Alimony in 2006?

Great Debates
1

I don’t know if this belongs here because it may or may not turn into a debate. However, here is my story.

I am in love with a man who is currently going through a divorce. We had planned to start a life together when he was informed by his attorney that there is an almost certain chance that he will need to pay her alimony.
They were married for 17 years, there is no reason why she did not work other than the fact that she went through job upon jobs never quite managing to stay anywhere to build a career. He claims he always encouraged her to work and yet she often did not. She now does work but makes considerably less than him as a clerk of some kind.
There are no children and from what I understand (again his claim) was that her homemaking skills were practically non existent. Her alimony will be due until she remarries or substantially increases her income on her own. Which may translate into …until one of them dies.

I have two children who I have supported by myself their entire lives. I have worked hard to build a nest egg and a good career. Upon the news of alimony, I immediately broke off the relationship. If we are to be together, I can not tolerate for one second money to be paid to another woman as a reward for her laziness. Yes, it would be “his” money but this isn’t what I signed up for, having money taken out of a home we will build together to pay her.

I can’t believe that in this day and age a spouse would be obligated to pay alimony. Is this simply a California thing or is this going on every where? It isn’t as if he makes a considerable salary, as I make more than him and after this, that gap will be substantially increased making me feel like I was supporting not only him but her also! I simply can not do it.

Is being independent and self reliant a selective thing for women these days? I want it all but if I don’t feel ambitious enough to get it on my own, gimme yours? Yes, I am bitter.

Thoughts?

2

Well, IANAL, and you didn’t ask this, but I REALLY thought that alimony tended to be awarded for very short amounts of time generally - like a couple of years to help the other spouse get on their feet.

In any case - I agree with you - I would never want someone to support me. Perhaps if I was taking care of an infant (that was ours), but at the end of a relationship I would feel like a whore taking $$ from a man that I no longer had any connection to.

However, I have the benefit of an education and skills that allows me to take care of myself. I suppose if I had gotten married at 18, been married for 30 years as a house wife, I wouldn’t necessarily be able to take care of myself so a brief amount of alimony - enough for me to get some sort of training - wouldnt’ seem totally out of line. After all, hubby would have benefited from having me keep house for those 30 years, right?

As to your situation? Well, I dunno. I don’t think I would marry the guy until he had his personal life sorted out, but you could still date him, no?

3

My understanding is that she is entitled to live in the lifestyle she’s accustomed to. If he supported her for 17 years, that’s the lifestyle she’s accustomed to. Now, usually they put a limit on it if the woman is young enough to get back into the workforce and support herself, i.e., possibly this woman, possibly not. The courts will probably make her work but will give her a portion of his 401K or something similar.

My SIL’s son collected alimony (now called “maintenance” in most places) from his wife when they divorced. She made a shitload of money and he was entitled to part of it for a period of time.

By the way, I think you’re doing yourself a disservice to bail on the relationship before you understand how long he’d be tied up with that. It might only be a year or two. And you don’t know the other side of the story.

4

I agree that this is pretty outrageous. I can’t see a single moral reason, in this day and age, why the ex-wife should get a penny. Why shouldn’t she pay him to support him in the lifestyle to which he’s become accustomed? If there were kids, or if she had put him through school, different story, of course. Doesn’t seem like that’s the case here. I’d maybe look for some different legal advice, and a bit of judge-shopping, if possible.

5

Yikes, that’s pretty drastic. You love the guy and want to marry him, but you’re willing to give that up because he’s carrying what you consider an unjustified financial burden that isn’t his fault and that he can’t do anything about?

Sounds to me kind of like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Are you really willing to wreck the happiness of a planned life together for both of you just in order to avoid sharing this financial burden?

I understand that it’s the perceived unfairness of the situation that’s angering you more than the actual monetary loss. Presumably, you would not be dumping your guy if he had just found out that he had, say, a manageable health problem that would require similarly expensive treatments for the rest of his life, right? The deal-breaker for you is not that he’s going to have a reduced income but that the lost income is going to somebody you feel doesn’t deserve it, right?

But even if it’s the principle of the thing rather than the money you’re upset about, is it really worth giving up somebody you love over something like this? Only you can make that decision, of course, but I hope you’ve thought about it long and hard (and after calming down).

I guess the actual debate here is: Is awarding alimony an obsolete and unjust practice in modern divorces, at least in cases where there are no children to care for?

I don’t know, personally. You’d probably need a marital and family law expert to give you the straight dope on what the legal attitude is toward alimony these days.

Speaking for myself, I certainly wouldn’t want to accept financial support from somebody I no longer loved enough to be married to, and/or who no longer loved me enough to be married to me (unless I was spending a large part of my life looking after his kids, that is). However, I also wouldn’t want to spend many years of my life being financially supported by any husband, current or ex, no matter how much money he had or how much he loved me. (Unless, again, I was giving up an independent career in order to look after his kids.)

On the other hand, if a guy has assumed the financial support of a woman in marriage for seventeen years after formally promising to spend his whole life with her, and then reneges on his promise, is he morally justified in abandoning all financial support? Isn’t it a bit late in the day to suddenly start demanding that a woman in such a situation should be independent and self-reliant and not expect a man to support her?

6

Whoa. Are you guys agreeing with Foxy that if the guy does turn out to have a permanent alimony obligation, she should dump him? Just because he has a smaller income than she thought he’d have? Holy cow, people. Am I misunderstanding something here?

7

People agree on all sorts of lifestyles when they’re married. The fact that she’s untrained and unable to support herself is not a newsflash to him. Maybe he wanted a trophy wife. There could be a million reasons. What’s fair is fair. Regardless of the situation, she did not have to work to support herself before, and she will need some time to get back into the workforce. Marriage is 20% love and 80% LEGAL CONTRACT. He is bound by the laws of his state to treat her with the human dignity she deserves. I can understand someone not wanting to buy into that financially, but for those who say it’s not fair…show me where.

