#relationships

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.

Moving in together doesn't halve costs or double them. The OECD's square-root equivalence scale says a two-person household needs about 1.41x a single person's budget — we ran what that frees up.

The second earner's paycheck stacks on top of the first at the household's marginal rate, then childcare takes another $12,000-$24,000+ per child. We checked exactly where the math flips positive.

The feared marriage tax penalty barely exists for most couples. We checked the 2025 federal brackets and found the more common outcome is actually a bonus — and it gets bigger the more incomes differ.

Equal dollars aren't equal impact. We ran the numbers on a couple earning $8,000 and $2,000 a month splitting $3,000 in shared bills — and checked what a proportional split does instead.