Ouch. Is every divorced woman a prostitute in your opinion? Or every married woman? Or both?
This “expensive hooker” is the mother of one of his children and part of the payments will be child support… and as the child is used to living as a millionaire, then a millionaire’s lifestyle she will recieve…but hey, don’t let the facts get in the way of your rant.
I was simply responding to your statement that “she doesn’t have the skills needed to get back into the work force”. Of course she can enter the work force again. Maybe not in the type of job she would like, but she could find a job to support herself.
It’s clear that you wouldn’t want her to get a bad job either, which is fine, but the blanket statement “she doesn’t have the skills needed to get back into the work force” is incorrect.
This I agree with.
However, you said that you would have to pay her “$z amount until she dies”, which is quite different.
In your particular case, you do owe her, since she worked while you went to school.
Of course not.
But a young woman who marries a 60 year old billionaire, who divorces him 4 years later and expects $300 million is getting very close to the definition of a hooker.
One caveat is that we don’t really know yet how much she is demanding, if she is demanding anything at all. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.
I find it very interesting that you consider accepting alimony or being supported an insult and yet, you are debating the validity of it? I can’t help but wonder why my assumption would offend you.
You absolutely DO have an obligation to your ex and your child. Under your particular circumstances. Good for you for not only honoring your obligation but supporting it here. (Although the snide remark towards another poster was uncalled for IMO.)
She sacrificed and you benefited. Therefore, I view this as repayment of a loan so each person has an equal chance of financial success in their futures.
I do get a big kick out of people blaming the spouse for putting up with something for years to reinforce his duty to support. If he threw her out after two years, he doesn’t have to support her and yet he is a jerk for not tolerating her “warts and all.”
I don’t think anyone will dispute that you don’t know a person 100% until you marry them. One goes into it thinking of a life long commitment not a life long sentence.
I am so glad I had a prenup even though I thought it was a silly waste of money at the time!
How do you know she’s divorcing him?
Actually, I support my disabled and extremely expensive husband. And, should we divorce, I would expect to pay alimony.
Your insinuations are pretty offensive.
What had she done to be able to spend all that money while she was married to him? What she has done is be a person a very rich man wanted to marry. How about their child? What has the child “done” to deserve so much money aside from being born?
Some people get a lot of money for very little (or no) effort. It’s none of my business.
Because her husband is the one who signed the contract of lifelong mutual support and responsibility with her. If somebody is required to support her, he’s first in line.
Sure, in theory you could set up a family-law structure where a divorced, non-self-supporting spouse returns to the custody of his/her parents and they resume responsibility for supporting him/her. IIRC, that was the custom for divorced women in biblical Jewish societies, with the proviso that the divorced woman regained whatever assets (dowry) her parents had given her husband at the time of the marriage.
But in modern society, support for a non-self-supporting person is considered to be the obligation (at least partly and temporarily) of the spouse or ex-spouse who voluntarily signed that contract of lifelong mutual responsibility. Lacking that option, the responsibility falls on the society as a whole through welfare programs, disability, private charity, etc.
Again, nobody is arguing that this arrangement is necessarily fair in every case, or that it’s the only possible way to deal with marriage and divorce as legal institutions. But the fact that it isn’t fair in every case is fundamentally irrelevant. That’s not its purpose.
No. The definition of a hooker is a woman who voluntarily exchanges sex for money voluntarily paid to her by a customer. If Paul McCartney is not a john, Heather Mills McCartney is not a hooker.
By the way, as holmes noted, she did bear his child in legal wedlock, if you think that counts for anything.
What’s insulting about your assumption is its insinuation that your opponents have chosen their position based on self-interest, rather than on reason and principle.
It’s the same reason you feel insulted when your opponents suggest that what really bothers you about modern alimony law is the prospect of having to sacrifice some of your former boyfriend’s money.
(And note that wm said “perceived weakness or vice”. You’ve made it very clear that you do indeed perceive being supported by a spouse to be a weakness or vice, except perhaps if there are children involved. So irrespective of what wm personally thinks about spousal support, s/he has correctly characterized your view of it, AFAICT.)
Who here is claiming that divorcing a spouse after two years, or divorcing them after 17 years for that matter, automatically makes anybody “a jerk”?
Everybody knows that sometimes marriages just don’t work out. The point is that having the marriage not work out doesn’t automatically release one from all the legal responsibilities of marriage.
