Ask Dr. Helen: Should Alimony Die a Quick Death?
by Helen Smith
An anonymous reader writes in:
Dear Dr. Helen,
I recently read your post about a man whose wife had killed their son and now she wants alimony while in prison! It seems you didn’t think this was a very good idea and I agree. But my real question to you is “what is your personal opinion of alimony–do you think it’s passé?”
Dear Anonymous Reader,
Good question. First, let me make clear that we are distinguishing alimony here from child support which is a whole different matter. Children have to be supported by someone and are in a different category than grown-ups who should be held responsible for their lives and their livelihood. I will discuss alimony only which is defined as “an allowance for support made under court order to a divorced person by the former spouse, usually the chief provider during the marriage. Alimony may also be granted without a divorce, as between legally separated persons.”
Personally, I have a hard time justifying long term alimony payments to men or women in today’s society. Years ago, when one spouse (typically women) was expected to stay home with the kids, tend the house and generally had no training or as many opportunities to make a living as women do today, I would say that alimony might have been more fair. However, in today’s world, in which women have fought for the right to equality, alimony seems more like a kid getting an allowance from daddy and I believe it should be abolished altogether except for extremely dire circumstances where a spouse is older, cannot work at all, and for only a short term period. No man or woman should be held to being a slave to an ex-spouse after a marriage ends. That said, if we are going to have alimony laws, I believe that men and women should be held to an equal standard under the law. But apparently, many women do not feel that equality holds when they are the ones who have to take responsibility.
In this Forbes article, women are angry about paying alimony:
A lot of women are indignant now that the shoe is increasingly on the other foot, says Carol Ann Wilson, a certified financial divorce practitioner in Boulder, Colo. “There’s this sense of, ‘What’s yours is ours, but what’s mine is mine,’” Wilson says. “My first response to that is, ‘All these years we have been looking for equality; well, this is what it looks like.’ I think women get angrier about having to pay than men do.”
Or take a look at what a couple of female commenters have to say when Kevin Federline asks Britney for more spousal support:
Do you believe this guy? Still asking for money. He is using the kids as big ticket items for his greed. The LAZY ASS! why don’t he get a job…..Kevin Fed…….LOSER!
this broke ass wants brittenys kids and more of her money???? what the hell. this lazy worthless piece oof shit nedds a fukin job. he wudnt even have a life without brittany
If Kevin was a woman, would we see this type of outrage? You might think K-Fed is a poser and a loser (and in a way, he is) but many men who have written to me say that they secretly find it satisfying that the shoe is on the other foot for a change and women are getting to experience what men have been dealing with for ages.
Men’s rights columnist Glenn Sacks points out another frustrated woman who got stuck paying alimony and set up a website called WomenPayingSupport.com whose motto is “Be a Man Among Men…Don’t Ask for Spousal Support.”
My motto? “Real men are champions of justice and don’t give in to manipulation from gender ‘feminists’ who want to have their cake and eat it too.” That’s not the way that equality works. If women don’t have to pay, then neither should men. People should learn to stand on their own two feet and take responsibility for their choices. I say abolish alimony altogether.
If alimony laws continue to hurt only men, nothing will change. But once women are affected in more and more numbers, there will be an outcry for change. As Tom Leykis, a nationally-syndicated talk show host stated, “The only way to abolish alimony is to make women pay it.” Only then will alimony laws be considered passé and dropped altogether except for extreme short term cases, as it should be.
What do you think–should alimony die a quick death, should it continue as is or change to somewhere in-between?
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If you have a question you would like answered, please leave it below or email me at askdrhelen@hotmail.com. Your questions may be edited for length and clarity. Please note that your first name only or no name at all will be used to identify your question-if you want me to use your name, tell me, otherwise you will be referred to by your first name or as “a reader” etc.
Helen Smith is a psychologist specializing in forensic issues in Knoxville, Tennessee and blogs at drhelen.blogspot.com. This advice column is for educational and entertainment purposes only and does not purport to replace therapy or psychological treatment.
Much depends upon circumstances. If one spouse is the homemaker and the other the bacon-bringer, the homemaker is going to need some time to adjust. And the one that files for divorce should be assumed to feel they can get along just fine without the other.
Whatever the situation, alimony shouldn’t last forever. Take it down to zero, in stages, over four years? Help someone you once loved? Fine. Be slave to them forever? Forget it!
David Bowie said it pretty well, I think.
I think alimony is still relevant today and women should be subject to these payments. I am the primary breadwinner in my family. When our children were young, we decided that one of us should stay home and at that time, I was earning more than my husband and we chose to have him stay home. My husband stayed home focusing on our children, does the laundry, grocery shopping, etc. Fortunately, we are still happily married and not expecting to divorce. Our decision to have my husband stay home has definately impacted his earnings power should he return to the workforce. Why shouldn’t he be compensated for this? I have certainly benefited from having my husband home.
I recall back in my college days (I rode to campus on a log skid behind my pet triceratops) I used to see all the liberal sociology professors wearing buttons that read “68 cents.” This was to signify how much money the average women made for the same work done my a man.
Now, a few millenia later, things have indeed changed. I have had many bosses, only one of them male. And I, for one, think the whole concept of alimony belongs with the Taliban and other non-progressive groups.
Kill alimony. And the next time I hear a woman pining about how women deserve equality, I will ask her if she’s registered for the draft.
There are certainly inequities out there when it comes to alimony. However, the “traditional family” is far from dead. There remain a great deal of couples who have agreed, either explicitly or implicitly, that one of them will stay home with the kids while the other one goes to work. Where that sort of bargain has been made, it is entirely appropriate for the courts to enforce it via an alimony order.
Certainly women can get a job much more easily today than in the “old days.” But if the woman has been out of a job for 5 or 10 or 15 years, it will be much harder for her to get a job which would pay her as much as she would be making had she been in the workforce for that period of time.
And let’s not forget the spouses who work and keep the kids to allow the other spouse to finish law school or medical school, only to be dumped not too long after graduation. They’ve got a legitimate claim for some sort of alimony. They made a choice to invest their time in that relationship, with certain expectations (chiefly that it would continue). The lawyer/doctor spouse accepted the benefits of their spouse’s choice in that regard, whether they actively encouraged it or not. Alimony is appropriate in such a situation.
