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What happens with house payments in such cases? I suppose the house goes to the mother, but she can't pay mortgage alone and the father can't pay the mortgage p

• rayiner 6y ago
  Mom sells the house and everyone moves. Even couples who are reasonably comfortable can’t afford to maintain an additional household to the one they have on the same income. Median household income in my county is $80,000/year. That’s a bit under $5,300 month take home for a married couple. Which is fine—you can buy a 4BR house here in a good school district for $1,450 per month in mortgage. But no way the couple can afford to keep the house if they get divorced. Rent alone in a studio will be $750/month. (Like most normal places, it’s much more expensive to rent here than buy.) Even if the spouse moving out lives like a pauper that’s realistically a $1,500/month hole in the budget few families can cover. So Dad moves into a studio, mom and the kids move into a cheap 2BR, and you’re paying like $1,750 month for housing (total) because you’ve given up the cost advantages of home ownership. And say there is another $750 in new non-shared expenses. So that’s $1,000/month that’s no longer there that was going towards savings/college/enrichment activities, etc. They’ve traded a 4BR house in a nice suburb for two households that are struggling to get by and have no margin. If they’re lucky, the kids got to stay in the same school district, but they’ve probably been taken away from their neighborhood friends. This happened my step siblings in law recently. It’s extremely shitty.