Is divorce really as big of a risk as the statistics say?

[Netanyahu]

It's really been weighing on me as a guy who's ready to settle down. I'm seeing someone right now and don't know if I actually ever want to get married.

The statistics say that the divorce rate is around 50-56%, and 80% of the time it's the woman who initiates the divorce. So considering I would likely never pursue divorce myself, if there are 100 marriages and half of them result in divorces that's 50 divorces. 40 of those divorces are initiated by women. So I would wager the probability of me getting divorced is 40% if I ignore all the individual factors of my marriage.

The thing I notice is the following which I believe contributes greatly to this statistic:

1) A lot of guys getting married aren't top tier men, physically. Out of shape, balding, unattractive face, etc.
2) A lot of guys getting married are marrying women with no jobs, or low paying jobs, resulting in financial problems for the family. This incentivizes women to divorce because they get a payout, whereas a woman who makes good money wouldn't be as willing to throw it all away just for a bit more.
3) A lot of guys getting married simply don't understand female nature. They have no game and are basically nice guys. This kills attraction.
4) The women that these guys are marrying are predatory women who slept around in their 20s and started getting desperate as they got older. They settled so they could have the wedding and the kids but didn't think things through long term.

So all that being said; can that 40% number be mitigated by the following, to the point that divorce is almost a non issue?

1) Be in the top 10% of men physically.
2) Make good money and marry a women who makes similar or even more money.
3) Understand female nature and don't be a simp.
4) Vet the woman carefully. Make sure she's not the type that slept around in her youth and tries to settle later on.
5) Stay close to her family.

I look at celebrities who have gone through divorce and it doesn't make the situation appear any better. Guys that are rich, famous, and extremely good looking are facing the same fate. Only thing I can think of is that the women they picked are trash, or that they themselves relied on being rich/famous/attractive to carry their relationship, but never developed any game.

What's the solution?

 

[green_fn_2033]

Realistically the smartest way to go about this is to just not get legally married. Call yourself husband and wife publicly but just don't register it with the state and don't live in a state with common law marriage. You can also get bulletproof prenups as an alternative but those always have a lot of fine print and lawyers try to poke holes in them all the time. Just avoid the hassle of a legal marriage.

Marriage is inherently a gynocentric institution in the west. The courts favor women in terms of alimony, child support, etc and will always be biased towards them. If you wanted to get married in the gulf I would say go for it cause its the complete opposite there. Men get custody, don't lose half their shit usually, and the courts are more male biased. There is no real reason to get legally married as a man in the west besides some meager tax and insurance benefits (which should be meaningless if you're financially capable).

Marriage is just an insurance policy for women that men have been roped into following due to tradition, even though women themselves aren't traditional anymore.

 

[Netanyahu]

bulletproof prenups as an alternative but those always have a lot of fine print and lawyers try to poke holes

Prenups get overturned in courtrooms all the time, and the issue with not getting married is well any decent semi trad girl is going to want it.

There is no real reason to get legally married as a man in the west besides some meager tax and insurance benefits (which should be meaningless if you're financially capable).

thats true especially if she isnt even a virgin

 

[SplashJuice]

Here's a rough sketch for marriages IMO:

50% of them result in divorce.
25% of them aren't exactly happy but aren't falling apart either, they stay because it's better than divorce.
The remaining 25% are genuinely happy.

If you get into a marriage, I'd say there's a 1/4 chance of it genuinely being happy and lasting.

However the odds of a happy marriage can increase if both are educated and have a decent amount of money, there is a lower divorce amongst educated people, but I believe this plateaus once an individual is ultra wealthy and the divorce rates rockets up again.

 

[CkldPsycho]

yes, especially no 4, the number of her past sexual partners matters. according to major us datasets, if the woman had at least one other sexual partner in the past, the odds of divorce increase by around 50%. and if she has a double digit body count, a divorce is 3 times more likely compared to if you married a virgin

 

[SplashJuice]

I don't think there is a solution, to any of this but how we view family will evolve in the far future.

Divorce rates have skyrocketed because of industrialisation and modernisation, if we're all salaried workers living in cities, then of course it's hard to stay forever for many couples, women have salaries, rights and leverage too baked into institutions, it's not a man owning the entire house anymore in some isolated village which makes it impossible for them.

In the future there will be a hybrid. There will be many individuals with no foids, you could be a single man with a robot family, robot servants, robot caretakers that will help raising the next generation of kids (it will be done in artificial wombs) and some parts of society will still follow the traditional nuclear model. Akin to today how there is nuclear family in modernised countries but in the 3rd world there still exists entire villages that live in the extended family networks.

Why do I think this is the case? If we look at human relationships on a trajectory the units have shrunk overtime, it's only logical to assume it'll shrink further.

Hunter gatherers lived in packs of 50 - > Agricultural revolution reduced it to extended family networks of 15-20 - > Industrialisation dipped it to 5 in a household - > Post-Industrial, current nuclear family is like 3-4 people in a household - > ???? (What I said above).

 

[topology]

I'm just gonna respond to the 5 questions you listed. My apologies for the long response time, I went to go eat food mid-response.

1) Be in the top 10% of men physically.

Looks have very minimal effects in long term relationships. Sure, you may ruin a marriage if you ruin yourself, but you won't exactly extend it if you're top 10% vs top 50%. I've made a response on basically this before and can attach it if you want.

2) Make good money and marry a women who makes similar or even more money.

