Why is it that when you are a woman seeking a divorce the automatic assumption by others concerns how "well you'll make out" simply because you are a woman? My case is completely reversed of what (at least in my area) seems "normal". Reject Man started out "normal", or so I thought. He had caught some bad breaks with employment and was working a low-paying cooking job, but I thought he was doing the best he could. The actual truth of things didn't begin coming to light until after we were married. (Isn't that just typical.) Within the first year of marriage I found out he was on probation and was a felon as a result of a drug charge. He also had seen fit to skip town a few years back to avoid paying child support for his oldest daughter and was now having to pay extra payments, in addition to the original amount, due to being thousands of dollars in arrears. The day I brought our daughter home from the hospital I decided to go through the stack of mail from the previous few days and what do I find? A summons for him to appear for paternity testing. Hello child number two and an additional 21% child support deducted from his already minimal pay. To top this off, all of the utilities had to be placed in my name for the residence. Why? Because it seems he failed to pay his power and light and phone bills for months and was being pursued by collection agencies and the utility companies refused to place things in his name. Spare me the comments about my stupidity for not seeking an annulment. I was young, had a baby and thought for some idiotic reason that I could turn his life around. My advice to young women after the experiences I've had the last 15 years is... Never think you can turn his life around! You may end up being bitten and paying the price for a very long time! I'm paying the price now...literally and figuratively speaking. While Reject Man has contributed nothing toward paying for two mortgages, utilities and general expenses of keeping a household, I get to give him 50% of everything I have worked so hard to build for my daughter's future...my pension and 401k. Oh, and I get to fight tooth and nail to keep from having to pay him maintenance so that he can continue to live in the lifestyle to which he has been accustomed. I keep hoping there will be some justice, but that hope is fading and I have the suspicion that my rear-end is going to be so sore I won't be able to sit when this is finally over. Toodles for now... |
Thursday, August 21
Skeptical Justice
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I do hope there will be justice in all of this. I understand why the law was created back in the days when most wives did not work and were being dumped, left in poverty with sole charge of the kids, by their husbands who often even denied their kids support money. BUT...that day has long since vanished and many wives work just as hard as their husbands do. Situations cannot simply be taken at face value if there is any justice at all, situations like yours need to be looked at. There is no way you should have to first suffer through a miserable marraige with a dead beat husband and then have to pay that leech even more to finally live on your own, providing a decent living for your child.
Sorry...injustice aggravates me.
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