Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Wow $25 a month? My brother was hammered for $600 a month child support, and he was a battered husband. He also took custody as much as he could. Its individual cases.
I am sorry he was a battered husband, but being battered does not and should not affect the amount that a person should contribute towards the support of his children. Surely, you aren't suggesting the children should be punished? As for the amount -- I don't know where your brother lives, but where I am, $600 would pay for a small fraction of actual costs of raising a child. My son's daycare is $1800 a month -- pretty standard around here, nothing fancy. So if I were to divorce and my husband were to pay me $600, this wouldn't even cover half the daycare bill. Just the daycare, mind you -- without factoring in food, clothing, medical expenses, etc. In other words, even with $600 a month in child support, I would still be providing the bulk of the financial support to my kid. So, unless your brother lives somewhere in the sticks where $600 is a lot of money, I wouldn't say he got "hammered".
I think child support should not be paid in cash. It should be paid in necessities for the child only. Diapers, daycare, insurance, school supplies, fees for sports activities, field trips, clothes, groceries, etc.
If I had to pay support, I would hate to hand over a check and not know where it's going. At least if I bought Huggies and baby food, I would know (or hope) that my ex was not using those for his benefit.
Really? But I thought the income gap was a "myth" too. So which one is it, guys? You can't have it both ways. If men and women make the same amount of money, how come women's financial status takes a dive after a divorce?
I am not sure what you are talking about. But I'll try to make an example: This is hypothetical
if a man who is a lawyer making 120K marries a teacher that makes 40k. it is obviuos that if she divorces him she would be worse off financially than she used to be.
I am pretty convinced that most couples in the US consist of a man that makes the same or more than his wife. Obviously if this is the case I am not sure what this has to do with any income gap. Care to elaborate?
I think child support should not be paid in cash. It should be paid in necessities for the child only. Diapers, daycare, insurance, school supplies, fees for sports activities, field trips, clothes, groceries, etc.
If I had to pay support, I would hate to hand over a check and not know where it's going. At least if I bought Huggies and baby food, I would know (or hope) that my ex was not using those for his benefit.
If the child care expenses are $2000 a month, and your child support obligation is $500 a month, can you really claim that you don't know where it's going? What option would your ex have? Not buy the diapers? Please.
If the child care expenses are $2000 a month, and your child support obligation is $500 a month, can you really claim that you don't know where it's going? What option would your ex have? Not buy the diapers? Please.
Sure I can claim I don't know where it's going. People claim all kinds of wild theories - look at the posts in this thread.
I am not sure what you are talking about. But I'll try to make an example: This is hypothetical
if a man who is a lawyer making 120K marries a teacher that makes 40k. it is obviuos that if she divorces him she would be worse off financially than she used to be.
I am pretty convinced that most couples in the US consist of a man that makes the same or more than his wife. Obviously if this is the case I am not sure what this has to do with any income gap. Care to elaborate?
I was referring to the common MRA trope that there is no wage gap between men and women -- that men and women enter high-paying fields in comparable numbers and get paid the same amount of money for the same amount of competence and work performed.
That aside, I don't think that an $80K per year disparity in income is all that common. However, your example raises a whole number of possibilities. If she is a lowly teacher making a mere $40K while having education comparable to her husband's, it's a pretty safe bet he rode on her lovely city benefits while going to school -- now this is pretty common, at least from what I was able to observe in law school. That means, she had to keep her city job while he got his education, sacrificing her own time and delaying her own opportunity to get a high paying job. If, say, they both graduated college at around same time, what is the reason her husband went to law school and she became a teacher? Why was there a decision that HE should get a high-paying job? And how does it change the fact that women don't, in fact, make out like bandits in a divorce, contrary to popular belief?
This is a gross distortion of how law actually works. Just because a statute provides for the possibility of lifetime alimony doesn't mean that it's automatically granted in any case where a couple has been married for 20 years. The award of alimony is based on a wide variety of factors, including the ability of the respective parties to support themselves. If one of the parties in your example is paralyzed and has had 6 strokes, I can see the judge awarding lifetime alimony. If, by contrast, both parties are educated, well-paid professionals, there is no way in hell it's going to happen; it would be an abuse of discretion if it did, and would get overturned on appeal in about 30 seconds. Celebrity marriages are the only ones in which there is even a possibility of a windfall. In all other cases, no judge will issue an award that will allow one party to just stop working. Oh, and by the way -- if you are worried about all of the family's assets being the fruits of YOUR labors, and your wife getting some of them upon divorce, there is a simple way to prevent that: don't marry a trophy wife. Don't bring a mail-order bride. Mary someone within your social class, and someone who has an income. If, however, you treat women like chattel, and a wife, to you, is someone you buy -- having the "product" become a money pit is simply an occupational hazard.
