I think the concept of perpetual alimony (for either partner) is outdated. I agree with what jsgoddess said upthread, that alimony should be calculated with a cap on years, to give the other partner some time to get on their feet, get reskilled and to find work, should be what courts are aiming for.
Collect SSI spousal survivor benefits?
I’d have to go with agreeing with alimony but also agreeing it should be capped based on how long it would take for the other party to start a nominal career.
I work with the military and the divorce rate is huge. Deployments and time away from family takes a heavy toll, especially on couples that get married too young. I worked with a very intelligent and attractive women who was one of the best writers and editors I had ever met. Her husband is a Marine pilot who constantly moves to different posts worldwide. She followed him, but at a devastating cost to her career. Doubly so when they had their kids and she couldn’t work as many hours. I would like to think if they ever got divorced that she would get something for all the years of her career she gave up. All things being equal, he’s a nice guy and very smart, but if they were on equal terms with their jobs, I think she would be promoted ahead of him.
If they are old enough or have young enough children, yes. My understanding, which may be extremely flawed, is that Social Security is not an option if you are able-bodied, below 60, and without young children. I hope someone will correct me if I am wrong.
Thank you for sharing that. As a person who was adopted within months of birth in 1969 along with my also adopted brother in 1974, along with the fact that my Dad was a career Army officer for 36 years…and coupled with the fact that I myself served in the Army for four years in the late 1980’s/early 1990’s…I can second what you say about the state of military divorce rates (which I suspect are far higher amongst enlisted than officer personnel, but I am guessing). There was a whole lot of loving going on in Germany in 1990, I can only imagine the current “let me show you my tattoo” crowd today!
You should have divided the responses by gender.
The “reward” is the promise between the two that each will take a certain role in Marriage Partnership Inc., that each role is worth 50% of Marriage Partnership Inc’, and that should Marriage Partnership Inc., be dissolved, each will leave with 505 of the fruits of their combined efforts.
I said “other” because like others in this thread I think it has useful application in some cases - when one partner gives up employment to support the other, or (which I think may be more common these days) when there’s an agreement of “okay, I support you through law school and then you support me through med school” only we get divorced during the “and”. Otherwise, I think it’s an outdated concept. If I got married to a stockbroker tomorrow I’d still be a librarian because that’s what I do. If we then got divorced I wouldn’t expect money from him - I didn’t give up anything, I just did what I’d have done.
But what if one partner’s sacrifice and support enabled another to get a $250,000 per year career? Because the working partner didn’t have to pick the kids up from school, do the grocery shopping, and all the other full-time chores handles by the non-working partner?
If the non-working partner enabled the working partner to earn $250,000 per year, why should they be condemned to a couple of years of “getting reskilled” to start work again at the bottom of the ladder? IF they can do that (not easy when you’re older).
If that’s the case, then the non-working partner could say “No; I won’t do that. Too much risk. Therefore, you will ahve to pick up the kids from school, too, even though that means you won’t be able to elevate your career to the $250,000 level.”
The point is that the two agree - even if not explicitly - to do that. Dumping one partner in an endeavour when it gets profitable is not fair. So the courts endeavour to prevent that and recognise that the two people together built that career, and both deserve to benefit from it.
The working partner who works late, goes on business trips, comes home to a nice house and a cooked dinner with the kids all sorted out - they can only do that if someone else is taking up the slack. That’s why single parents find it much harder to create lucrative careers; they don’t have another person doing 50% of the work.
Sure, they could agree that enither does that. They’ll both have mediocre jobs and do the domestic stuff equally. And in those cases, alimony tends not to be awarded (or is minimal). But they agree together that one will sacrifice X so the other can gain Y, with the understanding that both will share Y. Breaking that agreement just because your emotions have changed isn’t fair.
I agree with this. I don’t think it should be an ongoing thing though. Perhaps in a case like this the spouse getting support would be given a period of five years and then that’s it. They could use the five years to go back to school or get other job training, that the other spouse should also pay for.
I dunno. Five years of support and school to get a job when you’re 50 and have lost 25 years of career growth to support your spouse’s career seems like a pretty shitty deal. If you’re 35 and have lost 5 years of career growth, it seems fair enough. One-size-fits-all seems like as bad an idea here as it is in asset splitting and custody arrangements.
I guess this is why I’m glad I’m marrying someone whose on track to be better educated than I am, and in a few years will likely make more money than I do at the time.
When both people work, and their level of education/employment is about equal, things are easier in my opinion. When I was dating, having a college education wasn’t necessarily a requirement per se, but having a career in lieu of one was. This is an example of why- I want someone fiscally responsibe to care for themselves.
smug
Then they had better have real conversations about that and put it down in writing what will happen in the event of the marriage dissolving and figuring out just what the risks and rewards are.
I am not a big one for implicit promises or contracts.
The alternative is supporting someone in perpetuity, despite that you’re still working your arse off to maintain your $250,000/year career, trying to maintain your own house alone after having had someone there to help you while you were building the career, despite that you may now be ready to move on to another relationship, to try and build a new home with someone else?
That knife cuts both ways. I said the idea of perpetual alimony was outdated, and notice I also didn’t give a limit on what I thought was a fair amount of time for alimony to be awarded, simply that there should be an end date in site and that I feel a fair recompense for giving up your career is to be supported and reskilled to the point where you can support yourself.
If you CHOOSE to give up your career to be a stay-at-home parent/spouse to support your partner’s career, you also CHOOSE the risk that it may break down at some point. You deserve to be supported and helped for a period of time so you’re not left in a situation where you’re broke and homeless, but if you’ve withdrawn from the relationship, you don’t get a blank cheque in perpetuity just because your ex-spouse happens to make good money.
And this should go without saying, but all instances of “You” in the above post are the general you, not aimed at any poster in particular.
Just a precision on the thread:
There are three kinds of alimony. Contractual (based on agreements between the parties), compensatory (e.g.: wife sacrificed her career so the husband could concentrate on his career; or one person worked to finance the other person’s schooling) and non-compensatory.
Non-compensatory seems to seek to equalize the income of the individuals irrespective of any sacrifices they’ve made. E.g.: In Canada, the optional guidelines on spousal support (which tend to be followed by the courts) state that for a childless couple without any major sacrifice of either party, the amount of the alimony will be 1.5% to 2% of the difference in gross income per year and that the duration of the alimony will be 50% to 100% of the duration of the marriage.
To give an example, this means that if Taylor and Morgan form a couple where Taylor makes 50K and Morgan 100K and that they stay together for 10 years, Morgan could have to give Taylor 15% to 20% of the gross income difference for 5 to 10 years for a total of between 37 500$ to 100 000$.
Contractual alimony is just a question of contractual freedom.
Compensatory alimony seems to make sense, although I don’t see why the unjust enrichment recourse couldn’t be used.
Non-compensatory alimony seems ridiculous. If I make 50K a year while my partner makes 100K and that we split up, I’m going from 150K for two people to 50K for one person and could ask for alimony. I don’t see why getting used to a given standard of living entitles me to have someone else pay for it. If I enjoyed a 150K-for-2-people standard of living during the relationship and must go back to an inferior one after it, it was good while it lasted.
If he stays in the military for at least 20 years (long enough to earn a pension) and they are married 10 years or longer, she’d be entitled by law to half his military pension. As a former federal civil servant, my husband is automatically entitled to half my federal 401K, too. He’d have to file a letter with the federal 401K system specifically declining the cash to be exempt from that.
I know it’s hard for younger folks to understand the alimony issue, but back in the days when gender roles were more rigidly defined, it really was a necessary provision and still is under certain circumstances today - and yes, there is nothing in the laws that indicates gender, so yes, it can and has been awarded to men under appropriate circumstances. Remember that it’s not only current earning capacity that’s affected, but past earnings given up in terms of retirement savings that is completely forgone and there’s no way to make up for that.
There are indeed huge risks to agreeing to allow one person to be the major breadwinner - I see them especially sharply now that I have power of attorney over my parents’ affairs. Both of my parents are well-educated folks, but my mom quit working when I was born, as was custom for those days (they are in their 80s now). My dad’s social security check is more than 3 times hers. I need to find out how he directed the distribution of his pension (he doesn’t remember after all these years) - she doesn’t get one because she didn’t work long enough to earn one. He had the choice of having it end when he dies (which meant more $ per month) or continuing on until she passes. If he picked the latter, she’s screwed if she survives him because it is my understanding that his social security ends when he dies. If she’d never worked, she’d probably still get some of his SS, though I don’t know it would much more than what she gets on her own. They do have some money saved, but with the tiny amount of her SS, she’ll blow through the savings fairly quickly. Currently I’ve been able to set things up so they aren’t using savings but that won’t be true if he dies first and all his cash ends.
My mom, being the traditional sort, has lamented to me that I’ve never been able to quit work and just handle the househould affairs, but I can’t imagine having to ask anyone else for money and I never want to have to do that. Not having kids makes that easier, but I’m quite happy with the decisions I’ve made in regards to this.
Just remember that regardless you are taking a risk when you commit to a future with anyone else. Either of you could become ill/disabled at any time and unable to contribute income. That’s something you need to think of and plan for too.
Late 50s? My mother has a friend who got divorced when she was over 70. She hadn’t worked in over 40 years. Try entering the workforce after retirement age with no skills. When she got married, women were expected to stop working when they had children, if not before. Why shouldn’t she get some of his pension?He was free of all responsibility for child-rearing and housework while he was earning that pension.
It all depends on the circumstances and couldn’t possibly be one size fits all. For one thing, there’s no maximum age for divorce
Society - as manifested by it’s laws - disagrees with you. Consequently, married partners do not have to put it in writing, and that contract is assumed unless contradicted by a pre-nup.
It’s not in society’s interests to do that. That way, nobody would ever choose to make that sacrifice. And that reduces the net achievement heights of society because fewer people can manage the jobs which drive society.
It’s in society’s interest that the two-person partnership be maintained and worthwhile for both partners. And society recognizes that as two equal contributions netting a single career.
If one were consigned to merely “being able to support oneself” after spending years helping someone else be able to live in luxury, one would never do it. And so the latter would be denied the support allowing said career to be built, reducing the number of such people overall. And society wants those people, because they drive the economy, get qualifications and do specialist jobs, make achievements, and so on.