It still was a choice, in any event. Would you admit that? For most people that choice is not available. that is my point. Of course, I should have realized this would be a tough sell with this crowd. Owning a home computer is very highly correlated with higher than average income.<P>The difference between a luxury and a necessity is often point of view. I probably cause a lot of division by choosing that word when perhaps "choice" or "option" "not available to everybody" would have been more clear.

Ok yeah, it was a choice. And I don't have a PC, I have WEB TV. BIG price difference. If it wasn't for WEB TV, i wouldn't have the priviledge to get support from everyone here, or for that matter just surf the net. <P>I'll have to say, nonplused, this has to be one of the most interesting threads to pop up. I can honestly say that you are an incredible thinker. You always give so much insight, and make people really think.<P>Mitzi

Nonplused<P>I understand your views on SHAM's and how the full time Mother role has decreased over the years.<P>But just to put a bit of a twist on the subject.... What happens when a divorce takes place when the Mother or Father is a part time employee? When she/he has not been able to use her skills in 10 years or more because they devoted the lions share of their time to the children? Does she/he then have to live on a part time salary or a full time salary that reflects next to nothing in comparison to what she/he made pre children, after the short term spousal support ends? <P>This is exactly what I was talking about when I brought up manditory support for the betrayed by the betrayer. How many people do you know that if they knew they would be supporting thier ex for perhaps an eternity would walk out into the arms of the OP with out trying everything with in their grasp to try to make things work?<P>I wasn't looking for punishment,or a free ride for anyone. Only ways that could help people think twice before they headed down the wrong path. <P>This must have hit too close to home for you, I'm sorry if the conversation has upset you. I did read your profile and it looks like your W (or is it exwife?) was a SHAM even though you didn't really want her to be one. I can understand your frustraions with that.<P> However there are still quite a few SHAM's here in the states. Not all are wealthy. Not all resort to eating cat food and live on the wrong side of the tracks either. In a number of instances the non SAHP has two jobs in order that one parent is there to raise their children full time. In other cases the family does make sacrafices to have one parent be home full time. Things such as no cabale, infrequent vacations, using generic brands, home made VS store bought items, and the list goes on are small sacrafices to make to be able to raise your own children. Not everyone agrees with this and many couples are more inclined to have possessions rather than parent themselves. Others as you stated simply can't afford to be without two salaries. <P>As far as me jumping for joy over my H's affair and moving out..... I do believe your remarks here are a tad bit insensitive. No he isn't perfect. No, he isn't into rasing children. Yes, he is a salt of the earth type and very old fashined and some might say old world in his beliefs. But does that mean I shouldn't love him? Does that mean I don't want my marriage to work out? Nope. <P>I guess if outsiders took a look at some of the horiffic things being done to the people who post here by their spouses, they might have the same comment you had for me for them. Yes, my H cheated. Yes, I have more bussiness savy than he does. Yes my income was greater than his untill I retired. Yes, he is against daycare. But are those things so awful to make me want to divorce him? I think not. <P>I don't know nonplused, when it all comes down to the brass tacks it's the children that we need to be concerned with first and foremost. And if the betrayer looses custody and is the one who made all or the majority of the money during the course of the marriage just where does that leave the children? Living off 20% of the betrayers income, when they used to enjoy a much larger porion? I would hope that even the cruelist of betrayers would consider their children. Of course this is not the case. All too often when a marriage fails money takes precedence over everything *including* the well being of the children.<P>Fingers Crossed

How do you take a society that is as far gone as Western society and suddenly make it substantially less adulterous?<P>Simple. The same cure that's been done over and over again down through the ages...<P>Wreck the economy. This immediately lowers people's expectations of life to basic survival. Religious conviction and community closeness in neighborhoods goes through the roof. Expectations is the root of all adultery.<BR>

I don't agree that being a SAHM versus working is necessarily a choice. Where I live, daycare for a toddler costs about $50 a day. If your income is very low, you can qualify for subsidized daycare, and if your income is very high, you can afford $50 a day. But for the many people in the middle, having both parents work just doesn't pay.<P>You can say that they aren't preschoolers very long, but that is not always the case - we have had at least one preschooler for 19 years. Yes, it was our choice to have a lot of kids, and for me to leave the workforce, but my decisions were made based on the information that I had at the time - a husband who never indicated that there were any major problems in our marriage, who never even hinted that he was going to leave - probably because he did not plan to, a husband who said he would like to have had even more kids if we could have afforded it.

