Quote:
Originally Posted by ///My5UV
For those people that say alimony is lifetime after 10 years... why didn't anyone tell me that 4 years ago!? j/k
In Texas, after 10 years there can be alimony but it's apparently limited to 3 years.
I've heard Maine has limits as well, and according to wikipedia (so yeah, totally bank on that :-) NJ has had some attempts at reforming, so maybe if the OP sticks it out a while longer until his daughter is off to college he'd be in much better shape financially. If nothing else that'd be an appropriate time to move to a smaller house anyway, and what if that happened to be in another state? Of course I have no idea how long the NJ laws would follow you, and moving, selling and buying houses is all stressful even for a healthy marriage so that would suck. Holding off might help his daughter's mental state as well...but I don't know how much seeing her folks not having a healthy relationship is helping... that's your call.
Personally, I'm in the camp with the joke "You know why divorce is so expensive? Because it's worth it." If you can make a clean break and move on then it's totally worth the money cost to have mental well-being. However, since you seem to like your money more than your wife, I can see that's a big mental leap. Also if you're stuck with lifetime alimony that's not much of a clean break, and if you ever want to see your daughter again, then that's just not possible.
I will plead that you not be one of those d-bag divorced dads that fights to get custody just to "win something" and/or get out of some child support payments, and then when you have time with your daughter leaving her with other people. Said a nicer way, time with her will become more precious...treasure it.
I'll also comment on people bagging on marriage... I could be wrong but I think a prenup usually only protects assets you have before marriage, right? Doesn't seem like the ultimate fix. I'll definitely agree that having kids will make a marriage much harder. If you put any effort into choosing a spouse that's a good fit for you, I think most people can make a marriage (without kids) work. Having kids will absolutely bring any little problems up to a full boil, so that's something you need to know.
This is probably the part where I should remind you that not all advice you get on the internet is good advice :-)
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Thanks. My daughter is the most important thing. As much as I love her be with her all the time, I know she would be better of being her mother because of my long hours of work and commute. That's why I wand joint custody so that I would have saying in decision made for my daughter, but I would allow my wife to have full physical custody.
As you said one you have kids, it is completely different ball game. We had a perfect marriage until my daughter was born. Then everything went upside down. Almost each divorce that I am aware of took place after kids.
In terms of waiting for laws to change, I think it is along shot and I don't want to stay married any longer.
I started leaning towards the idea of giving her one time larger amount of money. I am not sure how much that would be but I am willing to give up my life time savings, and maybe part of my 401K. I am not going offer her any money, and wait to see the final numbers of alimony per month and length). Then I will make an offer, any where from $100,000 to $250,000 (that's beside her share on our assets including the house which is almost paid off). So this way I can have piece of mind.
Still thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking .....