The Woman is Pure Evil

[RDS]

Zues,

I read your thread in Surviving the Big D". It was a interesting read and it was good to see you have many supporters over there.

You wrote a lot of stuff that resonated with me. One of the things you wrote was along the lines of we are in a free country to do as we please, but after divorce I can be locked into a judgement that prevents me from doing what I want to do if I don't make at least a certain amount of money.

I can be perfectly happy living in a small 1 bedroom house with the bare necessities. My hobbies are cheap so I don't have to work to give me the money to play. I am a simple man but I always aimed to better myself and work my way up the ladder to have the "American dream" for my family. For the most part I achieved that. But now, depending on the final mediation I will ALWAYS have to pay my wife something. She will have the luxury of following her dream because it's so easy to do when you know someone else is footing a majority of your income.

There won't be a temporary alimony because of the length of my M. In SC it is the way it is. It will be until I retire and then I will have to go to court and get the alimony adjusted.

What really cuts the wound with me is I feel as if I'm getting punished for doing the "right" thing. I always worked hard, and like you, I was the top dog. I have never had a bad review. All my reviews were excellent to outstanding. That is how I kept getting promoted. For about 5 years I was working 80+ hours to get ahead. My W used to be a hard worker until about 10 years ago. Long story short she gave up her high paying career when she was laid off and kind of gave up. She took menial jobs after that and for four years she didn't work at all. She just took a job this January where she barely clears minimum wage but it's a job "she loves".

I would be ecstatic if I could work in a job where I didn't care how much I made because I had other income I didn't have to work to get.

It's like the system punished the person who worked the hardest and rewards the person who took the easy way out. That is where I have the hardest time coming to terms with the fairness of it all.

Also, since my W is getting so much from me what incentive is there for her to even think about getting back together? Right now the money is all hers to spend as she sees fit. If we got back together then she loses that independence because the money becomes ours again. I will have to work my butt off to just barely survive with just the bare essentials and she will have an extra $2,000+ to spend as she sees fit.