Alimony…Should he Pay if he Trades in the Old Model After 30 or 40 Years of Marriage?
July 1, 2009 by delainem
Filed under Coping, Infidelity, Midlife
Submitted by: Erica
I recently saw Terry Hekker on the Today Show and was struck by her story. Terry, now in her sixties, was a traditional housewife during the 70s and 80s. She even wrote a book, Ever Since Adam and Eve at the end of the 1970s extolling the virtues of staying home and raising the kids.
Her book countered the rising feminist tide of women giving up the housewife role to find careers. It illustrated the stories of so many women who I interviewed for my book, He’s History; You’re Not: Surviving Divorce After Forty.
Back then; there was a huge amount of controversy about career women. Most women took on the housewife role as a matter of course.
Terry, with admirable honesty, has now written: Disregard the First Book. It seems her husband handed her divorce papers on their 40th wedding anniversary, leaving her financially and emotionally destitute.
The judge only gave her “rehabilitative” alimony for a few years. Somehow, she was supposed to find a job at age 67, with no training and no job experience—during a recession when even 27 years olds can’t find work. In the meantime, her ex husband was in Cancun with his girlfriend. This story is all too common among divorcees of a certain age, mostly over 55.
I was a feminist early on, but so many women of my generation missed the feminist revolution completely. They were isolated in the suburbs with their families, and that is the way they liked it. Or at least, like Terry, they said that’s the way they liked it.
Those women, the ones who stayed home to raise children and help promote their husband’s careers are now being blindsided by husbands who are going through the stereotypical midlife crisis.
Their husbands are trading in the older model for the latest one. We feminists shot ourselves in the foot—or pocketbook—by convincing the courts we were independent women and didn’t need alimony. Alimony for life, which I think should be standard in cases like Terry’s, is now a rarity, especially in my state, New York, which is where Terry also lives.
Eventually the argument that women should stay home with the kids became moot because most families needed two incomes to survive. Women had to go to work to keep their families afloat.
However, we’re now experiencing a backlash where mommyhood is being extolled as a new route to sainthood, and “helicopter” moms spend so much time hovering over their kids they barely have time for a job. Terry is out there speaking to college classes convincing young girls that they must have a career and not depend on husbands, who may or may not stick around.
I totally agree, but this isn’t going to solve the problem of today’s older divorcee who doesn’t have a career and isn’t likely to find one in her fifties and sixties. I believe lifetime alimony has to be restored as the default for women who spent their lives as homemakers.
Those women’s contributions to the marriage have to be calculated in dollars. How much would it have cost their husbands to hire someone to cook, clean and raise the kids for 40 years? That’s what their wives contributed to the marriage and that asset has to be taken into account, just like the house and the IRA and other marital assets.
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My views on this are rather symplistic. Some would say even idiotic. In fact some have said just that.
Marriage, once children become involved is no longer about emotions. It is a busy, one in which each spouse has certain responsibilities and obligations.
If you have a business agreement with someone there are consequences to not holding up your end of the agreement.
The same should be true for marriage. If a spouse…husband or wife decides to walk away after years of building this “business” there should be consequences to their choice to walk.
If a man finds a new honey and leaves after a long-term marriage he should be prepared to pay for the damages to his wife that his decision will cost.
If a woman decides to leave she should fully understand that the perks of her marriage do not follow her when she leaves.
We all have a responsibility to those we spend years making promises to and plans with. That responsibility does not change just because we find what we feel is a better option.
I once had a guy tell me that you “can’t make someone love you.” As if responsibility to his marriage and spouse ended once those feelings of love ended.
What people don’t understand is that it isn’t about love. It is about a moral obligation…doing the right thing while you also pursue that new life you’ve decided you want.
Bottom line, no man or woman should lawfully be able to live the high life while the spouse they left behind after long-term marriages lives a destitute life.
I am a bit nervous to enter these waters
. Such an emotionally charged topic for a man to enter this room.
This dilemma has been going on for years and will continue. Things will change as you discussed as men and women are in the workforce. Many wives out earn their husbands today. But this issue of the man leaving for the newer model is a stain I feel will continue to mark men.
