Alimony after retirement

[hkcon]

I live in Nevada, am 62 years old and retired. My wife is 42 has a very well paying job and is divorcing me. We have been married 22 years. She was a stay at home mom for the first 13 years and I got hurt and she got a good job with Cigna. I got back to work after 4/5 mos. And continued to work for nine more years. Our plan was for me to retire take early SS and she would continue to work. She is very good at her job has been promoted several times and is now making almost $100,000 a year. Am I looking at alimony and would it be enough to live on by myself. My income will be about 3680 before taxes, if SS approves the money for my underage children (4). If not then $2700 or so. Ty for your help.

 

[adjusterjack]

You mean her pay you spousal support?

Give the disparity between age and income, quite possibly.

I hope you have a lawyer because getting it is not a DIY project. You probably have no idea what procedures to follow and evidence to submit.

And your wife is likely to have a lawyer who can run rings around you.

 

[Taxing Matters]

I live in Nevada, am 62 years old and retired. My wife is 42 has a very well paying job and is divorcing me. We have been married 22 years. She was a stay at home mom for the first 13 years and I got hurt and she got a good job with Cigna. I got back to work after 4/5 mos. And continued to work for nine more years. Our plan was for me to retire take early SS and she would continue to work. She is very good at her job has been promoted several times and is now making almost $100,000 a year. Am I looking at alimony and would it be enough to live on by myself. My income will be about 3680 before taxes, if SS approves the money for my underage children (4). If not then $2700 or so. Ty for your help.

You really need to see a divorce attorney. There is a lot going on here that will have to be sorted out. For example, who will get primary custody of the minor children? If she does, then there is a possibility that you would have to pay child support. Do the kids plan to have education after high school? How will that be paid? You might have to foot some of that cost. How much did you make at your job before retirement? You might find that you may need to go back to work to pay for your expenses or perhaps scale down your mode of living. Whether you may get alimony and for how much is something that cannot be determined here, there is simply not enough information for that. The lawyer can advise you on all this stuff and how it's likely to play out before the judges in the county where the divorce case will be heard.

 

[hkcon]

I made plenty as a general contractor in California before we moved. She has spent me into the ground ruining my credit 3 different times and even now spends more than we have and has maxed out the 2 little credit cards I just managed to get to build credit and I had to hock my best 1911 to pay them back to zero. I have lived in financial terror for 22 years. Now my ability to make anything above minimum wage is severely limited as I have a torn meniscus in my left knee and a torn Achilles in my left foot. Not to mention the $500,000 I inherited and that is gone as well. Trying to talk to her about her spending all these years always ended in a threat to leave me guess I should have let her. I just was able to refinance the loan on the house we live in that her aunt had to buy 5 years ago with our money because of our ruined credit. She couldn’t even be on the loa Also paying off $7000 in judgement from credit cards I never knew she had. She also has probably another $3000 in collections. I don’t know how she would pay for a lawyer. As it is right now, I get my dad’s (decreased) calpers retirement of $1658 and $459 in unemployment. And she takes it all for my half of the bills. I don’t know how I would pay for a lawyer either.

 

[Bali Hai Again]

I live in Nevada, am 62 years old and retired. My wife is 42 has a very well paying job and is divorcing me. We have been married 22 years. She was a stay at home mom for the first 13 years and I got hurt and she got a good job with Cigna. I got back to work after 4/5 mos. And continued to work for nine more years. Our plan was for me to retire take early SS and she would continue to work. She is very good at her job has been promoted several times and is now making almost $100,000 a year. Am I looking at alimony and would it be enough to live on by myself. My income will be about 3680 before taxes, if SS approves the money for my underage children (4). If not then $2700 or so. Ty for your help.

Just a FYI the 2022 maximum amount of SS benefits is $2364 for retired at 62. That means the maximum allowable SS tax was withheld from your pay during the years that qualifies you for SS benefits at 62. It sounds like from your post that you are not receiving those benefits yet. At what age do you plan to begin SS benefits?

 

[hkcon]

I have already filled. We had already decided to go that route. Prior to the sep/divorce. Is that the Max for a retirement bene or for total benefits. I have 4 children under the age of 18. I understood the Max I could get was 150 to180 percent off my benefit of $1118. My math looks like (at 150), 1118 + 1677=2795

 

[Bali Hai Again]

I have already filled. We had already decided to go that route. Prior to the sep/divorce. Is that the Max for a retirement bene or for total benefits. I have 4 children under the age of 18. I understood the Max I could get was 150 to180 percent off my benefit of $1118. My math looks like (at 150), 1118 + 1677=2795

$2364 is the max 2022 retirement benefit at age 62. I can’t answer if your children qualify or what that amount would be.

 

[hkcon]

Got it ty

 

[zddoodah]

I live in Nevada, am 62 years old and retired. My wife is 42 has a very well paying job and is divorcing me. We have been married 22 years. She was a stay at home mom for the first 13 years and I got hurt and she got a good job with Cigna. I got back to work after 4/5 mos. And continued to work for nine more years. Our plan was for me to retire take early SS and she would continue to work. She is very good at her job has been promoted several times and is now making almost $100,000 a year. Am I looking at alimony and would it be enough to live on by myself. My income will be about 3680 before taxes, if SS approves the money for my underage children (4). If not then $2700 or so. Ty for your help.

