MADER'S 'BRANTS Divorce In America January 30, 2005 - I have a friend, well more than one, but I’m talking about this one particular one. Her name is Mary Ann. In her early 50’s, Mary Ann has been married and divorced twice. The second one happened this week. I tried to be the consoling friend, but I was finding it hard to work up any real emotion. 43% of all marriages end in divorce. This was her second one, and she is currently engaged to be married yet again and in all likely hood will end it in another divorce. For me having a lot of sympathy on this is sort of like having sympathy for people that keep parking their trailers in the flood plans along a river or building their homes on a fault line in Cali. Ya get what you deserve. That was until she told me about the settlement. It seems my friend was married in Pennsylvania which is a no fault state. It also seems, at least in her case that means everything is split 50/50. That includes the house, retirement funds, pensions, government bonds, cars everything. Sounds good on the surface. It’s nice and fair, unless one spouse or the other is a drug using, country music listening, beer swilling, pick-up driving loser. The other spouse is a long time corporate exec with a large company who just happened to pay for everything. A quick side note, the person that files for divorce pays the alimony. In this case Mary Ann filed so her husband got the alimony checks while the court and multiple lawyers took their time to settle the community property over a period of several years. Guys….what kinda dickless wonder do you have to be to live off alimony? Answer: The kind I mentioned above. So as Mary Ann drinks her cosmopolitans and gets all involved in the details and drones on and on I ask her three times what the final price tag was. What exactly is half? Finally she stops ignoring the question and with a deep sigh and a long look off into the distance she says; “A quarter of a million dollars.” That’s right she personally lost out of her own money a quarter of a million dollars. What had been a planned retirement in a few years at age 55 now could be sometime in her 60’s or 70’s, depending on how her investments play, and her health holds out and/or any other number of un for seen problems. So what’s the solution? She had four I could think of. Kill him in his sleep and admit it to the cops. Don’t hire a lawyer, get a public defender and plea bargain. Sure ya go to jail but you put your money in off shore interest bearing account. 10 years later after learning valuable skills like how not to drop your soap and making license plates, and getting in shape using state supplied free weights, ya get out. Go to the Virgin Islands and live a nice life. Don’t believe me? It’s working for Martha Stewart. Spend 10 Grand and have a professional do it. This is kinda sticky cause ya then have to hit the hit man or you get blackmailed for the rest of your life. Not the perfect plan but for those that don’t like getting their hands dirty it’s an option. Never divorce him, just make him so miserable he would leave on his own. This is tough especially if he is a smart loser. They can put up with anything, as long as they get a free ride. Pride is not a priority for them. Cash out all her money and just vanish one day. Move to Mexico, change her name and run a nice little tourist spot on the beach. Number 4 is the most practical. No one dies. The dead beat gets nothing and the victim wins in the end. Most people aren’t that smart though. Which is why when you hear on the news that someone killed their spouse, think twice before you judge them harshly. If you faced losing half of everything you ever earned with a slim chance of ever making it back, what would you do? So after taking that all into account and considering that 43% of all marriages end in divorce and then of the 57% still married, half are probably unhappy but afraid to split up so they just suffer until one partner or the other dies of old age. Why in the hell would anyone ever get married? It’s just another contract. Single life rocks!!!!! Mental note: If I am ever stupid enough to propose to another woman ever again hide this article. It might make her nervous. Later, Mader