[chrsig]

I think you have a flawed mental model of alimony. Try modelling it more like a severance package. Should you keep working for your employer after they've terminated the employment agreement, but agreed to give severance? The universal answer is a resounding 'no'.

[notch656a]

I see marriage as an equal partnership, so if there is a post-marriage 'severance' (beyond 50/50 asset disposition noted above) it would be bilateral (bread winner gives money to home-maker, home-maker gives maid/home-making service to bread winner). Seems cleanest at all just to cut ties though.

[chrsig]

It's not a symmetric exchange though. One person has decidedly more capability to start a new life than the other. The 'severance' is intended to help them establish that new life (e.g., acquire training, housing, etc)

If they're continuing to perform home making duties, they don't have the time to build that new life. And you're essentially keeping them trapped in the relationship even after a divorce.

You're of course welcome to negotiate anything with a potential spouse before marriage and encode it in a prenup.

[s1artibartfast]

I find it odd that the law considers the contributions during marriage symmetrically, but losses of each party asymmetriclly. That is to say, the contributions of a homemaker are equal to that of an income earner during marriage, but there is no harm from losing the expected support of the homemaker.

The homemaker can continue to be a homemaker for themselves exclusively, while receiving half an income. The income earner needs to work while homemaking, or work while supporting a 2nd homemaker.

The legal situation is complicated because the courts try to balance conflicting objectives. One is to help the homemaker reestablish themselves, the other is to maintain a lifestyle they are accustomed to. If it was only the former, some sunset duration would be appropriate, I think.

The reality is that it is often a distinctive. If the partner receiving alimony starts a career or remarries, they will lose the revenue stream.

[notch656a]

>One person has decidedly more capability to start a new life than the other.

I mean possibly, possibly not. For instance, my wife makes bundles more than me and is the bread-winner yet she works a licensed career, with her license restricted to a limited geographic area with not so many jobs. For her to start a new life would be much harder than me even though she is the bread winner. Also worth noting 'home-maker' is an extremely common niche in life so it's unreasonable to believe someone occupying that niche can't find another marriage with another divorced bread-winner seeking to return to the interlocking bread-winner home-maker scenario.

As a second, point, I totally object to the idea someone has an obligation to provide someone a 'new' life just because that person lost opportunities by voluntarily entering a relationship. For instance, people often give up career opportunities to take care of an ailing family member and no judge is going to order the ailing family member pay alimony pay them back to start a new career. In particular, if the vows include 'until death do us part' then that is a pretty explicit agreement not to provide provisions for post-divorce alimony arrangement. Even worse, no one should be in the position to pay for somebody else to get a new life if a partner say cheated on you and then divorced you to chase another partner.

And a third note, you've totally looked at it from a one-way lense here. The home-maker bread-winner interlocking really is a team equal effort. When the bread-winner loses the home-maker, they may have a lot to 're-learn' -- how to efficiently manage shopping, cooking, cleaning, balancing the budget (possibly). That takes a lot of time and their health may suffer because they no longer know how to say cook nutritiously anymore, so if the bread-winner needs to pay the home-maker to re-tool for a career then the home-maker should be ordered to help the bread-winner re-learn how to cook and other essential tasks (no joke, efficiently performing all the home-maker tasks can take a long time to master!). It really is a bilateral severance, if we want to create a severance fairly.

>If they're continuing to perform home making duties, they don't have the time to build that new life

If they're continuing to perform labor to pay alimony, they don't have the time to build that new life.

>And you're essentially keeping them trapped in the relationship even after a divorce.

But that's what alimony is! I'd support some provision that alimony could be cancelled if they don't want to perform the maid service, so they could avoid being trapped into receiving an alimony payment.

>You're of course welcome to negotiate anything with a potential spouse before marriage and encode it in a prenup.

The counterpoint is here any severance should be arranged in the pre-nup. In the old days in some cultures this was a dowry, which relied on up-front mutual agreement rather than unilateral violence of the state by judge after the fact. The default should be asset transfers and splitting happens during and at the termination of marriage and not after.

[Broken_Hippo]

That's not what alimony is.

The person staying at home has given up work, and cannot enter the workforce in the same way after marriage because they've not been in the workforce for years. They've given up earning potential for you to work and alimony (in theory) is to make sure you are regulating someone to poverty after they gave up that earning potential to be a homemaker without the benefits of employment (days off, insurance, hourly wage).

In states without alimony, you just split the stuff and move on. This is what you describe - divorce without alimony.

[notch656a]

>That's not what alimony is.

Yes I'm aware. I was specifically asked to model it as 'severance.'

Most of the stay-at-home spouses I've met didn't give up work as a gift to their spouse, they did it as a gift to their children. Should children pay alimony to stay-at-home moms for the work opportunities their mother lost out on to take care of them?

[satyrnein]

Are you suggesting the father derived no benefit from the arrangement, that he continued to do half of the childcare, cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc?

[notch656a]

Hey I can play that game too!

Are you suggesting the mother derived no benefit from the arrangement, that she continue to pay half the rent, health insurance, groceries, car insurance, gas, etc?

Personally, when my wife didn't work for over a year (more like two), it did fuck all for me. I paid all of the fulltime childcare, took care of the kid before and after school, and paid every single financial interest of my wife except her car insurance and phone bill. I can truthfully and honestly say in my personal situation I got nothing out of it. I paid for her because I love her and wanted her to have the same standard of life I have WHILE WE ARE MARRIED -- but I would be quite displeased indeed if my generosity in marriage is taken to mean I would be so generous after being ditched.

[Broken_Hippo]

I paid all of the fulltime childcare, took care of the kid before and after school, and paid every single financial interest of my wife except her car insurance and phone bill.

So, you gave her everything but the freedom to get out of the house and the freedom to talk to people as needed, even though she wasn't working at the time? Seriously.. the first thing my spouse did when I moved overseas with them was to make sure I could communicate with folks and have the ability to leave the house on a whim (within reason, I could always do free stuff). This was because these things keep people more free and less trapped in a situation.

And honestly, it sounds like your situation wasn't average: Most of the time, the stay at home parent is an unpaid childcare worker, unpaid cook, and unpaid maid without ever getting days off and often without having spending money of their own unless they save money on groceries. I'd guess that your situation had other factors.

And a note: If your ex lives in poverty after divorce, it means your children live in part-time poverty and I really don't understand wanting that sort of thing.

[satyrnein]

I wasn't trying to make it personal, and your situation does sound unusual; sometimes the stay-at-home partner ends up working more hours than the breadwinner spouse, who might work 40 hours at the workplace and do nothing at home. That doesn't sound like it was the case for you when your wife wasn't working.

I would be quite displeased indeed if my generosity in marriage is taken to mean I would be so generous after being ditched.

I would say to anyone on the default marriage contract, there may well be spousal maintenance in the event of divorce, so if anyone thinks that's unfair, draw up your own agreement.