Trends in Relative Earnings and Marital Dissolution: Are Wives Who Outearn Their Husbands Still More Likely to Divorce? - PMC

As women’s labor-force participation and earnings have grown, so has the likelihood that wives outearn their husbands. A common concern is that these couples may be at heightened risk of divorce. Yet with the rise of egalitarian marriage, wives’ ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

For couples married in the late 1960s and 1970s, a higher share of earnings by the wife was associated with a higher risk of divorce, especially when the wife outearned the husband. I'm assuming this is because most men cannot put aside their egos?

The correlation became weaker for couples in 1990s and later.

When Women Earn More Than Their Husbands

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #39393a;">For all the progress women have made in the past few decades—in education, work force participation, and earnings—a gender gap remains.</span>

www.chicagobooth.edu

Same thing reported here.

She Left, He Left: How Employment and Satisfaction Affect Men’s and Women’s Decisions to Leave Marriages - PMC

Most past studies examining determinants of divorce have ignored differences between the factors that elevate wives’ and husbands’ initiation of divorce. We use three waves of the National Survey of Families and Households and a latent class model ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Finds that “divorce has generally been found to be more likely when men’s earnings are lower or declining.”

So, divorce rates are generally higher when the women makes more or similar amounts, and it's generally lower if you make a decent amount as a man.

3) Understand female nature and don't be a simp.

Women's #1 complaint is emotional unavailability or lack of responsiveness.

I feel like this is also obvious that it will lower the divorce rate. I won't go into this too much either.

4) Vet the woman carefully. Make sure she's not the type that slept around in her youth and tries to settle later on.

This one is obvious. Lower body count = better chances generally. Not gonna spend time on this as it's spoken about a lot on here.

5) Stay close to her family.

https://scholarworks.smith.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1030&context=ssw_facpubs

Early Family Ties and Marital Stability Over 16 Years: The Context of Race and Gender - PMC

Spouses’ emotional ties to family early in marriage are linked to marital outcomes, but little is known about how these ties affect marital stability and whether these effects vary by race and gender. The present study examines the links between ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Husbands who reported feeling close to their wife’s parents/in-laws have about a 20% lower chance of divorce over time. The Wife being close to the husbands family causes a 20% higher chance of divorce.

The effect for wives who were close to their husband’s family was not uniform: the risk increase (when present) was significant only for White American wives, not for Black American wives.

For the overall sample, the associations between wives’ in-law closeness and divorce were not always statistically significant.

The authors themselves caution that race and gender moderate the effects, meaning you cannot generalize “wife-closeness to husband’s family increases divorce” for all couples.

There was another study that I lost but it basically just said the obvious of it matters more if the family and husband agree that they're close rather than just the husbands opinion.

Staying close to her family is associated with a lower divorce rate for men. The reverse (wife close to husband’s family) increases divorce risk.

 

[topology]

I'm just gonna respond to the 5 questions you listed. My apologies for the long response time, I went to go eat food mid-response.

1) Be in the top 10% of men physically.

Looks have very minimal effects in long term relationships. Sure, you may ruin a marriage if you ruin yourself, but you won't exactly extend it if you're top 10% vs top 50%. I've made a response on basically this before and can attach it if you want.

2) Make good money and marry a women who makes similar or even more money.

Trends in Relative Earnings and Marital Dissolution: Are Wives Who Outearn Their Husbands Still More Likely to Divorce? - PMC

As women’s labor-force participation and earnings have grown, so has the likelihood that wives outearn their husbands. A common concern is that these couples may be at heightened risk of divorce. Yet with the rise of egalitarian marriage, wives’ ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

For couples married in the late 1960s and 1970s, a higher share of earnings by the wife was associated with a higher risk of divorce, especially when the wife outearned the husband. I'm assuming this is because most men cannot put aside their egos?

The correlation became weaker for couples in 1990s and later.

When Women Earn More Than Their Husbands

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #39393a;">For all the progress women have made in the past few decades—in education, work force participation, and earnings—a gender gap remains.</span>

www.chicagobooth.edu

Same thing reported here.

She Left, He Left: How Employment and Satisfaction Affect Men’s and Women’s Decisions to Leave Marriages - PMC

Most past studies examining determinants of divorce have ignored differences between the factors that elevate wives’ and husbands’ initiation of divorce. We use three waves of the National Survey of Families and Households and a latent class model ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Finds that “divorce has generally been found to be more likely when men’s earnings are lower or declining.”

So, divorce rates are generally higher when the women makes more or similar amounts, and it's generally lower if you make a decent amount as a man.

3) Understand female nature and don't be a simp.



4) Vet the woman carefully. Make sure she's not the type that slept around in her youth and tries to settle later on.



5) Stay close to her family.

https://scholarworks.smith.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1030&context=ssw_facpubs

Early Family Ties and Marital Stability Over 16 Years: The Context of Race and Gender - PMC

Spouses’ emotional ties to family early in marriage are linked to marital outcomes, but little is known about how these ties affect marital stability and whether these effects vary by race and gender. The present study examines the links between ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Husbands who reported feeling close to their wife’s parents/in-laws have about a 20% lower chance of divorce over time. The Wife being close to the husbands family causes a 20% higher chance of divorce.


There was another study that I lost but it basically just said the obvious of it matters more if the family and husband agree that they're close rather than just the husbands opinion.

Staying close to her family is associated with a lower divorce rate for men. The reverse (wife close to husband’s family) increases divorce risk.

i didnt even finish this i accidently sent it wait i'm editing it