Interesting take, Cuckold.....<P>------------------<BR>BB<BR><p>[This message has been edited by WilliamJ (edited January 30, 2000).]

Cuckold, <BR>You are right. However, I for one would like to come to an end. Judgement day would solve the problem forever.<P>------------------<BR><B><I>God Bless,<BR>Rob</I></B><BR> regilmor@swbell.net

Wreck the economy? Judgement day? In retrospect, living through my wife leaving me for another man doesn't sound all that bad...

Fingers Crossed,<P>Sorry about the insensitive remarks. I was perhaps reading too much in to your description of your husband, and the nature of your relationship, in your earlier post. It was more one sided than this more recent description.<P>I think we have wandered around to an agreement on some points. There should be a consideration for the situation of the custodial parent's lifestyle after a divorce. I guess we are only arguing about the period of time it is reasonable to maintain that lifestyle via support payments.<P>I don't agree with in anyway trying the support payments to "adultery". Facts are, most of the time (89% to be exact) the mother keeps the children. Half of the time (50% I would guess), it is the mother who was adulterous. If we assume that all of the 11% of men who get the children did so because their wife cheated, that would still leave 39% of the children out their with no support payments at all. Alternatively, child custody would need to be determined by an "adultery test", with the faithful partner getting custody. I could just see all the cheating wives out their hiring beautiful hookers to seduce their husbands. It gets messy.<P>I think this is why courts in general tend to ignore the "cause" of the divorce and focus on a reasonable equity distribution.<P>Another interesting point, often neglected, is the lifestyle of the children when they are with the non custodial parent. When we were negotiating spousal support payments, my lawyer was quite adamant, and successfully so, that my ability to pay was limited by the fact that I had to be able to care for my children properly when they were with me. That meant a certain sized apartment, a car that had room for my kids, furniture, etc. Also, "spending" money should work out to about the same while support was being paid. Apparently this is pretty typical for courts to rule this way. The ex's lawyer didn't argue. I think for the average person the net effect is that child support and spousal support adds up to approximately 1/2 of the payer's after tax income. So if your husband makes $4000 a month clear you could reasonably expect $2000, stepped down to basic child support over a period of time.<P>He also has to pay a proportionate share of the child care costs once you start working.<P>In my case, I paid spousal support and currently pay lots of child support (some people live off this kind of cash), and I was faithful until after separation. I met a girl some months later, but I had not previously known her prior to that time, so she could not possibly have been a factor in the separation. My wife's boyfriend, on the other hand, probably was.<P>So how fair is that? Here I am paying spousal support to the cheating woman who kicked me out of my own house and separated me from my own children, so she could take here new boyfriend to "Delaware" to see "George Thorogood". I bet she even paid for his beer with my support payments. I know he was keeping it in my beer fridge. <P>Do I seem bitter? I have found it is not the best thing to get myself going on this subject. The system isn't just unfair to moms. It seems unfair to everybody.<P><BR>[This message has been edited by nonplused (edited February 01, 2000).]<p>[This message has been edited by nonplused (edited February 01, 2000).]

<BR>nonplused,<P>Sadly, you are a poster child of everything that's wrong with the child support system. I could tell as I read your story that you are a victim of the notorious "income shares" system of awarding child support. This system practically guarantees child support awards that exceed actual costs, and the custodial parent is under no obligation whatsoever to actually account for costs.<P>The solution is simple, but implementing it will be difficult, I admit. We need to move to a default of joint physical custody with no money ever changing hands. Doing this would remove the financial incentive (and lets be honest, there *is* a financial incentive) for women to divorce and use part of the child support money to support themselves and their new boyfriend.<P>I understand Fingers Crossed's concern that a SAHM's skillset might need updating, but that can be handled through alimony. The child support system should never be a living subsidy to the custodial parent, but in many cases that's exactly what's happening. What outrages me are cases like nonplused's, where a wife walks out, takes the kids, and proceeds to financially rape her husband for years afterwards. Its just plain sick, and it should be stopped.<P>Bystander<P>Bystander

