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Is the housewife facing a divorce? Don't expect any maintenance
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I recently wrote the article “Stay-at-Home-Mom Facing Divorce?” Don't expect alimony over the recent trend of states overhauling their alimony laws. Lifetime alimony is being challenged in many states, and the growing number of (successful, professional) female judges have little sympathy for women who do not work outside the home and deny them alimony.
As the many comments show, we are still a long way from abolishing maintenance. The reform is the result of petitions from groups who believe that alimony harms men by requiring them to pay an unfair amount to women to whom they are no longer married and have the opportunity to be financially independent. The reform is just beginning.
But alimony – once viewed as a feminist coup because it supported women who otherwise had few financial options – now harms women.
This new shift away from guaranteed lifetime support is hard on women who have not prepared for the financial realities of divorce and have chosen to depend on their husbands. I sympathize with some of these women – those who have disabled children who require intensive and comprehensive care well beyond the age of 18, women who are themselves mentally or physically disabled, and women who are over 70 years old and of legal age when they were actually there there was no economic equality between the sexes.
But for everyone else, I welcome this move to limit alimony payments. This is good for women, and what is good for women is good for families and the country. Here's why:
Ending maintenance would force every able-bodied person to be financially responsible for themselves . Suffragists and feminists before us fought fiercely (and hopefully joyfully) for you and me to be financially and legally equal to men. We still have a long way to go, but in most cases women in this country have the opportunity to support themselves. With opportunity comes responsibility. When you choose to be financially dependent on someone else (e.g. your husband), you are taking a risk. If this marriage ends and you have limited career opportunities and limited earning potential, you will have to bear the consequences of the downside of this risk.
Remove alimony from the career planning equation and force women to take full responsibility for their careers and finances from the start of adulthood. This is crucial if we are to close the pay gap, which has little to do with sexism in the workplace and more to do with women choosing lower-paying careers and giving up their careers to devote themselves to family life. The topic of female financial literacy is also addressed. A study found that women's participation in household finances is directly proportional to their contribution to family income. In other words, The more a woman contributes to the family finances, the more involved she is in its management. A fact that would impact these alarming female financial literacy numbers from workplace wellness program company Financial Finesse:
- A third of women are confident about their asset allocation, compared to half of men
- 66% of women say they have general investing knowledge, compared to 85% of men
- 63% of women say they have a handle on cash management, compared to 78% of men
- 47% of women say they have an emergency fund, compared to 62% of men
Ending alimony would be a boon to the family's financial security and would raise a clear red flag that you must reckon with the very real possibility that both spouses' income will likely be critical to the family's well-being. What will it take for people to recognize and plan for the fact that divorce rates have hovered around 50% for decades? And that's just the risk of divorce. Maintaining a career is about being a responsible member of the family. Even if you have the hottest, most committed marriage that lasts until the end of your life, there are other realities you have to reckon with:
Unemployment. Nearly four out of five U.S. adults will be at risk of severe unemployment, falling into poverty, or being on welfare. Men have been far more likely to be affected by an economic downturn in recent history. During the recession – from December 2007 to June 2009 – men lost 5.4 million jobs and women lost 2.1 million. This is also a numbers game. Betting on your husband to support you and your family is simply not a good move financially.
Disability. Nearly 5% of all eligible adults receive disability insurance benefits.
Life. Shit happens. Accidents, psychotic outbreaks, natural disasters and fires. You have no idea what to expect. So you do smart things. For example, maintaining your career will increase your family's financial security by at least two times.
One of the most compelling reasons to motivate women to pursue their careers is that it makes marriages stronger and reduces the likelihood of divorce . Researchers at UCLA and Utrecht University in the Netherlands found that the happiest marriages are those in which both spouses pursue careers they enjoy. In their book “Getting to 50/50,” Sharon Meers and Joanna Strober report that a marriage in which both partners earn about the same amount and do about the same amount of housework and childcare are 48 percent less likely to divorce than in a marriage where both partners earn about the same amount and do about the same amount of housework and childcare Average.
But perhaps the most important reason why no alimony is good for women is that without alimony, each party can move on with their lives, and that is the point of a divorce. Living off a check from an ex only leaves you emotionally invested in a marriage that is now over.
I have a friend who gave up a thriving small business she had spent 15 years building when she married a successful New York tax attorney and had a baby. The marriage ended. He pays her an amount each month that allows her to stay in a three-story, two-bedroom townhouse on the Upper East Side while she struggles to rebuild her business. “Tell your readers to never stop working,” she told me recently. “There is nothing worse than being dependent on a man you want to break up with.”
Also read: Is the housewife facing a divorce? Don't expect any maintenance
I'm an award-winning journalist, blogger and podcast host. My journalistic credits include the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, O, Oprah Magazine, US News and others. I'm best known for my blog WealthySingleMommy.com, where I help working single moms achieve success in careers, finances, family, dating, and sex. As an expert, I have appeared in Headlines, MONEY, Women's Day, the New York Times, NPR and more. My book The Kickass Single Mom (Penguin) was a #1 bestseller. I am the founder of Moms for Shared Parenting, an activist organization that advocates for equal shared parenting in all families.
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