Divorce: How can people afford to move on?

[Curmudgeon]

They'll just take more. Although there's a limit to how much can be taken, the laws differ in each state. Some are income shares states in which the earnings of both parents are factored. Some state's take a simple percentage (well under 50% in most cases) of the noncustodial parent's earnings. some factor in the amount of time each parent spends with the child(ren), others order day care, higher education and other extras. The best thing to do is at least consult an attorney.

 

When the ex and I divorced I started out paying $1,000 a month for two children on top of almost $600 a month for spousal support. In the end I was paying $700 for the youngest child and that was it. I represented myself in court and was relatively successful in presenting issues to the ex's attorneys, some they'd never heard raised before, that they didn't want brought out in open court so they settled every time. In a sense I controlled the amount of CS I paid but kept it reasonably within the state's formula for it.

[stillafool]

My Gawd, thank goodness I'm not a man. It's a wonder any man would ever get married and have children. You'd have to be nuts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[tinktronik]

I too , as a woman , wrestle with wether to remarry or not .And the weighing factor usually lands on a big FAT no way , never , absolutly not !!!!

[Gunny376]

over $65,000 of my net income in chld support after tax, whicih means I had to earn around $82,000 gross, I also gave her the tax deductions for the two children, also gave her everything materially from a 12 year marriage except a little Coke crate wagon, an artificle fern the CD's (all of which I had bought) and cassettes and my personal belongings ~ (she got PO that I kept the wagon and fern and music?). I did that for the children. Being a carrer Marine I wasn't in a position to pursue custody, As near as I can figure it cost me a little over $100,000.

 

(I have to admitt, at the time that even though in the state we divorced in she wasn't entitled to half of my retirement ~ just to make double damn sure ~ I held the above carrot out to her and had her sign away and all rights to my military retirement. Glad I did ~ because they've since changed the law ~ which she probally still wouldn't have any rights to it, but you never can tell. Anyway its worth about half a million or more with medical, dental, sales tax free PX benefits, and wholesale commissary grocies, Space A {Available} which mean given enough time and patience I can hop on a military aircraft to anywhere in the world for $10}. So in the end I made a short term decision with short term consequences and long term beneifts to me.)

 

Get married again? As the little Japanesse kid told me once ~ "You funny!!" In my eyes the only reason any man has for getting married is to have and raise chldren. Outside of that he'd have to be some sort of insane or an idiot.

 

Yea I know the suppose statistics about single men, but from what I've personally witnesssed, most married men aren't too happy, and what is all the more all the married men that I know say that the quantity and quality of sex is steadly sliding down hill.

 

 

One guy that I know, who just got married, went to do a little hugging and kissing as he and his new bride were changing for the reception. She pushed him away and told him ~ "There won't be any of that ~ we're married now!" On the night of their Honeymoon, as the consumated the marriage she asked him ~ "Are you almost finished!!" (The latest is she told him God gave him two perfectly good hands! She also told him that it was God's word that the man is suppose to work and support the wife. So she stays up all night, sleeps to noon, doesn't clean house, and lays up over at her girlfriends and Mama's house all day or lays in the road. LOL!)

 

I can't even begin to imagine him living with and having kids through 40 years of that? I offered to run over him with my car, the next time I passed his house and saw him out cutting his grass ~ just to put the poor bastard out of his misery~and to put him out of his suffering!

 

Talk about a guy hating life?

[Curmudgeon]

In my eyes the only reason any man has for getting married is to have and raise chldren. Outside of that he'd have to be some sort of insane or an idiot.

 

Over the course of 12 years I paid out close to $200,000 in child support to which I could add another 15,000 during the first two years in spousal support. Thankfully, she remarried before the ink was dry on the divorce order to the boyfriend she had before we separated. She got everything except my family antiques and a couple of other items I'd grown up with and she also got half my retirement. The divorce would have been cheap at twice the price.

 

I'm neither insane nor an idiot but I am married. Did it when I was 50 and my wife was 48 so children not an option and decidedly not wanted. I'd been single for two years and she'd been single for 18. We'd known one another for five. It worked for us then and it works for us now, almost 10 years later. She has her own retirement and could be quite independent if need be. We have savings and investments and my retirement fund is worth a lot more today than it was even before the ex took her half. The ex has nothing left, including her husband.

 

Makes ya wonder who's insane, doesn't it?

[tinktronik]

Funny bit here :

 

For the last few years , I have paid my ex monthly the same sum even though I was not ordered to pay anything. Every time he gets upset he claims he will "take me to court for ordered support " blah blah . So anyway he went to child support and they did the calculations with my income his income and the percentage of time the kids are with both of us , and he is gonna get less than I've been giving him .....HAHAHAHAHA .............................. Thats just what he gets..... So I will in fact pay him less , but put the rest away into a fund for the boys college , as my choice. ....

[Curmudgeon]

I like stories like that. The one time the ex took me back to court, using lawyer #2, she did so on the basis of a mistaken premise which I pointed out to the court. I then offered a bit extra with periodic increases (tied to my after tax percentage of any wage increases) and effectively controlled the amount of CS I paid from then on after factoring in time with the children she was preventing me from getting.

 

That attorney, like her first one had, warned her to leave it alone and never try to squeeze more out of me again or she'd walk away from court with little or nothing if I decided to present in court rather than settle on the side.

 

This time she listened, especially after I had the court order her to make a decision and convey it to me within 30 days regarding my retirement which she'd sat on for four years.

[Gunny376]

I like stories like that. The one time the ex took me back to court, using lawyer #2, she did so on the basis of a mistaken premise which I pointed out to the court. I then offered a bit extra with periodic increases (tied to my after tax percentage of any wage increases) and effectively controlled the amount of CS I paid from then on after factoring in time with the children she was preventing me from getting.

 

That attorney, like her first one had, warned her to leave it alone and never try to squeeze more out of me again or she'd walk away from court with little or nothing if I decided to present in court rather than settle on the side.

 

This time she listened, especially after I had the court order her to make a decision and convey it to me within 30 days regarding my retirement which she'd sat on for four years.

 

 

Can be a deadly thing!

 

Lawyer hate losing in court ~ they hate it even worse when they have

non-professionals hand them their azz in court!

 

I'm the sort that when confronted with a problem ~ I hit the libaray, and the books ~ and now the internet. If the internet alone had been around 16 years ago ~ it would have been on! Knowlwdge is King!