As usual with such complicated questions, alimony can only be reviewed case by case. Where both partners have been working more or less continuously, no alimony would be needed. But where one spouse has taken care of the home and the kids, or where one spouse has funded the other’s professional education, then some alimony is required by basic fairness.
I think in cases where alimony is appropriate there should be term limits. The alimony shouldn’t last longer than the marriage.
Why not just abolish marriage as a legal partnership altogether?
You folks don’t understand politics.
You can’t get rid of “welfare as we know it” without forcing men to pay alimony.
The courts recognize that women just can’t do what men can do – which is provide for a family.
And … puleeeeeeeze Dr. Helen. Don’t give me that tripe about alimony being different from child support.
Obviously, you’ve never paid child support before and watched how your spouse spent said support.
Child support = alimony (welfare) with a pleasant … “its for the children” moniker.
My ex- wanted alimony. My lawyer, a very wise man, said “Child support is correct and the right thing to do – you pay it, the children grow up, it ends. However, alimony is forever.” We fought hard and in this state, we were able to prove misdeeds by my then wife, and I was able to avoid paying alimony. I would still be paying it to this day, as she has not remarried.
It cost me forty thousand dollars to fight that legal battle, adn the irony is that I would have agreed to a transitional period of alimony, had the shrew been willing to negotiate like an adult. She wasn’t, lost her case, we lost the house, all of our financial assets, and most painful of all, my children lost their way. That is the true damage done by a protracted lawsuit over alimony.
What about people in religions like Islam? With multiple wives- unofficial in secular society by married to mutiple wives under their religious laws? Can they be allowed to hide under religious rights?
I live in Oklahoma, and alimony has been abolished here. It’s awesome really, the younger generation doesn’t even know what alimony is and i think that’s great.
The gender pay disparity in the U.S. is now 76.5 cents, so it’s improved but not completely. I think there’s a place for temporary alimony, to be used as a supplement when someone is raising children, but it should never be long-term, or it’s just a form of welfare.
We wouldn’t be having this conversation if the courts could be relied upon to give alimony when it was needed, not as a sinecure or benefice for life.
Everyone’s responses seem the same “if you haven’t been working and therefore need it, sure, get it until you get on your feet. If you don’t need it, then you don’t get it.”
So why doesn’t it already work that way? Because the courts and the legal profession like having the power to decide otherwise.
The obvious answer is that if all are equal, all must be equally liable to the system. The alimony system has been trememdously unfair to men for a long time. Now that some women are getting a taste of that unfairness they are bucking against it. Once it becomes widely felt by a large part of the female population they will demand change. And they will get it.
Economically, we could think of a marriage as a business partnership.
In the case of a traditional marital division of labor, we could think that the man invests money in the marriage and the wife invest “sweat equity.” When the partnership dissolves, the partner who invested sweat equity is still entitled to an equal share of value of the business. In such cases, alimony is differently justified.
Even in a non-traditional division of labor, partners still contribute to the economic success of the marriage, especially if the couple has children.
The laws should be level between the sexes but the reality is that women still make more economic sacrifices for the good of the family than do men. The idea that these sacrifices should not be compensated when the partnership fails will cause long-term problems.
My husbands ex wife made considerably more money than he. She had multiple advanced degrees. When they split she requested alimony to keep her in the style to which she had become accustomed. It was absurd. A true case of a feminist baby boomer that has no idea what equality really is. For her it was what is mine is mine what is yours is mine too.
If anything my husband should have received alimony. Fortunately after a long drawn out proceeding lasting over five years, neither got alimony.
Between the two of them they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in a fight which should not have even made it to court. Courts need formulas for determining whether or not alimony is justified, sometimes it is. Is should not be a venue for someone unrealistically looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Alimony is inconsistent with no-fault divorce. If a woman can divorce her husband for any reason and without cause or justification, she has no basis to demand alimony.
For years, I have encouraged my wife to get a job and rebuild her career, but she always has an excuse for not doing so. As she puts it, “it’s so much more fun to stay at home”. (The job of “homemaker” is not very demanding when the kids are grown).
If she suddenly decides she can be more “fulfilled” on her own, why should I pay?
In this Forbes article, women are angry about paying alimony
Ha. Wait until a court orders them to pay child support after a DNA test proves its not theirs.
Helen, let’s not fall into the ‘progressive inevitability’ trap. Yes, three cheers for women entering the workforce and jobs outside the home and all, but for many sub-cultures that’s not the preferred option. Traditional family arrangements not only have a role to play, but have an essential role to play as they raise more children (certainly on a per-capita basis, maybe even on an absolute basis). Forcing women to plan to have careers will substantially damage those arrangements.
Is there a lot of bogosity going on with alimony? Sure! Is it fixable? Maybe, maybe not. At least lets take care of the other issues which are fixable– the fact that marriage doesn’t have the status it used to (because that would discriminate, of course, and we can’t have that, can we?) impacts decisions to marry and stay married in general.
“The gender pay disparity in the U.S. is now 76.5 cents, so it’s improved but not completely. I think there’s a place for temporary alimony, to be used as a supplement when someone is raising children, but it should never be long-term, or it’s just a form of welfare.”
The whole Gender Disparity thing is the biggest load of crap ever
Because lower and middle class women do not work in certain difficult and dangerous fields – like construction – they don’t make as much
AND because they leave the workforce to have kids and marry – of course they make statistically less
Anyway – Alimony when the wife is at fault is a no brainer to abolish – or one would think so
Of course its not
I divorced in Johnson County, state of Kansas. The divorce court had worksheets for both alimony and child support. They plugged in the numbers and told me I had to pay $x for 43 months, based on our income and the number of years we had been married (12). I was fine with that.
I do have a beef with child support, which gets adjusted every six years based on my income at that point in time. I would never seek to deprive my son of a decent life, but there is no control over how that increasing over time payment is spent. Somehow my Flexible Spending Account adminstrator is able to give me a card that restricts the places I can spend at, and requires receipts for other expenses…couldn’t we do the same thing with child support, leaving any balances in an account my son could have access to at 18 (or 25)?
