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The Economics of Divorce

Image result for heart break emojiEven in the most carefully run and financially independent of lives, there will be some wrenching twists and turns.

Friendships and businesses will fail. You or your loved ones will get sick and some of them will die. Kids will have plenty of trouble on their long road to adulthood – if they even make it. And all around you, there will be a sea of fighting and breakups and divorces and mismatched relationships that you wish would end, for your sake or that of your best friends.

With all of this happening, it’s a wonder that we can remain happy and productive and even thrive as humans. But we can. And we do. Because sometimes life just serves up a shit salad and we don’t have a choice in the matter, but we always have a choice of how to respond to it.

So if you haven’t already heard through the rumor mill, the former Mrs. Money Mustache and I are no longer married. Although we had been drifting this way for a while, the formal change of our status is still less than a year old, so it’s still a topic that deserves some quiet respect*.

The downfalls of our own relationship are personal and not something we choose to make public, but you’ve heard it all before anyway. Sometimes people just grow apart over the decades and no matter how much they work at the relationship, find that they want different things from life. And when this happens, not even the greatest advantages of a lifetime money surplus or a supportive network of great friends and family or living in a beautiful place can save you.

Update: Some of the negative speculators have assumed “your wife dumped you because you were too frugal.” This part may be necessary to address because of the money theme of this blog.

The answer is NO. I was the one who asked for the separation so you can blame me for it. And no, there were no frugality issues because earning and accumulating money was always extremely easy for us. We spent whatever we wanted, we just happened to have finite desires. Plus I was not the “boss” of the house. Mrs. MM has always been an independent-minded person who is good with money and decides on her own spending.

So that’s the bad news. The good news is that we have had about the most amicable separation that one could hope for, we all still spend plenty of time together and our son is still in the same loving environment he has always had. And I would venture to say that both of us parents are going to come out of the experience much better off than we were before.

See, even the harshest moments come with a little golden key taped secretly onto their side, which you can use to unlock personal growth and greater future happiness. But only if you choose to accept that key and put it to use.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend that there weren’t plenty of harsh moments for both of us, both before and during this experience, with plenty more still to come. Because divorce, especially with children and family and traditions involved, is really fucking hard. 

But guess what? There are a lot of things in life that are hard. Being born and going through childhood is hard. Having babies of your own is even harder. School and jobs are hard, and money is really hard for most people. Relationships and friendships and dealing with bossy or dysfunctional friends or family or parents, personal habits and addictions, and everything else. Life is full of hardships.

But throughout all of it, we always have a choice about how to deal with them.

We can choose to focus on how unfair the situation is, how we were right and we tried our best and the world still mistreated us. And we can fight back, chasing the unfair person or company or situation and get revenge. We can make sure they know exactly why they were wrong and every way in which they were flawed.

And we can collect bathtubs full of sympathetic tears from our friends. And burn years on reliving the past, with a mixture of regret and vengeful self-righteousness and self-pity.

– OR – 

We can get right back to work on positive things to rebuild our lives. Improving ourselves through better habits and health. Building new relationships and nurturing old ones, and making sure we put out only positive energy to every person in our lives, including our ex-spouse. Building everyone up and never, ever tearing anyone down. Because they already do that plenty to themselves.

Like almost everything else in life, human nature draws us to the easier but more destructive of these paths, and only self-knowledge and self-discipline can lift us out of that rut and place us onto the more productive one. And even then, our human nature will keep pulling us back and we’ll make mistakes. And then we’ll have to drag ourselves back out of that rut again. And put the happy face back on, and start behaving like an adult again.

As one friend puts it, “Being a divorced coparent is like being the co-owner of a business. Except it’s the most important company in the world and having it fail is not an option. So you have to treat your business partner accordingly.”

It has been a hard year. But at the same time, I feel we have both already learned so much, that it seems almost impossible that the experience won’t help both of us live better lives in the future. We are both doing well in forming new relationships and supportive of the other’s success in that important aspect of moving on.

But this is usually a personal finance blog. What does my romantic life have to do with your financial life? Not too much in the specifics, but quite a bit in general, because about half of all marriages end in divorce, and I have found it can be quite a tricky minefield to navigate.

First of all, there is the effect on your child raising, which is a parent’s most important job in life. In the best scenario, the end of a marriage is just a change to your love life, and you can continue to collaborate with your former spouse in a wonderful and open way. But the more conflict you have with that ex, the harder it is to cooperate, which leads to a worse experience for everyone – especially your children.

Then there is the social shame attached to divorce in our culture. While it could be looked at as the natural and peaceful end of an arrangement that has just run its course, other people will see it as a failure or a betrayal or a sin. In fact, when rumour of our separation got out, multiple gossipy and negative and downright distasteful discussions formed around the Internet – on Reddit, other bloggers’ websites, even right here on my own forum. People who don’t even know you, will speculate on your character and your motives. It adds pain to an already difficult situation. The only way to survive this is to ignore it and focus on your own internal compass.

