www.nomarriage.com

then again, it is basing it on marrying an american women, it does however, give glowing reports on foreign women.
my opinion, well after coming back from brazl, i truly believe that they have some of the most amazing women inthe world.

 

Marriage is an intrinsically flawed endeavor from day 1, don't waste your time. True marriage is in your heart, there is almost NEVER a need to bring the legal system into it.

When you're looking at statistics, you know, the ones that show how many marriages fail, yeah, those. When you're looking at them try to keep in mind that many of the ones that don't fail are very unhappy and the partners have just resigned to it, or given up hope of finding happiness altogether.

 

f*ck no.
But don't tell my fiance I said that.

 

I voted "yes", but with some caveats.

I'm married and I love it. That doesn't mean there aren't times when I wish I could just shuck responsibility and do my own thing for one night (ie, head out for a night with the guys and not worry about having left my wife at home bored out). It just means that, in general, I love it.

The benefits of marriage are, to me, huge.

First, there is something about "formalizing" a committment that makes it somewhat more compelling than just having an "understanding" that you're committed to a person. Yes, it adds responsibility but at the same time reduces stress. For instance, I understand that it is my responsibility to make the money and pay the bills. My wife understands that it is her responsibility to take care of our daughter and manage the house. Our relationship is quite clearly defined. I understand that this is possible in a common-law relationship or with a girlfriend, but I would submit that it's somewhat less common...

Secondly, at least in our relationship, there is no threat of walking away or ending the relationship. We don't believe in divorce and remarriage, so we are absolutely committed to this relationship. We went into our marriage confident in our choice. We were counselled to only marry if we could not live without that person. We couldn't, so we married.

Thirdly, children (we only have one) are absolutely a joy. For those that don't have them, there are very few things as enjoyable as watching your child grow up, learn, talk, walk, and interact. Yeah, the long, sleepless nights are rough and the expenses pile up but in the end, you really don't remember those things. Granted, my daughter is not quite 2 years old so I can't say that it's ALWAYS going to be this fun, but we're really enjoying it now.

Fourth, it's nice knowing that no matter how bad things get, no matter what comes up, that person will always stick around. A common-law relationship is not, in my opinion, quite so "permanent". There are exceptions, I'm sure, but I don't believe that amount of committment is regularly found outside of marriage.

Fifth, tax breaks are big. I haven't paid more than 4% tax since I got married. This year, I'm getting everything back, and then some. I'm in the middle five-figure bracket but between having a stay-at-home wife and a daughter, combined with charitable donations, I generally pay little-to-nothing in taxes. It's great.

Sixth, I never really wanted to play the dating game and try and impress every young woman I met. It gets old, fast. It's pointless. It's really not as much fun when you realize that you're wasting your time and just getting cheap thrills that last about as long as donuts in a police station. Pretty shallow, in my opinion (and it is definitely just my opinion). It's far better, in my mind, to find a great girl, settle down, and start impressing her with how much love, attention, and care you can show her, all the while getting the same back from her. Far more rewarding and lasting.

There are other reasons but I figure that's enough of a summary. Bottom line - with the right person, marriage is awesome. That's my experience. However, with the wrong person, it's a living hell. That's the experience of others. Get it right and you'll have great times. Get it wrong and you'll have not-so-great alimony and child support payments.

Oh yeah - to those referencing the divorce rates, please remember that those take into account second, third, fourth, etc, etc... marriages, not just first marriages. First marriage divorce rates are lower (mid 40%). Second and higher are quite high (60+ %, I believe). Not saying those rates are good, but the general stat is misleading.

 

My wife and I worked in the same office for about a year-and-a-half. We carpooled to work, saw each other during the day (although we worked in different departments) and carpooled home.

More than once each of us was asked how we could stand to be with our spouse twenty-four hours a day.

Our response was simply: How could you consider marrying someone with whom you couldn't spend twenty-four hours a day?