It seems that you and Polerius are both somewhat confused about what’s actually being argued here. Nobody is saying that lazy spouses who refuse to support themselves are acting ethically or responsibly. Nobody’s saying that divorce law is always fair to all participants, nor that the modern version of divorce law is the only possible version we could have.
We’re just pointing out that if marriage is legally considered a lifelong contract of mutual support and responsibility, then there are rational social reasons for awarding alimony to non-self-supporting ex-spouses, irrespective of whether they “deserve” it in terms of their individual ethics and character.
Why is this so tough for you to grasp? Why are you reduced to assuming (incorrectly) that anybody who’s okay with this system must be a non-self-supporting dependent motivated by mere self-interest?
jsgoddess is right…this statement is offensive. You have absolutely nothing to back this up. I can assure you that it doesn’t apply to me any more than it does to jsgoddess. My attitude on this subject comes from my belief in marriage as an institution, and my even stronger belief that when people take on obligations, they should see them through.
You’ve taken the words right out of my mouth (keyboard?), but said it much clearer than I probably could have. Thanks.
Maybe this has already been pointed out previously in the thread, but can you provide a cite that “marriage is legally considered a lifelong contract of mutual support” ?
It may be so, but it would be interesting to see the law actually say so.
If it is so, what is the purpose of divorce then?
okay then let me restate it 
She doesn’t have the skills to go into a job that a 46 year old women with a child who helped put her husband through Graduate School would need to accommodate a similar lifestyle she was accustomed to before her husband voided the contract they had set up 24 years prior.
better?
$z amount is a pittance. I hope not to have to pay it–but in the big scheme of things it is nothing. I could have fought that amount but in reality it wasn’t worth it to me. Consider it the equal to when you are selling your house and the buyer wants you to throw in the washer/dryer. Yes it is money–but overall it isn’t worth fighting the issue. I get full and complete access to my daughter, an exwife who I get along with very well, a future wife who gets along with my daughter and my exwife because there is no strife. Worth $z–you bet
look I understand your point. If this situation is a the OP describes I would be pissed off too. But I doubt the story. Things are rarely as black and white as the OP seems to think they are. Especially when it comes to divorce—and especially when it is after a long marriage.
Her contention was that people who took the contrary position were also receiving money and that is why they held that position. I proved her statement was bullshit and she should apologize for insulting me and them.
Well my snide comment wasn’t nearly as rude as yours and you haven’t apologized for it. If Poleris is upset by my comment I suppose he/she can ask for an apology. I suppose I was a bit upset that he feels my ex should work at McDonalds
I know you state that this woman just sat around and did nothing–but frankly anyone who would accept that from a spouse for 17 years is not too bright of a person in my opinion. So obviously she provided ‘something’ for him to stay for that long–sex? companionship? conversation? who knows–but something or why stay for 17 years? Maybe in her mind she was there for him–she was the comfort when he had a hard day at work–that is not much different than me benefitting from my ex when I went to school.
Who said he was a jerk if he left after two years? That is what I would have done. No one forced him to stay there–and yes he does have an obligation if he stayed with it for 17 years. It took him 17 years to figure out she wasn’t going to ever go to work? What–is he a slow learner?
If I worked for a company for a year I don’t expect them to foot my retirement–but damn it if I give 25 years to that company I expect something. And if I worked for a company that didn’t have that in place then I am to blame.
I don’t have an issue if you decided to break it off with this guy because he was an idiot. That makes sense. But your stated opinion was that he had to pay this woman money (which supposedly you don’t care about) and that was the reason for not going forward is disingenuous at best.
To break the contract. But breaking a contract carries penalties and responsibilities with it. You can’t just say “I’ve decided I no longer want to honor the terms of this contract” and walk away completely free of its responsibilities. Not if the other party to the contract doesn’t agree.
But what if both parties want to break the contract (as in many divorces). Then, there should be no penalties to either party, right?
Also, I forgot to mention that many times, it is the wife that wants to break the contract, and she still gets alimony. So, she breaks the contract and the husband pays the penalties for breaking the contract.
I don’t think your “penalties for breaking the contact” analogy works for divorce and alimony.
The way I read it, there is no penalty, per se. If both parties are capable of supporting themselves, no alimony will be awarded. If this woman was capable of supporting herself, they’d go their separate ways and that would be that. Alimony isn’t designed to punish. It’s based on need.
Not entirely, no It would probably be more accurate to say that marriage is a contract that can’t be entirely broken if one of the partners still needs the support it provides. As Kalhoun says, if neither party needs the financial support provided in the marriage, nobody has to pay anybody alimony.