"Real-life" examples of alimony paid/received?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Women, these figures of alimony and child support don't sound all that great, do they? How in the world can a woman maintain a mortgage payment on a $1 million house, car payment, etc. without a career of her own. A man is not a plan.

Most people in the real world aren't living in million-dollar houses. A man was a plan for my husband's ex. She got lifelong alimony/pension despite only being married 10 years and cheating/moving in with her AP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Married 12 years, together 22 total. He got caught cheating with men, so I had some leverage. No kids. We used a mediator and negotiated this between ourselves, so I have no idea what a judge would have instituted.

At the time we negotiated this, he made 200k, I made 100k. Our salaries have always been 2:1, but he has more growth and bonus potential than I do.

Rather than deciding on a set amount, which would diminish in value over time due to inflation, we came up with a formula: 20% of the difference in our salaries (his minus mine), divided by 12, I receive monthly. Never to dip below a floor of $1400/month. Currently it's around 1600.

Plus, I receive 20% of any bonuses he gets.

We recalculate this formula every March 1 using the previous year's W-2s.

This will be paid for 10 years or until someone moves in with me and contributes to my living expenses. In that case, the alimony will pause, to start up again if that person moves out and we're still within the 10 years. It would also end if I receive greater than 200k in gifts from my parents (like an inheritance).

I own a life insurance policy on my ex for 250k, which he pays the monthly premium for.

If you have your own income that makes no sense you get alimony.

[Anonymous]

I’ve heard of a wife supporting her husband through med school & residency, and then he divorced her once he became an attending.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Married 12 years, together 22 total. He got caught cheating with men, so I had some leverage. No kids. We used a mediator and negotiated this between ourselves, so I have no idea what a judge would have instituted.

At the time we negotiated this, he made 200k, I made 100k. Our salaries have always been 2:1, but he has more growth and bonus potential than I do.

Rather than deciding on a set amount, which would diminish in value over time due to inflation, we came up with a formula: 20% of the difference in our salaries (his minus mine), divided by 12, I receive monthly. Never to dip below a floor of $1400/month. Currently it's around 1600.

Plus, I receive 20% of any bonuses he gets.

We recalculate this formula every March 1 using the previous year's W-2s.

This will be paid for 10 years or until someone moves in with me and contributes to my living expenses. In that case, the alimony will pause, to start up again if that person moves out and we're still within the 10 years. It would also end if I receive greater than 200k in gifts from my parents (like an inheritance).

I own a life insurance policy on my ex for 250k, which he pays the monthly premium for.

How can you possibly sleep at night, you are fully employed and make a good bit more than the majority of the United States, you don’t have children yet you partake in his earnings, gross!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve heard of a wife supporting her husband through med school & residency, and then he divorced her once he became an attending.

Yeah this is a tale as old as time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Alimony is ridiculous. Get a job. The gravy train ends once you decided to end the marriage.

Alimony is recognition for the 'work' of domestic life. While there are varying levels of the productiveness of that work, it is still work. Consider the case of the navy wife and their children. She is incapable of maintaining a career because her husband is shipped from port to port every few years. The career aspirations of a naval officer rests very much on the ability of the spouse to maintain the domestic sphere and promote his social life. Or a journalist posted for a foreign country with spouse and kids in tow. That journalist's family life would be non-existant if not for the spouse. There are many high achieving professionals who wouldn't have a domestic life if not for the spouse at home.
Modern courts do recognize the education attainments of the non-working spouse and increasingly factor that into the duration of alimony. So if the non-working spouse is college educated and still young, alimony would only be a few years as the expectation is that she can return to work with some training. But if the non-working spouse is in her late 50s and had outdated skills but raised a passel of his children, maintained home, took charge of the domestic responsibilities for several decades so he had the freedom to travel and make partner, the it can be reasonably argued that she will have a hard time finding outside work and frankly her efforts on the domestic front is 'work' that helped propel him professionally. She is entitled to a share of his success because she helped get him there. That's the gray world of alimony.

No, this is wrong. Alimony has nothing to do with the "work" of domestic life. The receiving spouse doesn't have to have contributed to domestic life at all; there is no standard to meet for domestic work or childcare or helping advance the spouse' career. Spouses who never enter the kitchen or touch the mop are as entitled to alimony as hard-working housewives and mothers.

