ExWife.
Also alimony can be given to the man as well if he decided to be the homemaker or stay at home parent.
Whoever gets paid more is the one who ends up owing down, doesn't matter if you have a dick or wind chimes down there.
Yes, I agree. Despite my statement sounding absolutist, I know they are out there. I suspect they are quite rare. I know I've never met one, based on experience. I'm sure some of the women I've met are those types but there's no way for me to know without playing that game of Russian roulette.
Brother I think you might be overthinking it. When two people properly quick, money/income doesn't matter as long as y'all are a proper fit and you're able to make life work together happily.
I'm not an idiot. That was my belief for a long time. Experience showed me that doe not "just happen".
Thats not a product of women collectively deciding to marry someone richer. That's a product of the gender pay gap (not what most people think it is) and patriarchy (which hurts men too).
In places where women are not systemically dissuaded from high paying jobs, make as much as men do, have maternity and paternity leave, spousal incomes are about equal.
I disagree with that assertion, and I've seen this play out many times, with that nearly exact statement being the opening salvo. I will not engage and be drawn into a political debate that never ends well for anybody.
There is plenty of evidence concerning the difference between a blanket comparison of gross pay by gender vs pay comparisons in the same field of work - and I leave it to anybody who is curious to seek out that evidence on their own and draw their own conclusions.
Note my original question was not refuted, but justification was given.
Yeah but it's actually relatable. I wasn't even married and I went through something like this
Uhhh, I'm a Xennial and this hits hard. I am basically paying for her mortgage with the amount of money I have to give my ex every month. She has always had zero ambition, so I was always getting raises, and by the time we split, our finances were in two very different places, so the court said I have the luxury of paying her monthly just to be rid of her.
You got screwed then if you're in the usa, spousal alimony is basically non-existent. Most states don't have it anymore and those that do have it for about a year.
I'm well aware of how screwed I got... I'm hoping that in the next year or so I'll be able to re-litigate with a different lawyer. I was so desperate to get out of that marriage, I took some bad advice.
My biggest problem is that my life hasn't been the most stable since I left her. The sick amount of money I have to give her every month certainly hasn't helped.
Does she work? What state are you in? You shouldn't be paying her at all really. Alimony has really lost its teeth in the last 10 years.
I got screwed too, because we have a child. If he has one, he is screwed until the kid finishes college or is 25 yo.
He also pays in full even if he has 50% custody. Here in america, woman good man bad.
Certainly it sounds like you’re bad.
It’s your kid, why shouldn’t you be happily paying for his or her life?
Lol, first of all, you are making quite a number of assumptions there.
Let's turn that around, and see how it sounds....
"It certainly sounds like she's bad. It's her kid, why shouldn't she be happy paying for his or her life?"
Here is a little factoid for you. When a woman commits purjury or contempt of court, it's overlooked.
When custody is split 50/50, Child support payments are not adjusted to match that reality.
Men have no problem with paying to support their children. They have a problem with carrying 90% of the burden.
They have a problem being unable to save for retirement, a home, or their children's education because huge sums of money is going to the ex, who somehow is able to buy a house, go through multiple new cars, and take overseas vacations - on (apparently) less income.
The courts seek to equalize incomes well after divorce. That means a woman with multiple masters degrees and certifications who mysteriously can't make any money with that, gets her ex husband's hard earned pay to compensate her for her failings.
Meanwhile, when men are unable to pay that money, they sometimes go to jail. Health insurance payouts are redirected, and paychecks are garnished.
Ironically, men just want a fair ruling and equality in the eyes of civil society, and when they vocalize that, they are demonized, shamed, called incels, etc..
Wow you’re bitter. I can see why a court wouldn’t appreciate your very biased, and sexist takes.
You do know women also get paid 2/3rds less on average for the same job?
That’s just a factoid for you.
Even if custody is shared 50/50, from what I’ve seen the vast majority of the thought load of filling in school forms, figuring out arrangements etc falls to women. 50/50 custody is not 50/50 responsibility.
Only boomers have bad marriages? Or is it because someone who was famous before you were born should never be shown in a meme?
Or is it boomer because you don't get it?
Thinking all the shit is his instead of martial assets to be equally split. Is some wife bad boomer humor is I believe the point.
Maybe you just haven't been around long enough for shit to get real.
You've never seen a woman go after everything in court, have you? Never seen the lies or the frivolous motions, taking years to put to rest. You've not experienced or seen a man's income transferred to the ex wife for decades after the divorce, or the ways she extracts more money out of her ex husband in those years.
You have not spent years in marriage, always sacrificing your own dreams because your spouse repeatedly drains the savings, crashes the cars, arranges expensive trips, all while never contributing a dime to the household.
Get married. Be sure you have a rock solid prenup validated by lawyers on both sides, pray you read your partner's intentions and expectations well, and good luck.
