About
What this publication is, who writes it, and why it exists.
Don’t Get Married is an independent publication about marriage, divorce, and the industries built around both.
What We Do
We report on the parts of the decision that the wedding industry, the legal industry and your relatives have no incentive to explain: what the contract actually says, what leaving it costs, how family court really operates, and what the research shows about children, money and long-term outcomes.
We have a point of view. We think the decision to marry is routinely made with less scrutiny than a car purchase, and that people deserve the numbers before they sign rather than afterwards.
What We Don’t Do
We do not tell anyone that their marriage is doomed, that love is a mistake, or that people who marry are fools. Plenty of marriages work. The argument here is about informed consent, not about outcomes.
We also do not publish other people’s private stories without permission, and we do not invent them. Where we describe patterns from public accounts, we describe the pattern.
Sources
Statistics are drawn from public data — the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, the US Census Bureau, Pew Research Center, Martindale-Nolo’s legal-cost research, and The Knot Worldwide’s annual wedding study — and attributed where used. If we get something wrong, tell us and we will correct it.
A Necessary Note
Nothing here is legal or financial advice. Family law is intensely jurisdiction-specific. Use our reporting to ask better questions of a qualified professional where you live.