#divorce

We ran a 10-year marriage with a $120K and a $40K earner through Illinois's actual statutory maintenance formula — the raw guideline comes to $30K/year, capped down to $24K/year, for an estimated 4.4 years.

We ran $200K of premarital business equity through the expected-value math: 50% likely split without a prenup, times a 41% divorce probability, comes to $41,000 of expected risk against a $4,000 attorney bill.

Legal fees range from a few thousand dollars to $50,000+ in a contested case, and they get all the attention. Splitting one household into two typically multiplies living costs by 1.5-1.6x — a structural cost that compounds for years.