Saturday, July 26, 2014

Alimony - it works both ways

Although men only account for 3% of alimony recipients, the issue and injustice works both ways as a Time article by Lisa Mundy from last year reports. In fact, many women are quite "pissed", to quote the article, about having to pay alimony. And many wives of husbands who have to pay alimony to a previous spouse are just as mad. Injustice is injustice. This isn't about men vs. women. 

In reading the Time article, the part that strikes me the most is that the author assumes that the party receiving alimony was the one who stayed home to raise the children. This is a myth that simply isn't true. In my case, the custody evaluator ruled that parenting was joint and the vocational evaluator determined that Spring could make just a much money as me. Yet I am required to pay an enormous percentage of my salary in alimony until death. The only retirement I can hope for is natural retirement as I often joke. (I often think that my sense of gallows humor is what has kept me alive) My situation is in no way uncommon. 

The injustice in the divorce system is due to crime and criminal corruption. It is about litigants and lawyers lying and committing fraud to get more money. The corruption is so endemic that the guilty simply rationalize their actions away on the basis that everyone acts that way. Sadly their actions destroy, often literally, innocent lives.   

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