8

Uh…no. I’m saying trying to start a relationship with someone who’s in the throws of another relationship is pretty well always a bad idea. Even if the other relationship is in it’s death throws.

I’m saying she should give the guy a break and at least date him while he sorts things out. Then, once everything shakes out, she can decide if his income is enough to satisfy her. For me personally, income is really, really low on the list of must have’s in a guy - however, Foxy40 aint me, and if income is important to her it isn’t my place to say otherwise.

9

No, not at all. But she might not want to sign up for it forever. I can understand that. Hey…life isn’t all about love, as much as we’d like to think it is. She has her own money and wants to spend it a certain way. If she doesn’t agree with how his money is being spent, she’s better off bailing now than to get into it and build resentment toward him and a woman she’s never even met. It’s good to know your own limits.

10

But why is she untrained and unable to support herself? What’s she been doing with herself? If she’s been slacking for 17 years, letting her husband bear the primary financial burden of supporting her lifestyle, that’s her fault. Maybe I don’t know what divorce means, but to me it means that her husband is not into that playing that game anymore. If paying alimony forces him to continue, how can that be fair? It’s pure parasitism.

11

I agree - alimony long enough for her to get some sort of training to support herself I can totally get behind. Alimony for the rest of her life so she can sit around eating bon-bons on someone elses dime? No frikin’ way.

12

It doesn’t matter what she was doing. What matters is that he *agreed * to it for 17 years. Hello!

If he was smart, he’d have taken the hint that she’s a slacker early on in the marriage when they were married for only a couple years. Seventeen years is AGREEMENT to the lifestyle. And I betchya that’s exactly what the judge will say.

13

It isn’t about the income ( I was already aware he makes about 40K less a year than I) it is about the financial attachment to another woman. I wouldn’t care if it were a dime. I will not have money taken out of our home to support someone who is perfectly capable of working and should live in the way HER income can support her. Not his and certainly not MINE. :rolleyes:

14

See…that’s just jealosy talking (not that I didn’t feel somewhat the same way when my husband paid settlement money to his ex for like five years). Her income IS his money. He agreed to it for 17 years and that’s what the courts will recognize. There is no law that says she has to go out and work. She’s done nothing wrong. The whole situation is HIS fault. I don’t blame you in the least for bailing…I just wish people would give her a break. She’s not the bad guy here.

15

By “go out to work” I meant during the marriage. SHe will probably have to find something once the maintenance period expires. That will depend on her age and education, I’d guess.

16

Absolutely. She isn’t the bad guy. I never said she was. She got a free ride and wants to keep in coming. No skills, no ambition and 17 years of being taken care of on the most part. Score!
She may be a very nice person. Old fashioned or just plain lazy, I have no way of knowing. The only thing I do know is that our system is really screwy to make one spouse pay for another when the marriage ends.
Is it HIS fault? Totally. He went along with the life style for years and years. Should he pay? No. Split everything fifty fifty and go their own way should be standard when there are no children. I don’t begrudge her half the house or savings or 401K. It is the future that burns my butt.

Am I selfish? Probably. Does it make a difference? Nope. His stock went considerably down when he brought this baggage to the table. Love isn’t enough anymore. I would turn bitter and angry. Although he doesn’t realize it, I am doing him a favor by getting out now. Someone suggested I continue to date him but no, I have children that are becoming attached. If we have no future, there is no longer a point to dating and causing all of us more pain in the long run.

I still can’t believe some folks think this is the least bit fair.

17

I’d like to say that I find it odd that women let themselves get into these situations where they have no way to support themselves without a partner, but I see it so often that I just assume there’s some kind of mass retardation or something.

I saw a program about a woman who thought her marriage was all rock solid, and he left her for a tart. She had no means of support and no clue what she was going to do for the rest of her life. I guess she finally got it together, but why put yourself through the stress?

It may not be fair, but that’s the way the law is written. You can’t force someone to work (particularly if you make it easy for them not to!!). Too bad he didn’t see the light sooner.

18

So what does divorce mean, then? If he stops agreeing to the lifestyle, why should he continue to have to pay? Where’s her divine right to this lifestyle she hasn’t earned, except by hanging around? I don’t get what you’re saying here – she has to be supported for the rest of her days just because she was supported for the previous 17 years?

19

I agree. She already reeped the benefits of his hard work with a nice life style and equity in real estate and 401K that she did not earn nor work for. Why should anyone think that she is entitled to future payments for even one day when the marriage is over? Legally I know she is but I am interested in knowing more about why some people agree with this law.

20

If I’m not mistaken, she’s entitled to half of everything they’ve accumulated together (CA, right? No fault, right?) and that includes both debts and assets. Not all debts and assets can be easily and quickly converted into cash for a settlement. Are they selling the house or is one of them keeping it? What about investments, banking, IRA’s. Can he afford to give her a lump sum settlement? At 40k a year, maybe not. If not, alimony might be a better choice for both of them.

He made a contract with her that she would have access to his income and retirement fund, for example. She trusted that contract. Now that he’s changed his mind about his contract, where does her retirement stand?

He made a legal contract. He assumed responsibilites both to her and to others in her name. So now he wants out, ok. He can get out. But one side can’t just walk away from responsibilites no matter how big a slacker the other side has (and we are only getting one side here after all.)

When a party withdraws from a contract, that party often has penalties and obligations it has to fulfill. That’s what’s happening here. It’s no different than disolving a business contract. One party can’t just say “I changed my mind” and skip off merrily into the sunset.

I have no advice to Foxy40 except to say that there’s a lot to be learned about a guy from the way he treats his promises and his former obligations.