In new alimony bill, wealthy, cheating men could pay less
If a Brevard County legislator gets his way, Florida will completely overhaul its alimony laws.
Why do you have alimony laws at all? Its the year 2011. Every available statistic shows more women in college, grad school, med school and law school than men; women's earnings have skyrocketed over the past two decades - a fact. What is alimony for? For men to support women? What data do you have that shows women have some legitimate, massive need for support at all? Besides, don't people move on with their lives after divorce... remarry, move, get a new job, etc.? What is one person doing financially shackled to the other for life?And some of the biggest winners could be wealthy men who cheat on their wives.
Huh? That is your angle? That we need to really worry about wealthy men who cheat, a.k.a. Tiger Woods? First off, how many of these so called, society-ruining, rich (which it seems is a crime here as well), and CHEATING men, are there running around amongst us? Because ALL I READ AND HEAR day-in and day-out are stories from women that they can't find any guys who fit your description! Wealthy men are FEW and FAR BETWEEN! And of that tiny percentage we have to worry about the portion of those who cheat on their wives! And how many can that be? 10, 20, 30%? More? I have no stats on how many rich guys cheat on their wives. I do know that the ones with kids have probably heard of the HORROR stories of getting RAPED in family court if they were to ever get divorced - forced to give up 50% of their income or more. So I'm sure they are all just DYING to cheat over and over again and then get divorced and be poor. That's why they worked so hard for their money to begin with.
The bill would forbid judges from considering adultery when determining alimony. More significantly, it would limit both the amount and length of time it is paid.
Again - WHY do you we have alimony AT ALL. Women are broadly educated these days. They can work. If they want to sit at home that is THEIR choice. If they get divorced and need to transition back into working, then their ex-spouse, IF WEALTHY, can pay something to help transition them back into full-time employment. But why on earth would he pay her LOADS of alimony FOR LIFE? Further, is adultery any reason to pay someone thousands upon thousands every month FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIFE?!?!? The punishment doesn't fit the crime. That's usurious. Further, if there is an EPIDEMIC of rich men dumping their wives, find me some figures buddy (not published or sponsored by N.O.W.), because you sound so alarmed about something and I have no idea what it is.
The bill aims to so radically reshape Florida's alimony laws that I asked three recognized divorce attorneys to study it.
You did what? Asked 3 lions to describe the steak? This isn't about how good the law is for attorneys. Attorneys will tell you how good the law is FOR THEM. Do you think they're fucking stupid? Do you think they'll tell you the change is GOOD? If its not GOOD FOR THEM, they'll tell you ITS BAD FOR YOU. But unless you were born yesterday, you know that lawyers don't get rich MAKING THINGS EASIER AND BETTER FOR YOU. Lawyers get rich off CONFLICT and MAKE-OR-BREAK-YOU laws that cause you to go for broke and fight legal battles that take years and then appeal and go broke in the process. WAKE UP MR. MAXWELL.
All three represent both men and women. And all three described the bill as seriously flawed and poorly thought out — an increasing and troubling trend in this state.
"Flawed and poorly thought out." Whoa. Sounds serious. Who's going to be killed when this big, mean law passes?!?!? It doesn't even abolish alimony (again - no one can show why we even need alimony to start). It simply limits alimony because our alimony laws dictate men go broke supporting their ex-wife based on the 1800s idea that women don't work, can't work, have no education, and will starve without money. Anyone alive today WHO CAN READ, ought to know we're damn far from that these days.
"My initial take is that it's basically anti-woman and anti-alimony," said Richard West, a past president of the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. "More importantly, the bill was not very well thought out."
The bill was filed by Ritch Workman, a Melbourne Republican, on Nov. 2 — precisely eight days after Workman finalized his own divorce.
Several other local legislators are also divorced or currently going through one.
So legislators have some frigging experience with divorce. DO YOU, MR. MAXWELL? I'm guessing not. I'm guessing you did not put your whole life into working hard, making money for your family, and wake up one day to find a judge telling you that half your assets and 20% of your income would be going to your ex-wife, who is the one who asked for the divorce in the first place and that this would render you unable to retire, veritably a working slave UNTIL YOU DIE. And legislators decided, oh, I don't know, that this was ABSOLUTELY FREAKING ABSURD IN THE YEAR 2011?!?!?!?!House Bill 549 would allow previous divorce agreements to be reopened and renegotiated — meaning its impact could be massive. West described it as "a lawyers' relief act."
Imagine that.
Workman said Friday that he wouldn't personally be affected because he isn't paying any alimony. And he said he hadn't filed the bill on behalf of any of his legislative peers.
The guy filing the bill isn't even getting raped with alimony but he sees how absurd it is.Instead, he said he wanted to address inequities in the current system.
"All I'm trying to do is make alimony a bit more fair," Workman said. "The thought of short-term marriage ending in a long-term alimony is a mistake."