Fingers crossed,<P>You asked if one of your options would be to "keep your career and watch your spouse get eaten alive from the inside?" Apparently, your H didn't care about YOUR insides being eaten out from the inside when his selfish needs (and your inability to stand up to him) kept you from enjoying the fruit of your labors outside of the home. All talk here has been strictly financial, who makes more, who does more, blah, blah. What about the intangibles of working and making a living? Those intangibles you, in part, denied yourself, when you chose not to work, or as you've stated, when YOU chose to do as your husband told you to do. <P>The reason why more men don't stay home and take care of the children is not because they can't or don't know how, but because whomever has the money has the power in the relationship, IMHO, and they know that. If both people are in agreement, fine. Whatever works for them. However,when I see men who insist on their wives staying home, I've got to wonder if something else is going on. <P>As we've all seen here, childcare is unpaid labor and not something you can put on your resume if times get tough. By letting your husband take care of all of the financial provisions, you're pretty much at his mercy, or the mercy of the courts. You're finding this out now, and it sucks. <P>Whenever you place the responsibility for your life in someone else's hands, you take the risk that they will not always have your best interests at heart. Your husband doesn't appear to care one bit about your interests, otherwise he could not have asked you to sacrifice your career. Way,way too many women put the needs of their husbands over their own (like constantly), while the husbands more or less do whatever they want, like travel for extended periods, come home late, hang out with the buds on weekends, act like slugs around the house and contribute little or nothing to housework or childcare. Your H has a nice job, has kids, and had you to take care of him. He provided a paycheck. Pretty sucky deal if you ask me. You can do better. <P>Although I agree that children generally do better in the care of a parent than in day care, I think they do fine either way. A mom staying home does not insure success in any case. If that were true, all welfare moms who stay home would have the best kids around. We all know that is not true. Your kids are not going to turn into axe-murderers if you get a job. sheesh.

Bystander,<P>No money changing hands?! After working only part-time almost all of my adult life (25 years), I am never going to make anywhere near the income my H does. On an hourly basis, I make less than half what he does. In my state, it is extremely rare to grant alimony as well as child support. And the custodial parent normally pays the child care expenses. When my H left, few of the household expenses decreased - it doesn't cost one bit less to heat a house occupied by 7 people than it does to heat the same house occupied by 8. About the only thing that I spend less on is food. <P>Meanwhile, he does not have to support an entire household. I imagine he contributes to the OW's household expenses, but what he contributes is undoubtedly far less than what I spend. <P>How can you say that child support covers more than the actual costs? The child support that I receive doesn't nearly cover what it costs to raise six children.<P>nonplused,<P>I think 50% is way to high an estimate for the percentage of cheaters who are women. I think it is much closer to 25 or 30%. And when women do leave their husbands, the children are on the average, older than when husbands leave, so childcare is easier to find and less expensive. <P><p>[This message has been edited by Nellie1 (edited February 01, 2000).]

Cuckold,<P>Wreck the economy??? Sorry, but it seems that when referring to the "western world" and "the economy" most people here are talking about the US; I live in Mexico and my entire adult life (since '76 when I was 21) has gone from one National financial crisis to the next one, and here and adultery is not only "normal" but widely accepted as a fact of life; in my case, our financial situation in the last few years and specially in '99 were one of the triggers for my wife's affair.<P>nonplused:<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><BR> I don't agree with in anyway trying the support payments to "adultery". Facts are, most of the time (89% to be exact) the mother keeps the children. Half of the time (50% I would guess), it is the mother who was adulterous. If we assume that all of the 11% of men who get the children did so because their wife cheated, that would still leave 39% of the children out their with no support payments at all. Alternatively, child custody would need to be determined by an "adultery test", with the faithful partner getting custody. I could just see all the cheating wives out their hiring beautiful hookers to seduce their husbands. It gets messy.<P>I think this is why courts in general tend to ignore the "cause" of the divorce and focus on a reasonable equity distribution.<BR><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>In the state where I live 99% of the time the mother keeps the children; the only possibility for a father to keep them is documented adultery (accepted documents? photos taken in the presence of a public notary who "gives faith" = the notary says it's the truth. (a notary public in Mexico is not just a clerk, he is a lawyer who after going to notary school applies for a Notary, when one position is available he can be chosen by the state government among several candidates and be appointed for life; once appointed they can no longer act as attorneys unless they give up the notary or ask for time off. If they testify something unlawful or proven unreal they lose the notary license, cannot go back to perform as regular lawyers and could even be thrown in jail; he is not part of government and yet both government and private institutions and individuals respect his word as been the truth). Other proof like witnesses could be useless because the cheating spouse could always introduce witnesses (real or fake) to testify otherwise.<P>If the cheated spouse doesn't have these "documents" he could sue for "necessary divorce", but according to the local Civil Code should the judge rules a necessary divorce, the HUSBAND (it doesn't matter who cheated) must leave the household within 3 days, or else "the public force" (read police) will get him out; when he leaves he can take his clothes & toiletry and only those personal belongings absolutely indispensable for his work.<P>Now right now this other one is in my favor (but not in the favor of any cheated wife): If the parties (read husband and wife) don't agree on the amount of alimony then the judge shall determine it to be "the legal alimony"… how much? MEX$1,000 —some US$110 PER MONTH!!! If she doesn't take it then the husband can deposit it in a local civil court and notify the ex-wife so she can pick it up at anytime.<P>It is not only that we have to educate ourselves, but we have to do something about changing the way our children are educated in school & have to do lot of lobbying to change the Law.<P>Alex<P>------------------<BR>Live and learn<BR>

