on the other hand is the legal recognition of the union being dissolved. This is...
Simplified Explanation: Marriage is a culturally recognized union between two people, called spouses, that establishes rights and obligations between them, their children, and even extended family. This brings on the financial, emotional, and physical support of the other person. Some people do this differently but most times, finances stop becoming hers and mine, ownership becomes ours, and families are to work together to succeed in all areas of the family.
Divorce, on the other hand is the legal recognition of the union being dissolved. This is where the financial, emotional, and physical support of the couple is split. This also means that the added stress and finances of the couple is to affect both of them.
Real Life: Marriage should be the happiest moment in a person’s life, that should - potentially - last until death, but sometimes feelings sour between the two parties. If things can be resolved they should but it takes two to find resolution. Sometimes strength is leaving (with abuse). Sometimes you don't have an option (being left for another person). One person's resolve isn't enough. Like with marriage, keeping a marriage together takes two.
Marriage: When you find the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, it normally results in spending as much time as possible getting to know each other, over an extended period of time. This is a time to get to know each other and date, experiencing another person through many different seasons of life. You and your loved one go on dates, attend each other’s activities, and become familiar with the person’s good, and not-so good, traits. This is a time of learning and growing together, before getting married. If you get married too quickly, you may not understand all the attributes of your spouse. If you wait too long, your potential spouse may fall out of love. It is the commitment that makes you strive to work through hard times, be each other’s shoulder to cry on, and the desire for each of you to become a better person in the relationship. When you are getting married, these are the things to consider:
- Children – Most married couples who get married for the first time come into their marriage without children, but you should discuss whether or not you want children, how many and how soon you want them. Some couples have their children as soon as possible, so they can get them out of the house sooner; some wait a few years, while they get to know each other; and others wait until they are financially secure before having children, which normally ends up with older parents with younger kids. FYI, raising children is very tiring, how much more tiring would it be for older parents. Whenever you decide to have them, remember that they bring a great deal of expenses. Reports show that parents spend an average of $13,186 per year raising their child, though the median cost was only $6,000.
- Finances – Make sure that you are both on the same page with finances, before you get married. Don’t marry someone that you can agree with financially. TD Ameritrade, a financial firm, found that 41% of divorced Gen Xers and 29% of Boomers say they ended their marriage due to disagreements about money. Make sure you are on the same page before marriage, so you don’t risk disagreeing later on. Ask these questions of your future spouse:
- What are your goals and aspirations in life? How will you reach them?
- Will we use a budget each month, to not just be intentional, but to be in agreement?
- When you get your paycheck, do you save, as one of your first priorities or after paying your bills and yourself?
- Will we use debt to buy things, or will we try to pay cash and stay out of debt?
- (Observe this one, don’t ask it) Are you a frivolous spender and go on shopping sprees?
- Do you conserve utilities around the house, or do you do things like leave the lights on?
- Will we have children right away or when we are financially secure? Will you treat your children better than your parents treated you, spending more?
- How many kids would you like? When do you plan to have them?
- Do you plan to pay for their entire college career, partial, or make them work for it?
- Should the kids go to public or private school, or homeschool?
- How much debt do you have? How much savings do you have?
- Do your parents pay for any of your current bills? Would you accept money from them?
- How much will we spend on our parents or relatives if they get sick?
- Would you help your siblings or a relative if they needed to borrow money?
- Have you ever declared bankruptcy? Would you ever declare bankruptcy, or work to pay off your debt?
- What is your income right now, and what will it be in the future?
- Will we merge our finances together after we get married? What are our financial goals?
- How much can I spend before I need to consult you?
- How much will we spend on fertility or adoption, if we can’t have kids? Remember, these prices increase too.
- Do you prefer brand name goods or are you okay with generic?
- How often will we go on vacation? How much will we spend, on average?
- How do you spend your money? Do you have “fun money” or an allowance? Would we?
- Should we save for future vacations, reunions, and other events and only go when we have cash to pay for it?
- Do you have an emergency fund? Are you saving for one?
- Will you want to go back to school? How long are you thinking?
- What are your career (or entrepreneurial) goals? How long will each step take?
- Who will be in charge of investing for the future? Who will pick the stocks?
- Does your company offer a 401(k) plan, and will they match your investment?