I agree with the statement about love. Love evolves over time and is not the same heat and passion we all start with in our young and new relationship. Nothing gives me more chills than to see and elderly couple, walking slowly together celebrating the twilight of their years together.
I apologize for the selfish husbands who thanks to Pfizer and the blue pill, now think they are forever young. They just better hope they don’t run out of money, or that pretty young thing they now spend time with, will be looking for a newer “richer model.
Finally, we all need to realize that our kids are like video cameras on wheels. What life lessons are being recorded and taught.
Barry, never be nervous to enter the water here. We enjoy hearing from the other side.
Your comment made me think of something my daddy used to say. “People are in love with love.” My parents were married 54 years when he passed away.
I saw there marriage come close to disintegrating on a couple of occasions. The bloom was definitely off the rose!
What they had though was a commitment to the marriage and the family. They eventually built a love for each other based on that commitment.
Over the years I watched them grow closer together, become lovers again and turn into that elderly couple celebrating the twilight of their years.
I ask my daddy shortly before he passed away if he had any regrets about not divorcing when things were bad. He told me no, that if he and my mother had divorced he would “not have what I have now.”
I learned a lot from my parents. Something that may feel disposable now could end up being your greatest blessing in life down the road.
I’ll always regret not being able to teach my children the same lessons my parents taught me.
Perspective from a man divorcing after 25+ years…
There are two sides to this. Erica asks “How much would it have cost their husbands to hire someone to cook, clean and raise the kids for 40 years?” I ask “How much is it worth to have someone provide for your every need so that you can stay home and devote all your time and energy to exactly what you want to do”. What is it worth to skip 40 years of commutes, bosses, deadlines. evaluations, and customers? What does the working spouse deserve from the “non-working” spouse in a traditional marriage?
I don’t know the particulars of Terry’s situation, but it seems very unlikely to me that her husband would leave if she were devoting a fraction of the energy to him that she devotes to her children, grandchildren, and community work. I suspect that she, like my ex, developed an attitude of entitlement to everything that her husband’s work provided that made him feel unappreciated and taken for granted.
Terry is now encouraging young women to spend 30 years in the rat race to ensure financial security in old age. I think a traditional marriage in which you devote an hour a day to your spouse is a much better deal.
In any marriage the problems cut both ways. It’s a relationship between two people and they both are responsible when they grow apart. However, as Cathy notes, marriage is a business partnership, if Terry raised the kids while her husband worked she simply doesn’t have the ability to find a career at age 67 that will support her. They made an agreement early on and if he wants to leave her for someone who will pay attention to his needs, he owes her the support he promised 40 years ago. I don’t know why men think staying home and taking care of kids is easier than working. The dirty secret of many career women is that they’d much rather work. The “rat race” is a breeze compared to parenting which is the hardest job ever invented. And how do you know she wasn’t attentive to her husband. Maybe he just wanted a younger model.
Marriage is a legal contract, among many other things. Typically there is a penalty on the partner who seeks to dissolve a contract prematurely. No-fault divorce laws seem to ignore the fact that one partner may be seeking to break a legal contract against the other partner’s wishes. The usual and customary 50-50 split of marital property hardly addresses this injury.
When I initiated a divorce after 7 years of marriage, I gave my husband most of our assets (admittedly, these were small). I felt that as the breaker of the contract, I owed him more than halvsies.
More than thirty years later, my second husband unilaterally decided he wanted out of our marriage after refusing to participate in marriage therapy. He said he realized he didn’t want to HAVE to take care of me when I got old and sick, and if he waited any longer I would certainly be one and possibly the other as well. Obviously, I”m skipping a lot of back story here, but he really did say the old and sick part.
That was 2 1/2 years ago, 2 weeks before my 59th birthday. My now ex was then 55. Soooo, he had done all the math, figured on a 50/50 split, and tried to pressure me in to mediation literally 5 days after he dropped this bomb.
Even though I was emotionally devastated and scared, I was also angry. Every career and financial decision I had made was predicated on what was best for my family. I left a Ph.D. program early in the marriage because my husband couldn’t find a job in the area of my university. I delayed (by 25 years) opening a private practice so that I could obtain health insurance for our family. My husband’s career would have looked the same whether or not he married me. He would have obtained his PH.D. from the same university where he started it and opened a private practice.