And finally there is the famed financial cost of divorce. It is legendary for destroying lives and fortunes, and indeed this is sometimes accurate. This is because conflict is a form of war, and war is the most expensive thing humans have ever invented. And if you hire lawyers and other specialists to fight on your behalf, you just multiply the damage and the cost and stretch out the timeline.

But fortunately, like everything else, going to war is almost always a choice.

And if you don’t choose to fight, a divorce doesn’t have to cost much at all. Two people can peacefully collect up their financial and physical belongings and go their separate ways, and the only cost is in any duplication of possessions you choose to do, to replace things you formerly shared.

So the former Mrs. MM and I (mostly under her guidance!) worked through the do-it-yourself paperwork and paid a $265 fee to the county court for the divorce. I bought the lowest-cost house in the neighborhood, just a 2.5 minute bike ride down the hill from the family house, and I’ve already fixed it up and started hosting Airbnb rentals to help make it carry its own weight. I left the Nissan Leaf behind and chose not to buy a car of my own because I already have bikes.

We share plenty of time with our son and he is doing amazingly well – because we are choosing to make this new life about growth rather than conflict.

And most notably from the perspective of early retirement and financial independence, having enough money in advance has made this part of the split much less painful. Both of us can remain retired and continue to live in mortgage-free houses with investments easily covering our living expenses, while sharing child raising expenses. Although I chose to buy a house, nobody had to compromise on quality of life or sell the expensive family house.

Because I enjoy moderate living for its own sake, my own cost of living will go way down. And because I continue to enjoy writing and working, my income may continue to stay high through this next stage of my life. I’ll continue to use the surplus for projects and philanthropy just as before, but the point here is that one’s relationship status does not have to affect their financial status.

As a long-time reader said to me in a recent email as we discussed our shared fate, having a solid financial cushion and low expenses and lifestyle flexibility, has made the best of an otherwise difficult situation – especially in not having to disrupt the lives of our kids.

Still, having been through it, I would not recommend divorce as a decision to be taken lightly. If you’re still married and there is even a chance that you want it to last, you might consider the following steps.

How to Stay Married

Read about how to stay married – early and often. Peruse the bountiful relationship advice section at Amazon and definitely check out the 5 Love Languages book that resonates strongly with so many people.

Most of us (myself included) drift through the years, assuming we are doing a perfectly good job at being married, while unintentionally making all the same mistakes that everyone else makes.

Bad idea.

You need to proactively nurture a close, loving relationship before things get too dire, and never take it for granted. Because many bits of damage you do to a relationship are permanent. You cannot nag or criticize your partner for years and expect them to forgive you when you eventually see the light. And for those being nagged: you cannot ignore the requests of your partner for years, and expect them to forgive you for that either.

There are so many things, like being on each other’s team in times of hardship, and being genuinely excited and greeting your partner warmly at the door if they’ve been away, that fall to the side in marriages as they get stale. Every time you let this slide, you do a bit of permanent damage. The effects are cumulative like erosion, not temporary like moods or weather.

So the bad news is that there is definitely such thing as “too late.” At some point, the idea of “working on” a marriage sounds like hell because you have been waiting for so long to be able to escape it.

But the good news is that it might not be too late for you, if you do want to stay married. And the benefits begin immediately – if both people are working at it, every positive gesture from one side will be met with a positive one from the other, and they can reinforce each other into a beautiful upward spiral.

But if You’d Rather Not Stay Married

The flipside of all this is that many, many people are currently married, who should not be and don’t want to be.

You may be two perfectly great people with irreconcilable differences, or there might be one great person stuck with an abusive user or loser, or any other combination in the grand spectrum of possible humans. And it is important for these people to hear that although divorce is always difficult, sometimes it really is the best choice and there should not be shame or blame associated with this choice.

Every human needs and deserves to be accepted and loved – even the people who drive us crazy and even those who treat us poorly. They are who they are and while you can’t change them, you can’t make the world any better by spitting venom back at them. So your best strategy is to carve them out of your life, while keeping your words as kind and respectful as you possibly can.

And heed the wise words of my own relationship and coparenting counselor, who noted that the first months after any divorce are the times of greatest conflict. And then it gets easier. And easier. And mellower and friendlier. And after a few years, many former divorcees have moved on so happily that can’t even believe that they were ever angry at each other. That’s entirely possible, and it should be your goal.

So lean on friends, talk to a relationship counselor even if it is just by yourself (yes, it’s really worth it!), read books, laugh, cry, learn mindfulness and meditation, eat salads, get outside and exercise, write more new things and build new things and new businesses and new relationships, and you will come through it better than ever.

That’s what I’ll be up to in 2019.  I hope your new year is even better!


In the Comments: I have found it so helpful over this past year to share with others and realize that I am not alone in this. Feel free to share your own experiences and hopes and fears anonymously.

My comment form allows you to use a pseudonym so you can be anonymous while you let out the truth. And read the other comments, to see what other people around you are feeling.

And for those who have been through this and gotten through the other side and found happiness, go ahead and share your message of hope.


* A bit of social approrpriateness that seems to be lost on certain forum participants and even other bloggers, who we won’t call out here. Please don’t be like them – using the Internet to publicly gossip about strangers helps nobody.

 

 

  • Nate February 14, 2023, 11:45 am

    avoiding marriage is really the best financial advice you can give. half end in divorce, and you lose at a minimum half your s. so thats a (-25)% expected return. Early retirement doesnt work when you lose your home but are still obligated to pay the mortgage, lose half your 401k, and have an extra $1,000+ alimony expense.

    Reply
    • Mr. Money Mustache February 16, 2023, 5:18 pm

      Wow Nate, I am sensing that you might have gone through a rough divorce yourself? :-)

      If two partners are equal earners before and during a marriage, the expected cost should be close to zero – you just divide up your assets.

      If you happen to be the poor one and you marry a rich partner and combine your finances, the outcome could actually be the opposite of what you describe – you could PROFIT from the marriage and eventual divorce. Even though I would never want this outcome myself since it doesn’t seem fair.

      If two people meet and have vastly different financial situations to begin with, it’s essential that they agree in advance what would happen in the event of a (statistically likely) divorce – via the magic of a Prenuptial Agreement.

      And of course, if you both start out with minimal assets and decide to start a family together, then one person sacrifices his/her career in order to raise the children, it is appropriate that the higher earner would pay a larger share of the remaining child-raising expenses in order to account for this if you split up.

      Reply
  • Elizabeth Johnson March 27, 2023, 8:42 pm

    Aww MMM, I am a high school teacher and today our seniors had to present their “exit presentations.” A favorite student of mine talked about how important healthy finances are to him so I mentioned you right on the spot. So I thought I would come over for a visit. Thanks to you, I paid off my house a year before the pandemic and felt maybe I had “outgrown” you and hadn’t stopped by in a long time. So my return to your website is this sad but incredibly insightful post. Welcome to the brave people of The Divorced. Nobody understands the tribe until you are in it. My very comfortable parents who have never had any other relationship in their 64 years together can only grow so far. The Divorced go through incredible and incredibly difficult growth than only a divorce can… offer. I hope in the five years since you wrote this that you are mostly recovered and doing well.

    Reply
  • Annette April 18, 2023, 11:46 pm

    My ex-husband and I divorced over 20 years ago and were married for 21 years. Our children were 15 and 16 years old It was hard on the kids naturally – there is not a good age to wait for to separate.
    We did not use lawyers – which was a blessing and sorted out things for ourselves Lawyers make things infinitely worse. We divorced two years later – it was simply filling out a form and getting it witnessed by a Justice of the Peace and court fees of $20.
    I remarried 18 years ago. My ex has always been invited to family events and we have had Christmases where I had my husband on one side and my ex on the other at the dinner table. My ex’s parents died a few years back and he treats my parents has his parents now – which is absolutely fine with me there is a long history.
    Our children have always known that they always come first and my ex and I are a united front as far as they are concerned.
    No.1 rule – keep the children’s needs at the forefront – they need BOTH parents.

    Reply
  • Anonymous November 7, 2023, 1:54 am

    Well done to both you and your ex-wife for keeping it amicable. Many don’t. That is a real achievement and something you should both be proud of.

    And the good news is that it gets easier. It takes time. But then life opens up again with new possibilities. It’s like a second lease on life.

    Since my divorce, I’ve been trying to live by Nelson Mandela’s words: “May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.” I love this quote.

    Wishing you all the best.

    Reply
  • Lisa Kaplan September 18, 2024, 9:29 pm

    Hello,
    I was moved to write for a few reasons.
    One to express gratitude for the catalyst you’ve been in my life in a ridiculously short time period. I saw you speak at TedX Boulder just last week. I’d never heard of you before which was shocking to my friends. Although impressed with your plight, (early financial independence) it was your genuine and authentic, albeit subtly, conveyance of caring about happiness, yours and others, and of the world in general. I spent an embarrassingly long time listening to podcasts/youtubes of your advice and read some of your blog in the past week. (I needed to start at 1 because that how my mind works, so I’m not very far). Somehow this has all giving me permission to leap into a new business venture I’d been considering for a very long time. My current business is successful enough but I’m not as happy as I can be and I could be helping more people in need.

    in regards to this post, good for you and Ms.MM for taking good care of your boy. When my son’s dad and I divorced it was also our goal to stay a family. We had this thing where if something was getting intense between us, one of us would say to the other, “Do you have your eye on the prize” and it quickly brought us back to balance, and our son. It’s been 12 years now apart and I’m so grateful to him every day. We talk almost daily and still spend lots of time together. Our son now 19 talks a lot about his family and it’s all so fluid and special.

    All the best to you if you still read comments on old posts.

    Reply

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