- Do you max out your retirement savings each year?
- Will we invest in a house or spend that money on experiences?
- Is charitable giving important to you, and how much would we spend?
- If you had $1,000,000 and had to give it away, how would you spend it?
- Would you seek financial counseling, if needed? Would we seek a marriage counseling, if needed?
- And the most important one - who will be in charge of the budget and paying the bills?
- Location – Where are you getting married? Where are you going to live? Where are you going to raise a family? Make sure you are on the same page. This is more than financials, but this will allow you to understand your partner even more and what they see in your future together. Make sure you are on the same page with most of your decisions. You don’t have to be on the same page with all of them, but make sure that you can agree - and that it is the same future you foresee, as well.
Divorce: Rarely does anyone “win” in this scenario. Instead, it causes more strife. And, though everything is split, the obligations may grow, especially if there are kids between the two parties. For example, when a couple dissolves their union, the person that makes more money may be obligated to pay for the livelihood of their ex-spouse. If there are kids, one of the parents will most likely need to pay money to the other spouse in support of the rearing of their children. Retirement, savings accounts, and all financials are split between the two people and a wealthy family becomes poorer, due to supporting two households. In addition, the emotional strife that it causes on both ex-spouses weighs on everyone, because, even though you are separated, if you share children, each parent is potentially to have 50% of the visitation rights, and coordination between the two parties may cause frustration and heartache. I know, because I was an unwilling participant in divorce (though, unlike most relationships that develop between two ex-spouses, we have a good relationship and often agree for both families to gather when it comes to the activities with the children). So, a good resolve can be the product of a divorce, but it is quite rare that cool heads result from a divorce. Normally, ex-spouses feel taken advantage of, angry and bitter, or feel the other is still controlling or trying to manipulate them. This is not my experience, but millions of others experience it.
Here are a few things to consider:
- Children – There are so many obligations to consider when you are considering getting divorced. If you thought your life was controlled by your ex-spouse, think of the courts now being behind them, to make sure you (or your ex-spouse) does what is best for the kids. Everything is now going to be in writing between you and your ex-spouse.
- Time spent with kids - When you are divorced, if everything is mutual, the best case scenario is that you see them close to 50 % of the time. The other 50% of the time you will be away from them. What days will you have your kids? What is your schedule? The worst case scenario is that you may “lose” your children, and only see them with visitation rights, and maybe even with someone you pay to watch your interaction with them.
- Finances - You will be paying for them more because, as a single parent who has to work, you may need daycare. You may need other financial help taking care of them, or you may need to pay your ex-spouse child support to support the kids. Kids get more expensive when you are divorced.
- Transportation – How will you get the children to and from your ex-spouse? Will you pick them up at school or from their home? Will they drop them off? Logistics gets crazy.
- Holidays – You will likely get the kids for half of the holidays. The other half will be with their other parents. You will have Christmas without your children half the time.
- College – Who will pay for their college? Will you pay 1/3, 1/2, or the entire thing?
- Health Care – Who will put the kids on their insurance? How will you pay for emergencies, and they have a large medical bill? If you don’t agree on this, the court will.
- Location – Normally your ex-spouse has no say in what you do with your life after divorce, unless you have kids. If you decide to get married to someone one state away, the kids are most likely not coming with you. You may have to find a local or someone who will move to you in order to stay near the kids. If you go on vacation, you will have to ask the other parent and make sure they know everywhere your child is. There is more control in your life afterwards, by your ex-spouse, than when you were married.
- Residential Custodian – You may be their parent, but you may not be their custodian. There needs to be one address that the schools will use to register the kids. All of their mail should go to one address, as well, so they stay organized. Who is on the record as their custodian when it comes to all their activities? This is their residential custodian. This does vary between states.
- Other agreements – There are many other issues that come up, but when kids are involved, it is important to get these in writing because you will need to stick with them, and make sure your ex-spouse is okay with them, as well.
- Finances – If you have kids, you may have to pay child support. Whether you give or get child support, the cost of raising kids increases, when they go between two households. It does not matter if you are the husband or wife, in this day and age. If your spouse was the stay-at-home spouse, can’t work, or is in a less lucrative career than you, you may have to pay alimony for their livelihood, so it is more equal, according to your established standard of living. This will be settled outside of court, by agreement of the Parties, or through mediation, or through the court, with the judge making the ultimate decision. Make sure you get a good attorney.
