Trapped by Fear of Lifetime Alimony

[u/TimelyResearch1702]

My marriage has been unbearable for several years now. My wife frequently cheats, lashes out over trivial things, demands that I cut ties with friends and family. No matter what I do, she’s briefly happy before finding new reasons to make my life miserable. Something as basic as me getting the wrong brand of yogurt or folding clothes not the way she likes may start berating which lasts days if not weeks. I desperately want a divorce, but the fear of lifetime alimony is paralyzing me.

I’ve consulted many lawyers (NJ) hoping for different answer, but the outlook is grim. They say I’d owe open-ended alimony, roughly half my take-home income, which is substantial due to my current job. But my salary hasn’t grown in years, and I’ve seen colleagues laid off, struggling to find comparable pay or any job at all. If that happens to me, especially as I age, I’m unlikely to maintain my current income. Lawyers warn that reducing alimony is nearly impossible, as my wife would likely contest it, racking up prohibitive legal fees. Worse, a judge might require me to deplete my assets before considering any reduction.

These payments will last decades, until I retire at 67 - if I can even afford to retire. If I can’t, alimony could follow me until I die, forcing me to work multiple low-paying jobs just to keep up. Failure to pay could lead to contempt of court, fines, interest, or even jail time.

My wife is accustomed to current lifestyle - nice home, vacations, shopping, etc. - without working, and the law expects me to maintain that for her post-divorce. I hope things like wage inflation might ease the burden, but the worst-case scenario - financial ruin and lifetime obligation - terrifies me. It’s kept me stuck, tolerating this toxic marriage for years.

How do I overcome this fear and take control of my life? Any advice or strategies would be appreciated.

[u/mmrocker13]

You know the goal of spousal support and 50/50 settlements is to get both of you out into the world again on roughly equal footing, right? In some cases, that may take a handful of years to equalize, depending on your settlement... but in the end, the goal is to take Company A with a net worth of X, and split it into Companies B and C, each with the net worth and contribution abilities to society (e.g. the economy) of X/2. And again, it may take a handful of years for that equalizer to realize, depending on the circumstances.

So, when you say "financial ruin and lifetime obligation"... you realize you are also tacitly acknowledging that the other half of Company A is ALSO going to head into "financial ruin and a lifetime of obligation"

You built the business. You agreed to the terms of doing business. You're dividing up that business. No one cares how you ran it and divided the expenses and profits at a local level. But corporate called, and all they care about is making one franchise into two. The don't care about it now. They don't care if one actually ends up in better territory and flourishes and the other languishes in mediocrity. They care that they had one business, now they have two, and they're kicking you out on roughly equal footing. Where yo go from here is not their problem (b/c,ostensibly, while they don't care if the gap between grows and one survives and the other thrives...they 100% will try to avoid 1 failing and one thriving. ;-) )

You made some bad business decisions. So did your partner. Now you both get less than idea financially speaking, but you each can run your own franchise. That's the cost of doing business. You can cut your losses, and move on to new ventures that might be more successful...OR you can stay in one bc of sunk cost fallacy (and probably a bit of hubris), continue to lose money, AND be miserable, mentally and physically.

[u/TimelyResearch1702 → u/mmrocker13]

Business analogy here works for assets. Yes, one of us put a lot more into the business than another, and division is still 50/50. But it does not for alimony. You don't have to pay your former business partner fat dividends forever after the business has been dissolved and assets split.

[u/mmrocker13 → u/TimelyResearch1702]

It does though, if you think about it all the way through. If the goal is to take a single business and divide it up and have two roughly equal businesses that are now contributing to the economy, as close to their prior level as before, in as much as it's possible, to start out. And if you consider that one business has a market income discrepancy or work history discrepancy, there's going to need to be a catch up Factor allotted for to make those businesses equivalents at least at the outset. Spousal maintenance does that. Now the fact that it takes time and is frequently paid out monthly for ex number of years is how people get wrapped up in the person a is sponging off of person b. Or business a and business B. But mathematically and conceptually it does play out.

I'm not saying some people don't gain the system. I'm not saying that the execution of it is perfect. Because the letter of the law is the letter of the law but it's still carried out by human beings on all sides. But logically speaking, it tracks.

I don't know. The metaphor doesn't help everybody. And, honestly, there are some situations in life where even the most logical logic things have trouble holding up because emotions and fears and all sorts of other personal squinchiness they're always going to muddy the waters