My wife and I are getting divorced, been separated for 3 months and moving forward with the thing. The biggest issue now is money. I would prefer to keep things amicable and not get lawyers involved. Here is the issue: together for 9 years, living together for 5 only married for 1.5. My TC: 160k, hers: 30k ish. We went to counseling and I said I wanted to make things work she said she can't do it. She would like to get 1800 in spousal support for 2 years. I technically if we go to court and asked a judge to figure this out owe her nothing. For the last 3 months I've been paying the lease and utilities which is about 1800. I gave her all the stuff, own all of the debt (about 60k of it) and have paid off 10k in medical costs she incurred recently. She is keeping the dog too I basically want to tell her I'll give her 1k/mo till our lease runs out then I'm done (alternatively maybe 500/mo till a year after that?). She should get a roommate if she needs to, but she says she can't for medical reasons (admittedly having a roomate when you have celiacs is hard, but it's not impossible). Am I being unreasonable here? My take home on salary is about 6k/mo. I don't want to pay 1/3 of that to my ex wife who chose to leave me? (I also have to pay my own rent too, I'd essentially be sinking 4k into rent every month if her scenario comes to fruition, factor I'm the debt and I've got about 900 is money for everything else I pay for out of salary. Granted I get stock grants and such, but every 3 months) I'm sympathetic to the fact that she is seeing a quality of life reduction because of this. I'm not really ok with the idea that I will because my wife decided to she can't be with me. Edit: 9 years started in high school, I've only been a SWE for 3 years and I live in Colorado. It's hardly dating a gold digger when for 6 years my largest income was 20k + student loans. I started at Google 3 months ago, 1 week after we separated.
I would just pay the 1800/mo for 2 years and move on. If you want to fight her, the legal costs + reduce payment to her will still be 1800/mo amortized over 2 years. You make 160k a year. $43,200 in payments sucks but ya know you did choose to get married which is a big financial deal between 2 people.
The way I see it my take home of standard paychecks is about 70k. And she wants 30% of that. Yeah my TC is high, but a large amount of that gets paid out yearly or quarterly.
Maybe I work out something like 20% of my take home when I get it. So I'm not tight on the month to month bills. It's also the debt and such. I gave her 20k worth of stuff and have debt around paying for that. I'm trying to be reasonable. Others might be right might need a lawyer 🙄
Sorry for your circumstances; you’re not being unreasonable.
You need a lawyer dude, and don't cheap out
You need to get whatever you two are going to agree to put down on writing and executed by both of you. That is why you need a lawyer
Yep fortunately the state has handy forms that cover all of that. I might still need a lawyer but it feels silly given how little time we have been married.
Marriage LUL
Marriage is the scam that inevitably screws over the man. Sorry you had to learn the hard way.
There’s actually a trend where the woman is more frequently the breadwinner these days (more women graduate from college than men) So you could say that it will be a raw deal for women who will have to pay alimony. Your statement, more generally: “Marriage is the scam than inevitably screws over the higher income earner”
You’re falsely assuming women marry men who earn less. The inverse is the trend. Men still get screwed over.
30k does she make coffee for a living? Sounds like you already paid for her living expenses for 9 years. I would just say keep the dog and bye bye. I had a celiac roommate, we gave her half of the kitchen and she had her own set of kitchenware. Problem solved.
She assembles jewlery right now. Eventually she should in theory have a social work job, neither pay great. Desicion to become a social worker was made beefore we were engaged and while I made 15k a year, ie it had nothing to do with me supporting her
You don’t want her to lower her living standards but you also don’t want to pay that much $. I think the compromise is that you pay a little, like $500a month, and she lowers her standards a little, like getting a roommate.
Jesus dude she let you pay off her debt and dumped you? What a gold digging ho
smart woman
I'd say with the nine years together and what you've gotten out of that relationship, that she is worth two years of $1800 a month (unless those years totally sucked).
Notice the unconscious bias my implicitly assuming that her time is worth so much money but your time wasn't worth just as much to her.
You need a lawyer. Nobody here can tell you anything
Yeah I guess I was just wandering what people thought ethically. I actually know what I'm legally obligated to: nothing. State I'm in has very specific definitions for spousal support, and I've basically done nothing to trigger any or them (3 yrs of marriage, make decisions that affect others career path)
Consult a lawyer ASAP and be ready if you don't give her everything she wants to take as she walks away from your marriage.