Hey, ladies, turnabout is fair play.
I refer to the Wall Street Journal report on an interesting trend: As more women excel in the workplace, more ex-husbands are winning juicy divorce settlements.
As it goes, the Supreme Court ruled, 30 years ago, against gender discrimination in divorce settlements. A man, if he earns less than his wife, can demand alimony, too.
Back then, however, men were much more likely to pay alimony than receive it — no man worth his salt would accept dough from a lady.
But times have changed. There’s no longer a stigma for a man to receive support from his ex-wife.
Take one fellow. Though he earned $500,000 a year, his wife earned $1.5 million. When they moved to California to advance her career, he had to take a pay cut.
When their marriage dissolved, he demanded and won a sizable settlement. It was the only way, he explained to The Journal, he could maintain the standard of living he’d become accustomed to.
Who can blame him? For years, ex-wives have used the same logic to win big settlements from their high-earner ex-husbands, a sentiment that can be summed up in two words: Heather Mills.
Besides, these days, the old sayings are just as true — in reverse.
Behind every successful woman is a man — a sensitive fellow who stays home with the kids and claps heartily the first time junior uses the potty to go number two. He manages the domestic chores so the big woman can climb the corporate ladder.
Of course such fellows deserve the same payouts as ex-wives have long been getting.
But some in the old girls club aren’t going along with the program. These female chauvinists cling to a prehistoric double standard — that it’s OK for women to accept alimony, but men who do should be ashamed.
One woman, who earns $500,000 a year, says she can’t understand why she has to send her ex-husband thousands a month just because she used to be married to him.
Another refers to the payments she gives her ex, a toilet salesman, as a social-welfare program for ex-husbands funded by working women. Her relatives are more succinct. They call her ex-husband “a deadbeat.”
A third says she spits on the alimony check she writes each month before handing it over. She’s especially agitated that her slacker ex-husband used her money to hire crafty lawyers who helped him seize a large share of her assets.
But I don’t know what these women are complaining about.
For years, they’ve demanded equality at home and in the workplace. For years, they’ve demanded that men take on more of the domestic chores — that men become more sensitive and caring, more like them.
Hey, ladies, you got exactly what you wanted. I’m all for it.
I’m all for men using their wiles to woo highly paid wives so they can get at their money. Isn’t it about time “guy diggers” do to women what gold diggers have long done to us?
I have half a mind to give it a go myself. I’ll use my wit and charm to trick a well-to-do lady into falling for me. I’ll talk her into marriage, then use her means to drive nice cars and enjoy lavish vacations. I’ll stick out the marriage until her stock options are cashed.
Then I’ll take half of everything she’s got.
I used to hold traditional views toward men and women — I used to think it unmanly for any man to use a woman for her dough, but there’s no need for manliness anymore.
In the past, I would have felt odd asking my ex-wife to support me, but I’m catching on to the new ways — I like that there is virtually no difference between men and women anymore.
That’s why I applaud the shop foreman The Journal interviewed. During his divorce, he told the judge he needed $20,000 a year just to maintain his collection of classic cars. The judge awarded him $40,000.
You go, guy!
Visit Tom Purcell on the web at www.TomPurcell.com; e-mail him at TomPurcell@aol.com.
daveinga said,
can’t wait to meet a guy getting in on the female alimony pony. i’m gonna buy him a beer, an expensive one, cause he deserves it. just like women have been deserving of what somebody else made and somehow owed them all these long years. i predict if it starts catching on there will one night/early morning be a mysterious law attach itself to the vawa (like imbra) and outlaw this equality, probably just for men. that’s how it works in femland. or maybe some black robe declare it unconstitutional?
i’m betting in real time there will be “chivalrous” black robes who will refuse to follow the law. it’s called “equality under the law”, except for men. probably have a hard time getting it reported by the msm too.
nuttinu
April 8, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Joi said,
Men are also vilified in popular culture and made out to be rapists, batters, etc. Universities are hostile towards men, and simple allegations of sexual harassment can have a man lose his job.
Men in general are a “resented” class. I’m shocked they are awarded alimony at all.
Remember to document these stories.