When my ex and I divorced, I suggested we split our assets 55% hers, 45% mine (total difference was about $150K), with no alimony. Not only was she OK with this, we divorced without lawyers involved, using a $35 handbook for our state. It was unspoken but recognized by us both that, if she wanted to contest the arrangment, she might end up with 50% and no alimony. I paid child support for two years (my remaining child was 17 when we divorced, and the second year I sent the check directly to him). My ex and I still get along, and it was in my opinion an excellent investment in the well-being of our kids.
The answer is “YES”, due to many reasons.
But if it is not possible, then it should be kept only with the following rules in place:
* In families of one income earner / one homemaker the income earner shall pay the other 50% of the net income, with payments only lasting as long as the marriage existed.
* In families of two incomes, the greater income earner shall pay the other the difference between 50% of their combined total net incomes minus the other’s income, with payments only lasting as long as the marriage existed.
* Regardless of the payment situation, the person paying alimony shall have the option of taking the total amount due in payments and providing a lump sum of 75% of that total at the time of divorce. This money would be tax free.
Anything other than the above three conditions is unfair, wrong, and a form of financial slavery for the person that is chained with the payments.
If we value the contributions of stay-at-home parents, then alimony should exist and should be gender-neutral. If we value the contributions of married people who have been stay-at-home parents, and having finished that job and lacking capital to invest in a career, turn to volunteer work and community activism, then alimony should exist and should be gender-neutral.
Presupposing that marriages are good for society and good for children, this is a place for the state to encourage them by offering legal protection of some kind for a spouse who, in exchange for the economic security of marriage, abandons part or all of his or her potential for individual success and throws his or her weight behind the career of another person, which tends to benefit from the ability to focus one’s attention.
Not to mention that it is a disincentive for adultery and spouse-abandoning among those of independent means. You get what you pay for; if alimony has become an *incentive* for divorce, the conditions for it probably need to be adjusted.
No-fault divorce has always been a bad idea, and it undermines what could be a justly designed alimony system. I agree with the commenter who said they’re incompatible, even if I’m a bit disturbed by his comments about his own wife.
Discussions like this only serve to reinforce my belief that people ought to marry more carefully and, once married, avoid divorce like the plague that it is.
Alimony seems like a simpler arrangement than having a former spouse retain an ownership interest in a family business that he or she was instrumental in building – especially if feelings are such that it’s impossible to run the business together anymore.
Paying simply to support a former spouse in “the manner to which she has become accustomed” is absurd, and should no longer have a place in the law – especially where the presumed recipient initiates a no-fault divorce.
But there are certain circumstances where it does make sense. For example, to assist with educational expenses to allow a long-time homemaker to enter the work force again. We should put value on a homemaker’s contribution to the marriage and compensate that somehow, over and above child support.
As a wiser man than I once said,
“Don’t bother getting married. Just find a woman who hates you and buy her a house.”
If women had to pay alimony, divorce would be a sacrament.
Not only should alimony be abolished, child support should be reformed so that it actually supports children and not the ex-wives, “in the manner to which they have become accustomed”.
We both have roughly equal educational backgrounds, but when our first child was born, my husband and I made the decision together that I would be a stay at home mother. We feel it’s been the best thing for the children, but we know it’s been the best thing for his career. He’s free to work a flexible schedule, travel at will and accept advantageous transfers without compromise. As a result, he’s scaled the corporate ladder in a sprightly fashion. Yes, he’s worked hard, and yes, he’s smart, but that’s not enough. With very few exceptions, most of his fellow climbers who have reached the same level are also married to spouses who do not work outside the home. Being able to focus without compromise, and being able sieze opportunities as soon as they are offered are not insignificant advantages in the corporate world.
Corporate salaries do not rise on a nice, gentle slope. In fact, they start getting bigger, very, very much bigger, all compensation included, right about now — just when my children are leaving home for college, my degree is hopelessly outdated, and I have no relevant work experience. I’m sure, with a few years help, I could get myself “on my feet” somewhere just north of subsistence level, but my husband would be living very well indeed, essentially off the fruits of my sacrifice.
That is the traditional argument for alimony, that it helps make things more fair when a couple divorces. But it’s not the only reason to keep alimony as an option. Society reaps certain benefits from stay at home spouses — well-reared children are one and more focused, efficient, or effective workers are another. There are enough reasons to think that the model of one parent at home with the children is socially helpful for us to be very reluctant to discourage it, and taking away alimony is taking away one of the safety nets for people who make that choice. It would be a very silly thing to do indeed just because some spoiled and whiny women think they should get to pick and choose which laws apply to them, or because K-Fed’s clearly an opportunist. Why, oh why would we ever let people like that make policy for the rest of us?
Alimony in this day and age should be transitional and temporary. It should give one party or the other time and resources to try to bring equity where sacrifices have been made for the good of the marriage/family (like giving a wife resources to finish a degree that may have been put on hold or a refresher course for re-entering certain fields of work).
There probably needs to be some kind of sun-setted transition support if someone was purely a home spouse. Four years max seems OK, as the time required to get some sort of employability education or training.
My wife was young when we married, worked at first, then stayed home when we had kids. When they were in school all day, she started to work part-time and go to college part time. She graduated after more than 10 years of part-time classwork.
Now she makes more than I do, so alimony would not apply; but if we had split up 12 or 15 years ago, she would have certainly been entitled to some kind of support, I think.
I think Leykis’s full title is, “a nationally-syndicated talk show host and horse’s ass.”
My best friend was divorced in a state with no no-fault divorce. Her alimony, paid over 5 years, worked out to $30k for every other woman her husband slept with while they were married. She worked full-time while he finished graduate school; she’s now spending his money on therapy and graduate school.
Seems more than fair to me.
Not trying to threadjack but I see this stat all the time and it needs to be corrected more often…
“The gender pay disparity in the U.S. is now 76.5 cents.”
This is just not reality. This myth is based on the fallacy that employers are willing to pay men more money for the same amount of work. Think about it: Why wouldn’t companies hire exclusively women? After all, according to the myth, they are getting paid less for doing the same work. All-women companies would be conquering the world!
You could start with “Why Men Earn More” to disabuse yourself of this illusion perpetuated by feminists. Once you factor out the variables and do apples-to-apples comparisons, you find that women today are doing quite well for themselves.
