to receive their share of income they helped earn; by way of their contribution. Those poor little men who have to share now that the work is over, need all that money for themselves...after all their new girlfriend/wife likes nice stuff too and why should she have to share?

don't make so much sense.

it sure as hell does. Florida is filled with AGING people. The woman in question is in retirement. It sounds like curb kicking to me.

No, the person in question was a bank loan officer at the time of the divorce, not a retiree. She retired several years later. She was working and earning a wage.

Also, the article indicates that she is currently taking care of two daughters. How old can she be? Hard to imagine that she is 65. 65-17=48. Even if we say she is taking care of twin 17 year old daughters, the math would say she had them at 48 years old. Something is wrong there. If she has younger daughters, for her to be at retirement age (65) she would need to have had them at ages older than 48.

It's much more likely she is in her early 50s, four years ago when she divorced that would put her in the 46-51 year old age range and employed as a bank officer. Why does she, as a middle aged wage earner at the time of her divorce, need alimony for life? Why isn't she paying the husband alimony for life? Why does either make more sense?

Again, once we take gender and emotion out of this it becomes more clear. If they were both women or both men, why does one woman need to pay the other woman alimony in that situation? Why would one man need to pay another man alimony in that situation?

I have sympathy for a spouse (could be male or female) who was a stay at home spouse their whole lives and then in their late 50's or beyond becomes divorced. That person may need life-long alimony. That is an uncommon situation nowadays with both partners usually working.

never be permanent, unless the spouse has a documented disability that prevents her or him (because I've known men who've received alimony also) from ever working. If it's awarded at all, it should be temporary to allow the spouse to get on their own two feet, if they're physically and/or mentally capable of doing so. This isn't the 1950's anymore. And why the hell should it be permanent, especially if they're younger? You seriously think that someone should permanently receive alimony even after they've remarried, or even many years later when they've both gone well on with their lives? Seriously?

As a woman and feminist, the whole notion of alimony seems antiquated to me.

I think it's weird to expect a "paycheck" just because you are divorced. I never took a penny from my ex. It was rough going financially for awhile, but I made it.

Alimony should always be a moving target, and reevaluated in the case of hardship.

In the same situations in reverse, men almost never get the same alimony a woman would receive. That implies that women are not as capable and need to be taken care of, in this case by an ex they don't even want to be with anymore.

And while I agree in part with the documented disability situation, the real answer to that is that there should be social safety nets that take care of all disabled people in this country. If we decrease military spending by 1% we could probably do that.

I don't think it's fair that they rule to give the woman more than 50%
of a man's pay when she has a job of her own.

He lost his house and claimed bankruptcy and had to live with his brother.

and he started working a second job

That's not right.

The whole idea of keeping an ex spouse in the same style they were accustomed to in marriage is not long for this world. If you can work and are young enough to where you can work 20 years and get a retirement at 65-70, you don't need lifelong alimony.

It will not take long after a woman earning 90K/yr is ordered to pay her 33 year old divorced spouse $45K/yr for life plus child support because said divorced spouse was a stay at home parent, for these policies to be thrown in the trash-bin of history.

I don't know when this went into effect but it was probably during the time when most women didn't work.

I believe that if a woman (middle income) marries a man with a lot of bucks
that she should benefit from the bucks while the marriage is in effect. Especially,
if she decides to dump him, she should be able to go back to her field and
return to the level at which she is able to support herself. She benefited from the
marriage but doesn't get to continue to benefit if the ex doesn't gain anything on his side.

It's a shame that we need to cause a stir to get things changed that are outmoded.

I've never understood why we even still have to have alimony nowadays, especially permanently. Maybe for several months to get the spouse retraining or back on their feet, but no more than that. And, as a woman, most of the women I know agree with that stance. The ones who don't think they should be taken care of, that they shouldn't have to dirty their pretty little hands with any work themselves.

If either spouse is a stay at home spouse, then long term alimony makes more sense. That is very uncommon nowadays. Most households involve both spouses working. No one really deserves alimony in that situation, certainly not long term alimony.

Equal custody is absolutely the right way to go and will eventually be the law of the land everywhere.

is another thing.

If the parents live in different school districts, which school district?

Alimony does make sense where one spouse 'settled' for a lesser career path to enable the other's success. If one spouse gives up the lucrative career to raise kids, or gives up his/her job in one city so that the spouse can take the dream job, or if one helps support the other one through law or business or medical school.

I can provide those. It basically involves switching off on a yearly or biyearly basis. That tends to cover geographical issues. Military families move around every two years or so and military kids turn out just fine. In fact, I think its probably better for kids as it reduces the power that peer groups tend to have over them, but that is a matter of debate.

Regarding alimony, I think the default should be zero. If couples want to arrange something other than that, they should need to put that in writing. So, the spouse who is going to settle for a lesser career path should say, OK, but if this doesn't work out, I want you to agree to pay me X for Y years. Or, OK, I am going to put you through law school, but I want half of that back if this doesn't work out, etc.

Again, I think that as we work to achieve equal pay for women, and as the family courts have to adjust to deal with same sex divorces, I think the current alimony system will become more and more unacceptable.

Full Disclosure: I have never had to pay anyone alimony so that is not a personal thing with me. The custody thing is something else, I do have personal history with that.

to negotiate their relationship like it's a corporate merger.

Prenups are bad enough.

There shouldn't be any gender assumptions, and it's more and more common for men in different-sex marriages to give up their high paying job to advance the wife's career etc.

than what is happening now and handles the much more common situation without requiring litigation at the end of the marriage.

The vast majority of modern marital situations are two wage earners. They wouldn't need any kind of pre-nup/post-nup regarding alimony. No one would get any.

If you get divorced and you are young enough to start a career and work 20 years and get a retirement, why should someone support you long term? Why does that person deserve by default more than a kid who gets kicked out of their parents house at 18?

I'm for simplifying divorce, making it quick and easy and reducing the possibilities for litigation at the end and spouses using the divorce process to get even with their exes, or to not have to support themselves and all that kind of messy stuff. For some reason, extremely unfair outcomes have been allowed to go on for a long time. I'm looking forward to a lot of progress on this front.

But, realistically, earnings potential is severely diminished for someone who takes the 'mommy/daddy track.'

1. Zero is the default alimony for two wage earner families

2. For divorcing spouses who have been married less than 20 years or are below the age of 50 where one spouse has never worked outside the home, the wage earning spouse must pay the non working spouse 25% of their income for two years.

3. For divorcing spouses who have been married for at least 20 years and who are above the age of 50 where one spouse has never worked outside the home, the wage earning spouse must pay the non-working spouse 35% of their income for life.