Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Short time preferences in action

One of the great challenges married men face is that a bored or unhappy wife won't hesitate to blow up her own future. Never mind his.
According to the Office of National Statistics, the number of 'silver divorces' has risen by three-quarters in the past 20 years, while the divorce rate among the rest of the population has fallen.

As well as fractured relationships and infidelity, the rise in late-life divorce is also fuelled by women fed up with old-before-their-time husbands and a lack of excitement.

Few of these women anticipate that their silver divorce will cost them all the home comforts and financial security they once took for granted.

Dominik Lipnicki, a housing expert for Your Mortgage Decisions, believes this boom in divorce and the financial instability it can cause is a huge problem for older women.
One would think the right way to address this problem is to encourage older men and women to stay married. Instead, they are encouraged to pursue bucket lists and make the most of what time remains to them. It is apparent that wisdom does not always come with age.

The very last thing that is needed is more support for short-sighted fools.

33 comments:

will said...

'Middle class' has become a phase married couples pass through in their 30's and 40's until the day the wife drops the divorce bomb. In my community of 3,000+ sq ft homes, I often see happily married men go through a divorce and land in a tiny apartment just at a time when they've past peak earnings years in their career and are facing high college costs for their kids.

Hammerli 280 said...

If you're a woman accustomed to the leverage minor kids give you in a potential divorce, the shift in power when the youngest turns 18 can come as a shock. A smart woman will have cultivated her marriage, and her husband will be unlikely to trade her in, as men value loyalty.

But if she really buys into the notion that she can trade up....well, you have to wonder if he's not better off without a marriage to a moron.

Jew613 said...

Women aren't good at cause and effect. So the obvious hardships that come from divorce aren't obvious to many women. Even seeing the poor results from other divorces in her social circle isn't enough for most women.

Shimshon said...

@Jew613 Also due to their solipsism, women see divorced men remarry fairly quickly and assume "I can do that too (to a higher quality man)."

Keyser Soze said...

After 21 years of marriage my wife bailed with the "I love you, but don't love you". Discussing this with my boss, he questioned the reasonableness of it. My response was that "reason and logic weren't pertinent in her decision". It was pure emotion and lack of time & self awareness. I did everything but beg her to stay and I wasn't going to beg. Guys, never beg. But reason, logic, imploring, reviewing the data that my standard of living would go up, hers down, etc.,,,, was to no avail. She had been totally corrupted by 50 shades, feminism, her work friends, TV, etc.,,,,
6 months after the divorce, my friends are telling me that they had never seen me so happy.
Two years later she's asking if I want her back. How can that happen after I have re-experienced the thrill of the chase and variety, even if the targets are a bit older than preferred. How could I take her back after the loyalty and trust were cast down so willingly. No thanks, I'll stay single for a long bit.
Sorry for the confessional, but guys, unless you have a traditional / intrinsically happy wife, life is better after the big D.

Al From Bay Shore said...

This brings to mind an article Dalrock had written on divorce fantasies entertained by women and promoted by popular culture. He titled the article "Eat, Pray, Cats".

Anonymous said...

MPAI and most people are self-absorbed adolescents whose vision only extends to the next turn in the road. Sad.

Mr.MantraMan said...

Nothing unhappier than an aging single white woman. And besides women are cruelty artists always encouraging other women to do stupid shit out of shear malevolence. Would you like to meet Trigglypuff's friends? They belong on GoTs.

Anchorman said...

Divorce after decades can be psychologically devastating.

In many ways, it's like the death of the wife. You may not have liked her all that much, but you still loved and cared for her. Suddenly, this significant part of your life is gone, leaving a void.

But it's worse than death, in other ways, because it's often followed by accusation of "abuse." The betrayal and litany of private issues publicly aired so she can muster more friends to her side during the initial blowout leaves a man questioning his very reality.

"Was I really as bad as she said? If I was crazy, could I recognize it? More people rally to her as a victim, maybe I did fail the marriage, my family, and deserve this."

It is a vulnerable time for men, which is why suicide is such a problem. The narrative fails, the betrayal strikes, and a man is left wondering what is real and worth living for. This is when men need other men to knock on the door, take him out for coffee, keep in touch and let him work through the emotions. Hopefully, he will be amenable to some RP truths, once the depression and anger are gone.