- Location – If you don’t have kids, your ex-spouse has no say on where you live. If you do have kids, though, you may be stuck in one general location - if you want to see your kids on a regular basis (which you should want to do).
- Relationships – If you believe you will find a better person than the one you already have, or even if you already had someone in mind, don’t be ignorant. Every new relationship has to start over at the beginning. You will need to spend a good amount of time getting to know this person, and them getting to know you, if you think you will overcome some of the issues you had in the previous marriage. The recommended amount of time is generally one year, so you can see that person in each season (think cold of winter, heat of summer, various holidays, etc.) Another good idea is to take a trip with that person, and see how well you travel together. Travel can reveal a lot about a person! If you already have someone in mind before divorce, know this, only 3-5% of these relationships end in marriage, and out of those marriages, 75% of second marriages end in divorce, as well.
If you meet someone who does not live in the same town as you (or close by), you may want to move to be with that person. Without approval from your ex-spouse and the court, you won’t be able to take your kids with you.
Often, divorce is not the answer, but instead, it is just a band-aid - a quick fix. If you don’t figure out the actual cause of the divorce, it will happen again and again. Out of every first marriage, 40-50% fail; out of every second marriage, 60% fail; out of third marriages, 75% fail; and the statistics get worse each time you remarry. Again, divorce is rarely the answer. Marriages are more likely to succeed when both sides spend more quality time together, listen to each other, and work to understand the other person’s perspective. Honesty is key, too!
Marrying again: Hopefully, you learned some great lessons from the previous marriage. Statistically, these marriages are more likely to fail, but there are some things to do to make sure yours doesn’t. Here are a few suggestions:
- Start from the beginning as if you were getting married for the first time. Get to know the person more than you have ever known another person.
- Merge your ways of living - Make sure your two separate ways of doing things can merge. If either of you have been divorced over a long period of time, it may be hard for one or both of you to be less independent, and allow the other person into your life.
- Spend time together – Don’t just spend all day together, but spend quality time together. Realize that, like the dating period of the previous marriage, you shouldn’t just spend every waking moment together, but if you hold back from getting married for at least a year, you can see your future spouse in all seasons of their life, and the year. People change during the winter, in their habits and behaviors. Make sure you know how they will react in as many situations as possible, before you get married. This does not have to be years, but enough time to really get to know them - and not just what they say. Sometimes these two things are deceiving.
- Reality Check #1– This is one of the hardest pieces to stomach, but like your last marriage, the honeymoon stage will end at some point. There will be arguments, frustrations, and you may not want the other person around as much as you used to. Also remember that if there are kids, they will take up most of your time when they are around. You will have less time getting to know the other person than when you first got married and didn’t have kids.
- Reality Check #2 – You were probably the cause of, or at least contributed to, your last divorce. As hard as it is to hear, “it takes two to Tango,” which means, things that you did in your last marriage were partially to blame for your divorce, be it small or large actions. The greatest thing you can do to make the next marriage work, is find out what that was, and correct it before the next marriage, so you don’t end up repeating it and setting this marriage up for failure. If you deny you had anything to do with the last marriage ending, you will most likely do it all over again.
Marriage is a wonderful thing that brings the greatest joys to life, but it is always hard, and takes a great deal of work. Do not just jump into marriage because “you think it’s a good thing;” or think you can just figure things out as they come; and please don’t get married because you need to in order to have intimate relationships with someone! Marriage is a sacred trust between you and your spouse and you should treat it that way - treating your spouse very special. So take the time to get to know as much as possible - about yourself and them - beforehand.
Intimacy before marriage: If you bring intimacy in too early, your mind will be clouded from seeing the truth about your future spouse. Intimacy comes in many different ways, and the further you go, the more likely you are to get divorced. Intimacy includes all sexual relations between two partners. When you are getting to know a person, if you hold back from physical intimacy, you are more likely to see with a more leveled mind. If you are hoping to get married to this person, knowing how they are in private situations is not as important as getting to know who they are inside, if you hope your marriage is to last until death. Here are the facts according to the American Psychological Association:
