Fuck the Divorce System

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/money/27189111/detail.html

This article is about the growing increase of couples signing cohabitation contracts. Like a pre-nup for unmarried people who are living together.

It should've been entitled "People Send Divorce System Message: "GO GET FUCKED"

Why would people live together long-term and not be married (that is, apply TO THE STATE for a marriage certificate so THE STATE is aware that you are LEGALLY married and therefore BOUND to state laws and the lobbyists/legislators who write them)?

Why would people not notify the state of their union?

Why would people choose to cut the PUBLIC state out of their PRIVATE relationship?

Why would people choose to divide or not divide their PERSONAL PROPERTY outside of the influence of a third-party (the STATE)?

Because divorce is now TOTAL DESTRUCTION for your life. There is no winning in divorce because its so long, painful and expensive. Only lawyers win in divorce.

And this is nothing but an end around a system that arbitrarily rewards one party and RUINS the other for life. As one lawyer who was interviewed said, "Without some kind of agreement like this, THERE IS NO LIMIT TO WHAT A DIVORCING SPOUSE CAN ASK FOR."

People's response? FUCK YOU.

They're now handling it themselves.

People have heard the horror stories. They've heard the nightmares. Years in court. Lawyers advising you to push for everything because that's what the other side will push for. Your ex is being told the same thing. You take the advice. The judge doesn't know what to do so they listen and listen and listen to your lawyers argue and lie and point fingers. Whoever gets the kids gets the house and half the other's salary for decades or even life. Personal decisions made years ago don't matter. The person who lied, cheated, and/or stole doesn't matter. It all gets muddled in the lawyers talking over eachother. The judges have little to no evidence to use. Your spouse may figure out that lies will not be cross-examined and start telling ever bigger and bigger lies in order to win. Afterwards you're drained, financially devastated, years of savings annihilated, hard work wasted, and unlike the Phoenix you do not rise from the ashes; you become defensive and guarded for the rest of your life, terrified of ever having someone you trusted so well betray you so completely.

And now it seems ever expanding numbers of people are in no hurry to go through that. Gee, imagine that.

All I can say is good for them, and I hope this totally replaces marriage UNTIL DIVORCE LAWS ARE REFORMED AND THE CURRENT SYSTEM IS TOTALLY DISMANTLED - RIPPED APART, TORN DOWN AND BURNED FOR THE LAWYER-ENRICHING TRASH THAT IT IS.

You see we have reached that point. Which point? The point where corruption and inside dealing to rig a system has gotten so bad that people simply avoid the system altogether. Its like speculators bidding oil prices up to $200/barrel. Its simply so expensive, the demand for the resource collapses and the speculators actually destroy the market for the resource they are holding and trading. Divorce has become quite prevalent in this country and the lawyers quickly rigged the system to be as destructive as possible. Increased stakes drove up time battling it and therefore expenses skyrocketed as well. This continued until we have what we have today: a system in which even middle class people are treated like wealthy billionaires. Every man is treated like a wealthy industrialist who is too cheap to support his "poor, feeble" ex-wife and every woman is portrayed as a helpless victim who will starve without a "modest allowance" from her super wealthy ex-husband.

Eventually people wake up to the fact that for whatever reason - possibly reasons well outside of their control - divorce has become prevalent and regardless of how much they "love," love is not a guarantee and it can be fleeting and unfortunately much less lasting than it seems. This is not to say love is bad, simply that it is not easy and the truth is that "love" eventually boils down to work and effort. You cannot control if someone else chooses not to work at love anymore. If someone else stops loving you, this really ought to constitute a breach of contract as marriage is essentially a contractual promise to partner or "love" someone for life. But in divorce, the party who breached your legal contract is somewhat irrelevant. So the contract is basically worthless. The contract used to mean something. If you left the relationship (breached the contract), you left with nothing. This is not desireable, so unless you were really unhappy you wouldn't leave. Now, the inverse is nearly true. If you are the slightest bit unhappy and feel you can be wicked enough to ruin the other person in divorce, you can leave with everything, including most of the other person's wealth. This turns marriage not into a partnership but into a kind of vulture hedge fund. Where you are temporarily invested and scheme for when you're going to leave and ensure you are leaving under circumstances that guarantee you you're spouses wealth - otherwise they'll take all of yours. Its like Sun Tzu's Art of War. Once your neighbor is 'armed,' you must practice for war. Because they will. And if war comes and you're unprepared, you'll die. So you might as well prepare now. You may not really want to leave and blow them out, but whoever decides to leave first has the advantage as they can scheme to come out ahead; given the utter destruction awaiting the loser, prudence demands the other partner similarly prepare. In this way, both parties could very well spend much of their "union" preparing for the departure of their spouse by scheming against them. Throw in a lot of society-induced anxiety about your appearance, sexual attraction, and value as a mate, and marriage has never been more tenuous and dangerous than it is now.