Dec 19, 2016
Only about 3 percent of people who pay alimony are women, but those women are usually really, really angry about it. Typically, the women are angry about his low- or no-earning during the marriage, disgusted with his spending habits, and aghast she must now support him after the marriage is over. In this episode, I offer my top advice for dealing with the reality of paying your ex each month. Tips include:
- Prioritize coming to peace with the situation.
- Stop talking about it.
- Minimize interaction, and find ways to pay him in a lump sum, automatically, or a few times annually.
- Accept that this is the price you had to pay to get out of a bad relationship.
- Ask your ex to fund the kids’ college savings plans.
- If you truly cannot afford your current lifestyle while making these payments, downgrade your lifestyle.
- Remember that alimony and child support were huge, wonderful feminist coups.
- Focus on how your kids benefit from this payment — and how you benefit by default.
- Peel away the layers of the resentment, which are rooted in what happened during the relationship.
- To be part of the solution for other families, find the advocates for alimony reform in your state, and get involved.
- If you truly believe you are paying too much, weigh carefully the costs of revisiting the issue legally, and do your best to approach this as a practical process, and not an emotional one.
- Never tie time with your children to payments. In some states, child support payments are calculated based on how much time the kids spend with one or the other payment.
- Hard as it, do not threatened to stop paying your ex.
- Refocus your rage into fuel for earning more. In most states, child support and alimony payments are capped.
- Remember: Everything is temporary.