Great point--it goes both ways, this whole getting financially trashed in divorce thing. Maybe it helps for people to see that men aren't the only ones suffering in this regard. I'm so sorry that happened to your friends. I read one woman who talked about how during her marriage she'd carefully put money in her 401k whilst her husband would just blow his paychecks, so then when they got divorced, he got half of her 401k. Naturally, hearing these kinds of stories make us all a tad paranoid when we start dating, wondering if what we heard happened to others will happen to us, or, if we were already trashed before, being scared it will happen again. I kind of think it's good for me to hear all these horror stories so I can understand why divorced men and women are very risk-averse--understandably! And hearing these stories also helps me think about how to prevent such from happening to me, yet still ultimately balance that with being willing to take the risk of loving and maybe even marrying again. To be determined...