Instead of getting married again, I’m going to find a woman I don’t like and just give her a house. ~ Rod Stewart
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Here in sunny California, marriages of 10 years or more are considered marriages of “long duration” and if divorce occurs thereafter the court is NOT allowed to set a definite termination date for spousal support at the time of trial.
Now the median age people get married in California is 29.5 and life expectancy is 80.77. So let’s say a couple gets married when both of them are 29.5 years old and they happen to decide to divorce when both are 40. That means that the primary breadwinner could be required to pay spousal support every month for the next 40 years or more.
Famously, Tom Cruise filed to divorce Nicole Kidman—according to him–3 days shy of their tenth marriage anniversary. However, according to Nicole, “…the parties had (already) happily celebrated their 10th anniversary with a group of friends. During the balance of December and thereafter the parties were intimate; in fact [Kidman] became pregnant by [Cruise] but lost the baby through a miscarriage.” Apparently Nicole saved the placenta from the miscarriage and used it in court to prove that their marriage had lasted more than 10 years and she was entitled to 50% of their combined net worth. The court agreed with Nicole.
So I guess the moral of the story is for ladies in California to save their emissions for the first few months after their 10 year anniversaries…?
Since becoming a psychotherapist I have encountered many women amidst various stages of divorce and there appear to be recurring themes in their narratives.
Firstly, I have met two women whose husbands—like Tom Cruise filed for divorce just before the 10 year mark. In one case, the marriage was going fine, the husband asked the wife to sign a “post-nuptial” agreement forfeiting her long-term rights, she refused, and he divorced her at 9 years and 11 months. There was no problem in the relationship of which she was aware; the husband merely did not want to be obligated to share his potential future earnings with her.
I have also met six women whose marriages had lasted more than 10 years and who lived in rather nice homes but whose marriages were no longer functional so the couples decided to divorce.
And here is where things get dicey.
Because although the laws are stringent for long-term marriages regarding spousal support and dividing assets 50/50, teams of extremely savvy lawyers and accountants have devised myriad strategies for the primary breadwinners (in these cases all of the primary breadwinners happened to be the husbands) to “protect” and “retain” (i.e., hide) incomes and assets.
In one marriage, the husband had built a successful business overseas that made and imported a top-selling product in a well-known American grocery store. The husband, however, had not taken a salary while he built this business and was able to hide the actual worth of the company under reams of expenses. Then he had the audacity to SUE THE (salaried) WIFE for spousal support even though everyone knew what the overseas factory was really worth.
One husband kept taking $20,000 vacations with his girlfriend and arriving in court in his $110,000 sports car and telling the judge his salary was $40,000 per year.
Two husbands kept properties bequeathed to them during the marriages in their parent’s trusts/living wills until the divorces were final so that funds available for support and the wife’s attorney’s fees would not include these assets.
Another husband apparently sold his assets/companies to relatives for pennies fully intending on buying them back after the divorce settled.
Another husband managed to transfer funds to foreign bank accounts that could not be discovered even by hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of forensic accountants.
Another husband somehow managed to have his employers pay him in cash so that his tax returns claimed he was a pauper when he lived more like a prince.
But that is not even the really disgusting part, because it seems as if the true strategy of the husbands’ attorneys in all of these cases was to bleed the wives dry with attorney fees – while the husbands’ attorneys continued to line their own pockets also. Two of the women paid their lead attorneys $800 dollars per hour and then the assisting attorneys who did most of the grunt work were a steal at $450 – $600 per hour. One woman spent $900,000 in attorney fees, another spent over a million, and two others spent in the low-mid six figures. In one case the wife’s attorney refused to sign-off on the final paperwork when the wife refused to spend another $300,000 on forensic accountants in order to locate the potential millions that the husband was hiding in foreign investments.
Ironically (from a safe distance, that is), it seems as if some of the husbands were willing to pay millions to attorneys to insure that the mothers of their children did not get those same millions. I had thought that the opposite of love was indifference, but some of these characters make a strong argument for the opposite of love being hate.
The tricks used by the men and their attorneys in these cases also include asking the judges for perpetual continuances at every opportunity. Men still earn more than women and in these cases the husbands had much deeper (albeit hidden) pockets than their wives so every extra month of proceedings meant hemorrhaging the wives’ already depleted bank accounts.
When speaking with these traumatized women, it seemed almost inconceivable that they had spent years being courted by, romanced by, married to, making love with, traveling the world with, and making babies with the same men who were now doing everything in their power to crush and destroy them.
And I will not even mention how the men tried to pit the children against their mothers (the favorite strategy appears to entail insinuating that the mother is mentally ill), failed to return texts and telephone calls regarding the drop-offs and exchanges of children, gaslit the women in public (the preferred location to gaslight your wife is apparently at your children’s school), and in one case even instigated an investigation by Child Protective Services of the mother of his own children.
Granted, these women who I have met may be isolated cases.
On the other hand, it appears that this could be one of those “rules were made to be broken/skirted” situations—like the U.S. tax system—where after a period of time enough loopholes have been discovered or created to render the law practically ineffectual and in some cases have unintended psychological ramifications.
I asked noted Family Law Attorney Dorothy Gibbons-White about this and she told me that besides “conscious un-coupling,” the only way to prevent such traumatic conflicts are properly drafted premarital agreements that address who gets what assets and income in the event of divorce and also set forth minimum testamentary provisions for the lower net worth spouse. The time and money spent on this process before the marriage can save hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars (as well as the therapy necessary to process what feels like the ultimate betrayal) in the case of divorce.
But for those idealists and romantics who swear to love and cherish until death do they part, maybe it is time to update and revise the divorce laws to eliminate the loopholes, strategies, and games, and make the outcomes less acrimonious?
