Yes Virginia - it Really Is that Bad

I don't usually tell people much about my situation but I did yesterday with a colleague and friend I've known for years at work. She had recently divorced. (Her husband left my friend and their kids for another woman that he secretly had a child with) Their divorce was fairly straight forward although he is trying to reduce child support because of his new child, but there is no alimony.

My friend knows the girl I have been dating for the last four years and make a joke about getting married. Without thinking too much I told her that I legally can't. I then had to clarify that for all practical purposes I can't because that would require my new spouse to pay alimony to Spring if I became unable to work.  Then I had to tell her the whole story of how despite the fact that Spring divorced me, the custody evaluator ruled parenting during the marriage was joint, a vocational evaluation stating Spring could make just as much money as me, good evidence of perjury by Spring, absolute evidence that her lawyer Nelly Wince lied in court, joint custody after the divorce, as well as many other injustices, I am required to pay a massive amount of alimony to Spring until the day I die. I have no possibility of retirement or remarriage.

My friend had this incredulous look. She could not believe that I had been so unjustly treated or that it was even possible that anyone could be treated so unjustly by the court system. I told her that it is hard to believe but that is the way the system works. I even mentioned the story I posted earlier in the week as well as the Robin and James Hair story that I have mentioned before.

The reality of how the divorce system works is so inconceivable to most people that they simply think that it can't possibly be that bad. Even people who have been divorced, if both parties were at lest marginally ethical, have a hard time believing that anyone could be so unjustly, even criminally, treated by the divorce system as I and my children have. It is not plausible in their minds. It doesn't pass the sniff test. Nonetheless it is sadly, tragically true. This difficulty is believing how bad the system is one of the main reasons the injustices persists.