Like many here, I see circumstances in which alimony seems to have been “earned” but agree that the burden of proof should lie nore with the one asking for it than the one trying to deny it. As it is in many cases, though, I see the no-fault rules as a monkey wrench. If one person, anyone, chooses to leave the marriage why should they expect to leave with a stipend? Likewise, in cases of fault why should the aggrieved have to pay for getting rid of an abusive or adulterous partner? I have always been of the opinion that true protection of marriage and family should begin with reform of those laws that make getting into and out of marriage little more difficult than changing one’s socks.
My view is shaped somewhat by the fact that I have dated woman in developing countries that do not have alimony laws or the laws in place are not enforced. Lack of access to alimony in combination with inequality is a dangerous area wrought with heartbreak and unfairness. If you have equality and no alimony you incent work, self-sufficiency, and the use of day care. If you have inequality and no alimony you incent prostitution, hopelessness, and bad behavior by males.
I think the best situation is equality and no alimony and I think as a country we are close enough to equality to make it work. I don’t think a premium for traditional family structure is necessary. And this comes from someone who believes and went with that model and who has two great kids – I just don’t see from anecdotal and empirical studies a measurable difference to society with stay-at-home verses daycare when the benefit of mobility to the woman (usually) is factored in. I think the traditional family is a personal choice and if anything can be subsidized through tax credits.
Excuse me for falling down laughing, but did you just quote Tom Leykis on the equity of alimony? The same Tom Leykis whose goal is to teach men to “get more tail for less money” by such methods as writing your phone number for a girl on a discarded ATM receipt (not yours) showing a high balance and by choosing and exploiting women with low self esteem? The same Leykis who instructs men on the “Hail Mary”, your best shot to convince a pregnant girl to have an abortion — after which you take her somewhere nice to eat, like McDonalds, and then dump and ditch her there?
There is more to this issue than the quick presentation it gets here. A larger issue is that of equal access to legal counsel. The lesson I learned in my own divorce was that the person who retains control of the finances during the marriage will have access to more aggressive legal services, and will ultimately exert inordinate control over the divorce and its aftermath. This becomes even more complex when abuse has been a factor in the marriage, and when children are involved. There is much to be done with divorce reform, and an important first step is to ensure that both parties are able to present their cases fully, thoroughly, and fairly.
For Tim,
I’m a lawyer in Oklahoma and I know that alimony has not been abolished (sigh).
Should alimony be abolished?
It depends on the situation. If you have been married a couple of years then there should be no expectation of alimony.
If you have been married 30 years and the primary role of the spouse was as stay-at-home mom/dad, then yes, depending on the circumstances surrounding the divorce action, alimony is appropriate.
Realistically, who in this day and age is going to hire a 55 year old with no recent experience at a wage that would enable them to live as they had pre-divorce?
Those who are attempting to reduce marriage to a business transaction are going to be severely dissapointed when the get their wish fulfilled.
The idea that men and women are the same and should be treated as such in marriage is one of the reasons such foolishness as same-sex marriage is even contemplated. Marriage is not created because men and women are the same, it is useful, fruitful and necessary precisely because they are different. Millions of Americans live in a different world from you and the Prof. Women are the main caretakers of the family and the home even today. This lowers their earning power. Only if we agree that Marriage is like any other contract can we agree that men and women should be treated the same within it. If a woman has, relying on the marriage bond, taken the role of chief homemaker it would be an outrage to take away her source of income,especially if she is not at fault for the marriage’s end. But of course we now have “no-fault” divorce, another foolish device if marriage is to mean anything. Finally, whatever the law says, a man seeking alimony is inherently unmanly. Unless she crippled they guy running over him in the Mazzerati as she left, a women should not have to pay a man a stipend. This is especially true of Federline. Marriage is forever. That ought to be the default view of society. If the marriage doesn’t last it does not mean the obligations should not. If your car crashes you still owe the bank payments on it “forever.” As with your comments these points are separate from child payments.
The military provides an overlooked exception to normal process which might illuminate the alimony debate. In part because of the efforts of Congresswoman Pat Schroeder, the retirement pay of most servicemembers is subject to division with an ex-spouse. Future retirement checks are considered community property and divided accordingly. The goverment even helpfully provides for such split disbursement automatically.
No argument about need is required, only the presence of the spouse for at least ten years of the time spent in the Service. Presumably, the non-military spouse “earned” the pay by contributing to the military member’s career. Raising the question, is a divorced male spouse less worthy of such a payment than a female spouse?
jjv,
Given your views–that men and women are so different–you probably don’t believe women should even be let out of the house to work. Sorry, but I disagree with your version of women as damseled housewives and men as an endless wallet. You state that as “chief homemaker, it would be an outrage to take away her source of income.” So, if the the man is nothing but a source of income in your view–what is a man getting out of this deal? And if he is getting something such as sex etc, shouldn’t according to your view, he continue to get it “indefinitely” if he needs it because it would be an outrage to take away his source of sexual gratification? Why do women get what they need but men don’t in your view? It’s more than a bit biased.
This reminds me of John Wayne’s line in “True Grit” when remarking on his ex-wife: “Women have no generosity. Lord God, how they hate to pay up!”
I think that one should get back what they invested into a marriage. In the case of a woman who worked full time to put her husband through college and grad school, then spent twenty or thirty years raising his children and scrimping to stretch the budget during the “career building” years I assert that she deserves somewhat more than to reach middle age and be rewarded with a two year stipend while she receives “job training” for an entry level position and a one room apartment while he and his six figure salary support a younger woman who invested NOTHING into the career.
If gender roles were reversed, the same should apply. Certainly, a reasonable alimony should at least be of the duration that the marriage was.
Where I am, the law is odd, or seems that way. If you are a stay at home Mother, well then you will get alimony for a time equal to the marriage. Plus child support [if any]
If you worked the whole time, though, well then you split assets, and [child support if any]… aaaand you’re done.
So, what impetus does a woman have to work out of the home? After the split, what impetus does she have to work a career job?