No, I haven't experienced any of those things. I don't know why anyone would be in a relationship like that. Sounds like you probably shouldn't of got married.
Obviously I should not have married. Do you think I expected that treatment? That is my whole point. You're playing Russian roulette.
Women are capable of deceit - hard to believe, I know. Really, they are! Many men have experiences far worse than mine. Some are murdered, many are left with criminal records for things they didn't do. Others find out years into marriage they aren't the father of the children They are raising.
When I was in college, this weird dude started just hanging around us. No one really knew where he came from since he wasn't in any of our classes, but yet there he was. He liked to tell us things like how he hated crowds and would get agitated on city buses. He told us this while on a city bus. One day, he explains to me that if you loan someone $20, and you never see that person again, you were a sucker that was out $20. A few weeks later, he asked to borrow $20 from me. I loaned it to him because why not. I never saw him again. Apparently he did this to a few of us. Still the best $20 I ever spent.
Sometimes it's not about the money, it's about what the money gets you in return.
I don't know OP situation so I'll reserve some judgment. However, I'm really tired of rhetoric about how alimony is always some evil scheme made to specifically destroy men in divorces.
When people get married, often times one of them gives up their job and start performing unpaid labor. Sometimes neither of them give up their jobs, and one of them still has the majority of household burdens forced onto them, affecting their career and performance.
Alimony is a form of compensation for the unpaid labor and it's impact on that person's career. More often than not, when people say 'my ex wife is taking all my money', what they are really saying is 'I deserved free labor at the expense of my ex wife'.
Granted, it's possible that OP could be a domestic abuse victim in which case alimony is a whole other form of fucked up. But if that's not the case, then please stop.
Being in a divorce currently, I have noticed a few things that aren't talked about that I think lead to these memes being so popular.
Divorce laws vary a lot from location to location, in the US they are all state level laws. Not all state level divorce laws are fair to both parties, it seems to get worse if children are involved (some states have recently been adding laws that state 50/50 custody must be the assumed starting point because it hasn't been).
Even if the divorce laws are written to be fair to both parties in theory, at least in my state, the judge has the flexibility to rule in ways that may seem or even be unfair (what is equatable is complicated).
Even if the judge would or does rule fairly on all issues presented to them, the lawyers (if the parties can even afford lawyers) may be perpetuating gender biases in divorces as well. So the issues may never even reach the judge and just be settled by an "agreement" between the parties pushed by the lawyers.
Most divorces settle, maybe even on terms that heavily favor one party, because going to trial is a lot of money. Lawyers know this and have "games" they can play. like 60%-70% of assets to one party is still cheaper in theory than going to trial for the other party, so they hold that line in negotiations and your own lawyer will push for you to agree to terms like that as a cost/benefit analysis exercise.
Even if none of that happened and it was fair the whole way through, it is a very complex emotional time, and men often don't have the same level of social support to vent to.
Telling people to stop unless they are in some level of extreme situation is really toxic. People need to vent and be able to talk about what they are going through.
I didn't tell them to stop venting. I'm telling them not to use phrasing such as 'taking all MY hard earned money' which implies that free spousal labor is not a meaningful contribution and dismisses the value of unpaid labor that billions of spouses, mostly women, contribute to the economy.
What's toxic is how you use your claims of toxicity to dismiss the very real issues of men downplaying the importance of unpaid labor in marriages and divorce.
Venting isn't an excuse for sexism. Please stop conflating healthy emotional expression with discriminatory language, and then claim toxicity when that gets called out.
So my ex taking alimony despite doing nothing but sitting around the house and playing video games all day for 10 years is fair? You don't know everyone's situation or why they view it as their money.
And when I say "doing nothing but sit around and play video games for 10 years," I genuinely mean that. Wouldn't get a job, never did housework, I always had to come home from a 10-hour day and clean up the house because she said she would and didn't.
Maybe not all of your ideaz are winners, Rachel.
Why did it take you 10 years to get a divorce? Why did you get married? Sounds like you paid for her for 10 years and didn’t force her to work. How would the court know you didn’t force her to stay home and not work?
Divorce laws are designed to keep the status quo - you paid for her to do nothing for 10 years, and that’s the lifestyle you collectively agreed and provided.
Now you’re mad you have to sleep in the bed you made?
There was no reference to alamony or spousal support in the post, but I tend to see that "taking all my money" phase because of un-equilal division of assets. The post implies they feel there was an un-equilal division, but suggests they are in a better state now that the ex is out of their life despite that, which is a relatively healthy expression for what they are going/have gone through.
Where I am, non-financial spousal contributions are taken seriously and is seen as important as any other form of contribute to the marriage. I know that isn't the case everywhere and if you experienced your non-financial contributions being downplayed, I am sorry.
Telling people to stop, is sweeping issues under the rug that should be, and need to be talked about. I do agree non-financial contributions get downplayed, it's shitty that it still happens.
