[kev374]

[quote=6packscaredy]The courts can force a divorced wage earner to work or be thrown in jail for contempt. It’s not slavery. It’s the way it works. The system…[/quote]

Which is why the system sucks and more men are realizing this everyday. So let’s take an example situation.

Both husband and wife are in their early 60s when they divorce. They have been married 20 years, wife was stay at home for the last 20 years. Both had planned to retire between 60 and 65. Now, say the marital assets are around $300,000, each gets $150k.

Wife decides to take the $150k and retire, Husband wishes to do the same. So, are you telling me that the wife can do this and not only does she get to retire but a court will force the husband to continue busting his ass for the next 10, 15 or 20 years to pay her alimony while she is sipping margaritas in Cancun? Are you f-cking kidding me??

A lot is made about the sacrifices a woman makes by giving up her career and maintaining the household but what is often not said is that many women enjoy a much upgraded lifestyle throughout the marriage that they would never have access to on their own, they get a marital settlement that puts them way ahead of the savings they would’ve achieved on their own and that is not enough for them? They still want to continue getting support?

I can understand alimony in very limited cases where the wife will be jobless and destitute, but if there are substantial marital assets and the wife is healthy then not a cent of alimony needs to be awarded regardless of the length of the marriage.

Giving alimony to someone who gets $150-200k cash in a marital settlement is obscene, many people don’t even have that kind of money period!

Which is why I like the system in Texas – it’s a very anti-alimony state. Alimony in Texas is extremely hard to get in the first place… and IF a decision about alimony is made it is mandated by law that alimony cannot exceed 3 years. That is the absolute maximum. Love it!

Nobody wants to divorce and not be able to move on with their life or worse get into a situation of indentured servitude where some judge says you HAVE to work or will be thrown in jail… that is an extremely bad situation to find yourself in and it’s a risk only a fool would take.

[kev374]

[quote=CA renter]
That depends on whether or not the wage earner intentionally reduced his/her income in order to have lower alimony/child support payments. The courts frown on that, as they should.

If they are legitimately making less, then they can petition the court to re-asses the support awards.[/quote]

What is legitimate or not is subjective. You can’t force someone to work if they don’t want to, there is a term for it…it’s called slavery.

[kev374]

missing a lot of contextual info here… again there is a stereotype here. Why do people automatically assume that the man is stringing the woman along? Some women choose to wait despite knowing that the man is unsure about her… is that then the man’s fault?

If the man is promising marriage then it is stringing along but if the man is candidly telling the woman that he is not sure about marriage and does not know when he is going to be sure then it is the woman’s responsibility as an adult to take whatever meaning from that and make choices about her own life. If she considers waiting to be a waste of her valuable years then she should just move on instead of staying with the man and then harassing him.

The whole purpose of dating is to evaluate IF you want to marry OR NOT. It’s not some automatic thing like “oh we completed 2 years now and you’re not marrying me so you’re a JERK”.

In addition sometimes things can come up later, say after a year and a half together, that may have not been apparent in 6-9 months (like one person said here that period should be enough to know if you want to marry someone or not!!)… people date for 2-3 years and still end up divorced because they didn’t fully evaluate all the things that could cause issues long term.

Nobody forces the other to stay in a relationship against their will, it is up to them to decide whether they want to wait for a positive decision or to move on.

[kev374]

[quote=njtosd]
It seems to me that someone who knows how to date someone for 2-3 years should know how to express their feelings to that person. If not, maybe the problem is more complicated than you think.[/quote]

It’s not that simple in all cases. Sometimes people will react very badly because they are unable or unwilling to digest the information even if you are being candid.

Communicating something like a breakup is hard enough to do but makes it that much more difficult and worse when the other person is not mature enough to deal with the situation in a controlled way.

[kev374]

I think these days it would be wise to co-habitate but not marry. One can still have kids and live together without marriage.

Infact a friend of mine is doing just that, he has been with his partner for 8 years, has 2 children and they are not married.

They both maintain their finances separately and pitch in jointly for shared expenses… I guess it works out great for both of them as they seem very happy.

I think when people get married then expectations get very high and one side is always disappointed that they are not getting enough.

[kev374]

①Do not want to settle at all, but breaking up sucks, you disappoint a lot of people and approaching the subject can be terrible when your partner is a very melodramatic type

[kev374]

I saw this documentary on the opening day and there were only 8 people in the theater which leads me to believe that most people do not want to face this uncomfortable topic…

people pre-marriage and in love don’t want to hear the possible realities of what could happen, of course they think they are the exception that will always be together so it’s irrelevant to them…

people currently married do not want to watch such things and attract bad karma to their situation

people who are divorced, well they have already gone through all of this and lived it so why bother rehashing all of it over again and remind them of all the terrible things

[kev374]

Prior to getting married make sure you are absolutely and totally CRAZY about your partner, anything less and you would be a fool to marry him/her.

As I said earlier way too many people are willing to settle.

If a woman wants children, is now 34 and realizes that time is running out, settles and marries some bloke that she thinks is a nice guy but does not truly want him or is attracted to him… then years later tells him to fly off, then is it fair?

Women know that if they settle now they can get children then later on they can always divorce if it doesn’t turn out well and get a good settlement and good alimony as well.. a win win situation.

I hear so much about men “wasting” a woman’s valuable fertile years but what about the above situation where women settle and in the end ruin a man’s life?

You should read this book:

[kev374]

[quote=FlyerInHi][quote=6packscaredy]Select spouse carefully.

Stay married.[/quote]

I agree but the process is lopsided.

Marriage is too easy compared to divorce. The careful selection part is not encouraged.

