Personally I have never understood the: "My ex should be financial responsible for maintaining my quality of life after we are no longer married" theory..

I mean, to me, it makes no sense. It's one thing if two people build things up from absolutely nothing, I also understand the need for adequate child support, etc. But the whole alimony, pay me cause we're divorced system is really baffling to me. And no one has ever been able to frame it in a way that it does make sense to me.

It seems to me that if you get fired from a job and are used to making a certain amount, you get unemployment for a while to help you while you get back on your feet, assuming you were let go for "no fault", etc. So why isn't there just some sort of "unmarried" thing like there is "unemployment"? Why is the person who has more wealth fiscally responsible for someone they are no longer married too?

Why as a society have we just accepted this behavior as okay? And PRENUPS do help, but they are not as concrete as many people would like to believe..

Could someone please help frame this for me? How did this happen? How does it continue to happen? Why can't it just be a set number to help someone get back on their feet, based on total wealth? For example, someone worth $1,000,000 giving $50,000 to ex just so they aren't in poverty or something. Why is there a reasonable expectation for people to "maintain their quality of life?" and at the expense of the person paying for it, who doesn't get to maintain their quality of life cause now they have someone who they are fiscally responsible too?

Again, I just don't get it.

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"When two people agree on everything, one of them is not necessary" - Arliss