California Divorce and Family Law

Men Receiving Alimony Want A Little Respect

Modern Males Say  Living Off the Ex-Wife  Is No Cause for Shame

As a Hollywood actor, John David Castellanos is protective of his image. He stays in phenomenal shape and looks much younger than his 50 years.

But he admits to a fact that might be considered unflattering: He receives alimony from his former wife. To be exact, $9,000 a month.

"The law provides" for it, says Mr. Castellanos, who for years starred in the soap opera "The Young and the Restless." "More women are paying alimony, or maintenance checks, to their ex-husbands as they make inroads in the workplace. Jacqueline W. Silbermann, deputy chief administrative judge for matrimonial matters in New York, discusses the trend.")

More women are paying alimony, or maintenance checks, to their ex-husbands as they make inroads in the workplace. Jacqueline W. Silbermann, deputy chief administrative judge for matrimonial matters in New York, discusses the trend.

In the nearly 30 years since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against gender discrimination in alimony, few male beneficiaries have stepped forward to talk about it. Those who did typically went by pseudonyms or the golden rule of 12-step recovery: first names only.

Little wonder, considering the attention that has come to some former husbands of alimony-paying celebrities. "Why the courts don't tell a husband, who has been living off his wife, to go out and get a job is beyond my comprehension," Joan Lunden, the television personality, said in 1992 when a court ordered her to pay her ex-husband $18,000 a month.

But today's men are shaking off the stigma of being supported by their ex-wives. Several agreed to talk on the record for this article, in part because they say the popular image of the male alimony recipient is unfair: He's not always a slacker.

Mr. Castellanos says he has acted in or produced five movies since the breakup of his marriage, including a couple of projects that he says are nearing completion. If any of these projects strike gold, he says he would gladly forgo alimony. Even Ms. Lunden has had a change of heart. Through a former publicist, she now says of her 1992 comment: "That was a statement made in haste many years ago. I regret having said it."

Divorce experts say that fewer and fewer men are rejecting outright any talk of seeking alimony. The percentage of alimony recipients who are male rose to 3.6% during the five years ending in 2006, up from 2.4%, in the previous five-year period, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

That percentage is likely to rise as more and more marriages feature a primary earner who is female. In 2005 (the latest year for which data are available), wives outearned their husbands in 33% of all families, up from 28.2% a decade earlier.

Alimony -- a distinctly different category from child support -- is the money that higher-earning spouses hand to their lower-earning counterparts following the end of their marriage. Often it is court-ordered, years in duration and based on big discrepancies in spousal incomes.

Classic Reasons

Today, men in growing numbers are receiving alimony for the classic reasons that women traditionally did. A common argument is that they sacrificed their careers for the sake of their wives'.

"If it was not for the joint decision to support Marjorie's career advancement to the detriment of mine, I would be making considerably more money than I am currently," Christopher Bowen argued in a 2005 filing in Los Angeles Superior Court.

At the time of that request, Mr. Bowen was a Wachovia Securities executive receiving about $550,000 in annual pay, according to the court documents. But his wife, Marjorie Bowen, was expected in 2005 to earn $1.5 million as an executive at investment-banking boutique Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin, according to the court documents.

Mr. Bowen argued in the filing that when the couple moved back to Los Angeles because of her career opportunities, he took a cut in pay. "Based on my salary alone, I cannot maintain the marital standard of living," Mr. Bowen wrote in a petition filed in the Los Angeles court in August 2005.

Male alimony seekers are also touting sacrifices made on behalf of children. In the marriage of Joe and Diane Garnick, she logged 12-hour days as a global equity derivatives strategist for Merrill Lynch, earning several times what Mr. Garnick did as a top-performing toilet salesman. So in 2001, he quit that job to focus on raising their two girls, keeping the house clean and doing the shopping.

Following his 2002 divorce, he received alimony of $50,000 a year for four years from Ms. Garnick, now an investment strategist at Invesco Ltd.

