This sentence caught my eye. As the "survivor" of a no fault CA divorce involving retirement pay. Alimony ends if/when the payer dies, or when the payee remarries. Also it can be readjusted and/or terminated, by petitioning the court proving changed circumstances involving income, health, employment etc. Petitioner should be prepared to pay court/Lawyer costs should they lose their case.I believe that in CA, I'd be "qualified" for alimony for life at this point.
I'm throwing the BS flag on this.... As a result it is only due to minimal alimony that she is able to pay rent and basic utilities.
You raise a valid point about lost earning potential, but didn't you accept that when you got married? Why should your (theoretically ex) husband compensate you because you decided to get married to a military servicemember and follow him around the world instead of pursue your career? He didn't hold a gun to your head and force you to do it, and while you may have lost income potential you probably have life experiences from living abroad that will never get crossed off most people's bucket lists. How do you quantify that? If I got divorced, I couldn't seek compensation from my wife for having to afford a bigger home to rent, more expensive utilities, $90/mo cable tv that I normally wouldn't pay for, etc. instead of split 3-4 BR apartments with other single JOs and save a ton of money in the process.I believe that in CA, I'd be "qualified" for alimony for life at this point. That's ridiculous (note to self: delete this post in case of divorce), but a couple years so that I could find myself a job and get reestablished and undo some of the damage OCONUS living has done to my lifelong earning potential? In my world, that's not unreasonable. Would I take half his retirement? Probably not, but that depends on the reason for divorce, I guess, and the intensity of the desire for retribution. In some Jerry Springer scenario where he was sleeping with my sister? It tough to say what I'd feel or do.
Oh yeah, you can thank former Congresswoman "Patsy" Schroeder (D) CO, for that jewel of feminist legislation. I was in process when thar was enacted.. The spousal & child support (in addition to her 1/3 ot the retirement), gobbled up most of my remainih 2/3 of retirement! Fair? I think not; however, I had no problem with the child support. Only the fact that I had to help subsidize her new husband's cabin cruiser with a portion of my hard-earned retirement, when she remarried. Uggghh!Then things like treating retirement as an asset instead of income/alimony just take the cake.
This sentence caught my eye. As the "survivor" of a no fault CA divorce involving retirement pay. Alimony ends if/when the payer dies, or when the payee remarries. Also it can be readjusted and/or terminated, by petitioning the court proving changed circumstances involving income, health, employment etc. Petitioner should be prepared to pay court/Lawyer costs should they lose their case.
For those who may not be aware, in military divorce in CA,, the division by % of military retirement is NOT alimony, but the retirement income is considered community property, the % awarded is based on a formula of how many years of the retirees active service, was the pair actually married. Simply put, if the retiree did 20 years and the marriage was for the full 20, the retirement income split is 50-50. If the marriage was only 10 of the 20, the split would be retiree 75%, ex 25%. In my case our marriage was 15 of my 22 years service, so it was ~66% for BzB, ~33% for ex-ms. Bee. Of course spousal support (alimony) may be added, along with child support, The retirement split is "forever" i.e., until the death of the retiree, or the ex. Spousal support/alimony ends upon remarriage of the recipient.
I sincerely hope the Penguins enjoy a long, fruitful, and successful marriage, for it would take a Doctorate in Math to compute a formulae for equitable division of the fruits of their respective careers! lol
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BzB
I'm throwing the BS flag on this.
You're saying that she can't find a job making $30-50k/year to afford a 2-3 BR apartment with roommates and a sub-$100/month electric/heat bill, and it's ONLY alimony that allows her to afford this?
I understand your point about lost income potential (and that is a very good point), but if you can't make enough to afford a place to stay and pay utilities without alimony then your job experience/education falls in Subway Sandwich Artist territory.
You raise a valid point about lost earning potential, but didn't you accept that when you got married? Why should your (theoretically ex) husband compensate you because you decided to get married to a military servicemember and follow him around the world instead of pursue your career? He didn't hold a gun to your head and force you to do it, and while you may have lost income potential you probably have life experiences from living abroad that will never get crossed off most people's bucket lists. How do you quantify that? If I got divorced, I couldn't seek compensation from my wife for having to afford a bigger home to rent, more expensive utilities, $90/mo cable tv that I normally wouldn't pay for, etc. instead of split 3-4 BR apartments with other single JOs and save a ton of money in the process.
I take issue with divorce law being very old-school when women in the 21st century typically don't need to depend on their husbands for the sole source of income (and many do not). The premise of your argument re alimony is that it's your husband's fault for your lost income potential, you're just the helpless wife trapped into following him around. So if you guys split then he owes it to you to pay alimony until you can make up that ground he supposedly forced you to lose. When really you decided to marry him out of your own free will, and you sacrificed your career because you thought that marriage to him was better for you/more important/whatever. He shouldn't have to pay for your bad career decisions if the marriage doesn't work out -- you made that decision because you thought it would benefit you in other ways.
Then things like treating retirement as an asset instead of income/alimony just take the cake.