Divorce lawyers are no longer having their doors beaten down by unhappy husbands and wives looking to sign for their freedom on the dotted line. In these tighten-your-belt times, more and more couples are opting to stay unhappy together over doling out money they don't have for the pricey endeavor that is divorce. .
These days, salaries are stagnating, more and more people are losing their jobs, and the value of our homes is creeping ever downward. That is not an ideal economic situation in which to be spending thousands of dollars to bid your marriage goodbye. Moreover, although economic difficulties can be stressful on a marriage, lean times also mean that couples become more financially interdependent, relying on a combined household income to survive. .
In an article on MSNBC.com, Pamela Smock, a researcher at the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor puts it this way: .
"Anything of this magnitude that's going to affect millions of people does not bode well for all sorts of families. It could keep unhappy couples together.".
That divorce is expensive isn't a new phenomenon. It's always been pricey. For example, a contested divorce between a couple with at least one child can cost more than $100,000! This figure factors in everything, including financial advice, attorney's fees, counseling, and real estate costs involved in buying or renting separate homes. Yes, some of those expenses will be recovered when a couple sells the matrimonial home to divide up the proceeds, but in today's down market real estate isn't fetching top dollar, and often couples will end up owing more on their mortgages than their properties are worth. Suddenly, what could have been their biggest asset has become a liability.
What's interesting is that in the past when times are tough divorce rates go up, such as during the 1997 recession. But this time is different because of the severity of the recession.