Never said venting was an excuse or the way this venting was happening was perfectly healthy, but that it is necessary to allow people to vent and telling people to stop isn't healthy.
Again, I never said to stop venting. I said to stop diminishing the value of unpaid labor.
Whether OP was referring to alimony or assets. It doesn't matter. It's the same general sentiment the vast majority of people have over divorce, which is that the party performing unpaid labor doesn't deserve to be compensated.
To dismiss this is as a non-issue is incredibly invalidating to people who have suffered as a result of unpaid labor ruining their career and livelihoods. This rhetoric of divorcees who were not holding a job deserves nothing is exactly the stigma that spouses performing domestic labor is subjected to, and what encourages people to attack divorcees over.
Telling people that this isn't a real problem is not only unhealthy, but actively perpetuates the stigma against domestic laborers are their perceived 'lack of contribution' to the economy when the truth is that world runs on the backs of unpaid labor.
Also going through a divorce. As the "man", I ended up earning the lion's share of the money and doing all the "hard work" throughout the relationship. This was because I put in hundreds of extra hours into my career both on the clock and off. I literally went out and faced extreme discomfort, worked jobs that most people would never even consider, and tried my best to be loving and supportive while doing around half of the house work, and basically all of the exterior/automotive work. My spouse was happy to work her chill government job and go to cross-fit to hang out with her friends and work on herself. She had to make dinner occasionally and mop the house sometimes, as I froze my ass off in the cold for weeks on end, and spent an extra 20 or so hours in my car per month just to be with her more frequently. I encouraged her to pursue better job prospects, but she never did. Now she gets around half of everything, objectively benefiting from my hard work while she got to relatively relax.
This is why I am against alimony and am for equal gender rights, except for extreme circumstances such as children or disability. Otherwise, it was probably the "other" spouse's choice to sit around and do less.
Divorces are rough, but things do get better. I'm 4-5 years out since mine and I've never been happier, it was worth every penny spent.
I keep seeing this and stuff, but being 37 before things get better sounds awful.
That being said, I'm certainly miserable right now, and I certainly can't stay that way for my son. We're just starting on the financial agreements, and lord am I going to have to change my lifestyle
The first year was the roughest as I adapted to the new normal. The second year was all about rediscovering myself as an individual. It was somewhere during that second year that I began feeling happier, and in the years since then that happiness has multiplied.
If I can offer some advice, don't go out and make any major life decisions for the next year or so. You probably won't be thinking soundly for awhile and don't want to do anything major you'll regret once you are. Secondly don't go running off looking for another long-term serious relationship, you will need some time to rediscover who you are as an individual as people have a tendency to lose that sense of self during long relationships. I made both these common mistakes, and they're among the few things I've done that I regret in my life.
Lastly remember what you're doing is probably the best thing for your son as every study I've ever read says children are better off with two happy parents who are divorced over those who have unhappy parents who stayed together for the child's sake.
Stay strong. Your world is being shaken up right now, but things will settle down and once you're on the otherside you will likely realize, like me, that you're happier. Best of luck.
Thank you for the advice. The relationship thing I can see, I have 15+ years of stuff to unpack.
And the part about my son having a better life after the divorce, I see how it will benefit him. That's going to be my anchor to get through this. He won't be happy, obviously, when he learns about it, but we're doing it with a full plan, and introducing it with his therapist when the plan is ready.
I hate to break it to you, but if you're watching her spend your money, she's still a part of your life 😬
You can really tell by the replies the people who have been through a divorce and those who have not. IYKYK
Son, i have some bad news. Are you sitting? Ok. She migjt keep coming at you for money, and she might take you to court repeatedly with disruptive claims. The court will not care, and will not penalize her for frivolous claims. She might find a judge who will give her what she wants.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
Yes because I knew the whole time we were gonna split in a couple years and she'd take half my shit.
Except when you get married it's both of your shit. That's the whole agreement. It's shared shit. Don't like it don't enter the legal agreement, or get a prenump. Thinking you get to leave the marriage with more than half the martial assets because it's somehow yours is just some boomer sexist crap.
In the eyes of the state, you are entering into a 50/50 business partnership. All assets become shared by the new legal entity. That's what marriage does. If you don't like this, don't get married. Doesn't matter if one of you is more successful or contributes more, you are adding to the value of the shared entity.
That’s not quite right. Preexisting assets kept separately don’t just become marital assets. If you owned a home prior to the marriage and you then live there together, it almost certainly would be considered a marital property.
But certainly every dollar you make or asset you acquire while married counts.
Because every marriage starts with "I know you're gonna fuck this up, but let's do this"
I Get the impression you have a really narrow and extra chromosome styled view on real life situations you've never had to deal with, eh?
So, a roundabout way to call someone retarded really solid point, not toxic at all. You didn't actually use the word so it's fine.
