Rant VII: Now With 25% Less Drama

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Piotyr

Piotyr

Really disillusioned with the court system and humanity right about now. It's all over now, though, so I can at least talk about it. It involves a good friend of mine (no, really, this isn't me pretending it's a friend)...who I'll refer to as Rick.

It all started about 18 months ago, when Rick answered his wife's (who I'll call Jill from this point) cell phone, and the moron on the other line couldn't even fake a decent alibi. He actually asked if Jill were there, and if so whether she was planning on coming by later or not. I mean, just blatantly stupid. So Rick, naturally, asked Jill what that was about. She flat told him "Oh, he's the guy I've been sleeping with for the past few months." So, obviously, there was a problem in the marriage.

Rick asked Jill what she wanted, and she agreed to try counseling for a while (note, Jill's career was as a marriage counselor), so they went to someone she knew. The counselor started the session by asking what each person wanted. Rick said he wanted Jill to stop sleeping around. Jill said she wanted him to spend more time off work and go on vacations more often. The counselor responded with "Well, first, you need to stop sleeping around." Jill thought that was unreasonable unless Rick was expected to give up something as well. Jill thought it was fair that she'd stop sleeping around when Rick agreed in writing to taking her on four planned vacations a year and two spontaneous vacations per year. The counselor turned to Rick and said "This marriage won't work. It's not worth it." So, Rick agreed it was time to end the marriage, which Jill thought was ridiculous and that he didn't really want to work at the marriage. Jill had been sleeping around on him for 8 years, and she couldn't understand why it was all of a sudden a problem now.

So, they started the divorce proceedings. Sounds like a pretty open and shut case, right? Oh no, because Illinois is a no-fault divorce state, so any argument of infidelity is meaningless. Rick thought it would be beneficial to just use an arbitrator that was a friend of Jill's, so it could be over and done with quickly. Jill disagreed, thinking she wouldn't get a fair deal if her friend knew all the facts, so Jill hired a lawyer and took Rick to divorce court. She blamed him for the divorce at this point, and just wanted to ruin Rick as much as possible. Her initial demand was a monthly alimony check equaling about 90% of Rick's take-home money, plus the house, the retirement account, and half the profits of his side small business. Rick obviously balked at that, because he wouldn't have been able to afford to live at that rate. He didn't even care about the house, since they were under water on the mortgage anyway, but he couldn't live on 10% of his salary. So Jill's lawyers continued to issue outrageous demands over the next 15 months, since Jill's parents paid for the lawyers (she blamed Rick for the divorce, so they blamed Rick for the divorce). Over that time, Rick's financial partner on the small business seized the business back because of fear of Jill getting a piece of it.

Finally, after 15 months of constant legal bullshit, a week before this past Christmas, Jill said she wanted to discuss new terms with Rick and the lawyers. Rick agreed, because he couldn't keep affording to pay the lawyer to draw out the legal proceedings. At the meeting, the lawyers spent about 45 minutes simply bickering about the value of the house (whether it was the appraised value or the value of the mortgage), at which point Rick asked the lawyers to just stop, and that he wanted to speak to Jill alone. Jill agreed, and the lawyers left the room. Rick got out a sheet of paper, and told Jill to write down whatever would get her to just walk away and end it. Jill proceeded to write down everything that was Rick's, from his computer, to his entertainment setup, the dogs, down to his iTunes account (no lie), along with whatever was currently in his retirement account, plus 50% of his take-home over the next 5 years. Rick looked it over, and agreed, because he was sick of it and just wanted it to be over.

The judge actually laughed out loud at the demands (when he got to the iTunes account, he chuckled and said "Wow, really? Moving on...". But it's finally over. Rick has the house and the debt, lost his small business, will only make half his salary for the next 5 years, and lost his dogs and his electronics. All because he wasn't happy with a wife that constantly cheated on him. But we still had a party for him, because he was just relieved it was over.
 
Shegokigo

Shegokigo

Yep, that story pretty much confirms all my beliefs and stances on marriage.

Don't bother responding with how wonderful marriage is cause honestly, you can get just as much satisfaction and enjoyment from a person in your life without putting your legal life on the line. "Oh no, we won't have the same last name vs Oh no, they took everything in the divorce" Gee, I wonder which is worse. *insert eye roll*
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
Rick's an idiot. I'm sorry but that's how I see it. She gets everything, learned nothing and comes out smelling like a rose. As it doesn't seem there were kids involved and she apparently has a great job already, Rick caved way too easily.
 
Gared

Gared

Piotyr, that really sucks. Get Rick a beer (or something harder) on me next time you go out. That right there is why I hate no fault divorce states. My ex-wife (not the one I married just before xmas this year, tyvm) just randomly went home to see her parents one day and decided she was never coming back. That's when I started hearing all of the stories from my roommates about how she kept trying to get them to sleep with her, telling them that we were in an open marriage (we most certainly were not) and that the terms of our agreement stated that she could sleep with whomever she wanted whenever, with no consequences. Luckily, my buddies didn't buy it. She then tried to claim that the fact that the marriage failed was my fault because I failed to provide her with the quality of life she was used to from living with her parents (she was 21 and had never NOT lived with her parents). When asked what specifically she felt that I failed to provide her with, her answer was "about $400 of premium weed a week and all the food I can eat, premium cable, an Xbox (this was before the 360), and a boyfriend to sleep with when I want to have sex, but not with you (which apparently was all the damn time)."

