Without knowing her situation, if she divorced at 43 after giving up a career to care for her then-husband and his home, that’s not totally crazy. It’s very hard to get back into the workforce when you are over 40 with no experience. My husband, who spent several years as the primary caregiver to our children, struggled with that.
But that example is also a lot time more than my friends’ situations would suggest is typical in my jurisdiction.
She worked for local government, I don’t recall what she did. Probably not great pay but she had had the job throughout her marriage, and gummint jobs have great benefits. She was living in the “family” home by herself, probably a 2000 sq ft house and it was filled with junk. I thought it was nuts to maintain that sort of lifestyle by yourself on the back of someone else. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I don’t see it as a political issue as it’s stated in the article. I suppose since a presidential candidate is signing it then it has to become political. New Jersey had an alimony reform act that did away with permanent alimony in 2014. Chris Christie signed it but it was put on his desk by a Democratic legislature in a firmly blue state. It’s taken awhile for states to move from an assumption that the world functions like it’s 1940 and women aren’t in the workplace. Probably the biggest part of the law states that for marriages under 20 years the alimony could not be longer than the length of the marriage and it is presumed to end at retirement age. Before that alimony was presumed to be permanent unless otherwise negotiated. It looks like Florida’s new law is similar.
I could be outdated in my info and thus wrong, but last I knew, in Idaho, alimony laws were gender-blind and you could only get alimony if the marriage lasted longer than 10 years and you needed to get or refresh/update your job skills because you left the workforce and sacrificed your career to be a stay-at-home-spouse. Alimony is only granted for something like 5 or 6 years while the SAHS gets back up to speed in the workforce again. Otherwise, Idaho is a non-alimony state.
As for moving to Florida to get a divorce to avoid alimony laws in other states, many courts judges/states are reluctant to get in the middle of someone else’s mess. If you lived in Florida with your spouse for a number of years and were an established resident of the state, then sure. Otherwise you might find yourself being told to go back to the state you were married in or a resident of and get divorced there.
FWIW when I was six years old (1973-ish) I went with my mom to Nevada so she could get a quick divorce. We lived in Illinois but Nevada was apparently better for a divorce. (I have no idea why…I was far too young to understand back then and had no need to figure it out later.)
Just saying, going to other states to get divorced is not a new thing.
It’s passed by politicians. Of course it’s political. That’s what “political” means. It may or may not be partisan, if that’s what you were thinking?
its faster …a “reno” divorce only took something around 30 days… and had more laws that were beneficial to the wife that most states did not at the time
It was so popular that they had a cottage industry for it from the 40s to the 80s
here’s a bit on it :
We did actually end up in Reno. Kidjanot.
It sucked. Really sucked. Maybe it is better now (no idea) but it sucked back then.
I’m no expert on alimony in Idaho - but let’s say someone gets married at 25 and spends 25 years as a stay at home parent. Now they are 50 years old and haven’t worked in 25 years. They are not going to be able to support themself within 5 or 6 years - they probably will never be able to. I’d be really shocked if Idaho ( or any other state ) would only award alimony for 5 or 6 years to this person rather than at least the 12 years until they turn 62.
It’s political because of who signed it this time. It shouldn’t be seen as paritisan because both red and blue states have passed similar laws. It’s not a particularly Republican issue despite the fact that this time a Republican signed it.
I assume the states that have communal property laws do something similar to Canada - where pension entitlements must be divided between the spouses when they divorce. I.e. Bob and Sally were married for 15 years, then divorce. Bob works another 20 years and is entitled to a pension. (remember them?) So Sally is entitled to 1/2 of 15/35ths of Bob’s final pension, give or take some actuarial fiddling. Often they settle for a cash amount in locked-in retirement savings that represents Net Present Value. Does the same apply to US Social Security?
(I knew a friend who got divorced in his 40’s, where there was a decent pension plan. His ex was surprised to find that the NPV of her share - 10 years of the 20 so far - was about $8,000 since he’d need to work another 15 or 20 years and NPV calculations used a decent interest amount back then.)
Not sure what the settlement is for our Canadian equivalent of 401K or IRA, but I assume it too is split.
So presumably the ex’s both share in what was coming due for retirement, rather than simple alimony after 65 (“you pay her”) in some cases?
Non-community property states may also divide pensions * - they are considered a marital asset in my state. If I’m due a $5000 month pension, and my ex husband is entitled to $1500 a month, his $1500 will reduce my payment. For SS, ex-spouses get a benefit under certain conditions but if my ex-husband gets a benefit based on my record , it does not reduce my payment.
*\ And other assets - just because we live in a non-community property state doesn’t mean in a divorce I get to keep everything that is in my name and leave my husband with nothing. Our assets acquired during the marriage will still be split equitably.
You should leave out the word “must.” It’s all subject to mutually agreed upon settlements. My ex waived her rights to her portion of my retirement. There was no legal recourse for me to fight it. She didn’t want it.
Right. This one gets politicized and seen with great trepidation (and even alleged deadly fear) because of which politicians were involved. Even when, as the article quotes, the governor vetoed an earlier broader version because of those same concerns.
Yes, my friend apparently borrowed the $8000 so he did not have to restart his pension plan membership.
Canada originally had mandatory splits, but was only in the federal jurisdiction. It didn’t help that one of the first cases in the news was a flight attendant who had to share her pension - aire travel is federal jurisdiction - but her ex with a much better pension under provincial laws was exempt from the requirement to split. Now I beleive it’s the case that all jurisdictions have this, but it’s optional.
But as I understand - no personal experience - is that it is all administered by the pension plan, so the pensioner is not “sending a cheque to the ex” every month, as I presume alimony works.
What I found when I retired was that it was manadatory at the time that a (non-divorced) surviving spouse must receive a benefit equal to at least 66% (I think) after the pensioner’s death. This reduces the amount the pensioner would receive otherwise by a certain amount.
The spouse has to sue for it, has to know that they can sue for it. the idea is to give them time to go to school or get training of some sort in order to be self supporting. Child support yes, spousal support no in Idaho. I know this because I discussed it with my divorce attorney (both times I got divorced here in Idaho)
The money (heh) quote:
The approval drew an outcry from members of the “First Wives Advocacy Group,” a coalition of mostly older women who receive permanent alimony and who assert that their lives will be upended without the payments.
“On behalf of the thousands of women who our group represents, we are very disappointed in the governor’s decision to sign the alimony-reform bill. We believe by signing it, he has put older women in a situation which will cause financial devastation. The so-called party of ‘family values’ has just contributed to erosion of the institution of marriage in Florida,” Jan Killilea, a 63-year-old Boca Raton woman who founded the group a decade ago, told The News Service of Florida in a text message Friday.
(My bold.) Alimony and the erosion of the institution of marriage? I’m not sure that’s the way to phrase it?
Yeah, I think if I wanted to not have a surviving spouse payment as part of my pension, my wife would have had to sign off on it.
I’d guess that the theory is a man is less likely to divorce his wife if he knows he’ll still have to support her anyway.
Interesting that “extortion to continue a marriage” counts as “protecting marriage from erosion”. Some people apparently have a different idea about what constitutes a marriage worth saving.
These are the people that are also trying to get rid of no-fault divorce, so presumably big on ‘til death do you part’/‘what God has joined, let no man put asunder’ (although I’ll note that only the Catholics really pay a lot of attention to that bit of the Gospel, and even they give you the ‘not a valid marriage for reasons’ out).