The key to marriage is to marry your best friend. If you cannot say, without reservation, that your fiance(e) is your best friend, call the church, the caterer, the photographer, the DJ, the magician (you did hire a magician to entertain at the reception, didn't you?) and the reception hall, cancel everything, and hope that you can get your deposits back.

I met my wife in January, we got engaged in April, and married in December. Four months ago we celebrated our 25th anniversary. That it has lasted this long is the result of a lot of hard work and serious commitment by both parties.

Yesterday I started teaching a class in risk management. The class started with me asking each student about his background, about his experience in project management and risk management, and to describe the riskiest thing he'd ever done. To the last question I got responses such as, "playing lacrosse", "rock climbing", "racing dirtbikes", and "flying to New York to teach math to high school students". One student answered, "Getting married." This spawned a good deal of laughter from the rest of the class. However, given that a key characteristic of risk is uncertainty, and that committing to someone to spend the remainder of your life together entails an unimaginable amount of uncertainty, it was probably the best answer given. I can attest that twenty-five years ago I could not possibly have imagined that today I would be a risk management consultant, that I would be a professional magician, that I would have lived in Northwest New Jersey for a year-and-a-half, that I would have three offspring in college, that I would own three Arabian horses, or that I would be hoping to move from Southern California to Northern California. Unless you can handle the uncertainty of life with aplomb, marriage might not be a good bet.

 

I'm currently engage and getting married in November.

Since I do not believe in divorce, I wanted to wait until I found the right women for me, someone beautiful, intelligent, funny, will be a good wife to me and a good mother to my children, shares most of my values and beliefs and loves and respects me as much as I love and respect her. I'm lucky to have found this woman and am glad to spend the rest of my life with her.

To me, marriage is more than just a piece of paper. Its a very special and unique commitment b/w two persons.

 

There are three aspects, from what I can tell. Religious, emotional and legal/practical.

If you're very religious, there's some obvious reasons to get married (depending on which religion I guess.)

From what I've seen, being married doesn't bring any extra commitment to a relationship. It doesn't "make" somebody love another more. It doesn't guarantee any fidelity. All that stuff comes from the heart and mind, not some silly piece of paper you've signed.

Regarding the legal/practical side of things... I don't see any additional tax benefits - in fact until recently it was a tax liability. The only thing I can think of is that you can have your spouse covered by your employer's health plan. But if you both work and have decent benefits, there's no advantage in that either. From what I understand, it doesn't effect your ability to sign contracts, hold joint accounts, buy a house or the like. I can see it being a benefit if one partner dies, because the other would by default have authority over the estate. Would it be a liability if one partner runs into financial trouble? Not being married, the other person's assets wouldn't be up for grabs by creditors or the like.

 

If you have someone that you really want to marry and have no doubts, that is probably the right person for you. If you go back and forth about marrying someone, there are NOT the right person and it will fail eventuallly. I am 35 and single, would LOVE to be married, had several girlfriends that wanted me to pop the question, but they were not the right one. When I find that person, no hesitation.

 

Spoken like a woman. They love to convince you they're great and sweet and all and then tell you how much they hate how you do this or that. Forgetaboutit. Live with them forever if she can't handle it see ya. What good does marraige really contribute to society? Nothing at all. You can get a divorce way too easy. Next thing you know you have to give someone half of your crap in exchange for half of there half crap. Keep your own $hit and i'll keep mine then we'll split whatever we got together. Throw in kids an now your really screwed.

 

Great

First if you wife worked you wouldn't get a tax break at all the two of you would actually pay more.

I never understand tax breaks for anything.

Why should I have to pay more taxes because you have a child? Why am I penalised for not being able to have children? Isn't the joy of having a child worth it or do you need a $1500 tax break to go along with it.

Also why do we all have to pay for your charity donation. when you pay less taxes we pay more.

Not that you shouldn't take everything the government gives you because you should, I just don't understand the rational.