then comes divorce... gameplay notes on marriage and divorce in TS4

We will call this a part two to my previous "first comes love... gameplay notes on love and marriage in TS4." Next comes divorce for an average 28% of my couples, who still happily reap a better chance of marital success than most real life couples do. Even so, I think I still let my couples throw in the towel much more frequently than most simmers do. What can I say? Relationship strife interests me? lol!

In TS4 in just a year of gameplay so far, I have had four married couples come to the brink of disaster, three of which are almost certainly going to make it through to their divorces. Bruce and Pamela, Keri and Justin, Stephanie and Jeremiah—I'm calling Bella and Cameron my fourth couple, even though they've decided to give counseling a try and not call it quits just yet, because they've given me enough chaos and fodder to be part of this study.

This post won’t go much into all the hows and whys of the decision to divorce, but more about the process of it once it’s decided. But I did discover that there are actual divorce whims in the game. Who knew!? I had no idea until Keri rolled them, twice! I've never seen that divorce whim on ANY other sim ever, not even in somebody else's game, lol!

But the reason I’m not talking about how and why is because there are probably millions of reasons I might decide that one of my couples wants to break up. It's going to be different every time and probably happens about 85% on a storytelling level. As sims in game, you know most pixel couples wouldn't give two craps if you made them break up or make up or not. Their pixels are just not programmed to care that much... except for Keri, I guess.


the emotional divorce vs. the legal divorce:

In my game, much like in real life, these two things will likely happen at different times.



The emotional divorce happens at the moment of official and final separation. This can be decided by one or both spouses, but as long as one spouse is 100% officially done with the marriage and declares so, they can use the "divorce" or "convince to leave spouse" interaction in the game. Basically, it happens when I can't stand the sight of one or both of them rolling romantic whims for each other when it makes ZERO sense for their character. (More on that below in "marriage is sacred".) This would be more final than any trial separation or heated argument. This is a point where one or both parties has drawn up paperwork (like Bruce did with Pamela), or had a formal and binding agreement (like Justin and Keri), or walked the fuck out in a blaze of glory (like Stephanie).

Bella and Cameron have not yet had this moment in their story (and may never have it) and their sims are still married in my game.

Both interactions have pretty much the same outcome, but if there is a third party involved (ala Justin/Stephanie/Jeremiah or Cora/Bruce/Pamela) and it feels appropriate, I’ll use the “convince to leave spouse” because it gives the new couple a nice little moodlet that offsets the divorce moodlet.




Ha ha, I think it's amusing how the "convince to leave spouse" always looks like they're gonna say no, but then they say yes. (And I wonder if they ever say no? I've only tried it with two couples, but they only ever said yes.)

I also wish that the left spouse would get angry at the new partner/affair, because it’s totally unrealistic that they’re only angry at the leaving spouse. So usually I’ll initiate a few heavy insults or a fight to reflect that in my game.

But on the extreme other end of the scale, if the divorce is mutual and relatively amicable (like with Justin and Keri), I might even cheat away the hidden “broken up” moodlet that causes them to fight with each other. Those autonomous mean interactions can get pretty nasty, and for some couples it just feels wrong. So I'll just get rid of the moodlet with debug cheats, or else just keep them apart for a few days, because these moodlets don’t last very long at all.


marriage is sacred in TS4:

The reason I’m making these rules for my game is that married sims, no matter how shitty the relationship, no matter how awful the conversation or crappy the mood, will invariably be nice to each other. Their whims will favor their spouse, no matter who else is on the lot they might like more. They’ll auto flirt and roll positive romantic whims. It always creeps me out to have a sim deep in the red with their soon-to-be ex, but rolling “try for baby with…” or “woohoo with…” Which is not to say that such a scenario could never happen, but since I know that it always happens, I only find it annoying. Or sometimes disturbing in some storylines (like Stephanie and Jeremiah). Or flat out icky for the situation (like with Bella and Cameron).

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You just found him with his skank and you want to do what!?! o_0

It’s really shitting programming, IMO, or perhaps an unfixed glitch, that a married sim with a very negative romance acts hardly any differently than one with a positive romance. What is the negative romance bar even FOR!?! Is it not meant to indicate someone your sim is repulsed by? If it is repulsion, then why do they roll positive romantic whims? There are negative romantic actions they could roll whims for (give cold shoulder, criticize woohoo techniques), but that never happens. Why even have a negative romance bar if it doesn't do anything???