There are vested interest in making marriage easy but divorce difficult.[/quote]

way too many women want to get married on the fast track due to their biological clock

way too many people want to jump into marriage because they don’t want to be lonely and the woman gives ultimatums of break ups if they do not marry them within their fixed time frame

[kev374]

[quote=CA renter]
The problem lies in the fact that a woman’s contribution to a marriage is front-loaded, while a man’s contribution is back-loaded. Women will often give up their most valuable assets (youth, beauty, fertility) to a man because there is an implicit and explicit understanding that her husband will contribute his most valuable assets (wealth/financial stability, power, social status) in the back half of the marriage. [/quote]

Utter feminist garbage and it’s absolutely ridiculous and absurd.

Youth, beauty and fertility – women demand these attributes of men as well. Women will refuse to marry men who they do not find attractive so why do you think a woman is getting a bad deal in terms of attraction? A woman expects a man to give her children so she expects fertility from a man as well. And a woman demands a man be as youthful as her so the expectations are same here.

The bottom line is women want it all AND MORE from a man. Not only do women demand youth, beauty and fertility from a man they ALSO in addition DEMAND financial resources whereas a vast majority of men will not expect a woman to have money IF she has beauty.

[kev374]

Most of the HELOCs from 2004 can refi as they probably have positive equity here in Southern California. In Orange County, CA we are just 12% off the bubble peak and it’s more than likely that they have built 15-20% equity in the home since 2004 through their payments so they will more than likely be ok. This is a non-issue.

I think housing is going further up and is not going to come down anytime soon. This is a shame for first time buyers here but I am pretty sure many of them are forever priced out.

This is common in other countries, for instance in Barcelona, Spain a small home near the city can cost 1 million Euro but hardly anyone can afford it because the salaries there are so tiny and the taxes are so high, in addition the unemployment is pretty staggering, yet home prices have not come down at all.

[kev374]

[quote=spdrun]If you read about what’s happening in Phoenix and Las Vegas, property is already correcting. Investors are leaving like rats, very little organic demand to replace them.[/quote]

I am not seeing any reports in the press about a housing correction in Phoenix. Infact, I found info that housing is still soaring there.

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2013-11-07/news/the-sky-s-the-limit-for-home-prices-in-phoenix-but-for-how-long/

Looks like Phoenix is still surging. Locally, here in OC, inventory that is competitively priced is still ultra-tight and people are still trampling over each other to buy homes that are priced below $400,000 and are move in ready since there are just so few of them.

[kev374]

I can only tell you what I would do if it were my kid…I would read their damn posts! When they become adults then they can get their own privacy but as my children and being in my care it is my right to read whatever the heck I want and grab any info I can get to safeguard them. Don’t feel bad about any of it.

[kev374]

ok, here are the specifics… the area is Costa Mesa on 19th st. but in the rougher area near the DMV, it is sort of a Mexican hood but a bit better than Santa Ana, the city together with investors have been trying like crazy to pursue gentrification due to it’s proximity to Newport beach but as it stands it’s still a somewhat rougher area compared to South Orange County.

when I moved in Sep ’11 rent was below market for the area at $1025/mo. The complex is rather old and dilapidated but I was ok with it due to the cheap rent. The unit is tiny as well, 520 sqft and has only a carport but it is gated which is a plus.

The place was owned by a private person and she mentioned that she was keeping rents quite a bit below market since she didn’t want turnover and had much higher criteria for tenant quality (credit, income stability etc.). Then she sold the place to another investor 4 months after I moved in, I was on a 6 month lease but after that expired the rent jumped to $1045/mo., then $1085/mo. in 2 more months. Fair enough I still paid without complaints as it was a good deal.

This investors sold again to someone else now and fast forward to today the rent is now $1145 which is reasonable for the size of the unit and the area. The new notice increases this to $1270/mo. I also have 2 motorcycles and pay $150/mo. for a 10×10 storage unit to store them about a half mile away. So my total outflows with this increase would be $1270+150 = $1420 which is ridiculous for the area and the fact that I have no garage.

A friend of mine has just rented a 2 bd, 1100 sqft w/2 car garage just a few blocks away for $1500 and in that same complex was a 850 sqft 1bd with 2 car garage (a bit unusual for a 1bd) for $1290 so the new increase is a very bad deal for me.

I had a talk with the mgr and showed actual listings in the area of places with garages for under $1300/mo. She argues that new tenants are paying $1400 base rent YIKES!! and her offer of $1270/mo to me represents a “discount”. I told her how can it be a discount when I am showing her actual listings on craigslist of LARGER places in a somewhat better area WITH a garage onsite for LESS.

It’s not like I am pulling facts out of my behind, I have no problems paying what the market bears but my research shows that there are other much more competitively priced units. But they are refusing to budge on the new rent.

It seems to me that there are two distinct markets, some complexes where landlords have acquired properties a long time ago for a lot less can keep rents lower to hang on to good tenants, but the more recent investors need to jack up the rents in order to get return on their inflated investments. As a renter I could care less about an investor’s situation of trying to recoup their investment, I care only about the bottom line and who is offering me the best deal.

They did give me a 60 day notice since by law they have to for anything over a 10% increase, so I will be moving, it’s a pain but I can do better and it’s much more convenient for me to have a garage onsite.

But I am in AWE of people paying $1400/mo for a tiny, crappy apt in a halfway crappy area! LOL! But if the landlord can find such suckers more power to them.

Sorry for such a long winded reply but now you have a much better view of my situation 🙂

[kev374]

Is.it a surprise that a good majority of women here in southern California are gold diggers? They say that the quickest way for a woman to move up the socio-economic ladder is not to work hard but rather to marry up! So why bust your behind when you could just marry some clueless guy then divorce him and get a nice settlement and alimony and retire early under his dime 😉

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