The ex’s stand is that if I want her to pull her weight, I should take her to court and MAKE her. Which she knows is unlikely, since they put the laws in place to start. In theory you aren’t allowed to be under employed, but in practice this applies only to the guy. Unless. Unless he can find a judge that will listen impartially.
Oddly enough a lot of family law judges are, in fact, men. Makes you wonder what the punishemnt is for, No?
I’m not going to get wrapped around the axle, but if I were to ever marry again, there will be an ironclad prenup in the offing. it is the only way you can protect yourself… at all.
Funnily enough, when the alimony runs out? Then my child support will go up, because practically, I pay half her wages. So when I stop, her part of the chald support goes down. AND! Yes, you can deduct alimony, but not child support on your taxes. So my taxes will go up…
As lawyers are fond of saying, “circumstances alter cases.” Alimony may be called for in some instances, but not in others.
One thing I see over and over is the assumption that alimony has something to do with earning power over the course of a relationship. In my view, that’s what property settlements are about. Alimony, by contrast, relates to a future lack of earning power based on the time necessary to develop marketable job skills, especially with consideration to a potentially decreased number of earning years over which to amortize the cost of same.
Fundamentally, then, alimony is about impairment. As such, it suffers from the same problems as disability payments and workers’ compensation — there are many incentives to game the system.
There is no question, however, that some spouses’ ability to make their way in the world is truly impaired. This burden, however, works in a way almost directly opposite the way traditional alimony works.
For instance, take a 65-year-old who has had a 45-year marriage. After the property settlement, which evens out the effects of past sacrifices, there should be no alimony because there is effectively no future earnings potential to impair. Accordingly, alimony shouldn’t extend past retirement.
Society expects its members to graduate high school as a blank slate, and then go on to be well on their way to a chosen career within five years of graduating college. It is arguable, then, that alimony should have a definite limit of ten years or less, in that nobody should be able to claim impairment beyond that of being a blank slate.
Because impairment is measured from a theoretical ideal earnings potential for the paid party, it shouldn’t directly depend on the ex-spouse’s earnings potential. If someone gave up working as help in a restaurant to marry a partner in an investment banking firm, there is nothing to support alimony beyond the standard of living that the waitperson could reasonably have attained by continuing that career path.
Unfortunately, the converse doesn’t really hold. If someone gave up an investment banking position to be a stay-at-home spouse for a waitperson, then discovered that salaries for a 30-year-old that had sat out five years were $200K less than the go-getters who stayed in the game, there is no reasonable method to have the waitperson make up any part of the difference on a $30K/year wage. Accordingly, the ex-spouse’s compensation would set the ceiling for alimony, and not the floor.
Of course, the distinction between property settlements, child support, and alimony have all become largely moot, in that they have been “divorced” from any intellectual or ethical basis, and instead suborned to the greater good of governmental wealth redistribution. Family court has largely become a microcosm of socialism, with aggrieved parties tearing down those better off to provide themselves bread and circuses.
Excuse me for falling down laughing, but did you just quote Tom Leykis on the equity of alimony? The same Tom Leykis whose goal is to teach men to “get more tail for less money” by such methods as writing your phone number for a girl on a discarded ATM receipt (not yours) showing a high balance and by choosing and exploiting women with low self esteem?
Say what you will about him, but his comments regarding the legal system and its treatment of men at the end of a marriage are dead on. The modern feminist movement, like every special interest group, seeks to perpetually have its cake and eat it too, and as a result marriage has become virtually a non-option for men worried about losing everything they’ve worked for their whole lives in a divorce. If a woman marries a man and becomes a homemaker, that was a decision she made of her own accord. She wasn’t dragged into it, she wasn’t held at gunpoint and forced to marry him or to give up a career. Yet in the event the couple divorces, the man is held responsible as though he forced the issue. In today’s world, this would seem to be an archaic view on the part of the legal system; both adults should be regarded as having entered their situation of their own free will, not as though one party deserves “damages” from the other. I would love to see a man presented with a demand for alimony respond with a bill for the hundreds of thousands of dollars he earned that were spent to feed, house, clothe, pay for medical bills, and entertain her.
Leykis’ entire schtick is, to paraphrase another talk show host, demonstrating the absurdity of the state of marriage and its impact on the lives of men by being absurd–by telling men that they should not even think about getting married or having a serious relationship. Of course, he takes his own message at least somewhat seriously, but his general point is that guys should not allow themselves to be coerced by women into relationships that aren’t based in real love. Not “I really like having sex with you,” not “I want to be provided for,” and DEFINITELY not “I want to start having babies.” Beyond that, yeah, it’s pretty ridiculous, but FM radio is generally that.
I’m disabled and stay home: I also do all the housework. I know full well that if a divorce happened I would not get any alimony even though if the sexes were switched she would get lifetime alimony. THAT sort of legal thinking MUST go! Sadly, I see no possibility of the women’s political groups allowing the situation to change.
As for the whole thing of alimony? It should be temporary except in extreme cases.
Alimony was premised on the economic dependency of a wife on her husband. The rationale was that a sundered marital contract raised the possibility that the wife would become “a public charge,” along with her children. This was once a defensible position, but in today’s America it’s seldom applicable any longer.
Child support is defensible on both legal and moral grounds, but alimony in a case where both parties have income-producing occupations is not. This has special force in wife-initiated divorces, which, according to Stephen Baskerville, are now the great majority of divorces occurring in these United States.
Charges of physical abuse should be handled as a matter of criminal law, not as elements of a divorce proceeding. Charges of emotional abuse should be laughed out of court in this day of easily availabe divorce for “irreconcilable differences.”
Those who have brought rotten fruit may hurl it at their pleasure.
Francis, I’ll save my rotten fruit for the compost pile – but I will voice my disagreement. Both physical and emotional abuse have a serious impact on the abuser’s target, and should be factored into the divorce settlement. Ongoing research on the effects of psychological and physical abuse shows that these “shadow crimes” have a lasting impact that simply cannot be brushed away – and must not be “laughed out of court,” as you so blithely suggest. Also, keep in mind, no-fault divorce only works under certain circumstances.
Alimony is dead, at least for the upper classes.Prenups are the norm. If I get divorced, she gets little.
Child support IS alimony with a different name. Fathers should be given the option of taking the children as long as they will support them. If he agrees to that and the judge still gives the children to the mother, the father should not have to pay child support.