Nellie1,<BR><BR>I'm sorry you are unable to meet expenses from your child support award, but the question wasn't whether you or nonplused are getting the worse deal. The question is how do we discourage adultery. My answer is that we change the child support system to disincent women from getting a child support windfall if they decide to shack up with some OM. As far as your earning power being less than your husband's, my guess is that was a joint decision you both made some time ago. Yes, he reneged on the deal, and I can see the merit in an alimony judgment to update your skillset. But children aren't chattel, and they shouldn't be used as a veiled form of alimony, either. That's why I think joint physical custody (each parent has the children exactly half of the time) with no money ever changing hands should be the default. The burden of proof to deviate from this should be pretty high on the parent seeking custody, and in any event, no money in excess of documented costs should ever be paid.<BR><BR>IMO, THAT would disincent adultery.<BR><BR>Bystander

Bystander,<BR>I read the first post and thought maybe I misunderstood you, but then I read the second and knew that I didn't. <P>About the joint custody/no child support issue:<BR>In my case my children have a father who sees them about 3 hours every other weekend, by choice. AND he lives with another woman, who just happens to be an alcoholic and a heavy drug user. I am supposed to let my children spend equal time in that environment???? I don't think so. They have never been around her and NEVER will be. At this point we don't have any ordered child support or visitations. It's "easier" for my H to give me a good bit of money than to actually take care of them himself. <P>Sorry but this will not deter adultery in most cases. The only thing it will do is make life more difficult for the children and the parents who WANT to take care of them. You can't force someone to spend time with their children, no matter what!<BR>

I'd take my kids full time if I could. I could afford it too, even if I didn't get a stinking penny from my ex. Probably get one of them live-in nannies or something. But that option was never realistically available to me.<P>Right now I see my kids Fri - Sun every 2nd weekend, one evening in the week (in my old house, how wierd is that? I put them to bed), and usually 1/2 a day on the weekends I don't have them. I also pay half the child care costs. I figure I have them about 40% of the time they are awake and not at daycare, not counting mornings.<P>I don't think there is any question the financial insentive is the primary motivator for my ex to avoid joint custody on a 50/50 basis. She would have to sell her house, and drastically reduce her lifestyle. I, on the other hand, could afford all that and a new Porsche. Well, maybe a Grand Cherokee.

Mitzi,<BR><BR>If you can document that the OW is really a heavy drug user, then that would be sufficient to deviate from a default of joint physical custody with no money ever changing hands. As nonplused notes above, even though he *wanted* his kids 50% of the time, he was never given that option. And the reason? Because his wife is cashing in on the notorious "income shares" model of awarding child support.<BR><BR>You're right that you can't *make* someone spend time with their kids, and in those cases child support for *documented* expenses is justified. But lets not kid ourselves about this. When a woman moves out, takes the kids, and files for child support, the odds are very good that she's receive far more (after taxes) than she really needs. And the balance goes right into her pocket. Remove that incentive, and the relative "price" of infidelity will rise, and its rate will fall accordingly.<BR><BR>Bystander