It might be interesting story fodder if it didn't happen with ALL troubled marriages. But it does, every single one. A married sim (like above) who is repulsed by her partner, couldn't be in a crappier mood, he couldn't be in a crappier mood, couldn't possibly be having a worse conversation, has ZERO business rolling these kind of whims.

So at least after the divorce, the romantic whims will stop, but that won't stop the auto-flirting. And I've found that to be a serious nuisance in my game, because then their new partners will get mad at them because they "cheated." Sometimes even if their lover rejected the flirt. Sims in this game get mad for things that make no sense, and then in other situations where they should get mad, they don't. Ugh.

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WTF Sim-Stephanie and Sim-Keri!?! Cut it the fuck out!

Argh! So this is maddening, lol! Although in the second picture, Stephanie didn't get mad about the flirting (she was upset that she hasn't had enough exercise lately, lol!) So maybe they are tweaking jealousy a little bit? But neither of these sims have any business flirting with their exes in the first place!

(Edit, 7/24/16: This mod seems to work for preventing negative and ex-romances from flirting with each other autonomously while allowing couples to continue flirting with each other! Yay! Exactly how it should work!)

This mess doesn’t seem to be the case (that I've found) for unmarried romances that are troubled, only married ones. Although, to be honest, I haven't had very many unmarried breakups in my game yet. But it leads me to believe that the marriage token is sacred in TS4. If you cheat the marriage token off of their relationship status, most of the nonsense stops. Married couples will be drawn to each other when it makes absolutely no sense. Married couples in TS4 will always roll very strong romantic whims for each other (flirt, kiss, woohoo, try for baby) no matter what. EVEN when they have a partner on the lot who they have a stronger relationship with. EVEN if their friendship and romance bars are full red. EVEN if they're in a bad mood, having as shitty conversation, just been cheated on, or whatever. Always. Marriage trumps everything, even when it doesn't make any sense. 

I have absolutely no idea what caused Keri's divorce whims, though, because she never had negative friendship with Justin. I don't even think that their romance bar was very negative, either. She doesn't have the non-committal trait or anything, I just think she's that ornery.

So, long story short, that is why I have my couples divorce at the moment of official separation. It doesn't solve all of TS4's wonky programming problems, but it solves half of them.

You can also cheat off the marriage token temporarily for just one sim. I did this with Stephanie a lot during the making of her story, around the point where she took off her wedding ring. It does not make the sims really divorced, and it's one-way rather than two. (Jeremiah still saw her as his spouse.) The marriage token will still be there when the game is restarted again, but for the length of that gameplay session, your sim can "pretend" to be single. You could use it to enact a kind of "trial separation".

Likewise, I fully intend to experiment with cheating back the marriage token after divorce. Like with Jeremiah, I imagine he still thinks of Stephanie as "his wife" until the ink is try on their final divorce papers.


drawing it out: 

So, since my in-game divorces happen sometimes years before it’s all done with and finalized, sometimes in my game I wish the moodlets lasted a lot longer for particular stories that I’m playing. You can add back moodlets after they’ve expired using a cheat.

I will be adding to this list as I find more appropriate breakup moodlets, and I'm still trying to figure out what the codes are for some moodlets that I'd like to use. And I believe you can even give trait-specific moodlets (like the jealousy ones) to a sim who doesn't have that trait, if you'd like inject that roleplay into your sim's emotions for whatever situation you're creating.

Sims.add_buff [buffname] 

newbeginning = +3 happy
driftinglove = +3 sad
gotdivorced = +4 sad
jealousfury = +3 angry
jealous_pangs = +1 uncomfortable

the legal divorce: 

The legal divorce happens all in storytelling. And perhaps the sim's bank account. The sims won’t know any better (except for maybe their sim lawyers, who will get paid!). It will depend on their story what happens next for them.

My sims pay a fee of $800 each to the government for filing, and depending on the ease or difficulty of their divorce, they will each pay their lawyers differently.

In my game, any sim in the Business career can go to "law school" to become a "lawyer". Again, it's all storytelling though. I really do miss the lawyer career we used to have in TS2. As well as the education career and so many others!


One last picture, just because I like to torture Jeremiah's sim in my game, lol! I had to un-engage Stephanie and Justin to get the "convince to leave spouse" option to show up so that I could use it. But then I had to re-engage them, which can never be a bad thing... except to Jeremiah.

Jeremiah is still jealous, even after the in-game divorce. But that's another story for another post!