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For macs I recommend: Web Snapper
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April 8, 2008 at 6:22 pm
jim4146 said,
April 8, 2008 at 7:20 pm
PolishKnight said,
Women refer to it derisively as “manimony”.
Tom Purcell considers: “I have half a mind to give it a go myself. I’ll use my wit and charm to trick a well-to-do lady into falling for me. I’ll talk her into marriage, then use her means to drive nice cars and enjoy lavish vacations. I’ll stick out the marriage until her stock options are cashed.”
Tom, you may want to check the mirror to see if you look like this fellow before giving that idea a try:
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/news/0803/gallery.real_stories/23.html
This is not anything new. Rich women have been falling in love with handsome surfing instructors (or perhaps back then, tennis instructors) long before modern feminism. Another movie with a similar theme shows that men found a way to make this profitable. Well, kind of:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072684/
This film is a tragedy since the man winds up destrying himself. A similar thing happened in “Cocktail”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094889/
where Bryan Brown’s character winds up squandering his wife’s fortune. Other May-December romances that wound up in tragedy include Larry Fortensky (ex-husband, alimony of Elizabeth Taylor) and Brittany Spear’s ex.
I know guys who are pickup artists and did seduce wealthy women but something went wrong with their head. They exercised a combination of positive and negative conditioning and acting that third-party observers found distasteful. They would please the women and give her what she wanted to see (a confident, good looking, apparently strong guy) but then to discourage her from getting demanding, would engage in ploys to lower her self-esteem (lavish her with attention one moment and then ignore her the next.)
Perhaps what makes alimony work so much better for women is that most men are comfortable with the idea of women acting like mercenary golddiggers in the first place. Men in our culture seem to enjoy being treated like a walking wallet and most women don’t even make half an effort to hide their ambitions.
That said, we can expect to see this happen more and more often as high society and status women collide with reality in a post-feminist world.
April 9, 2008 at 8:59 am
Virtue said,
April 9, 2008 at 10:06 am
PolishKnight said,
PK responds: I wish that was true, but I think most women see that these are usually rare cases and doesn’t apply to them. Think about it this way: Millions of career women are now winding up single and alone in their 30’s. Some even wind up unable to have children. Newspapers are filled with panic stories. But this hasn’t translated into even a net realization that feminism undermined women’s traditional expectations of men.
April 9, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Virtue said,
April 9, 2008 at 1:35 pm
steven deluca said,
Funny thing is, if a male miltary retiree gets a divorce from a long time marriage there are laws that would take much (half?) of his retirement and give it to his wife.
April 9, 2008 at 8:43 pm
jackal1994 said,
I don’t know about abolishing it. But it needs to be overhauled in a gender-neutral way.
You know there should be a base amount that a person who has no job skills should need for subsistence. Something like $20k (for a single person no kids).
This can be modified upward if the breadwinning ex makes A GREAT DEAL MORE than the average wage. But the awards that are going on now are insane.
Also, the concept that the breadwinning ex (regardless of gender) is supposed to keep you ACCOMODATED THE SAME AS DURING THE MARRIAGE is a fallacy, as it essentially means that he is being directed to maintain a SECOND home (and the first) at an equal level to before the divorce–on the same amount of money! The only way to do that would be to take a huge hit in HIS lifestyle.
Secondly, if the man is the breadwinner and he’s being directed to fork over huge amounts of cash because she needs to live in the lifestyle she has been accostumed to, how come nobody is telling her she needs to go over to his house each night and cook him a big steak and give him oral sex each night because she has an obligation to keep him in a style he has become accostumed to?
SEE! When the marriage dissolves only HIS OBLIGATION to pamper her continues. When the marriage dissolves her obligations END.
Of course this whole argument is preempted if we bring back for-fault divorce. If a devoted mother and home-maker with no job skills is cheated on/abused by her breadwinning husband (or he has a bad addiction), then she SHOULD get the lion’s share of marital wealth and child custody and alimony and child support.
On the other hand if she cheated, then HE should get custody, no (a very little) alimony payments, and obviously no child support if he has custody.
The law USED TO WORK this way. Divorce court used to work on the premise of contractual law. It was gender neutral, and it penalized the person who was “in breach” of the contract through infidelity/abuse/addiction/abandonment. The person “breaching” the contract got very little because the courts made the astute decision that the person “in breach” was less mature, less logical, less stable.