In some ways, I was lucky my ex frivorced me while I was young enough to recover spiritually, emotionally, and financially. Sure, I get kicked in the shorts over child support, but that will end in a few years and will diminish as the children reach 18. Had she waited, I would have spent a decade or two longer trying to mitigate her poor financial habits.

Anonymous said...

According to the Office of National Statistics, the number of 'silver divorces' has risen by three-quarters in the past 20 years, while the divorce rate among the rest of the population has fallen.

This is a misleading statistic, because while the divorce rate for the older brackets is increasing as boomers move in, if you track the cohorts of boomers as they age what is very clear is that their divorce rate is dropping dramatically as they age. It isn't that boomer divorce rates are going up when they should be going down, it is that boomers have much higher age-specific divorce rates than the silents who preceded them. But this basic trend is nothing new. Boomers have always divorced at higher rates than the cohorts that came before them (as well as those who came later).

Also, a 75% increase is misleading because we are talking about extremely low divorce rates in the older brackets. For those over 60, this probably means the annual divorce rate went from something like 1.5 per 1,000 married women to something like 2.6 per 1,000 married women. Compare that to the current 25-29 year old bracket where 25 out of 1,000 married women divorce each year. While the press loves to egg older married women on, overall married women understand that divorce is a young woman's game. Divorce rates are at their highest when a woman has the best chance of remarriage (when she is young), and drop off dramatically as women's remarriage options go off the cliff.

https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2012/06/29/there-is-no-baby-boomer-or-silent-generation-divorce-spike-at-retirement/
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2011/07/22/uk-divorce-rate-data-by-age-per-1000-married-women/
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2014/05/30/smoking-gun/

Dexter said...

You note that the DM stories are all along the lines of "her husband left her for another woman the cruel heartless brute wah wah wah". HIGHLY doubtful this is representative. Nothing told from the far more likely "I decided to pursue the Eat, Pray, Love fantasy but it went to shit" perspective.

Hammerli 280 said...

I've noticed that for women, there are two Nightmare Scenarios. The first being, "He got me pregnant and abandoned me," the other being, "The youngest kid turned eighteen and he dumped me for a younger model."

Likewise, for men there are also two Nightmare Scenarios. The first being the "Cuckoo's Egg Baby", the second being, "I want your sperm, I want your wallet, and then I want you gone."

The difference is that a man who visits either Nightmare Scenario on a woman receives condemnation. A woman who hits a man with a Nightmare Scenario won't.

Dexter said...

After 21 years of marriage my wife bailed with the "I love you, but don't love you".

Sorry, man. Glad you kept yourself together afterward.

In retrospect, were there any warning signs that ILYBIANILWY was coming? Had she developed an interest in some other man?

FPW said...

In former times women knew about this, but today even the older one seem to have forgotten about some basic problems they’re gonna face by divorcing.

From: http://freedompowerandwealth.com

Anchorman said...

It's not that women today have forgotten, it's that they openly rejected the advice from their mothers and fathers. instead, they "liberated" themselves to become the new woman. Mom and Dad had antiquated notions from the Depression and supported the Patriarchy. The New Woman knows better and made a conscious effort to not embrace and live out the life their mothers told them would be best.

It's not forgotten wisdom. It's rejected wisdom.

Anchorman said...

And it goes with the Boomer men and younger. We saw how older men acted. Some younger men were cultured to turn their backs to it (i.e. churchianity). Others willingly refused to act like their fathers and grandfathers.

Of course, there's an element to be understood about how the conditions changed and men/women face a society far more permissive of family destruction.

Timmy3 said...

The story only featured women whose husbands left them. Not even one wife who left her husband. Nonetheless, it features plenty of examples of red flags that weren't heeded. Sometimes, it's better to pick better to avoid a breakup later.

Anonymous said...

A gal of about 40 in our boot camp just pulled the rip cord on her marriage. She’s in better shape than her peers and pleasant, and bagged a VP. So, whether or not cash and prizes lessens risk and decision making, the fact is she told me, that now she can do “what she wants.” After sizing him up, I’m pretty sure the guy isn’t a natural or alpha enough in dominate behaviors that spike her punch. (married game is no joke, it never stops). It’s the, she can do whatever she wants…that’s bothering. Dalrocks (above) comments make sense from bio risk\reward decision-making template.

Laguna Beach Fogey said...

I see this a lot among my clients, both the older men who have been financially raped in divorce court and the older women who find their newly-single life isn't all that it's cracked up to be. It's very sad.

