Stay-at-Home Mom Facing Divorce? Don't Expect Alimony - Forbes article

[LostInAnomie]

148. Why does the working spouse own the SAHP anything?

Seriously. If the working spouse supported the family throughout the course to the marriage (fulfilling their end of the agreement), why do they own the SAHP anything? Should they have forced them to work? Should they have accepted that their spouse apparently will not make the correct choices for their own financial well being and made them get a job? Does the working spouse have so much control over a marriage that the SAHP is incapable of personal responsibility?

The working spouse "doesn't face any consequences" because it's not their fault "stay-at-home parent" isn't a marketable job skill. That is just cold hard reality. Divorce shouldn't be about trying to level some kind of cosmic scales. It should be about splitting shared property, deciding custody, assessing child support, and severing entanglements. Looking to create a "consequence" to the working spouse is simply punishing them for the SAHP's choices.

"Why should we add to the growing problem of poverty by taking away alimony and let working spouses off scot free?"

Scot free? What did they do wrong that they need punished? They fulfilled their part of the agreement. They worked while the SAHP stayed home. They don't own them a damn thing once the marriage is finished. It sucks that there's a "growing problem of poverty" but that means exactly jack fucking shit when it comes to divorce. Fixing social ills isn't the jurisdiction of a divorce court.

"The movement to take it away would harm spouses who stayed home and add to an already growing population of poverty."

So? Once again, divorce court isn't for fixing social ills. It is about justly ending a marriage and severing ties. Courts and society are moving away from alimony because it is antiquated bullshit from a time when women couldn't enter the workforce. Those barriers don't exist now, and two income families are the norm.