Photo: wwworks / flickr
Since women file for divorce 70% of the time I believe your cases are in the minority. It’s shocking some of your clients spent close to a million trying secure money from someone else. Unfortunately that’s the byproduct of a divorce transfer of wealth from one to another which is preposterous. It’s sad you can’t tell someone you don’t want to be with them anymore and split amicably oh no everyones livelihood is at stake now which is beyond sad. I’m glad people are abandoning the insitituion of marriage it’s the best decision they will ever make.
I agree completely
I see what the author is saying and it does go both ways but most states have laws to address these issues and alimony is no longer a lifelong thing or is decided at judgement. You can pay an atty.to keep the gamel going for years. It would be good if we required people to learn these things before they married. If one does not understand assets earned (not inherited) during marriage are 50/50 then what is the relationship? Get a pre-nup. This emotional issue is also why some states now require mediation. It would be interesting to see the… Read more »
A shabby article, sorry Ira. Your underlying premise is that the legal tomfoolery and loopholery is unfair on ex-wives, but the examples focus on your wealthy clients who *have* hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight for a lucrative sinecure. The other 95% of couples who can’t afford attorneys get screwed. Well, the major breadwinner gets screwed the most while the ex-spouse has a perpetual additional, unearned, income stream over and above what they earn themselves. I would love to have someone I hate send me money every month, simply for not being part of their life. We can see… Read more »
Caveat Emptor, you marry at your own risk – Russian Roulette is safer
This reminds me of the man that wrote to Ask Amy, he met some bimbo through a work friend, had what he called amazing fireworks and wanted his wife’s permission to have an affair with this bimbo. That is one jack ass of a man!
Part of my post didn’t get there. I started by saying maybe the law itself is setting up these inequities and means to circumvent them. Humans are really creative in figuring out how to get around things when they percieve the injustice of the system. So take away the incentive to do that.
Look for ways to be fair. For example. One has a huge trust fund from patents. That is theirs alone. However if not used to support both and one relied on the other income for marital asset acquisition then repayment comes out of the trust fund or whatever source necessary to repay. But that trust is not automatically split in half if the lifestyle was supported by both parties. Take the relative capabilities of getting a job into consideration. Not the actual obtaining of employment but the capabilities. Again blind to gender but including the kids as parties to the… Read more »
As an attorney who has licenses to practice in both California and Texas, I am glad that I don’t deal with the California mindset in Family law cases involving alimony. It seems ridiculous for men ( or women) to have to support the ex-spouse for the rest of their lives simply because they are married for over ten years. . Most marriages that I have seen blow up are the resulting fault on both sides as a result of the co-dependencies of both partners. The mindset of the author is an indictment of the system that he practices in. He… Read more »
Can you imagine being a man who doesn’t want to be married to someone anymore and having to pay and pay and pay alimony for YEARS to someone you don’t love anymore???! It’s disgraceful to be on the receiving end of this kind of money. When I left my marriage, i took no alimony. I had two kids to support and it was hard. I didn’t want to be financially intertwined with my ex… I wanted to be free of him. If you need some money to get on your feet I get it, but this is unfair and downright… Read more »
That’s because you’re a person of integrity and have self respect. It seems to me that today we live in a ‘Bi-Polar’ society where women are encouraged to go out into the world and be all they can on one handout should they get divorced, they are treated as if they have to be ‘taken care of’. By the way, the 5 year limit your friend went for, that can be overturned by a judge or arbitrator at any time (happened to a friend of mine)
I agree I have to pay my x 1,000 a month for life just because a worked hard for 2 year to make more money she says I owe her I drive a dam truck for a living now I work 14 days 7 days a wk…..I will never remarry I don’t even want a relationship …..have dinner then good by
This is a stupid article. Its the woman who are taking everything a man owns and have done nothing themselves. This article is HOG WASH and just is attempting to support an inbalanced justice system which sides mainly with the woman. Heres something for you feminist lezbians. How about staeting a business yourself or being the breadwinner yourself and letti g your husbant sit on his ass watxhing soaps all day, gossiping and eating bon bons all day, theres your equal rights. .
Great article. These are not isolated incidents but a matter of course for divorce attorneys, but the intentionally inflicted damages do work both ways. We have as many men asking for help as women and the data shows that the worst problem is the professional misconduct that occurs when parties are easy to manipulate and the situation is ripe for exploitation. The same bad practices are rampant in child custody cases, and custody cases are often used as a tool to gain financial leverage & to control, punish and hold hostage the other parent. If you bleed the other parent… Read more »
Great comment, Deb! You’re right on all counts.
You can close the loop holes or you can make the system more fair. Remember that 80K in “unpaid” labor women are supposedly doing, how much of that does she have to give the husband when they split? The issue with life time alimony is that there are other loop holes that you aren’t asking about closing like what incentive does the wife have to become employable if she knows her ex-husband is going to be required to support her for life. Simply changing it to a automatically reduce 5 to 10% a year after the first 10 years would… Read more »
Prenup: if you divorce me… You leave my kids and money with me. ☺
Now that ” ’til death do us part” has become “until I change my mind”, and the number of married adults has reached an all-time low, maybe it is time to abolish what has become an outdated institution. No one seems to be very happy with it, and in a post-marriage world the only losers are the wedding industry and the divorce lawyers
It also goes the other way. As a psychotherapist, I have seen a fair number of women who have siphoned large sums of money from joint accounts, diverted them into other accounts, opened up countless credit cards, ran them up, had numerous affairs, and then claim “poor me, I’m just a stay at home mom, and so neglected and he made me keep the books” while the husband worked 7 days a week for 20+ years. Women have just as much capacity to destroy as do men.
Thank you.