Alimony is recognition of the fact that two spouses form a unit, and share a lifestyle, and when that unit breaks down, the lower-earning spouse is entitled to a soft transition out of her better-resourced life with a former spouse.

I personally find the talk of "contributing to career advancement" to be utter bollocks. There are tons of successful single navy officers and journalists out there. Most successful men would have been successful, married or single. They became successful because that was their priority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve heard of a wife supporting her husband through med school & residency, and then he divorced her once he became an attending.

Yeah this is a tale as old as time.

Yep, I also know a few guys in business whose first wife supported them through the early career and MBA years, then they divorced and remarried once they got the post-MBA job. Sometimes the second marriage was to someone in their MBA class.

[Anonymous]

The most miserable men I know are the ones unhappily married to SAHMs (especially if the SAHMs don't do as much with the kids as the husband thinks she should) but who know they'll be destroyed in alimony payments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Alimony is ridiculous. Get a job. The gravy train ends once you decided to end the marriage.

Alimony is recognition for the 'work' of domestic life. While there are varying levels of the productiveness of that work, it is still work. Consider the case of the navy wife and their children. She is incapable of maintaining a career because her husband is shipped from port to port every few years. The career aspirations of a naval officer rests very much on the ability of the spouse to maintain the domestic sphere and promote his social life. Or a journalist posted for a foreign country with spouse and kids in tow. That journalist's family life would be non-existant if not for the spouse. There are many high achieving professionals who wouldn't have a domestic life if not for the spouse at home.
Modern courts do recognize the education attainments of the non-working spouse and increasingly factor that into the duration of alimony. So if the non-working spouse is college educated and still young, alimony would only be a few years as the expectation is that she can return to work with some training. But if the non-working spouse is in her late 50s and had outdated skills but raised a passel of his children, maintained home, took charge of the domestic responsibilities for several decades so he had the freedom to travel and make partner, the it can be reasonably argued that she will have a hard time finding outside work and frankly her efforts on the domestic front is 'work' that helped propel him professionally. She is entitled to a share of his success because she helped get him there. That's the gray world of alimony.

No, this is wrong. Alimony has nothing to do with the "work" of domestic life. The receiving spouse doesn't have to have contributed to domestic life at all; there is no standard to meet for domestic work or childcare or helping advance the spouse' career. Spouses who never enter the kitchen or touch the mop are as entitled to alimony as hard-working housewives and mothers.

Alimony is recognition of the fact that two spouses form a unit, and share a lifestyle, and when that unit breaks down, the lower-earning spouse is entitled to a soft transition out of her better-resourced life with a former spouse.

I personally find the talk of "contributing to career advancement" to be utter bollocks. There are tons of successful single navy officers and journalists out there. Most successful men would have been successful, married or single. They became successful because that was their priority.

How successful would they have been had they been responsible for childcare for the kids they chose to have? We are not talking about single men without children. We are talking about men who chose to marry and have children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am trying to get some "real-life" examples of what alimony looks like in different situations. Would greatly appreciate anyone who's gone through this answering the following questions to help me do that:

-What was the length of your marriage?
-What was your income...and what was your spouse's income...at the time of separation/divorce or when terms were negotiated/litigated?
-What was the monthly amount of alimony determined to be paid or received?
-For what duration?
-Were there any terms that would cause that alimony to change? (For example, if the lower-earning spouse earned over a certain income?)
-What state are you in?
-I am asking these questions assuming a 50/50 split of assets, but if that's not the case in your situation and an uneven division of assets had an impact on how you structured alimony, I would be interested in hearing how you worked that.

I know that many will advise to consult a lawyer, but just hoping some of you will be willing to answer these questions.

Thank you.

17 years
I made $235,000. She had a real estate license and only worked sporadically. Mainly because she didn't really like to work.
She cheated. I used that information to leverage an acceptable (to me) settlement. Offered alimony of $2,300 for seven years. Plus child support on 50/50, even though the kids basically lived with me 80% of the time. Total monthly payment around $3,400. This was based on an assignment of income of $55,000 a year to her -- a figure in between two she gave on worksheets to a different lawyer (and left those sheets laying around the house before I realized we were getting divorced).
Virginia.
My lawyer included clauses to say alimony was non-modifiable and she forfeited any right to seek more after the initial seven years.
50/50 split of assets.

