While multiple factors play a role in falling divorce rates, the costs of separation make going it alone a daunting prospect for many Canadians.
I got divorced in the 2010s and it kicked me out of the housing market. I’d be five years from paying off my home now, but had to sell it as part of the separation. We bought it for $210K in 2009, sold for $225k in 2011. It flipped during the pandemic for $900k, as an “investment opportunity for GTA-area landlords looking for rental income”
That’s hard to watch, not just the money, but also seeing the trees I planted with my then-young kids cut down because the landlord needed another parking spot.
Since then, I’ve watched house prices accelerate away from me, so much so that I decided to just give up and bank everything into education savings for my kids in hopes that I’ll have a couch to sleep on in my old age. Even now that’s looking unlikely.
My now-spouse had it worse: when she divorced, she got to keep half of her then-husband’s previously-secret and significant debts, which more than wiped out any equity she had, putting her tens of thousands of dollars into the red. He, of course, got his debt halved.
I don’t doubt for a second the stats that tout rising domestic abuse rates since people become house-locked. I got divorced when rent was at least reasonable where I live. Now? Now the choice is between “a miserable, if not right dangerous, marriage” and “sleeping in a tent in a public park”.
Since the 60s I have been proclaiming that it should be very difficult to get married and very simple to get divorced. I will die on this hill.
Elaborate.
yeah the 60s were quite an elaborate time.
Will you die on it divorced and poor or married, unhappy and slightly less poor?
The problem is now that you risk living in a tent in a park, or in your 50s with roommates in a sketchy rooming house. It’s not just “poor” anymore, it’s that divorce can mean homelessness.
I don’t think people realize how badly out of control the housing market is. In much of the country, it’s not a matter of not being able to buy a home, it’s not even being able to rent one.
In the area where I live I can count four or five young couples and/or single parents who are raising kids in rooming houses. Other than one spectacular instance of substance abuse, they’re not “bad people”, and ten years ago they’d at least have been able to rent a space of their own to raise their kids, while thirty years ago they’d have been able to buy a starter home. Now? Now they’re raising children in rooming houses.
That’s not a good thing, but hey, at least landlords are doing well and Galen Weston’s making more money this year than last.
Too many people have no concept of how great the change is. We got married in the late 1970s. My wife’s high school education and receptionist job was enough to get us into a decent 2-bedroom apartment, buy her a brand new motorcycle, and pay for my schooling in a trade. My trade was enough to upgrade our apartment, pay for my hotrodding hobby, let her quit to stay home with our son, buy a camper for weekend trips around the province and vacation trips around Canada and USA, all while saving enough for a down payment on a house with double-digit mortgage rates.
A few financial setbacks (extended layoffs mostly) meant starting almost from scratch (we kept our home but lost all savings and investments) in the early 90s and completely from scratch (lost our home, too) in the early 2000s. It took both of us to barely afford the same apartment of our youth. We finally gave up in 2011, changed careers and moved into a 1968 mobile home on a leased lot in the middle of nowhere. We’re back to being able to afford leisure, although on a much, much smaller scale than in our youth.
We’re still in that 1968 mobile home on a leased lot. It has apparently quadrupled in value since 2011, so if we were forced to start over again, it would be out of reach. We’d be homeless.
Divorce? Fortunately, that has never been on the table, but it’s been at least 2 decades since we’d have been able to contemplate single life from a financial perspective.
Yup. I have it relatively easy. Our relationship is cordial on the surface. We have a house in Toronto that will be paid off this year. We’re financially doing well. And we have a wonderful boy we’re raising together.
I’m miserable though. She has a short temper. Our interactions are filled with micro aggressions. We haven’t so much as kissed in years. I would love nothing more than to leave and just live in peace for a while.
I can’t. Homes go for over 2 mil in my neighborhood, rents are about 4k for a 2 bedroom. Unless I want to abandon my son and move far away. I simply cannot afford to live where we live right now.
Instead I’m in therapy trying to develop strategies to cope.
Before anybody chimes in: I do all of the house work, groceries, cooking, cleaning and laundry. The only thing I don’t do is fold her laundry as she doesn’t like the way I do it, which she complains to me about. I also pay the majority of the bills and child care and then again, I get flak for not saving enough money compared to her.
Why did you dive in so deep with this person?
The answer is no doubt long, complicated, and not nearly as easy to avoid as you are imagining. Let’s not compound his problems.
This question implies that she was always like this. She wasn’t. In retrospect, I should have noticed the signs after we got married. But I didn’t didn’t until after we had our kid.
“Why do people stay in abusive marriages?”
Cost is likely 90% of the reason. Make divorce free with nobody having to give up anything they own, and without any other support payment, and I guarantee the rates would skyrocket to at least 75% of all married couples. LOL
A dear friend divorced his adulterous wife. Finally.
Laws here are weird, and they can be biased. Because he then met and married a very successful woman, his ex was able to get a new support agreement for her and their grown(!) kids that ensured they were kept “to a level commensurate with his current status” that had him donating the entirety of his pay toward support because his new spouse made more and his old spouse wasnt reporting income (cash only, sob story).
To be clear: grown kids, spouse met and married long after the first divorce and settlement, lawyer and judge combo awarded her a new settlement that left him with no income and entirely dependent on his new spouse.
The Chilliwack was both chilly and a whack.
How grown are these grown kids? Are they in school or dependent for some other reason?
That is how I could see this happening. Courts believe that your kids are entitled to your income. The ex should not have that same right. Of course, who do the child support payments go to? That’s right…the ex.
What’s a Chilliwack
It’s not just the affordability factor, either.
I’ve been with my partner for 8 years now. We’ve owned a home together for 5. She and her ex have yet to get divorced. There’s been no meaningful impetus to drive them to do it: It doesn’t change their relationship any further, it doesn’t change her relationship with me at all, yet it costs a couple thousand bucks.
Why spend that on lawyers when you could spend it on car repairs, home upgrades, a plethora of takeout meals, or a vacation?
Yikes man, owning a home with someone married to someone else is super dangerous for you.
Not to mention medical situations. Suddenly you have no rights over your long term partners health/life if they are incapacitated.
Yeah but think of all the takeout meals it would cost for the divorce
Let’s hope his partner doesn’t get hit by a bus.
Both ways. He should live it up for a couple of years. Make sure to use her line of credit and credit cards. His wife’s ex-husband will have to pay half when they finally divorce. Buy a car in her name, sell it, and use the proceeds to buy a car in your name. The possibilities are endless.
[I am not advocating this obviously. Mostly I am agreeing how super dangerous this is.]
Marriage has all kinds of default legal implications ranging from property ownership to inheritance and tax benefits, and may also affect insurance rates.
How you are affected depends on where you live and your personal situation.
Frankly, a blanket statement like this is completely irresponsible. Consult a lawyer on these matters, people. Or spend tens of thousands of dollars later in life dealing with the consequences of ignoring your legal rights and responsibilities.
Frankly, a blanket statement like this is completely irresponsible.
Only if you’re taking as advice for some reason, not someone’s lived reality.
Hey guess who gets your wife’s pension and insurance payouts? Her legal husband.
Hey guess who gets your wife’s pension
Hahahahaha. What decade are you living in that y’all are getting pensions?
By all means, test out what her ex will be entitled to.
Cool! her ex owns 25% of your house. That’s very generous of you.
What is wrong with you? This is the worst thing I’ve read on lemmy all day