You should read my previous post. I never said it was automatic.
You don't really believe what you have stated there in bold. Maybe you should say most reasonable judges (Some of them are either wacko liberals or the more dangerous kind loony right-wingers).
I was referring to the common MRA trope that there is no wage gap between men and women -- that men and women enter high-paying fields in comparable numbers and get paid the same amount of money for the same amount of competence and work performed.
That aside, I don't think that an $80K per year disparity in income is all that common. However, your example raises a whole number of possibilities. If she is a lowly teacher making a mere $40K while having education comparable to her husband's, it's a pretty safe bet he rode on her lovely city benefits while going to school -- now this is pretty common, at least from what I was able to observe in law school. That means, she had to keep her city job while he got his education, sacrificing her own time and delaying her own opportunity to get a high paying job. If, say, they both graduated college at around same time, what is the reason her husband went to law school and she became a teacher? Why was there a decision that HE should get a high-paying job? And how does it change the fact that women don't, in fact, make out like bandits in a divorce, contrary to popular belief?
You must be a lawyer, I just made a hypothetical example and you just completely muddled my point. I am not interested in those possible circumstances, I was just interested in the fact that if A marries B and A makes X amount less than B. Then it is only logical that A loses access to X amount of income because of divorce. See no gender and no specific amount.
Women do not enter all high-end field in the same number as men. I am an engineer in a very obscure field that pays a lot. We had no women in undergrad and 2 (1 was a foreign student) in graduate school. The few women I worked with made the same amount of money as I did (even a lot more because they went into the business side of it. I remained a pure scientist). I did recruiting for my school to attract women and minorities. They can pretty much go to school for free. They just are not interested in it. What are we to do? We can't force them
Last edited by cqoica123; 03-02-2010 at 03:47 PM..
You should read my previous post. I never said it was automatic.
Sorry, that's clearly implied in your post. You made it sound as if women easily get lifetime alimony as long as they can make 20 years in marriage. And this, of course, is quite far from reality.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cqoica123
Maybe you should say most reasonable judges (Some of them are either wacko liberals or the more dangerous kind loony right-wingers).
Although I frequently disagree with how judges rule, I have met very few that quality as certifiable nutjobs. If a judge issues a really wacky decision, there is always the appeal, and if the decision IS, indeed, "wacky", the appellate panel is virtually guaranteed to overturn it. As rare as crazy judges are to begin with (especially at the appellate level), it would be exceedingly unlikely to get 2 or more crazy judges to line up in a single panel AND to actually come to the same decision. At the trial level, however, judges care about their reputation for reliability. They HATE having their decisions overturned by the appellate court. When it happens, it is a humiliation and a slap in the face; if the decision is scandalous enough, it will make the front page of the local law journal, and the judge will be even more humiliated. Judges whose decisions were never reversed on appeal wear that reputation on their sleeve, as a badge of honor. Thus, when a judge issues a decision, he will be mindful of the possibility of an appeal -- ALWAYS. All these things provide adequate safeguards against decisions that are irrational or completely unfair. Sure, there is no absolute guarantee that a judge will not issue a devil-may-care ruling, but you making it sounds as if it happens as a matter of course is really unjustified.
You must be a lawyer, I just made a hypothetical example and you just completely muddled my point.
You know it's really funny when people discuss law and they point out that you are a lawyer as a factor supposedly making you less competent to discuss the subject. Of course, of course -- what do doctors know about medicine?
Quote:
Originally Posted by cqoica123
I am not interested in those possible circumstances, I was just interested in the fact that if A marries B and A makes X amount less than B. Then it is only logical that A loses access to X amount of income because of divorce.
Law deals with real life situations; and real life situations are never as simple as you want them to be. But apart from that, isn't this an acknowledgment that women don't, in fact, routinely take all their their ex-husbands' income or assets?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
So which one is it, guys? You can't have it both ways. If men and women make the same amount of money, how come women's financial status takes a dive after a divorce?