A good friend of mine has a cousin - a man - who married young and came home one day to hear his young wife say "I don't feel like being married anymore." He now pays her health insurance and alimony for life. FOR A 25 YEAR OLD COLLEGE EDUCATED WOMAN!?!??! DOES THAT SOUND RIGHT TO YOU!?!?!?The three divorce attorneys I talked with agreed with Workman that some reform is needed. But the general consensus was that his bill was sloppy, went too far and was potentially unconstitutional.
That's bad. The three people who are supposed to shoot down the bill agree that the current law is so terrible it still needs to be changed. Wow, that's strong. But, but, but.... they go on to say the current law is potentially unconstitutional!?!?!? HAHAHAHAHA. Really? WHICH PART? Oh, and pray tell, WHAT PART OF THE CURRENT LAW OF GIVING A PRIVATE CITIZEN'S ASSETS TO ANOTHER CITIZEN PLUS FUTURE EARNINGS IS CONSTITUTIONAL!?!?! We have NO FAULT divorce in this country. So your future earnings can be given to another person based on no wrong doing on your part - HOW THE FUCK IS THAT CONSTITUTIONAL!?!??! DO YOU UNDERSTAND HALF THE POINT OF THE CONSTITUTION IS TO PROTECT PRIVATE PROPERTY!?!??!
"Draconian" was the word used by Terry Young, who once represented Tiger Woods' ex-wife, Elin.
Are you really serious?!?!? They interviewed TIGER WOODS' LAWYER!?!?!? BWAHAHAHAHAHA. The guy that made millions off of helping Tiger's ex shake him down for everything he's got, has an opinion on this law - a law which would have cut into his take on Tiger's divorce. Gee, I wonder what he's going to say.Among Young's biggest concerns was that it tries to set very specific caps — such as one that says no award can be more than "20 percent of the payor's monthly net income … averaged over the last three years."
"This is designed to handcuff judges," Young said.
Time out. You mean a judge can award alimony - based on even a 1 year marriage - that exceeds 20 percent of your MONTHLY INCOME!?!?!? FOR LIFE. That is literally a life-time tax to your ex. For a relationship that lasted as little as a year or two? Are you fucking kidding? And Mr. Maxwell's position is that this income cap is... bad!?!?!? HOW? You want it to be UNLIMITED? So the judge can order you pay 30, 40, or 50% or your income for life and basically go from upper or middle class to LIVING IN SQUALOR!?!?!?
Wow. You really hate men, Mr. Maxwell and are dying to see them punished. Did your dad leave your mom and cause you to blame him for her poverty or something? I mean, how the Hell can you justify an unlimited amount of alimony for life?
Orlando attorney Amy Goodblatt also expressed concerns about Workman's proposal to automatically terminate alimony payments when the payer reaches retirement age.
Oh my God, the horror. You mean after paying alimony to the tune of thousands a year for 10, 20, 30 years or more, you finally see it end ONLY AT RETIREMENT AGE!?!?!? And this is THE PROPOSED LAW!?!?!? The existing law demands it continue UNTIL YOU'RE DEAD!?!?!? Thank God we're going to try to stop this new, women-hating legislation!
Did you know due to insane laws like our current child support and alimony system, divorced men kill themselves at a rate TEN TIMES that of divorced women? BUT FOR GOD'S SAKE DON'T PASS LAWS DESIGNED TO RAPE MEN SLIGHTLY LESS THAN YOU DO NOW!?!?! OH MY GOD, THE HORROR!The statutes are, of course, gender-neutral. But the reality is that men account for more than 90 percent of alimony payers, according to census stats. That's largely because men generally make more money. And more wives than husbands stay at home.
Men are barely ahead of women when it comes to making money and yes, that's because most women stay home, BUT NOT BECAUSE WOMEN ARE NOT EDUCATED, SKILLED OR ABLE TO WORK - STATS SHOW THEY ARE.Young noted this bill would particularly penalize women who never worked during their marriage, sometimes because husbands didn't want them to.
Extra dose of stupid here - WHAT DATA DO YOU HAVE THAT SHOWS ALL HUSBANDS ARE TELLING THEIR WIVES NOT TO WORK?!?!?! EVERY MIDDLE CLASS AND MANY UPPER MIDDLE CLASS GUYS I KNOW HAVE WIVES THAT WORK. STATS SHOW MOST WOMEN WORK THESE DAYS. WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU REFERRING TO WHEN YOU TALK ABOUT WOMEN BEING "FORCED" TO STAY AT HOME!??!?! FURTHER, EVERY WOMAN I KNOW IS DREAMING OF THE DAY HER HUSBAND MAKES ENOUGH FOR HER TO STAY AT HOME WITH THE KIDS AND NOT PAY $1K A MONTH IN DAY CARE COSTS.
But please keep talking. Because it seems you know 1) That "some" women stay home (how many?) 2) Why they stay home (because the big, mean man tells them to) and 3) That there is some large amount of women somewhere who have NEVER worked (where the bleep do you live?)
All three attorneys agreed that striking the adultery statute wouldn't have widespread effect, as courts didn't often rely on it as a primary factor.