I don't see a question in here, but there's very little that anyone here can tell you other than that you should be consulting with a local divorce attorney.

 

[hkcon]

I live in Nevada, am 62 years old and retired. My wife is 42 has a very well paying job and is divorcing me. We have been married 22 years. She was a stay at home mom for the first 13 years and I got hurt and she got a good job with Cigna. I got back to work after 4/5 mos. And continued to work for nine more years. Our plan was for me to retire take early SS and she would continue to work. She is very good at her job has been promoted several times and is now making almost $100,000 a year. Am I looking at alimony and would it be enough to live on by myself. My income will be about 3680 before taxes, if SS approves the money for my underage children (4). If not then $2700 or so. Ty for your help.

Update: I have spoken to a lawyer here locally and it would be her child support at $1,700.00 and mine at $738.00, so roughly $ 1,000.00 to me (living in the house taking care of the children at a 60 (me)/40 (her) split. I would get around $500 to $700 (lawyer's rough estimate without seeing all the financials) so maybe $1,500.00 to me. We had been in the process of getting a HELOC and kept that going and it funded yesterday. She was all over me to sign a 50/50 (everything except money) joint custody no contest divorce where I get nothing financially. I asked her for more time to make an informed decision and she was able to transfer all the money from the HELOC out of the joint acct and is now demanding I sign the divorce agreement and buy a trailer to live in on property as a condition of getting the money. Is that legal? Probably morally wrong but what about legally?

 

[Zigner]

Update: I have spoken to a lawyer here locally and it would be her child support at $1,700.00 and mine at $738.00, so roughly $ 1,000.00 to me (living in the house taking care of the children at a 60 (me)/40 (her) split. I would get around $500 to $700 (lawyer's rough estimate without seeing all the financials) so maybe $1,500.00 to me. We had been in the process of getting a HELOC and kept that going and it funded yesterday. She was all over me to sign a 50/50 (everything except money) joint custody no contest divorce where I get nothing financially. I asked her for more time to make an informed decision and she was able to transfer all the money from the HELOC out of the joint acct and is now demanding I sign the divorce agreement and buy a trailer to live in on property as a condition of getting the money. Is that legal? Probably morally wrong but what about legally?

She is not doing anything "illegal". You will want to address these new developments in your divorce.

 

[LdiJ]

Update: I have spoken to a lawyer here locally and it would be her child support at $1,700.00 and mine at $738.00, so roughly $ 1,000.00 to me (living in the house taking care of the children at a 60 (me)/40 (her) split. I would get around $500 to $700 (lawyer's rough estimate without seeing all the financials) so maybe $1,500.00 to me. We had been in the process of getting a HELOC and kept that going and it funded yesterday. She was all over me to sign a 50/50 (everything except money) joint custody no contest divorce where I get nothing financially. I asked her for more time to make an informed decision and she was able to transfer all the money from the HELOC out of the joint acct and is now demanding I sign the divorce agreement and buy a trailer to live in on property as a condition of getting the money. Is that legal? Probably morally wrong but what about legally?

What was the purpose of the HELOC? Were you going to do something specific with the money? Is she on the hook for the loan? Generally if one of the spouses keeps the house, then they are required to refinance the mortgage/HELOC in just their name, to basically "buy out" the other party. Can you realistically afford to/qualify to do that?

Also, I think that you may not have given the lawyer enough information to give you an accurate picture of what child support/alimony might be. If you get SS benefits for the minor children then that counts as part of your income for the purpose of calculating child support and alimony.

 

[AlmostThere]

I made plenty as a general contractor in California before we moved. She has spent me into the ground ruining my credit 3 different times and even now spends more than we have and has maxed out the 2 little credit cards I just managed to get to build credit and I had to hock my best 1911 to pay them back to zero. I have lived in financial terror for 22 years. Now my ability to make anything above minimum wage is severely limited as I have a torn meniscus in my left knee and a torn Achilles in my left foot. Not to mention the $500,000 I inherited and that is gone as well. Trying to talk to her about her spending all these years always ended in a threat to leave me guess I should have let her. I just was able to refinance the loan on the house we live in that her aunt had to buy 5 years ago with our money because of our ruined credit. She couldn’t even be on the loa Also paying off $7000 in judgement from credit cards I never knew she had. She also has probably another $3000 in collections. I don’t know how she would pay for a lawyer. As it is right now, I get my dad’s (decreased) calpers retirement of $1658 and $459 in unemployment. And she takes it all for my half of the bills. I don’t know how I would pay for a lawyer either.

I disagree with your view of your earning potential. As someone with limited mobility due to injury/illness, I am not nearly limited to minimum wage. You may be limited to desk work, but not to minimum wage. The issue is that since you are bringing in roughly 45k a year on disability, you have not been motivated to retrain for other work for the past 9 years.

 

[STEPHAN]

You need a lawyer.

 

[Bali Hai Again]

You need a lawyer.

Obviously and a good lawyer that can perhaps convince the court to order the wife who earns 100 grand annually to pay for that. He says he has “talked to a lawyer” but needs to retain a lawyer and get serious pronto.