Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Paying alimony

A reader writes:
I have been reading your blog on and off for awhile now. I accidently stumbled upon it while googling family court info.....

Although I am happily engaged now to a wonderful woman, (this is in fact her email address that I am borrowing while away from my computer), I have experienced the frustration and pain of family court.

My story is too long to type to you at this time, but one thing I wanted to share with you is now that your wife is engaged, I hope that you are going for monthly spousal support payments rather than one large sum settlement just to get it over with. The reason I write to you is that I did not know that my wife was already engaged to the man that she had an affair with while we were marrried and was the ultimate reason that she left what I thought at the time was a beautiful relationship, silly me, (he was younger, very handsome, quite the charmer, and partied and played with her while I was out working my butt off for her and the kids), and she convinced me that a one time settlement would be best and easiest for all involved - Imagine my surprise when the day after she got my money, she moved in "officially" with the other guy, WITH my kids, and got married a month later - apparantly my money went to buy HIM a new truck and to pay off a large chunk of his morgage on his house - I was livid.

I later found out that if I had been paying monthly spousal support, all support would have ended once she got married! I would still have to pay child support, but less since they were living with a new "dad" and financial provider, etc. But the actual "spousal" support would have ended since she couldn't claim that without my money she would be starving and be destitute and without gas money or clothes money because she was "alone" and had no support that she had become accustomed to in our marriage - once she got married, she became the other guys wife and his responsibility!!!!

Only recently does it seem that you are mentioning more your ex-wife's attempts to get more money from you - especially since now she claims to deserve lawyer fees as her own lawyer - precious. - I am not sure what your marriage desolution alimony plan is or even if you can change it at this time - but if I can help you by sharing my experience with you, then great.

As I mentioned at the beginning, I am now engaged to a beautiful special woman - after a few years of pain and anger, I see the silver lining of the mess that my ex brought into my life. She is married to a guy that ended up being an alcoholic and has a problem sleeping around with other women....... Since she was married to me when she started her affair with him, and apparantly, he was in a relationship with someone else as well, then I say that she is getting the proverbial karma bite in the butt that she deserves! And now I have my kids full time since she and the new young pretty blue coller husband are always fighting............ I am a happy man.

Good Luck, ...
Thanks. I am told that with the increased child support formulas of the last few years, there isn't even supposed to be any need for alimony. Most cases do not award alimony. Alimony is supposed to be temporary, and ought to end soon whether she gets a job, or gets remarried, or what. Of course, I don't have much confidence in the legal system.

Glad things worked out okay for you.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Question: If you get awarded 50-50 custody, do you still have to pay child support? Is child support supposed to be shared equally between mother and father? You pay expenses while the kids are with you, she and her fiance pay expenses when the kids are with them, and then clothes, education, medical etc is shared evenly?