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Say a young wife puts her career goals aside to work, supporting her husband as he goes through medical school and then residency. Now they have a few kids. The wife’s career options have really decreased. But she doesn’t mind, based on the promises hubby made. Then hubby meets a pretty nurse, and he demands a divorce. The couple has been married for, say, 8 years. I would think consideration must be given to that ex-wife beyond the number 8... not a hypothetical. It describes a couple I knew.

Absolutely, if the wife was faithful and the husband is the one who breaks the agreement they made "at the altar" and also in terms of family goals, such as having a parent raise the children and not a series of strangers. His future earnings are a marital asset.

What some states do is have the husband pay for some sort of retraining of the wife so she can get a job. But it is rarely possible for the average person to stay out of the work force for a decade or more and then have the same opportunities as the spouse, especially a man, whose family helped him go through professional grad school and he then has an uninterrupted licensed career. It especially stings if he marries another professional with other kids, and then focuses their combined higher incomes on their "lifestyle."

In the pre-"no-fault" days, adultery was a civil crime, and the abandoning spouse did not get rewarded for it as they do under "no-fault", whether male or female. They just get to break their partner's heart, mess up the kids, and "change partners and dance." The one who cared more, loved more, sacrificed more and tried to make the marriage work is the one who gets hosed, whether male or female.