The main reason women want the chidren is because they are a wonderful source of income for them. This must stop. If you want the children, support the children. If you can’t support the children you have no business taking them.
Giving money to the bitch who doesn’t want to live with you anymore is immoral!
If there are no kids in the equation why should there be alimony?
If there are kids in the equation, wouldn’t it just make more sense to increase child support for 4 to 5 years while the previously unemployed or underemployed party works to rebuild a career, with the levels then going down?
Before stay at home spouses can be legitimately given life or nearly life payments for a life of keeping the home, there are at least two things that have to change. No fault divorce and adultery statutes need to be changed to make them automatic disqualifiers for spousal support. If a dedicated home maker leaves the marriage, they should lose all of their claim to support. They chose that route, now they have to deal with the road ahead of them.
“I think women get angrier about having to pay than men do.”
Of course, because for the billionth time, women are the more egocentric of the two. “Equality” is not a very wise aspiration where the one is genetically more likely to see only in quid pro quo, rather than principles of justice.
Sad but true. Suck it up ladies – as with socialism and the egalitarian society, the actual institutionalization of these things shows what’s true and what’s not true. QED.
I detect a strong undercurrent of misogyny in many of these comments. You simply cannot make blanket statements about all marriages and post-divorce arrangements. This is why the courts need to have the ability to make flexibile decisions based on individual cases. Otherwise, we will find ourselves edging ever closer to a harsh social structure that benefits no one.
Maybe alimony, child support, and the divorce courts in general could be greatly remedied by getting rid of no-fault divorce. Especially when there are children.
And no alimony or child support to be awarded without marriage.
Too often the legal system is abused as a means of legal theft.
Susan Katz Keating,
“I detect a strong undercurrent of misogyny in many of these comments.”
What you really mean is that you do not want men to be talking back about how they feel about some of these issues. Why use the word “misogyny”? Because, like calling someone a racist, you think it will shut down conversation. No one falls for that anymore since it is used with such abandon. Please state your opinion and realize that others–yes, even men!– have the right to discuss issues that you may not agree with. Calling people who disagree with you misogynists is more telling about how uncomfortable and threatened you feel about this conversation than anything else.
Dr. Helen: What I really mean is precisely what I wrote. Yes, I detect a strong undercurrent of misogyny in many of these comments. To wit: “Women are the more egocentric of the two;” “giving money to the bitch…;” “the main reason women want the children is because they are a wonderful source of income for them;” and others. Note that I wrote “many;” not “all.” I find it interesting, though, that you tolerate negative global statements about women, but are quick to deliver off-the-mark commentary and analysis when a woman speaks her mind.
Voidseeker
on #3 why shouldnt taxes be paid, the earner has to pay taxes when they eran it why should the recive have to hay taxes on their sahre of the cash
The trend of misogyny here might be an indication of just how unfair so many men have been treated in the realm of family law.
Susan,
If you disagree with the comment about women being the more egocentric of the two, why not try to disprove it? I’ll give you some proof in favor of it: women initiate most of the divorces. Most often the reason is the woman is not happy. That is an egocentric reason to end a marriage, in no small part because most of those women are probably as insufferable to live with as they claim the men to be, if not more so.
There is also plenty of denial and evasion from women whenever Dr. Helen gets onto subjects like this. You’d think that most women lived under a rock based on the way that they talk about how the system works today.
If we believe living by the means of others has no monetary value, then arguing alimony is neccessary because of “sweat equity” makes some sense. However, if you keep in mind that the person staying at home is living for FREE the entire time, I would suggest establishing a “total value” on the marriage, split the net income of the breadwinner in half (for the duration of the marriage) subtract a fair market value for the home and food and expenditures (as is possible), subtract that from the marriage duration “net income” for the stay home spouse, what remains could be either split into payments or one lump sum…divorcee’s choice.
Requiring future payment for past “sweat equity” is like me saying I used to work at a place, therefore I contributed to it’s financial health, which therefore makes me in some small measure directly responsible for it’s current profitability, therefore the company should pay me profit sharing, even though I haven’t been there for years.
Now…how stupid does THAT sound?
Alimony is justified in cases where one spouse is a homemaker. That spouse could be either the man or the woman. Part of the value of a homemaker is that the other spouse is allowed greater ability to dedicate oneself to one’s job. The homemaker gives up his or her earnings potential. In case of divorce, this has value which should be compensated.
Certainly a limit should be put on it, and judges can apply a formula based upon length of marriage, earnings, age, and so on.
I’ve also noticed that Dr. Helen ignores negative comments about women, while being likewise quick to defend men. There is no shortage of women haters in Dr. Helen’s responders, who are usually given a pass. I find it interesting, also.
Alimony is justified in cases where one spouse is a homemaker. That spouse could be either the man or the woman. Part of the value of a homemaker is that the other spouse is allowed greater ability to dedicate oneself to one’s job. The homemaker gives up his or her earnings potential. In case of divorce, this has value which should be compensated.
But has this person not already been compensated, in the form of having housing, food, utilities, and all other costs covered by the money from the employed partner?
“The person living at home is living for free…” Really? When I “lived for free” I raised two birth children alone, in-house father notwithstanding. I provided a home for my stepchild when her mother couldn’t be bothered. I cooked, cleaned, nursed, organized, accompanied the children to lessons and countless practices and sporting events, etc., and cheered through every one of them. When my children were hospitalized three times, I lived there. I mowed the lawn, shoveled the snow, raked the leaves, cleaned the rain gutters, plastered, painted and wallpapered, took care of finances, made house and car repairs, worked at our children’s schools (unpaid), supervised class trips, organized and participated in school fund raising, helped my neighbors when they were in need, and entertained the boss and co-workers. Oh, almost forgot. My husband’s job required transfers, so I did this in three countries over 14 years. That of course required dealing with real estate agents, finding homes, securing mortgages, choosing schools, finding doctors, Scouts, children’s baseball, basketball, hockey or whatever teams and enrolling the children. When the marriage ended, I was 14 years behind in the “workforce.” That means experience, seniority, possible promotions, benefits, pension plans, and 728 pay checks. My spousal support was 200.00/month for two years. Talk about a free ride.
