People sometimes believe that their relationship would be stronger if they just had more financial assets. Maybe a lot of the stress in their relationship is because they struggle to make ends meet. Maybe they disagree about how money should be used or how to spend the limited resources that they have. If they were just wealthy, they feel like it would take that stress out of their relationship.
It is true that having more resources can reduce some types of financial stress. However, it’s not clear that this decreases the odds of a divorce. In fact, some reports have even claimed that wealthy couples are more likely to get divorced.
Experiencing similar issues
First and foremost, it’s important to note that even wealthy couples will often have similar financial issues. They just have a higher standard of living, but they may still be living paycheck to paycheck. They may still be stressed out about how to pay car loans or home mortgages. It’s just that the car loans are for $100,000 BMWs instead of $20,000 Honda Civics, but the couple may still be living right at the edge of their means.
Even if they’re not, wealth can sometimes make divorce more likely because people know that they are not financially dependent on the marriage or on their spouse. Couples with a lower earning level may think that they have no financial future without two incomes, so they actually feel pressure to stay together because the financial alternative seems even worse. Wealthy couples may not be as worried about paying the bills on one income, so they have more freedom to choose divorce if that’s what they want.
All of this helps to show how finances can be intertwined with divorce and how complex things can become. Those involved need to know what legal options they have.
