Shortly after COVID turned our lives upside down, we started hearing about folks “quiet quitting” their jobs. They were meeting their job descriptions precisely, refusing to go above and beyond the way so many eldest millennial daughters have modeled for years. This generation was not doing more work or working more hours for the same pay.
Quiet quitting marriage is another trend that has emerged and is getting more attention. There is an old (wildly sexist) saying about divorce: “cheaper to keep her”. Misogyny aside, the concept stands up without the condescending, paternalistic, or gendered undertones. The idea is that divorce is expensive for the party who earns more money, who may have to pay support, and for both parties collectively, who now have to maintain two separate households with the same pool of money. Of course it is more expensive to pay two mortgages and have two refrigerators stocked with the basics.
Enter: silent divorce. Many couples who come to us for an actual divorce (would that be a loud divorce, then?) have lived through a period of silent divorce. They are essentially roommates, sharing expenses, engaging in no intimacy; conversation is transactional, detached and thus, ideally, not volatile or argumentative.
Silent divorce seems to have evolved from the old-school mentality of “staying together for the kids”. Societal stigma around divorce has largely evaporated, although it still very much exists in many places and within many families. Women no longer face social and financial ruin from divorce, as was the case throughout much of history and well into the 20th century. Divorce is more visible, but some people choose to stay married and continue to live together, whether for budgetary reasons, the kids, or simply inertia. It’s often easier to do nothing than to take action.
That does not mean it’s better to do nothing. The pitfall of staying married when the marriage is over is that the marriage does not officially end. In New Jersey, and any other state that does not recognize a “separation” as the cutoff date for the end of a marriage, that can have major unintended consequences. As long as the marriage continues, the marital estate continues to grow. An (extreme) example will help explain why this is important: Imagine a teacher and his wife quiet quit their marriage after five years. For 25 years, they remain legally married. During that entire time, her interest in his very valuable teacher’s pension continued to accrue and she is technically entitled to half of that entire 30-year marriage simply because they did not legally end their marriage. Instead of sharing an interest in his pension that lasted the length of a 5-year marriage, he faces having to divide a 30-year interest. If he earns more money than her, he also faces an alimony obligation based on a 30-year marriage, rather than whatever alimony exposure he may have had after 5 years, if any. If she racked up debt and he saved, he may have to pay half her debt and give her half his savings. None of these are guarantees, even in New Jersey, simply because this is an extreme example, but the wife in that situation would have a very good argument to have that considered that a 30-year marriage.
Hoping to outlive someone is just bad karma, but also, anyone who is still married, can’t get married again (because, polygamy). While you are still in a marriage you no longer want to be in, you may not think about your future self wanting to remarry. But if that time comes, then you will have to face all the regular issues in a divorce, plus the unique problems of legally divorcing after a silent divorce.
Silent divorce may be a good short-term solution for some couples, almost like a divorce dry run. People should use caution before settling into a long-term silent divorce, though, because of the likelihood of the potential expense being exponentially increased via enhanced counsel fees with a complex legal issue.