Eight years ago I got divorced. I hired a “settlement” lawyer thinking I could work out an acceptable solution easily. At the time I had a very successful business though and my wife hired the typical mercenary. I made a mistake, and, even though my offer was generous, I got carpet bombed for a year. She also didn’t seem to care about the impact of this bombing on our children. Until the courts become a little more “men” friendly, my advice to men with some net worth is to tighten your chin strap and prepare for war (and hire the nastiest lawyer you can find). Sad, I know, but that’s the way the system works.
Dave:
No. The cost of being out of the work force is real, as Julia points out.
The value of the work of a homemaker enables the wage earner to devote more to his or her career, because the wage earner doesn’t have to spend the time doing those tasks or hire someone else to do them, both of which are costly.
Here’s an exercise: try hiring someone to cook, shop, clean, raise your children, perform whatever other tasks homemakers do, and see how much it would cost. It would add up to a _great_ deal more than room and board.
I agree totally with Dr. Helen… Alimony must be a thing of the past…Alimony was initiated historically when women could not own property , work , vote and in some cases could not secure a divorce. It is totally outdated…Even in the case of homemakers, our society must promote personal responsibility for all of our choices. whether to work or stay home, there are plenty of us women who have raised children and worked outside of the home; If I ever had the privilege of someone taking care of me, I would not have the audacity to ask for a continued meal ticket as an adult. Even child support ends when a child is 18 or out of school!!!!! And child support is very different from alimony; laws are very specific in regards to a formula. In most states judges have full reign in deciding alimony…. and after by law all assets and retirement are split equally there simply should be no more payments. The recieving spouse has no obligations; so why should the other spouse have monitary obligations. Let marriages END at the signing of the divorce papers and END alimony.
A truely independent women!!!!!
In this day and age when women make up more than 50% of senior management in major corporations, like the bank that I work in, alimony has outlived its usefulness. It is no longer appropriate, the ‘benefits’ that alimony are supposed to provide have already been provided during the marriage — like roof over the head, clothes on the back and food in the stomach. How do folks think that non-working spouses got these benefits during the marriage? Not through welfare or alimony.
The suggestion that it is to keep them off of welfare is non-sense. Here’s a simple way to keep them off of welfare without forcing the former spouse to pay alimony — reject the application for welfare! There that wasn’t hard, was it?
To read more about how unconstitutional alimony is please visit http://www.alimonyreform.org. If you are not paying alimony yet, you could be. You need to fight this form of judicial extortion, before you and your kids end up in poverty, and the courts and lawyers get richer.
Brooklyn Boy
Mike S.,
I don’t know if anybody told you, but military retirement can be awarded to a spouse if that spouse has been married to the servicemember for less than 10 years- case in point:
My husband and his ex-wife were married for less than 4 years. When they got married, she was going to a community college to get an associate’s degree in general studies (which she finished after they divorced). He told her specifically to NOT DROP OUT OF SCHOOL JUST BECAUSE THEY GOT MARRIED. She did it anyway, telling him that she really didn’t want to go to college, and that she was doing it because her family wanted her to. So, soon after they got married, she stopped going to school, and spent her days eating everything in the house and sleeping until noon everyday.
When they got divorced, she told him that she was going to get at least 10% of his retirement pay, because she “gave up her career to support his”. Please keep in mind that she dropped out of college of her own accord, and that when he had to work late, she bitched. When he was transferred to Fort Bragg, she bitched and refused to move with him, because she didn’t want to leave Kansas. (Note to the general population: if you don’t want to move away from mommy and daddy- DON’T MARRY A SERVICEMEMBER!!!) This is also the same woman, who, while he was in Iraq drawing non-taxable combat pay and the like, did not pay off one credit card (of which she had- count ‘em- 5), and ate, I am not making this up, ATE her way through $15,000 (which she did by eating at McDonald’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner). ON TOP OF THIS, she opened a bank account and started putting the money he earned into it without him knowing.
And 10% of his retirement pay is EXACTLY what the judge awarded to her.
And as soon as we are done paying this lazy-good-for-nothing-ladydude’s bills off, my husband is going to fight to get his 10% back. He also had to pay $200 a month in alimony, which ends in Sept. I don’t know what she will do then, because she is HORRIBLE with money.
As for the whole alimony thing: it’s a bad idea. If a woman wants to leave the marriage, she shouldn’t get paid for it unless the couple has been married for 30 years or something, and even then, it shouldn’t be forever. And I am all for a woman paying alimony if the husband stayed at home to raise the kids. Fair is fair, no matter what is between their legs!
Just as a note: I myself had a previous marriage. I was the one who wanted out, and I didn’t ask for anything- not alimony, nothing. I offered to helped my ex-husband pay off our debts, without even getting a lawyer involved. He even told me that if I had not offered to help him he wouldn’t be able to pay it off.
Of course, I outranked him at the time
But I am just saying, A FAIR DIVORCE CAN BE DONE!!!
Feminism in Western World ruin real female that should be. It is a shame. I am a woman from overseas (East) it is so sad to see what happen in Western World. I was shock when I heard about alimony in USA, until I experience to myself that I realized that no equality and fairness for men and women in US. Here is my story :
My husband’s Ex award alimony with child support for 2 boys (16, 12) for 55000 /year. She get half of his retirement. She works as a school consultant with Master Degree earn decent income. My husband pay for children’ insurance, medical bill, and collage fund. She is still telling my stepsons that she doesn’t have money. I though she was a decent lady because she works as School consultant for kids, but I was wrong. She is getting bitter and more greedy. She has a boyfriend who they spend time together (but they don’t live together ) for 4 years because she doesn’t want to lose her alimony. She always take nice trips, eat out in the nice restaurant with her boyfriend. Her boyfriend earn even less what my husband pay her alimony. When the boys want to go somewhere else for school break, or eat out she always say she can’t afford it. We are so mad what she did to the boys.
My husband works hard to pay all this shit to this bitch. I don’t think it is fair and US must change. My husband has to pay alimony 15 years more. We would like to retire and move out from US, but we stuck here because of alimony (not child support). He married her for 13 years and he has to pay here more than 20 years (in total). Is it fair? He doesn’t want to see his 2 sons will go thru what he suffers from divorce and alimony system.
