Reply to What is Just Compensation for a "Life Lost"?

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[quote=Anonymous]Various levels of divorce hell.

This is a summary of my observations, based on my friends' experiences with divorce.

When both spouses work full-time in careers that -- more or less -- can each individually support a person with one or two children comfortably, then the divorce mainly comes down to questions of custody issues and logistics, with a more-or-less equitable split of the marital assets.

When both spouses work full-time in careers that -- most definitely -- cannot individually support a person with one or two children comfortably, then the divorce comes down to issues of child support, and questions of custody issues and logistics, with a more-or-less equitable split of marital assets.

When one spouse is an at-home spouse:

If the earning spouse is very wealthy (earning $5 million or more a year) then the spouses can generally agree on split that pays generous alimony and child support, full college and household expenses - because the earning spouse can afford two essentially maintain two households.  The marital assets may be split a little more generously toward the non-working spouse.

If the earning spouse is middle class to wealthy the divorces are the most contentious.  Both spouses have become accustomed to a life of nice vacations, club memberships, good schools, and the at-home spouse is often highly-educated and has given up a career track.  At this income level, the earning-spouse cannot generously support two households in the style of European vacations, Big 3 schools, BMWs, and country club memberships. In fact, s/he may want to move on to a second spouse and family who will want and expect all those things, but the ex-spouse and family want them too.  These divorces are super-contentious on issues like the distribution of marital assets, alimony, child support, and will be fought tooth-and-nail with lots of resentment on both sides.

Divorce among low-earning spouse with a minimum-wage, clerical, or even lower GS-scale jobs have, remarkably, been less contentious.  It is what it is, neither spouse is accustomed to a fancy lifestyle, and the at-home spouse can often get an entry-level  job paying close-to what the earning spouse used to provide.  These ex-couples sometimes find that the financial situation is somewhat better since they both now work earning a beginning salary.  However, issues of child custody, logistics and child support may throw a wrench in the proceedings since they both now work and are busier.[/quote]

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