For currently married MEN only. MUST be married for at least 10 years.

[Nords]

Could it also be that hapiness in marriage also results better financial achievement? Leading to participation/membership in this forum?

I'm afraid that Kramer meant "survivor bias" literally...

 

[kramer]

Could it also be that hapiness in marriage also results better financial achievement? Leading to participation/membership in this forum?

I do not know. Only long-time married people participated in this forum poll.

I suspect that no children and singlehood (in that order) increase the odds of ER when other factors are held steady. That is definitely the sense that I get from reading the forums. Also, I think these folks have more time for forum participation. However, people with the skills to ER (college degree, often high achieving during working years, parents that passed on durable values, probably fair amount of intelligence) are probably more likely to get married in the first place.

Personally, I think a commitment to marriage and children is a noble undertaking, regardless of the financial issues involved, and so they should not be evaluated primarily in a financial light. I admire people who have succeeded at marriage and raised happy, healthy children with their values.

Kramer (single, never married)

 

[yakers]

Many unhappily married couples get divorced early on, so those men would not be represented in this survey. So I would not use the numbers in this survey to tell you what the chances of being happy in marriage are because of the survivorship bias.

Kramer

Yep, best example yet of survivorship bias. And a bid dose of luck.

 

[wallygator69]

Hi,

17 years and counting

DW's passions are golf. fishing, football and S3X in no particular order.... What more can a guy ask for....

God Bless America.

W

 

[Eagle43]

Well, it seems married men get more sex. Single men only talk about it more. But... the singles have more variety. Does variety equal happiness or does regularity do the trick? Or should you stay married, have affairs and do tricks regularly? This is a deep subject.

 

[Alan]

Personally, I think a commitment to marriage and children is a noble undertaking, regardless of the financial issues involved, and so they should not be evaluated primarily in a financial light. I admire people who have succeeded at marriage and raised happy, healthy children with their values.

Kramer (single, never married)

I agree entirely. When we were ready to have kids, we were also of the belief that one of us should stay home for the first few years until kids were at school. (we both earned same money back then but DW hated her work environment) so I worked and she quit. Her youngest sister did the opposite, her husband stopped work, and in fact worked part time as a child minder (from draftsman to registered child minder was impressive to me).

If we actually included lost earnings and a 7 year pause in career then it would have been scary. Getting married changed very little to our relationship, having kids was a BIG change. We started at age 26, had 2 kids within 2 years and have been empty nesters this last 5.5 years. we love been back on our own again and young enough to enjoy life. 33 years and still in love.

 

[FinanceDude]

Well, it seems married men get more sex. Single men only talk about it more. But... the singles have more variety. Does variety equal happiness or does regularity do the trick? Or should you stay married, have affairs and do tricks regularly? This is a deep subject.

 

[laurence]

I cheated a bit, since including the time we were engaged it's ten years. I wonder if this poll is indicative of ER causality? By that, I mean it's evident there could be a strong correlation between happy/stable marraige and the ability to ER. So those who can even contemplate FIRE have several positives already in place.

 

[SecondCor521]

Thank you all for your vote. The results are beyond my imagination. What we have here is a group of luckiest men on earth. May be you guys can share the secret to the few unlucky ones (myself include). How did you choose your mate? Was it luck or was it hard work?

I didn't vote in the poll because I don't qualify. My wife of 15.5 years and mother of our three kids divorced me last year. I think the unhappy ones either divorce their wives or are divorced by them.

I did have an interesting time reading the poll responses and realizing my opinion has changed a lot in the last year. But that's for a different thread.

2Cor521