Pre-nup that INCLUDES child custody and support financing arrangement and make it NON-NEGOTIABLE. This is pretty much the only thing close to a Stop-Loss that you can have on a marriage. That Tiger Woods-style re-negotiated pre-nup is a JOKE. If she loves you enough, she will sign it to show she's not in it for the money otherwise no marriage and you just move on to the next woman. And DON'T get too attached to your children. This is pretty much the only leverage that those greedy ex's have to extract more money from the paying spouse, is to use the children and they shouldn't be allowed to do that. You do your best to support them but that doesn't mean you have to support your ex too especially if the ex does have earning power nowadays. One day your children will understand if you did your best and it's their mother that's strained the relationship. Look at at Alec Baldwin, his ex Kim Basinger tried to separate Baldwin from his daughter Ireland for 15 years and today, Ireland still has a close relationship with Baldwin. And Baldwin in the meantime, has had FOUR additional children with his new wife, looks lot healthier, younger and slimmer, has had major career success. Where is Kim Basinger? Hasn't been in a movie or a show for like 20 years almost. Good men DO finish first and divorce is NOT the end of everything. Bottom line: Take care of yourself well. DON'T CHEAT during marriage. If you don't like her, just divorce her but don't cheat. So far I find it's when you cheat that you end up lot worse like Tiger Woods. If you can't make the commitment, then don't get married.
You only know in hindsight if it was a good idea to marry. But then it is too late. If you could know it from start there would not be 50% of divorces. All these people married "the right woman", nobody would marry "the wrong woman". They all proof that your IF statement is useless. Marriage is a gamble, and can turn out in an expensive gamble.
This is so completely true. You never really truly know. I dated my ex-wife for two years before we got married. Man, did things change once the ink on that marriage certificate dried.
No, the speed of the bid/ask trading out on the screen was their demise. In the pit, if you're a local trader you buy bids, sell offers, and make markets. There was also an important clique of in-law floor brokers and ball players and such who constantly greased their family and friends with order flow that never made it to "open outcry". Most of those former pit traders could not transition to the screen. Because I'm a spread trader, I had access to all sorts of products on the screen that I never had standing in the 10 Yr. Note Pit. And, FIFO was in play. I ate that shit up. I also passed the DTB test in 1998 and started trading Eurex in addition to Globex and Project A. I went from living in a 2 bedroom on the South Side of Chicago to a 5 bedroom on the North Shore in the space of about 18 months. And my new bride just got greedier and more malevolent along the way unfortunately.
Actually, US marriage is more like a market. Since 1970, marriage rates have fallen precipitously - the current rate is less than half of the rate in 1970. The time frame 1970 is important because that is roughly the time period in which California codified "No Fault" divorce. Other states followed suit. If you look at the US divorce rate, up until a decade or so ago it was inversely correlated to the marriage rate (climbing as marriage rates fell). I say it is similar to a market in that people learn patterns and behaviors. Negative feedback and pain shapes future behaviors. The value of the marriage market decreased as the costs and risk and the pain increased. The rates of cohabitation and having children out of wedlock increased as marriage rates decreased in the US. Since 1970 we've had a few generations of children exposed to divorce and severe family trauma - so naturally, they take that painful experience into adulthood. Since 1970, more women are in the workforce and have career options. In fact, the college degree rate is greater amongst women these days as compared to men in the US. My point being, there is very little incentive for MEN in the United States to get married. In fact, the risks are too severe and permanently damaging to ignore. You stand a 50/50 chance of getting a divorce. And as a consequence of that divorce you stand to lose 90% of your time with your children (even with Joint Parenting), women get preferential treatment in Family Court by default, and you stand to lose at least half your money and assets. The sex isn't any better with marriage - social scientists tell us that a couple's sex life gets worse and my own anecdotal evidence supports that thesis.
It ups the stakes, it's kind of a suicide pill, or a doomsday device. It shows you'll literally risk everything for her. Unsure she's aware of it, but that is the material function of marriage in the west currently. For the higher earner, it's a statement of surrender.
Well, if you do get married, and if you’re not happy and counseling isn’t helping - get divorced before you have any children. That’s much more survivable and orders of magnitude less traumatic than a divorce with children.
Reading all of this just made me more mad at my ex. Not for the things she did in the past. But for all the future things I believe she'll do to me in the future. If that makes any sense. Whoops she just called again. Must be because of the full moon or something.