Marriage: Greater than the Sum of Its Parts

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!! I hope it’s a great day for you.
Yesterday I was reading a fairly unromantic yet realistic and helpful article written by Jonathan Clements of the WSJ. He calls it his valentine’s day to his readers. In it he talks about how to divorce the right way.
Of course he is not recommending you divorce but he talks about how he and his ex-wife made an effort to have their divorce not mirror his failed marriage and turn it into a successful event where the ultimate winners are his children. It made for interesting dinner talk at our table. My husband and I talked about how much different our lives would be if we were to get a divorce. Of course we were talking about how different our financial lives would be.
Together right now, we have a nice home, two nice paid for cars, no credit card debt, but some student loans (his) and we are saving for retirement and children’s college education. However, if we were to live apart from each other, we each would have to maintain our own household, which in turn would probably mean less savings for retirement and college and probably the acquisition of some debt. Together we are able to have more than apart.
I know this is nothing earth shattering to people who have gone through a divorce. But to others that haven’t, have you ever sat down and done the math? Divorce is something a married couple (or separating, for life partnerships for that matter) never wants to think about. But should you? Don’t you think it’s worth it to sit down and consider how different your life would be?
In related news, I found this article via Kacie’s website about how much this woman’s life changed after her husband committed suicide. I have talked about this before. How can someone not know the real extent of their financial situation? and why would you choose to turn your back to it? Sorry to leave you with these thoughts on such a romantic day but life is not always pretty.