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Lawrence Roach says his ex-wife has had a sex change and is now living as a man with a new identity. Roach says he should be allowed discontinue $1,200 in monthly alimony payments.

"This isn't right. It's humiliating to me and degrading," Roach said. "You know, I'm a man and I don't want to be paying alimony to a man. If you can't be married to a man legally, how can you legally pay alimony to a man?"

I can understand the logic in that

QuoteI can understand the logic in that

In his position? I can't. Alimony is based on what happens during the marriage, not after. If the wife spent his time during the marriage looking after the house and children instead of pursuing a career, he's entitled. Changing to male doesn't change what he gave up during those 17 years. That's like saying that you shouldn't be entitled to your pension after working for 17 years if you change your sex.

Dennis

Sorry Dennis - I understand what you are saying but I disagree

We need to look at it in another way. If they rule that he is no longer entitled to alimony then they are recognizing that he is in fact, legally a he. Legal precident is good. Though I agree with Dennis that he should be entitled to it because he was a partner in the marriage.

In Canada, when same sex couples divorce, the rules for alimony are the same. The gender of the payor or recipient isn't relevant. I guess that's why I can't wrap my head around why his gender should make a difference. Unless he suddenly got that statistical pay increase we're all supposed to get when we transition to male. I'm still waiting for mine.

Dennis

In some states of the US, the system is heavily in favor for the wife, regardless of whether she is stay at home or not.  A friend of mine in one of these states ended up paying alimony even though he put her through school and she made more than he did when they split.  Also got the house and just about everything else.

However, I do not know enough about the state or the case to make any type of judgment here.  However, it is one of the many problems facing a country that allows certain individuals to be such a minority that they do not have many rights or legal precedents.  In many ways the US is still very much a child in the world.

Oh yeah, alimony in general, I have plenty of rants about that. We have the same problem in Canada. Guys wind up paying through the nose for fairly short term marriages, and paying for a ridiculously long time. It's at the point where my best legal advice to people is "don't get married and don't live together". Not many people follow my advice though.

The way our law is at the moment, marriage is really only useful for young, first-timers who want to start a family and one person will stay home with the children. Otherwise, you're getting into all kinds of economic entanglements that you probably didn't intend to.

Dennis

Shortly after I told my SO last year, I decided to consult a lawyer about the division of assets in a divorce. In my province (and from what I understand, most parts of Canada as well), the husband pretty much gets (in the lawyer's words) "reamed over by the courts". He then proceeded to pull out several government-stipulated schedules as to how income is supposed to be divided in the event of a divorce.

If I understood things correctly, if I got divorced and my SO chose to seek spousal support (optional) in addition to childcare support (which is mandatory according to the law), I'd pretty much have to sleep on the streets since my income would devolve to just a fraction of my take-home pay (which my back-of-the-envelope calculations seem to confirm). I'm starting to understand why there's so many bitter men sleeping on park benches yelling about women now.

Mind you, my province does have a rather unique history. From what I understand, this extreme bias towards the spouse is a historical artifact, where if the husband dies, the farm passes on to the eldest son. There were some folks who then proceeded to dispossess their mothers of house and home upon coming into their inheritance. So, the province stepped in and mandated that the spouse be given a means to live regardless of instructions in the will. Unfortunately, things have swung way too far to the other side.

If this is indeed true, the divorce courts in my province are horribly broken. Most husbands, when confronted with the fact that they can never win, will choose to ensure their spouses lose too (you can't squeeze money out of husbands if they don't have cash nor income). Alternatively, you can also fight to reduce to child support payments by using the kids are pawns in the court. Regardless, the party that loses the most are the children.

For my part, if my SO and I do really get divorced in the near future, I do not intend to use the kids in the fight, nor do I intend to ensure both parties lose...unless if my SO pursues spousal support. In which case, all bets are off - I am not going to sleep on the streets.

Hard topic, hard choices.

Claire
Posted on: October 06, 2006, 07:54:49 AM

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Re: historical artifact above - I forgot to mention that the other trigger for the province stepping in and legislating divorces was when the wife failed to produce a male heir. I guess some folks chose to divorce their wives, pleading that as a reason. These women were also dispossessed onto the cold, cold streets (and here in Canada, it gets *real* cold). The source of this info comes from two separate lawyers I consulted last year.

*sigh* Requirement for coherent posting in the mornings: must have finished at least one cup of coffee or tea before hitting the "Post" button...

Claire

Claire, yeah, that's Canada-wide. The Spousal Support Guidelines and the Child Support Guidelines.

The only slightly bright light is that spousal support is tax deductible, so your after-tax income is a bit higher than it would be otherwise. Best thing you can do is encourage your wife to work and assist her in doing so as much as you can, ie, make sure you're doing your fair share of the household chores.

The other is that the spousal support guidelines aren't mandatory (but courts in each province are following them quite closely), so you can make an argument that they shouldn't apply in your case. Child support guidelines are mandatory and pretty well the only exception you can make is if you have the kids more than 40% of the time, or if you have family debts you are paying off.

Generally though, especially if you have kids, the husband does get reamed over. Unless he has custody of the kids. Hence the kids being used as weapons in a lot of cases. Which is, I agree, disgusting.

Dennis

Wow thanks.  Some very useful advice for me even if I do not live in Canada.  At least I can use it as a worst case scenario strategy.

Melissa

I'm glad I got divorced long before I started to transistion

Quote from: Gabrielle on October 06, 2006, 08:55:48 PM
I'm glad I got divorced long before I started to transistion

I just signed over all the assets in exchange for a waiver on support. I could see if it got to court, there'd be me, now a male lawyer (regardless of the fact that we were a same sex couple), and a judge going "you can pay buddy and you're going to, for the rest of your life". Made starting out with nothing a bit of an ouch, but not a monthly ouch when I signed that support cheque.

Dennis

Quote from: LostInTime on October 06, 2006, 08:33:20 AM
In some states of the US, the system is heavily in favor for the wife, regardless of whether she is stay at home or not.  A friend of mine in one of these states ended up paying alimony even though he put her through school and she made more than he did when they split.  Also got the house and just about everything else.

Hmmm... strangely familiar this is.  You been reading my book? 

Cindi