Keep in mind proof of the affair gave me all the leverage because if we went to court she risked getting nothing. She denied the affair, but didn't know the evidence I had (from a PI) and so basically wasn't willing to take it to court. Her lawyer made her sign papers indemnifying them since they seemed to think she could get more (although I don't think she was as honest with them about her adultery, which might have affected their advice). I'm only mentioning this because I'm not sure this is a typical arrangement.

She initially sought twice as much for 10 years. We just outright rejected that.

Never saw the inside of a courtroom.

You offered too much, should have dragged her through court

I considered that. However, I was thinking about my kids, who were teenagers. In two ways: 1) I didn't really want to put them in the middle in a contentious fight. 2) I didn't want their mother to be destitute and a burden on them in their young adulthood.

Believe me, I'm counting the days. Child support ends in June when youngest graduates. Of course, that money will still go to child support as it will just be used for college expenses. But it least it won't go through my ex. Alimony ends in a couple of years -- I have the date circled on my calendar.

Also, going to court would have cost me about $150,000 probably. That was another consideration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Married 12 years, together 22 total. He got caught cheating with men, so I had some leverage. No kids. We used a mediator and negotiated this between ourselves, so I have no idea what a judge would have instituted.

At the time we negotiated this, he made 200k, I made 100k. Our salaries have always been 2:1, but he has more growth and bonus potential than I do.

Rather than deciding on a set amount, which would diminish in value over time due to inflation, we came up with a formula: 20% of the difference in our salaries (his minus mine), divided by 12, I receive monthly. Never to dip below a floor of $1400/month. Currently it's around 1600.

Plus, I receive 20% of any bonuses he gets.

We recalculate this formula every March 1 using the previous year's W-2s.

This will be paid for 10 years or until someone moves in with me and contributes to my living expenses. In that case, the alimony will pause, to start up again if that person moves out and we're still within the 10 years. It would also end if I receive greater than 200k in gifts from my parents (like an inheritance).

I own a life insurance policy on my ex for 250k, which he pays the monthly premium for.

How can you possibly sleep at night, you are fully employed and make a good bit more than the majority of the United States, you don’t have children yet you partake in his earnings, gross!

Did you miss the part where he wasted 22 years of my life and deprived me of children under fraudulent premises?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve heard of a wife supporting her husband through med school & residency, and then he divorced her once he became an attending.

Yeah this is a tale as old as time.

More commonly he doesn’t even marry her but she cooks & cleans & supports her then breaks up after graduation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Married 12 years, together 22 total. He got caught cheating with men, so I had some leverage. No kids. We used a mediator and negotiated this between ourselves, so I have no idea what a judge would have instituted.

At the time we negotiated this, he made 200k, I made 100k. Our salaries have always been 2:1, but he has more growth and bonus potential than I do.

Rather than deciding on a set amount, which would diminish in value over time due to inflation, we came up with a formula: 20% of the difference in our salaries (his minus mine), divided by 12, I receive monthly. Never to dip below a floor of $1400/month. Currently it's around 1600.

Plus, I receive 20% of any bonuses he gets.

We recalculate this formula every March 1 using the previous year's W-2s.

This will be paid for 10 years or until someone moves in with me and contributes to my living expenses. In that case, the alimony will pause, to start up again if that person moves out and we're still within the 10 years. It would also end if I receive greater than 200k in gifts from my parents (like an inheritance).

I own a life insurance policy on my ex for 250k, which he pays the monthly premium for.

How can you possibly sleep at night, you are fully employed and make a good bit more than the majority of the United States, you don’t have children yet you partake in his earnings, gross!

Did you miss the part where he wasted 22 years of my life and deprived me of children under fraudulent premises?

You deprived yourself out of kids, you’re a reasonably intelligent woman who makes a lot of money, your options were not limited by someone who chained you to a stove.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve heard of a wife supporting her husband through med school & residency, and then he divorced her once he became an attending.

I know someone who got more than half a million for this exact scenario and she and her ex schemed to disguise it as “child support” to avoid taxes or something.

[Anonymous]

OP, here. Thank you to those who have responded so far.

Would welcome more responses to get a broader picture, but would appreciate people sticking to the questions I posted.

Thank you.