Didn't you just get Tiger Woods' ex-wife's lawyer to call this new law horrific? Now you're saying the adultery part of the law doesn't even matter as courts DON'T EVEN CONSIDER IT - which means, that if a wife commits adultery THAT ALSO DOES NOT AFFECT THE COURT'S DECISION, SO A DIVORCED MAN WHO WAS CHEATED ON WILL PAY HIS CHEATING EX-WIFE UNTIL HE DIES?!?!?!?
Why don't you point that out?
But they also thought the cap was a bad idea — arbitrary and possibly unconstitutional.
Reached Friday, Workman said he agreed in part — and that he had already decided to remove portions of his bill.
He had not done so when we spoke but said he would soon.
"A cap is a bad idea," he conceded. "If I had thought through it, I would have realized that."
And that's one of the most troubling parts about all this.
He should have thought it through.
Did you all take your stupid pill!?!? There is no LEGITIMATE reason for any alimony AT ALL except in severe cases where a woman hasn't worked for decades AND has no education or poor education and her husband makes a very large income, in which case he can help transition her into working. But this idea that every divorced woman be a KEPT woman is INSANE. It assumes every man is rich and every woman is a kept, uneducated, unskilled idiot, which is the biggest insult you can give to women. Alimony needs to be ALL BUT PHASED OUT for most of the population. Period. ITS THE YEAR 2011. WAKE UP. There are so many more women in college than men, colleges are WEIGHTING boy's applications in an attempt to close the gap and claw back to a 50-50 gender split on campus AND EVEN THOSE ATTEMPTS ARE FAILING.
WAKE-THE-FUCK-UP.
Too often nowadays, legislators are filing bills that clearly don't pass constitutional muster — only to say, "Oops, it was only a draft," when called out on it.
(Don't forget freshman Jason Brodeur's first-draft attempt to imprison doctors — and fine them up to $5 million — for asking patients, including potentially homicidal ones, about guns.)
These aren't first drafts of book reports, for Pete's sake. They're state laws.
I guess we can at least give Workman credit for agreeing to make needed changes, assuming he does. Some bull-headed lawmakers won't even do that.
Still, if Workman didn't think it completely through, that may be because the legislation wasn't completely his own. He said it was modeled after similar legislation that recently passed in Massachusetts, part of a growing alimony-reform movement.
There, alimony reformers highlighted "horror stories" of people who got a divorce and were forced to pay much more alimony than seemed reasonable.
NO ALIMONY IS REASONABLE FOR WOMEN WHO CAN WORK AND HAVE EDUCATION AND THAT IS 98% OF WOMEN THESE DAYS. ALIMONY WAS BUILT FOR SOCIETY AS IT EXISTED 100 YEARS AGO. COME OUT OF YOUR DEEP SLEEP YOU BLITHERING IDIOT.
Would you espouse lifetime alimony to the tune of thousands a year for an educated, skilled man? OF COURSE NOT. And guess what - your CONSTITUTION demands men and women ARE EQUAL, YOU BONEHEAD. WHAT APPLIES TO ONE, EQUALLY APPLES TO THE OTHER!
"I'm kind of a reformer," said Workman, who also filed bills to lift the ban on unmarried cohabitation and "dwarf-tossing" competitions. "And in a lot of cases, the alimony is just too punitive."
The attorneys agreed that some horror stories are out there and that some reforms are needed. But they also stressed that the horror stories aren't the norm — and that Workman's bill could impact all kinds of routine settlements, even in ways he didn't intend, and mostly at the expense of women.
OH MY GOD. His bill would impact "routine settlements." DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE FUCK THAT MEANS, DEAR READER? That the ordinary rape of divorced men would be affected! OH MY GOD! NOT THAT! We couldn't have 25 year old college-educated women not receive money from their ex-husband FOR LIFE! All for being married a grand total of 30 months!As a result, not a one of them believed the bill should pass — even though they could personally profit if it did.
Explaining his "lawyers'-relief act" line, West said: "Listen, if this thing passes, you get to go back and retry everything. The first thing I could do is go through my closed files for the last 12 years and say: 'Hey, I have a good chance of getting you out of this now.' "
You would have to CORRECT PRIOR INJUSTICES?!?! OH NO! NOT THAT! YOU MEAN THE MONEY WOULD STOP ARBITRARILY FLOWING FROM ONE PARTY TO ANOTHER FOR LIFE!?!?!? Are you fricking kidding me?
Consider this scenario that plays out every day: a man and woman meet in college. Both graduate. They get married. 3-5 years later, they get divorced. Turns out they married too young, didn't know what they wanted, changed careers, decided to have/not have kids, whatever. In a free, equal country, they split everything they made WHILE THEY WERE TOGETHER ONLY, and move on with their lives. He remarries, she remarries, older, wiser, and they live their life.
NOPE. DOESN'T HAPPEN HERE! You see, because a man has a penis - AND FOR NO OTHER REASON THAT CAN BE FACTUALLY PROVEN - he pays her a portion of his income UNTIL HE'S DEAD!
WHY?
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