Pride, Divorce, and Welfare
With the advent of unilateral no fault divorce, faithful spouses suffered the worst and most unjust kinds of torment possible this side of hell. Unfaithful spouses would gang up with their lovers to plot a strategy for divorce that would rob the faithful spouse blind while they endeavored to save the marriage rather than protect themselves from the unjust fallout of divorce.
Courts made money off the destruction of families–especially those with young children, and the unfaithful found that by getting to the court first, they could easily gain the upper-hand in the divorce. Furthermore, the unfaithful spouse has usually gone through the transition of the heart to another lover and feels no rejection or loss but rather feels fully supported while the faithful spouse is often so stressed and torn that they are unable to fight back.
Often faithful spouses would end up kicked out of their homes, robbed of their children and devastated financially, and then forced to pay spousal and child support on top of this. But so much of the time it is because they have no strength to fight or money to give a lawyer to fight for them, and even if they do, the additional stress for the faithful spouse can be life threatening. So, in hopes of getting the stress to end, the faithful spouse begins to make concessions hoping that it will appease the unfaithful and unreasonable and selfish spouse so that the battle will finally end and everyone can heal and rebuild.
But, it’s not over. The unfaithful spouse wants more and more and more. The faithful spouse may be so stressed that they look at their work and just cannot think. They cannot get things done around the house or anywhere. They suffer stress related memory loss and a breakdown and cannot work, so they lose their job.
Then what happens? The unfaithful spouse tries to convince the court that the faithful spouse quit his or her job just to get rid of support payments to get revenge for the divorce. Does the unfaithful spouse have to prove anything? No, not at all. The burden of proof falls upon the faithful spouse to prove himself or herself unable to work. So, a doctor’s note on letterhead is brought to court along with medical documents showing treatment for depression. The doctor’s not claims the faithful spouse has been unable to work due to stress related to the divorce. But, that’s not good enough. One would think that stress related problems like this would be so common that any judge should not require proof greater than this or even this much, especially for the spouse who was faithful.
A Solution
The stress of a divorce and child custody battles has brought many people to the grave by suicide, by heart attack, by stroke, and by other health problems. Stress related depression and memory loss is very common as is shutting down. And, often just stopping work to rest up and heal is not enough. Courts often require more substantial evidence.
But, in my case, I found myself being hindered by pride from going onto disability or social security or welfare, so I tried taking a leave of absence and returning, and the problem was still with me. I lived off my 401K plan until it was exhausted as I travelled back and forth for court hearings and for shared custody and just to cover the cost of living not to mention extremely exorbitant attorney costs.
After awhile my savings were exhausted and I still owed taxes on it. Had I known better, I should have gone onto disability insurance. After all I paid into it for over two decades. But, by the time I realized it was the thing to do and was strong enough to sign up for it, I was still not strong enough to fight for it, so the disability from stress related depression was the very disability that created the need but it was also the very handicap that would prevent me from getting the needs met from the very system I paid into.
And, since I did not have disability insurance, my living came out of my retirement, so I was on the hook for taxes and early withdrawal penalties. Is that fair? No. For one thing, this is using a disability to put disability benefits out of reach. Was I entitled to unemployment insurance? Probably not because I was not fired or let go. How about social security? It takes six months for them to get started.
Conquering Pride
My parents and attorney tried hard to convince me to put aside pride and apply for welfare, but I would not do it. Then finally, my attorney ripped into me, not to be mean but to bring home to my mind the reasons it was foolish and irresponsible for me to be letting pride get in the way of getting the help I needed to heal. I had been questioning her begging her to say somehow that it was ok for me to go back to some kind of work even if it were unstressful work.
Here’s the catch. Truth is, stress has taken its toll on me. I cannot work under stress the way I used to. My mind shuts down and I cannot go further. So, when I try, it works for awhile, then my ex-wife takes me back to court, and then suddenly I am staring at my computer screen or anything else I’m supposed to do and my brain shuts down.
I force myself to fight this shutdown and work anyway, but eventually I come to the place where I cannot force myself any more.
So, what are the implications? The implications to the court, if I work, are that I can work and that I should have been working for a long time. So, they would impute either the salary I was making or perhaps even the higher salary I was able to make before this stress of divorce took its toll on me. Then interest would be added to that. Then support costs would be calculated on my current salary and added to it and the whole amount would continue to accumulate interest leaving me in a very difficult debt to pay off.
Now, suppose in that situation the inevitable happens and I shut down losing my job. I’m still required to pay unless i can get back into court to revise the support payments. Then it takes time to get that changed, and meanwhile I’m losing more money I don’t have to a spouse who was unfaithful and unfair.
When people get into this state, they often lose hope and take a leap off the nearest bridge or take drugs or jump in front of a train. Or they become homeless and wander the streets without hope until they die. After all, if they recover, they’ll still be broke forever. Hope is lost.
But, if victims of adultery and divorce would set aside pride and allow disability insurance, social security, and welfare to help while they go to the county for mental health care, counseling, and perhaps an anti-depressant or whatever medication is appropriate, the following benefits can be realized:
- The horrible stress of an unfair burden of support can be eliminated or reduced. This can help heal.
- You can get medical help and time to de-stress and heal.
- You can protect yourself from losing your entire retirement along with early withdrawal penalties and taxes.
- You can heal and help your family better during this time.
- You take away your spouse’s incentive to hurt you in court and slander you to take away your kids and use them for obtaining support payments.
- You can heal faster and become productive again faster.
- You can have greater success avoiding suicide, heart attack and stroke.
- And this helps communicate back to every governmental agency the need to take care of this problem of divorce and begin to save marriages.
By doing this, you can help protect your family from loss and your children from suffering, and it can help hold the government accountable and encourage it to hold the unfaithful accountable for their actions.
