When 50-year-old men divorce their stay-at-home wives of 20+ years, this is the exact rationale they use to resist splitting assets 50-50 or paying alimony.

“Why should I split my assets with someone who didn’t contribute financially?” They ask.

They conveniently ignore that a stay-at-home wife managing everything/ doing chores herself saves thousands of dollars. If she didn’t do those tasks, what would be the alternative? To pay someone to do them. So yes, she is performing unpaid labor. Calling it “just life” or a “labor of love” sounds romantic until that work becomes completely undervalued and even held against you because there’s no dollar sign attached to it.