When I was a little girl, I sometimes looked in the mirror and imagined who I might marry and what I might wear on my wedding day. Later as a teenager, I sometimes wrote my name as if I were married to my boyfriend de jour, just to see what it felt like to try on a married persona. What I imagined involved love and romance. It did not involve thinking about a financial partnership or the implications of putting together what amounts to a small business relationship where each member has a role and responsibilities. It certainly did not involve working out a conflict resolution procedure that allowed for the voices of both participants to be heard in order to have an effective decision-making methodology.
It turns out that the things I didn't imagine are possibly the most important parts of a marriage and often people don't learn about them until they are getting divorced.
When a couple falls in love and gets married, they trigger a change in status that often goes beyond the scope of what they think or expect. Marriage initiates a financial partnership in which both spouses contribute to the whole rather than the individual, whether or not they so intend. Regardless of what the people intend -- unless they make an explicit and formal agreement otherwise -- from the moment they say their vows, spouses are working for the benefit of their business unit, not for themselves.
Of course when people in love decide to marry, it often seems like part of the romance to share finances. When people decide to divorce, it is another story. When clients come to my office, they are often unpleasantly surprised to learn that assets they thought they had protected from divorce are, in fact, part of the "marital pot" and vulnerable to division. It is surprisingly easy to inadvertently convert savings or other assets from separate property -- not distributed between spouses in a divorce -- to marital property and subject to distribution as part of a divorce (although not necessarily equally). For example, a single person earning money, investing it and saving for retirement in a 401(k) does so for his or her own benefit up until their wedding day. That 401(k) is their separate property until they or their employer make the first contribution into it for work performed after the honeymoon. When that happens in most states, the entire 401(k) changes its nature and becomes an asset of the marriage.
The implication of many decisions made as a couple can also be a surprise for people newly contemplating divorce, whether or not these decisions were explicit or implicit. Some of these decisions could be:
• Who worked and how much was earned
• What were the lifestyle choices
• Who made investment decisions
• How title to the marital residence is held
• How was credit managed
I wish people learned in high school that although marriage might be about romance (at least in part), divorce is not. For decades, the trend in divorce law has been toward "no fault" divorce. This means that the law will be less sensitive to the foibles of the relationship -- including extra-marital relationships, disagreements over money and other disputes -- than a couple might expect or one of them might want. Divorce courts are not interested in the breakdown of the romance and are decidedly focused on unwinding the business end of the relationship. Divorce courts are not likely to deliver a reprimand, financial or otherwise, for broken hearts or other betrayals of the love relationship.
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I don't think high school students would really pay attention to these issues or get what they mean. This seems like something people should be learning when they live together or while married when they are making the decisions about how to own things.
The girls should be taught that asset-stripping is a right for them, not a privilege, and that a girl hitting a boy is retaliation for Violence Against Women. A boy hitting a girl is a violent crime.
Let's work on killing marriage as it stands now. Not hard - just educate boys about the family law issues that strip them of their civil rights once they sign that license.
MONEY management must be, and should be thought in High School, 100% must.
Other then that, THERE IS NO RECIPE, its life.
All arguments and divorces are mostly about, $$$$$$$.
That they might have to pay alimony for life to their ex depending on the state in which they divorce?
That they may be financially responsible for another man's child if their wife cheats on them?
That their teacher is legally due child support from them if she molests them and loses her job after becoming pregnant?
Class dismissed.
We live in this rushed society - there's no need to rush a relationship. Take your time getting to know each other. And keep in mind that marriage (or children) won't change your partner. If they are an ahole today, they will be one after the wedding, after the kids.
And if you can't laugh with each other, move on.
Sadly my own family's situation fall into the above category.
What needs to be understood is that the moment couples decide to have Children; that they have made a joint commitment to always "love and support" their Children. This commitment goes way beyond the Vows that couples make to one-another at our Marriage ceremony, because those Vows are made around mutual Choice. Our children have no Choice in if we Marry, if our Marriage succeeds or fails, or we we decide to have Children - they're just counting on our commitment to them regardless of Choices we make as Adults.
I don't see how a School can be tasked with teaching this - it is soemthing that we as Parents just need to understand.