I don't know if these things make any difference in a QDRO'd pension plan, but are things you might want to ask an attorney:
What happens if he dies before he's fully vested in his pension? Is he fully vested now? If he dies, do you have to wait until HE would have reached retirement age, or is there some different age for you? If he leaves his company early and takes a lump sum payout for his share, does this impact your share in some way?

$9,000 a year isn't that much, but having it tied to a COLA makes it more valuable, and if he's likely to advance in his career, you could benefit from future raises even though you're no longer married to him. If he were to advance, say, to a management position paying twice his current salary, the benefit for you would be twice as much.

I do think you are probably right about him not understanding the math. My ex was terrible with the math and taxes and seemed to think he was paying me 40% of his income in alimony when it was actually about 11% of after-tax income.

BY my calculations, if he worked 34 years and you were married for ten (make sure you make it to ten for the social security reasons I mentioned above) then you would get 14.7% of his pension (10/34 x 1/2). If he retires after only 20 years of working to live his dream of renting out the inherited house from his not yet dead uncle and traveling the world - then you would get 25% of his pension (but the actual amount would be smaller because he would be making less). Do you know things about his pension like what is the earliest he can take it? Does he pay a penalty for taking it at 20 years? Or is he restricted from actually getting payments until he reaches a certain age, like 60 or 65, regardless of when he quits working? It would be useful to know as much as possible about his pension plan rules.

I think if you can present it to him that it's a relatively small percentage of his pension he might be more relaxed about it. (Don't mention the social security thing to him, he might mistakenly think it affects his social security payout, which it does not). I'd use the 14% figure and the assumption that he is working 20 more years. Explaining clearly that you won't get half of his pension may help.

BUT aside from ALL this - $9,000/year in retirement, even with a COLA, is nice but isn't going to get you where you want to go. You still have to focus on INCREASING YOUR INCOME so that you can take care of yourself with or without anything from him. Since there are no other assets, it doesn't seem like he can buy you out of the pension, and since the debt is under $10k, him taking all the debt wouldn't compensate you for the pension either. Unless he can borrow $100k from his uncle to buy you out - is there money in his family?

And what are your employment plans? I can't remember if you changed jobs recently or have a plan to increase your income. This is actually a good time to take control of your own financial future. I'm always reminded of the movie She-Devil, where Roseanne Barr is the frumpy LBS who goes on to become a successful businesswoman. (And destroys her ex husband hilariously in the process).

Too many women are afraid of managing their own finances or think they always need a guy to rescue them. I'd recommend approaching your own finances now AS IF he didn't exist, and plan what you want. Are you young enough to find work with some entity that would give you a pension of your own? (My sister started working for a school district at the age of 50 and will have some retirement money from that. She did home daycare before that while her daughters were growing up). Can you learn a new skill or go back to school to train for something more lucrative? or can you just get a more full-time job in teaching? Would you be happy moving to a more low cost of living area?

Whatever it is you need to do, think about it. Sketch out some scenarios - even some that might seem outlandish to you. Teach in a foreign country? Go back to school? Start a business? Write that best-seller?