Bystander,<P>It is not just a matter of "updating my skillset". It would probably take at least 15 years to catch up to my H in terms of work experience, by which time I will be over sixty. Yes, we did agree that I would work part-time - something I would not have agreed to had I known he was going to leave. I also would not have given up a good job to follow him to another state. I would not have cashed in my retirement to help him go into business. <P>Joint custody is not practical when the parents live an hour apart - and that was his choice. And how can you say no money changing hands would be fair, when I have to pay all the expenses for my household, while he has to pay at most half of the expenses for the household in which he lives? What you are saying is that whenever you get tired of supporting your family, it is ok to go find someone richer to share expenses with, upgrade your standard of living, only have to support your kids half the time, and leave your spouse in the dust. Even if I earned as much as he does, my disposable income would still be far lower than his. The point is that the "left" spouse is also left with household expenses that are nearly as high as they were when there were two adults, but no one to share them with. <P>nonplused,<BR>I think it was you who mentioned 50% of the working spouses' after tax income as a maximum amount of support for the SAHM or SAHD and children. How can it be fair for one person to get 50% of the income, while the other 50% is shared among 7? Or even 2 or 3?<BR>

Bystander,<BR>It is well documented that she is a heavy drug user<P>Where I live (WV) child support amounts suck, no matter who is getting the support. My H gives me $300 a week for 3 children on his own. If I had it court ordered, I would probably only get about 1/2 that. No I would not be pocketing anything. It is very rare in this area to get a judgement better than that. <BR>I might be able to get alimony from him but it would be a minimal amount. So actually he is getting off easy. And he was the one who is having the affair.

<BR>Mitzi:<P>If the OW is a heavy drug user, that's clearly a case that should deviate from a joint physical custody (with no money changing hands) default. I'm in agreement with you on this - remember, my position is that joint physical custody (with no money changing hands) should be the default, not the iron-clad outcome. I wouldn't want my kids being exposed to a heavy drug user, either.<P>Nellie:<P>My first point is that there should be a default of joint physical custody. If your husband willingly waives this to live elsewhere, then that's a different matter. What I seek in my position is a way to prevent women like nonplus'ed wife from cashing in on an "income shares" child support windfall by using blatant court biases against men and *unilaterally* seizing custody of children. And let me again stress: this IS a windfall for many women, because "income shares" awards often grossly exceed actual costs. All a woman needs to do is check the monthly budget, check her husband's paycheck, and figure out how far ahead she'll be. Are we really sure we want to send THAT kind of a signal to people?<P>Anyhow, I think your complaints about the finances fall into two classes. The first is that you are facing high fixed-costs to maintain a household, and the second has to do with some sense of injustice that your husband is now "doing better" than you.<P>The fixed cost argument has some merit, but what is appropriate child support? The fact is, you'd have to live somewhere even if kids weren't involved. The proper calculation of child support would be half of the marginal cost of additional living space, and most definitely not simply half (or weighted by income?) of your total expenses. If this lowers your disposable income, then the proper redress is though alimony and updating your skillset, and *not* through using children as chattel and a veiled form of essentially open-ended alimony via the child support system. Complaints that "alimony isn't granted here" simply mean that such laws need to be modified, too.<P>About the "injustice" angle. Lets say you met a multimillionare and eventually married this man. He has a 40-room mansion, and plenty of rooms for all the kids. Is it justified for you to keep taking 50% of your husband's paycheck? Of course not. But you could keep collecting it, and that's exactly how the laws are written right now. Would you keep collecting it under those circumstances?<P>The fact is, the income of the second spouse - whether custodial or non-custodial - is not considered in child support calculations. Far more interesting of a dilemma is when an ex-spouse has a child with a second spouse. Should child support payments be reduced to the first spouse? One the one hand, the first spouse almost certainly budgeted to receive some money. On the other hand, why should the child of the second marriage have a reduced claim to the parent's earning stream? After all, that child is innocent and has done no harm to anyone. Btw, I don't have an answer to this dilemma. The laws basically say that the children in the second marriage lose out, but I'm not convinced that's fair, either.<P>In my own case, if my spouse and I separated, the *mandatory* monthly child support amount would exceed our entire monthly household budget, including mortgage, taxes, insurance, food, and utilities! This is the kind of bizarre outcome (I'm just assuming you see the patent injustice in such an outcome) is precisely what happens when expenses are totally ignored and impoverishing mathematical forumlae are applied to income. Such windfalls should be impossible, and *making them impossible* would go a long way towards raising the "price," and hence discouraging, infidelity. That nonplused's wife's boyfriend is chugging beer on nonplused's nickel is morally wrong, and we should change that.<P>Bystander