Pay Dirt: I Don’t Want My Whiny Wife to Get a Penny in Our Divorce

[minoanmiss]

She’s got too many of mine already.


COMMENT
Dear Pay Dirt,

I’m in the process of divorcing my good-for-nothing, lazy, hateful wife. For years she has stayed at home, where she spent my money and had me subsidize her lifestyle while she supposedly was doing the “hard work” of raising children. Whenever I came home from a busy, hectic day, she would throw the kids at me, then sit on her phone while I did all the heavy lifting; on weekends, she would harangue me if I had the audacity to go out with friends, when she has no friends of her own and expected me to be her entertainment. She complained that she never had a day off, but what about me?

We’re divorcing now, and she’s whining to everyone that she’s going to be penniless, that I’m throwing her out and she’s going to be homeless. She’s complaining that she gave up her career to take care of the kids. One of them is special needs but his needs aren’t that bad (just a feeding tube and wheelchair and a few weakness issues). I know she used it as an excuse to quit her job that she hated. She is lazy and spiteful and I don’t want to give her an ounce of my money, but I know my story isn’t sympathetic, and I’m afraid she’s going to take me to the cleaners. What can I do?


—The Bad Guy

Dear the Bad Guy,

Sometimes I suspect that we at Pay Dirt get fictional over-the-top letters written for the explicit purposes of trolling Slate columnists. If this isn’t one of them, let me just go ahead and say, yes, you are the bad guy. Being the primary breadwinner isn’t an excuse for doing none of the parenting work, even on weekdays. Your soon-to-be ex won’t be penniless, because you’ll have to pay her something in alimony, but she did make choices that enabled your career while harming her own.

And if you really think having a special-needs child who is immobile without a wheelchair and needs a feeding tube is a casual, part-time job, I don’t even know what to say to you. If you genuinely can’t fathom why any of this would be heavy lifting for your wife, or why she might want to spend time with you on weekends (though, given this letter, I’m not sure why she would), maybe you should take a week off work and see what it’s like to do what she does for a week. Aside from child care, her work probably entails things like housekeeping, meal preparation, etc. I think you’d be in for a big surprise.

At any rate, the alimony you pay goes to caring for your children. I assume you don’t hate them as much as you obviously hate your wife. So don’t deprive them of things they need, just to spite her.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

Speaking of letters one hopes are fake!

[bikergeek]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

[green_grrl]

I doubt this is a Slate reader.

That aside, alimony does not go to the children. Alimony compensates the ex for any inequities in their earnings in the partnership, especially if there was unpaid, SAH work. Child support supports the children. LWs (and readers) should at least get accurate info in responses.

[ashbet]

^^^This,

[conuly]

If you genuinely can’t fathom why any of this would be heavy lifting for your wife

LITERALLY heavy lifting, because the immobile child has to be moved out of and into the chair regularly for toileting and not getting sores and whatever.

[annotated_em]

*insert NotAllMen_ButDefinitelyThisFuckingGuy.jpg here*

[lemonsharks]

Whole man disposal service

Yes the entire man

[lilysea]

To me this letter smacks of ableism

- he's blaming/punishing his wife for giving birth to a Disabled child;

- he doesn't believe his Disabled child needs/deserves good-quality care from his wife.

[minoanmiss]

Oh, this letter is such a bonfire of ableism, misogyny, and general evilitude I keep hoping it's fake.

[cimorene]

This CAN'T be real, can it? It's the kind of detail that this kind of person tends to leave out as Missing Reasons rather than look this bad. They'd have to be stratospheric levels of neuroatypical or personality disordered to not even realize how bad those details look.

[cereta]

The only reason I didn't automatically assume this letter was fake was because spouse spent three years in family law. Damn near any attorney will tell you that it is the nastiest, pettiest, most soul-destroying specialty you can be in. "Bitch doesn't get my money," is a very, very, very common refrain.

[minoanmiss]

Please go tacklehug* spouse for me and tell him it's from one of those Internet girls.

*: or as comfortable a facsimile as can be arranged