I understand. I have a sister who’s been married once (and still is), has kids, and is doing just fine. By my standards, I would tell anyone that I know not to marry her - and be dead wrong.
My point is, even though I did a lousy job of communicating it, that I look at marriage as a probability game (i.e., a lottery). And no matter how much you think you know the person that you’re about to marry...you don’t. The system is rigged for her to scram with the kids and then collect money from the loser husband. So the temptation and opportunity will always be there - and the question then becomes what is the cost to her? If her friends and family consists of people who have scrammed and taken the dough, then it becomes very easy to do the same. On the other had, if she comes from the ‘old country’ where people were expected to marry once and stick it out, it gets much harder to scram when things get rocky.
In my case, my wife is from the ‘old country’ and her 6 siblings have all been married to the same person and are still married to the same person after 20+ years. What does that mean for me - it means that she put up with a LOT of crap that no American woman would have stood for (there’s a reason it took me to age 30 just to have a girlfriend) - but we got through (and no, I didn’t cheat...just wouldn’t have ‘measured up’ to feminist standards). In any case, we’re past that and doing ok.
So I’m sorry for the American women that I might be hurting. I don’t really blame them - as we’re all products of our environment and there are lots of excellent ones out there - but until our system treats marriage as something to protect, it is VERY RISKY for any guy, particularly if he makes decent money, to risk it in this way.
I know many couples who have never divorced, gone through rocky situations (financial, illness or family matters) and have never even considered divorce. My own husband is from a broken home yet his siblings are all happily married and not divorced. I came from a story book home yet both of my siblings have been divorced. There isn't a rule book - some people are selfish or childish or change as they mature. Some can work it out together, some can't. But to say the risk is all on the man is wrong. Women risk too - some make more money than their husbands, or perhaps one person gives more emotionally and risks that failure. The children risk losing stability and trust.
You seem to focus mostly on money - do you not realize that most women with children don't come away from a divorce rolling in money - most have to downsize considerably and go to work if they were stay at home Moms. The children lose not only the foundation of family they have known, and their home, but often lose the time they had with their mother as well. And add only seeing Dad every other weekend, or whatever, to the mix and I feel more sorry for the children than the selfish adults who couldn't work it out or made a bad decision to marry that person in the first place.