As a stay-at-home dad, Mr. Garnick notes that he missed out on career opportunities that would have boosted his earning potential, particularly those involving travel. "I couldn't [travel] while I had a kid," Mr. Garnick says.

Mr. Garnick used the alimony to earn a mathematics degree from a community college. But he has returned to his old job selling toilets, where he earns only half what he did before quitting. "Society thinks that just because you are a man you can pick up a career after you have dropped it for 10 years and jump right back," he says. "That's just not the case."

Still, relatives of his former wife continue referring to Mr. Garnick as a "deadbeat," he says. And Ms. Garnick herself says, "In some instances, alimony has become akin to a social-welfare program provided by working women to their ex-husbands."

Some feminists say cases such as Mr. Garnick's show progress of a sort. "We can't assert rights for women and say that men aren't entitled to the same rights," says the famous feminist lawyer, Gloria Allred.

But the women who have to pay it are sounding a different chord. "I feel financially raped," says Rhonda Friedman, the former wife of Mr. Castellanos. So distasteful are the monthly payments she makes to him that after filling out the check she used to spit on it. Especially galling, she says, is that she was required to pay a substantial portion of the legal fees he racked up while securing a lucrative divorce agreement.

To be sure, some men don't want alimony, viewing it as an embarrassment. Others are just as high-powered as their wives. Yahoo President Susan Decker and her soon-to-be ex-husband have taken alimony off the table, according to court records. Meanwhile, Sara Lee Chief Executive Brenda Barnes is paying no alimony to her ex-husband, a former PepsiCo Inc. executive who now manages his own money. Until their youngest child recently turned 18, Ms. Barnes, who earned a total of $8.7 million in fiscal 2007, was receiving child-support payments from her former husband, according to court records.

Other men have learned that alimony is a powerful negotiating tactic, especially when their estranged wives clearly want to sever all ties. "For some people, it is truly offensive to write out a check each month to a spouse for support," says Sue Moss, a divorce lawyer at Chemtob Moss Forman & Talbert LLP in New York. "In those instances, if you can offer a financial package that is essentially the same as if maintenance was being paid, it is the preferable alternative."

Indeed, the increasingly common practice of trading alimony for a fatter slice of marital assets helps explain why the overall number of people reporting alimony income fell 17% during the decade ended in 2006, to a total of fewer than 400,000, the Census Bureau says.

In the case of Wachovia's Mr. Bowen, he ultimately waived his rights to spousal support. But the resulting settlement -- which neither party will publicly discuss -- suggests that Mr. Bowen received a generous division of assets. In addition to half of his wife's substantial private-equity investments, Mr. Bowen received a home in Manhattan Beach, Calif., a parcel in Utah and some properties in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Read more at the Wall Street Journal. (Subscription Required).

 

O.C. spousal support case may set precedent

Yorba Linda man says he shouldn't have to pay spousal support because ex-wife is in domestic partnership.

A Yorba Linda man has taken his spousal-support fight to the state Court of Appeals, saying he shouldn't have to pay his ex-wife $1,250 a month when she has entered a domestic partnership with her female companion. 

In June, an Orange County Superior Court judge ruled that Melinda Kirkwood's partnership wasn't equal to marriage under state law, and ordered Ron Garber to pay support. State law generally provides for alimony to end when a former spouse remarries.

Garber's attorney, William M. Hulsy, filed an appeal with the state appellate court last week. 

Lawyers say the California Supreme Court is watching how the Orange County case unfolds. It could be considered as the Supreme Court examines whether San Francisco can allow same-sex couples to marry.

The then-Melinda Garber filed for divorce in 2004 after 18 years of marriage. 

Hulsy said when Ron Garber, now 51, signed an agreement to pay alimony the following year, Garber didn't know his ex-wife had entered a domestic partnership.

That amounts to double dipping, Hulsy contends, because Kirkwood is entitled to some spousal benefits as a registered domestic partner.

"In our particular case, Melinda Garber, because she entered into a domestic partnership, is getting better treatment than if she had entered into a marriage," Hulsy said.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Michael Naughton ruled against Garber in June, setting up the appeal.

