The Other Side of Alimony
A recent phenomenon is that in more than a few families, wives are out-earning their husbands. This byproduct of the women’s movement is welcome news to women - who for years may have had the same jobs as men, but were paid lower salaries.
But when those marriages fail, women are now forced to face that aspect of divorce that men have been grousing about for years – spousal maintenance, or more commonly know as “alimony.”
That’s right, even if in a divorce action the wife retains primary custody of the children and therefore receives child support, the wife may have to pay her ex-husband alimony. Laws are intentionally written to be gender neutral, so both spouses have an equal right to retain the same standard of living after divorce, even when the lower earning spouse is a husband.
For that reason, many more women are opting for pre-nuptial agreements. The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers recently conducted a survey of family law practitioners and found that 44% of family law attorneys have seen an increase in women asking for pre-nuptial agreements. In the past, men almost exclusively were the partners who sought a pre-nup.
A recent case that drew some notoriety was that of former Mets baseball star, Art Shamsky. The ex-outfielder sued his wife Kim for alimony and won. His former wife was a successful businesswoman and out-earned her husband by a considerable margin. In the end, she was made to pay her ex thousands of dollars per month in alimony.
She is not alone. The celebrity world is littered with other examples. Singers Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson and actress Kirstie Alley - all have been forced to pay alimony to ex husbands who earned far less than they did.
The lessons are clear. Professional women need to do what their male counterparts have been doing for years now: recognize that marriage is an economic partnership and people should do whatever they can to protect themselves in the event the partnership dissolves. That means seeing an attorney prior to marriage and have the attorney draw up a pre-nuptial agreement, and, of course, getting her soon-to-be husband to sign it. It may not sound romantic, but if your marriage doesn’t work out, you might be able to save yourself thousands upon thousands of dollars.