Now if you sued for divorce and couldn’t prove your spouse committed one of these “deal-breakers” then you were seen as cutting-short or “abrogating” the contract (until death do us part). And then YOU were seen as less mature, less logical, less stable, and got no custody and very little assets.
Now everything has been turned on it’s head. These so-called “no fault” laws are really “blame the man” laws. Women win custody in 90% of contested cases. If whites won 90% of all civil complaints (slip and fall, injury, malpractice, etc..) it would be seen for what it is: bigotry by the courts. Knowing that they have the upper hand women have been transformed into selfish harpies.
Women KNOW that they can cheat/abuse or generally act in a horrendously nasty fashion and STILL get the kids!
To make an analogy this would be like a drunken driver suing the pedestrian they rammed and crippled for damages–and the court approving! But ONLY when it’s a female drunk driver and male pedestrian.
April 9, 2008 at 9:56 pm
jackal1994 said,
When the no-fault (or blame the man) laws came out, divorce exploded–particularly those initiated by women (and ESPECIALLY when minor kids (cha-ching!) were involved).
It’s just so SAD! These women are so pre-occupied with getting there husband over a barrell, that they don’t realize that they are hurting their kids.
Especially these women who divorce stable, docile, industrious (read: boring) guys, then hook up with the “bad boys” who really get their motor running and put their children in REAL jeopardy!
Like in this case:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/judicial/2008-04-07-court_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip
Good thing dad didn’t get custody!
April 9, 2008 at 10:15 pm
metalman said,
April 10, 2008 at 8:36 am
PolishKnight said,
Hear hear Metalman!
The problem with Jackal1994’s tweaking of the alimony laws is that they leave open barn sized holes for Satan to drive a tracktor trailer through.
Let’s start with this scenario he provided:
“You know there should be a base amount that a person who has no job skills should need for subsistence. Something like $20k (for a single person no kids).”
Which is largely moot since the courts have a wink-nod arrangement to grant custody of the kids to the wife precisely to get her more alimony along with child-support making it a winner-take-all situation that encourages conflict and high legal fees. This situation seems so advantageous to the lawyers that it causes many to wonder if they didn’t set it up this way in the first place. Grab the torches and pitchforks!!!
I quibble with his wording of “no job skills.” Aren’t feminists always claiming that the average housewife does work such as childcare, chauffer, housecleaner, that are worth millions of dollars if these roles were filled by private workers? This is the paradox: The argument the man saved a bundle from “free” labor from the wife and at the same time that her skills have no market value without alimony. Does that seem strange to you?
Let’s go with the latter for a moment (since it’s clearly true.) Even if the woman is going to have to eat Mac-And-Cheese and start over after divorce, SO WHAT? Isn’t divorce SUPPOSED to be stressful? The notion seems to be that women should never go through stress and should be treated with kid gloves. Most men, including SAH husbands, are happy just to get out with the clothes on their back. Aren’t women supposed to be equal to men? Oh, wait, we all know they’re still helpless maides in distress after all.
Next, there’s this argument/rationale/myth: “This can be modified upward if the breadwinning ex makes A GREAT DEAL MORE than the average wage. But the awards that are going on now are insane.”
Why should they be adjusted upward? What justification is there for this other than a marxist/sexist thinking that it’s ok to rob rich men? If she married up in income, she BENEFITTED from the marriage just as “lifestyle to which she became accustomed” arguments implies. Jackal1994 opened the barn door there. Once it becomes ok to rob men for their past generosity and women’s past benefits IN ADDITION to demanding compensation for any perceived sacrifice, it becomes impossible NOT to justify alimony! It’s like global warming: If it’s colder, then that’s due to global warming. If it’s warmer, global warming. Doesn’t change? Global warming! You get it.
There is only one case I can imagine where alimony might apply and that would be where a spouse was disabled such as John McCain’s first wife and he promised “in sickness and in health until death do you part” and he’s welshing. I know that Denise collects alimony for that reason and I have to humanely consider that scenario. Otherwise, everything else is just plain marxist, man-bashing nonsense!!!
April 10, 2008 at 10:05 am
jim4146 said,
April 10, 2008 at 7:09 pm