Melinda Kirkwood's attorney, Edwin Fahlen, said it's irrelevant whether and when his client had entered a partnership.

Garber "agreed to pay for it," Fahlen said of the spousal support. "There's plenty of cases where people get married, and that doesn't affect the bargained-for provision."

The courts have no easy course to resolve the question this case poses, said Charlotte Goldberg, a law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. 

"There already have been a couple of cases that have said a domestic partnership is not exactly the same as the marriage … though they have many of the same rights as marriage," the professor said.

In addition, according to the state's family code, "If someone starts co-habiting with someone of the opposite sex, there's a presumption that there's less of a need of spousal support. … But it doesn't say anything about the same sex," Goldberg said. 

On the other hand, Goldberg said, domestic partners make a commitment to support each other. The law says both are responsible "for each other's living expenses. It's very complicated, and the courts are going to have to work out whether (they) are going to treat domestic partnerships like marriage, or whether they would limit those rights."

Garber's appeal doesn't mean the case has finished at the county level.

Garber has yet to pay all of the support the court has ordered, leading his ex-wife to file a contempt of court complaint against him.

"He's paid some of the support. We're still determining how we're going to respond to that," Hulsy said.

Melinda Kirkwood did not return messages.

Garber, whose company offers real-estate seminars to agents, said he hadn't expected the attention his case has received on television and in publications across the country.

"I hope it makes a difference, and they get this loophole straightened out," he said. "I feel people should be able to live in whatever partnership they choose to live in. This is not about heterosexual or gay rights. It's about making sure this is fair."

From the Orange County Register.

 

Judge: Ex still due alimony when she becomes he

A woman's sex change operation does not free her ex-husband from his alimony obligation, a judge said Wednesday.

Attorneys for Lawrence Roach, 48, had argued his 55-year-old ex-wife's decision to switch genders and change her name from Julia to Julio Roberto Silverwolf voided their 2004 divorce agreement.

"It's illegal for a man to marry a man and it should likewise be illegal for a man to pay alimony to a man," said John McGuire, one of Roach's attorneys.

Circuit Judge Jack R. St. Arnold, however, ruled that in the eyes of the law, nothing changed significantly enough to free Roach from his $1,250-a-month obligation.

The judge said since Florida courts have ruled sex-change surgery cannot legally change a person's birth gender, Roach technically is not paying alimony to a man.

Gender definitions are "a question that raises issues of public policy that should be addressed by the Legislature, not the Florida courts," St. Arnold wrote.

Silverwolf's lawyer, Gregory Nevins, said the language of the divorce decree is clear -- Roach agreed to pay alimony until his ex-wife dies or remarries.

Nevins said he and his client were pleased with the ruling, although they disagree with Florida's refusal to legally recognize gender reassignment surgery.

Roach, a utility worker who has since remarried, said he will press his fight to end the payments.

"We're going to try everything we can," he said. "I can't rest until I get satisfaction."

The case is the second transsexual rights showdown in Pinellas County in less than a week. On Friday, city commissioners voted 5-2 to fire Largo's city manager, Steve Stanton, after he announced he was a transsexual.

An Ohio appeals court ruled in September 2004 that a Montgomery County man must continue to pay alimony to his transsexual ex-wife because her sex change wasn't reason enough to violate the agreement.

There is more at CNN.

Women Increasingly Paying Alimony

The picture of equality looks awfully strange to Kim Shamsky. The 47-year-old business owner pays her ex, a 65-year-old retired Major League Baseball player, thousands per month in temporary spousal support.

He's not seeking alimony to help pay for the kids' birthday parties, since they don't have children. Nor was he instrumental in building her business. They married seven years after she started a handful of staffing firms and amassed a small fortune on her own. The daughter of a New York City taxi driver, Shamsky started her first staffing agency at age 27 with the help of a 21% loan. Not only was she able to make her first business profitable, but she's also worked furiously to ensure the success of all five businesses she's started since. Small wonder she is outraged at having to pay thousands of dollars a month to her ex.