I beg to everyone who involve law & order in US, please consider about fairness of divorce. It must change for the new generation.
Woman from the East: Outdated divorce laws are the reason that marriage is dying a slow death in the West. For better of for worse – time will tell. The UK recorded its lowest marriage-rate last year ever since records started being kept in 1835. The lowest rate ever! Even a lower annual-rate than the darkest days of WW1 and WW2 when most of the male population was conscripted or killed.
This is now being followed by the plunge in US rates. For the record, the no-fault divorce reforms in many of the US states lagged those of the UK by about a decade or so. So our demographic plunge is also lagging by a few years, but it’s definitely happening. Check out state-by-state marriage-rate statistics at:
http://www.divorcereform.org/stats.html
You will see that there was a 20-30% drop in weddings-per-capita in most states between 1990-2002. The institution is dying as fair-minded individuals are saying thanks-but-no-thanks. Any smart man or woman who has something to lose, in terms of current assets or future career potential, would be wise to steer clear of divorce laws in place today. This usually means not getting married, even if they have found the partner of their dreams. Of course they can play the Pre-Nup Lottery; but that too is a gamble as there are many states where the Family Courts routinely throw them out of the window.
So there you go. It’s amazing seeing a 4,500 year old institution go down the toilet in as little as 2 generations. This is not happening because people have become more sinful, or more evil. It’s just that the laws have been changed and tampered with. You change the law, and people will start acting accordingly.
Hi, this is regard to child support rather than alimony, but if anyone has the answer to this, I would love to hear it. First of all, a little backgroud information – I left my fiance’ after 4 years of horrendous physical, emotional and verbal abuse. I had a child with another man who was 7 at the time of our moving in together, and low and behold, just as I was getting ready to leave him, I discovered I was pregnant. He wanted me to have an abortion, and FOR ME, I didn’t think it was an option – I so love the child I already had, and despite the failure of the relationship, I felt that since I had been a single mother for 7 years prior to this one without support of any kind (emotional, parental, financial) I knew I could do it with another if I had to. He decided as my pregnancy progressed that he wanted to be in the child’s life – I had given him the choice to opt out and stay away, and he made the choice to stay, but didn’t participate in the pregnancy except to comment on how huge my belly was (I weighed 102 before pregnancy, gained 28 lbs. by the end, which was fine – my daughter was born healthy and 7 lbs. Shortly after she was born, he physically abused me again, and this time I had enough – I had him arrested, obtained a restraining order and left him for good. I didn’t ask for child support, but all of a sudden, after 2 years, his mother bought him a lawyer and he filed a motion for full custody, despite the fact that I allowed him unlimited access to his daughter under safe conditions – no drinking while he visited her, no going out to bars and dropping her off with strange sitters, no violence or verbal abuse in the household for any reason, and had the courts document the conditions, but unfortunately, when I asked for supervision, they chose his mother, despite the fact that he’s abused her physically and emotionally for years and she is not only scared of him, but she has enabled him from day one, all the while acknowledging to me that she knew he was abusive and offering me “tips” on how not to make him angry and how not to “deserve” the abuse. Talk about placing the lamb in the lion’s den – this is a pride of lions – okay, enough background – we have a motion filed asking for custody which was denied, and at that time, since I had not asked for support, the court also granted me support, but stated that our lawyers would work out the support, he would cover her health insurance and any daycare expenses (I work part-time and have a small home business) which means he pays about $300 per month, with the contingency that our lawyers will draw up a valid child support order to be signed by the judge. 5 months later and no child support order, and his lawyer is generating fees by sending letters offering $200 per month in child support, etc. when this man makes $120,000 per year and I make less than 35k this year, the last few were worse because he forced me to stay home with them – I live in FL, and it’s damn hard to support two kids on 29-32k per year, so I actually do need the support. The question I have is this – he recently filed another financial affidavit, and stated he made $36,000 last year – I have his bank statements from last year because I was doing accounting work for him while we were amicable, despite the fact that I refused to live with him or be romantic with him. His average monthly deposit was $15,000 per month. I was told by a lawyer a few years ago when I left him that it is common for men to reduce their incomes significantly when anticipating having to pay child support and that there has even been a syndrome named for it which is a word that stands for the words included in it, something about reduction of earning potential. Can anyone tell me what this syndrome is called, first of all, and does anyone have any advice on how to prove to the court that this is a sham – he’s filed a false IRS return, he’s purchasing outrageous “toys” for himself and living in a grand home with all the amenities that I helped him buy – can he at least send what the court determines is fair to help support his daughter? For so long I didn’t ask for a dime – I not only was scared of him, but I also preferred to do it on my own – I didn’t want anything dangling over my head or used against my by him. I didn’t want anything from him but to leave me alone unless it pertains to the health and happiness of our daughter, and I wanted him to be a good dad, which is a stretch to say that he is, but at least there is a mild attempt. His mother is the one who really wants custody, and who will be the primary caregiver if he is awarded joint custody, which I doubt due to his abusive and criminal past, but either way, I want to know the name of the syndrome when a man purposely reduces his income so his child support obligation amount will be reduced – in my case, significantly. $120,000 reduced to $36,000? He’ll never get away with it, but I really want to satisfy my curiousity, so if you can help, please do. God bless!
As an example scenario: If a doctor makes $200,000.00 a year and the wife stayed home for the entire marriage, she is then entitled to lifetime alimony to live the way she is accustomed to living, on a doctor’s salary? Did she receive a medical school education? Did she stay up all night cramming for exams? Did she bag groceries to pay for medical school? Does she save lives everyday? No, so why should she live on a doctor’s salary? These days, with modern conveniences, I do not see any of my neighbors out in the yard hand washing clothes; I do not know one person without a dishwasher. I do not consider putting a Stouffer’s lasagna in the oven making a home cooked meal. Swiffering the floor is just not that hard. If the argument is that raising children and keeping a home is a full time job, how did my mother and alot of other wives and mothers manage to work full time and then do this supposedly full time job of keeping a home? I just don’t understand. If you want something, why not work for it? I work hard everyday at a full time job and do not expect someone to pay me because I have a vagina.