Given that he had a greater earning capacity, was 4 years younger than I, and that I had only been able to retire from my state agency job and open a private practice at age 55, I believed that I should come out of the marriage with at least the price of a modest house (150,000). I did prevail in mediation that took place 6 months later, when I was prepared to fight for myself.
I realize that I am better off than many women my age, but as it is I will have to work until I’m 70, my income is 20% less than his, and my social security will be half what his will be because I made so much less in the public sector pulling in the health insurance. Divorce laws still heavily favor men. On average, women make 68% of the income men do.
Yes, the investment of childrearing and homemaking should be given a monetary value. Legal ways must be developed to redress the economic servitude
and vulnerability in which most women abide, whether or not they realize it.
Disgusting. The author actually says that women’s contributions have to be calculated in dollars? There’s some fine print? Would she inform her spouse of the value, plus interest in dollars for future contributions BEFORE she decides to marry? I think not.
Has the author suggested any intent to calculate the value of the husbands’ financial contributions to the marriage? and just who will decide the value of womens’ contributions to a marriage? a feminist? The only thing that should be standard with marriages are iron-clad pre-nuptual agreements so that EVERYONE is aware of their rights and responsibilities should either party decide to leave. This talk of pricing the value of a husband’s or wife’s contributions makes me wanna puke. They’re called RESPONSIBILITIES, not contributions. One person agrees to raise the children and care for the home and the other person earns money to cover the expenses. Married people will decide those things themselves.
Terry Hekker’s situation is unfortunate, however to the best of my knowledge she should have been entitled to half of the assets in the marriage. I’m sure she must have family to provide support (which is the responsibility of families) and perhaps she should have found a career before marrying and having children, but to decide after the fact that she wants to go after her ex-husband for her own benefit is disgusting.
I’m happy being a man, nevertheless I don’t call myself a masculist. The point is never expect a fair opinion from someone who proudly extols their bias with the self title of feminist.
Disgusting is rather an emotionally fraught word, certainly not one which would tend to keep us focused on issues, Ivtalon. Not exactly nice, either.
I can give you several references which examine the shortcomings of no-fault divorce, one of which is a book written by (gasp) a man. Shall we think of devaluing labels for him? The issues are complex, but there are guiding principles; for example, laws should be crafted for societal good.
I don’t believe I called myself a feminist, but I am one in as much as I am also a masculinist. In case you miss my point, the good of society is not served when any group of people is marginalized, financially or otherwise. Real men are feminists.
You might have pointed out that my statistics regarding the disparity of male/female incomes were incorrect. American women earn 76 cents to every dollar earned by American men, not 68 as I reported above. Pretty big difference nonetheless.
Anyway, the issues are complex, some obvious and some subtle. The tone of your writing communicates that engaging issues is not your first order of business. Thank you for the reminder that there are those who react and spew anger as well as those who listen and respond with thought and reasonable discourse.
Peace and love
My wife of 17 years, stay at home mom to our three kids, has decided to leave me for an internet lover. I have paid for her college coursework, given her complete discretion on how to spend our money, and been a faithful father and husband. She has refused to consider counseling, separation or any solution other than divorce. I have no problem with dividing our marital assets which we accumulated as a team. I also realize I will be responsible for for the majority of our children’s financial support. What I don’t understand is why I am obligated to also support an ex wife who has no further obligations to me. We both made sacrifices and and worked hard to raise our family. At what point do my responsibilities to a woman who has rejected me end? Alimony is punishing me for a crime I did not commit.
I have enjoyed the insightful and courteous remarks here. As a husband and father of two, I have wondered about the state of my own marriage. I know of her undying committment and faith in me, and I just feel that I should be indebted to her emotionally for that. It sounds like I’m painting a picture of obligation, whic is a dirty word for people when discussing relationships, for some reason. What it means to me is that I must put others ahead of me, as I was taught by a pair of wonderful parents. Those 2 girls of mine deserve a father who is trustworthy and loyal to them and their mother, even if our love isn’t quite what it once was.