"He used to scream and throw tantrums and demand more money," Shamsky says of her ex-husband. "It was like he thought, 'Hey, you have money, why shouldn't I?'" She adds flatly: "I will never marry again. And I'm getting T-shirts made with the word 'prenup' written across the chest."

No doubt Shamsky would find more than a few buyers for the shirts. The idea that men can receive spousal support from their wives may feel like a freakish concept, but as women have become higher earners, it's increasingly common.

And as men set their sights on women's earnings, women have become more protective of those dollars. In fact, according to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, 44% of attorneys included in a recent survey said they've seen an increase in women asking for prenuptial agreements over the last five years, where in previous decades, prenuptial agreements were almost always sought by men.

A lot of women are indignant now that the shoe is increasingly on the other foot, says Carol Ann Wilson, a certified financial divorce practitioner in Boulder, Colo. "There's this sense of, 'What's yours is ours, but what's mine is mine,'" Wilson says. "My first response to that is, 'All these years we have been looking for equality; well, this is what it looks like.' I think women get angrier about having to pay than men do."

The ordeal has been played up in gossip magazines and tabloids, which have closely followed countless examples of celebrity breakups in which men have sought, or have threatened to seek, spousal support. Teen idol and crooner Nick Lachey reportedly requested the right to seek spousal support from ex-wife pop singer Jessica Simpson last year. (Lachey is seven years older than Simpson and reportedly worth significantly less.) In another splashy case, Hardy Boy Parker Stevenson sought $18,000 per month from actress Kirstie Alley when they divorced, just to cover the rent on his Bel Air home.

But Wilson emphasizes that it's not just actresses or the wealthiest women who are seeking prenuptial agreements or paying spousal support. "I've seen thousands of clients," she says, "and almost every time I've seen a stay-at-home dad seek alimony, the wife--she's usually a software executive--goes ballistic."

Some women find it's not a battle worth fighting, according to Cheryl Lynn Hepfer, the Rockville, Md.-based president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. Hepfer says she's seen women who have happily chosen to pay off their husbands in an effort to maintain their sanity and keep the peace.

"I once represented a wealthy woman who had the wherewithal to pay $6,000 a month to her husband--and this was probably 10 years ago--so she paid him," Hepfer says, adding that the client also gave her ex the boat and the house on the water. "She wasn't bitter about it at all. She was a business woman, and for her, this was a business decision." Hepfer says she did it to preserve the relationship with her former husband and their two children. "She knew it would be beneficial for the kids."

Just as some women object to men's request for spousal support, some men are particularly uncomfortable seeking it. Either they find it emasculating to ask, or they find the idea of receiving an allowance from their ex-wives humiliating, according to divorce attorneys.

"The fact is that you still don't see too many cases where men seek alimony," says William Beslow, a divorce attorney in New York City. "One reason is that although women may earn more than men, they often wind up with custody of the children, and when a woman takes up primary responsibility for the children, men don't request maintenance."

Some men avoid the embarrassment by seeking a bigger bite of the marital assets instead of asking for alimony. Not only do lump-sum payments save them the humiliation of accepting monthly support, but they also reduce the ex-husband's taxes, since spousal support payments are taxed, while assets are not.

On the flip side, in those situations when men receive assets, women lose their tax benefit, because spousal support is tax-deductible, Hepfer notes. The upshot: Even if it's easier to settle with one swift payment, consult an accountant first to learn the tax consequences. It may be better for you financially to pay alimony.

Kim Shamsky admits she's angry about paying her ex-husband spousal support mostly because he's a man. After all, men are supposed to be breadwinners, not bread takers.

"A real man just wouldn't do this sort of thing," she says. "Maybe it's my Italian upbringing, but I don't think it's right."

Right or not, as women's earnings grow, so will their financial responsibility during divorce. That's equality for you.

More about this topic from Forbes.