Luckily, when we went to court she didn't even show up, or send a lawyer to represent her, and the judge looked at me, looked at her empty spot and said "congratulations, you don't have to pay her anything, as she couldn't be bothered to come to my court." I really miss the judges in Whitman county. Of course, it might have helped that neither of us had any money or any possessions to give either party.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
I'm not a fan of marriage as an institution to begin with, but the concept of infidelity not being taken into account in divorce proceedings is pants-on-head retarded.
 
Gared

Gared

Pants-on-head retarded... I don't think I've heard that one before. I will be stealing that and using it to describe many, many situations in the coming weeks, I'm sure.
 
Adam

Adam

Shegokigo said:
Yep, that story pretty much confirms all my beliefs and stances on marriage.

Don't bother responding with how wonderful marriage is cause honestly, you can get just as much satisfaction and enjoyment from a person in your life without putting your legal life on the line. "Oh no, we won't have the same last name vs Oh no, they took everything in the divorce" Gee, I wonder which is worse. *insert eye roll*
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You don't have to be married to lose everything in a 'divorce'. If you are living with someone for more than X amount of time, I think you'll find that the same rules apply.
 
M

makare

I am sorry Rick had such a horrible experience but seriously no-fault is infinitely better than fault based divorce which is what we have in Sodak. We have had situations where a wife was being abused but couldnt prove it so she couldnt get a divorce based on cruelty and the abusive spouse ended up killing her.I am always going to work towards making Sodak no fault eventually.

Also for once I am with Dave. He should have put up much more of a fight. If he is getting screwed anyway at least go down swinging and take the bitch down with him.
 
Shegokigo

Shegokigo

Adammon said:
You don't have to be married to lose everything in a 'divorce'. If you are living with someone for more than X amount of time, I think you'll find that the same rules apply.
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Do tell. There's no paperwork required for proof? I could just say I've been living with someone for a certain amount of time and then claim half their belongings?
 
M

makare

Most states have case history that abrogated common law marriage. The states that still have it are mostly in the south but there are many barriers to meeting the criteria for common law marriage because the general public policy is that it is a bad thing. There is usually a 10 year minimum of cohabitation AND most importantly they had to refer to each other as husband and wife both privately and in public. Of course each state is unique with what their statute covers but that is kind of the general way it is phrased.
 
M

makare

Dave you don't know the first thing about the law so you should probably just stfu. Seriously.
 
Adam

Adam

While the US has been covered by our Forum Legal Beagles, let me clarify Canadian, more specifically British Columbian Common Law (which is the fastest growing segment of marriage in Canada)

According to the Canada Revenue Agency, as of 2007, a common-law relationship is true if at least one of the following applies:
  1. the couple has been living in a conjugal relationship for at least 12 continuous months;
  2. the couple are parents of a child by birth or adoption; or
  3. one of the couple has custody and control of the other partner's child (or had custody and control immediately before the child turned 19 years of age) and the child is wholly dependent on that person for support.
In British Columbia, a person who has lived and cohabited with another person, for a period of at least two years is considered a common law spouse.

Now while there's no presumption of joint ownership of ownership of assets, if one party makes a material contribution to the asset of another, entitlement may exist. Case law has suggested that being a homemaker, for example, is enough of a contribution to a home to qualify for joint ownership.
 
M

makare

Adammon said:
While the US has been covered by our Forum Legal Beagles, let me clarify Canadian, more specifically British Columbian Common Law (which is the fastest growing segment of marriage in Canada)

According to the Canada Revenue Agency, as of 2007, a common-law relationship is true if at least one of the following applies:
  1. the couple has been living in a conjugal relationship for at least 12 continuous months;
  2. the couple are parents of a child by birth or adoption; or
  3. one of the couple has custody and control of the other partner's child (or had custody and control immediately before the child turned 19 years of age) and the child is wholly dependent on that person for support.
In British Columbia, a person who has lived and cohabited with another person, for a period of at least two years is considered a common law spouse.

Now while there's no presumption of joint ownership of ownership of assets, if one party makes a material contribution to the asset of another, entitlement may exist. Case law has suggested that being a homemaker, for example, is enough of a contribution to a home to qualify for joint ownership.
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The addition of the child sections there would change everything. That is pretty interesting. I wonder if they would have added that in here if it would have survived past the 50s in more states. Although, maybe not single parenting became much more common in the last few decades. Just goes to show the law cannot see the future.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
The word "law" has now been used the requisite number of times over the course of the last 24 hours, and I am now contractually obligated to post this video.

 
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