Aeoli Pera said...

We should let children vote too because it's a basic human right.

Hammerli 280 said...

I've long been convinced that Miss 1941 was a lot more realistic about the world than her great-granddaughter, Miss 2016. More realistic, more focused on the long term, more attractive...better across the board.

Hammerli 280 said...

Tom Roberts, I think you raise a good point...and people rarely realize they really can't "do what they want". If nothing else, that pesky "work" thing gets in the way. And "money".

Dark Herald said...

I haven't checked the statistics and I don't have to.

It's the women who initiate that the Silver Divorce proceedings 80% of the time.

MichaelJMaier said...

The longer I live, the more I understand females. And the more insane they all seem.

Bob Loblaw said...

The longer I live, the more I understand females. And the more insane they all seem.

Amen to that. As I get older and the desire for sex becomes less overwhelming I'm not finding a lot of reasons to bother with them. Not that I have a choice - single, independent women vote themselves money from everyone else's paycheck.

liberranter said...

We should let children vote too because it's a basic human right.

Granting suffrage to women is, in practical terms, the same thing as granting suffrage to children, so that precedent has already been set.

Unknown said...

@Keyser Soze

The expression is: I love you, but I'm not IN love with you.

Laguna Beach Fogey said...

Eat, Pray, Love, Bang Random Men, Drink Yourself To Death, Overdose On Opiates.

Ron said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Artisanal Toad said...

Aeoli Pera said...

We should let children vote too because it's a basic human right.


Actually, it's called the "international rights of the child treaty" and the real reason it the US is not a signatory is it would turn the US divorce industry on its head. Because in the US the children are treated as chattel property. Income producing property...

It is not necessary to give children the right to vote, only to give them standing to approach the divorce court to demand access to a parent and to choose which parent they want to live with. Explicit is the notion that children have rights, implied is they have the right to keep their parents together.

At any rate, just the threat to the US divorce industry was enough to kill any possibility that the US would pass said treaty. Naturally it was spun as a real threat for other reasons, but as always, cui bono.

Anonymous said...

Aeoli Pera said...
We should let children vote too because it's a basic human right.


Artisanal Toad said...
It is not necessary to give children the right to vote



see, this is another perversion of the language which was purposely introduced in order to confuse people and make it almost impossible to discuss an issue with any precision.

voting is not now, AND NEVER HAS BEEN, a general "right". not in any nation, not under any political system, not at any time.

voting is a PRIVILEGE.
http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1613
n. a special benefit, exemption from a duty, or immunity from penalty, given to a particular person, a group or a class of people.


have children EVER had the ability to vote?
do most felons have the ability to vote?

when the US was founded, the vast majority of the free white men *with citizenship* did NOT have the ability to vote. yet they did not consider their "rights" to have been infringed due to this lack.

how can this be when they just fought a war for their "Rights"? simple, they knew that this had nothing to do with an infringement upon their "Rights", only that they had not qualified for the voting Privilege.

you can see the corruption even in the legal dictionary:
http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=204
n. those rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, the 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution, including the right to due process, equal treatment under the law of all people regarding enjoyment of life, liberty, property, and protection. Positive civil rights include the right to vote, the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of a democratic society, such as equal access to public schools, recreation, transportation, public facilities, and housing, and equal and fair treatment by law enforcement and the courts.


you notice that appending 'Positive' to the term 'Civil Right' performs the same function as appending 'Social' to 'Justice'. it utterly deranges the definition of the original term and is used only to foment discontent and splinter society.

further, 'Positive Civil Right' is exactly the term of art being used to wedge Federal Government power into every aspect of private life and control the lives of the citizenry.

if you refuse to bake a wedding cake for queers you are supposedly violating their 'Positive Civil Rights'. well, wait a minute, what about my freedom of association? doesn't exist according to the Supreme Court because the Interstate Commerce clause grants the Federal Gov the authority to regulate your business practices because ... i can't prove that every single one of my cake ingredients was sourced from ... inside my state?

this is what the Founders fought a war for?

i don't fucking think so.

Aeoli Pera said...

Guys, I was doing a reductio ad absurdum.

Unknown said...

"I can do whatever I want" - in theory, yes. In practice, no. If anyone says this I mark them as someone being juvenile

Post a Comment

NO ANONYMOUS COMMENTS.