In Age of Dual Incomes, Alimony Payers Prod States to Update Laws

By LIZETTE ALVAREZ

MIAMI — In the waning days of this year's legislative session, Florida
lawmakers and advocacy groups are pushing to overhaul the state's
alimony law in a bid to better reflect today's marriages and make the
system less burdensome for the alimony payer.

Florida joins a grass-roots movement in a growing number of states
that seeks to rewrite alimony laws by curbing lifelong alimony and
alleviating the financial distress that some payers — still mostly men
— say they face. The activists say the laws in several states,
including Florida, unfairly favor women and do not take into account
the fact that a majority of women work and nearly a third have college
degrees.

The Florida House recently approved legislation that would make
lifelong alimony more difficult to award and less onerous for the
payer and, in the case of a remarriage, would place a new spouse's
income off-limits in awarding payments. Attention turns to the Senate,
where the companion bill is less far-reaching. Florida had already
changed some provisions in alimony law two years ago.

Traditionally, alimony was designed to prevent divorced women who did
not work and were less educated from falling into poverty. According
to this view, the woman's job was to raise children and run the
household. Today, with both spouses often working, that situation is
far less common. The question now is: What is fair alimony in the 21st
century?

"I think that with my parents and certainly their parents, there were
far less women in the work force," said State Representative Ritch
Workman, a Melbourne Republican who is sponsoring the House bill. "The
concept of a woman, after 15 years being married, to enter the work
force and survive on her own was ludicrous. It was an obligation of
the ex-husband to support her until she found another husband. I am
sure that's insulting to today's women that they have to go from one
husband to the next to be supported. It is not antiwoman to say that
out loud."

Last year, the legislature in Massachusetts, which had some of the
country's most antiquated alimony laws, passed without opposition a
measure to rewrite the laws and make them more equitable, following
the recommendations of a special commission. The changes in
Massachusetts, which were supported by the state bar association and
women's groups, have spurred alimony payers in other states to
organize and begin lobbying lawmakers.

In New Jersey, a resolution calling for the creation of a similar
commission to study the state's alimony laws has gained momentum.
Connecticut lawmakers are drafting an alimony bill, with hearings
expected in the next month, lobbyists say. And in Arkansas, the
Carolinas, Oregon, West Virginia and other states, activists are
setting up "Alimony Reform" groups, collecting stories about the
hardships of long-term alimony payments and presenting them to
lawmakers.

Because laws vary greatly from state to state and grant judges broad
discretion with few guidelines, alimony judgments diverge wildly,
sometimes within the same jurisdiction. In Florida, marriages lasting
longer than 20 years typically trigger lifetime alimony payments, but
it is also not uncommon for the higher-income earner in shorter
marriages to wind up paying permanent alimony, which can stretch for
decades and end only after the payer dies or the former spouse
remarries.

For many payers, reducing alimony is difficult, even when
circumstances and incomes change. Appeals are often lost. The high
cost of legal representation can make it impossible to continue
battling in court. Payers say alimony should not deplete retirement
funds, discourage women from working or remarrying, or sap the income
of a new spouse.

If the standard of living must drop after a divorce, as it often does,
the burden should be equally shared, they say. In Florida, that is not
always the case.

"It can strangle the person that is paying it," said Alan Frisher, the
founder of Florida Alimony Reform, an organization of 2,000 members,
several of whom testified recently at legislative committee hearings.
"Oftentimes, we can't afford to pay that amount of alimony. It can
provide a disincentive for the receiver to ever go back to work, to
make more money or remarry. I don't think anybody should have to be an
indentured servant for the rest of their lives."

But Barry Finkel, a family law lawyer in Fort Lauderdale, said the
bill would heedlessly chisel at judges' discretion.

"There certainly is a national trend against long-term alimony," he
said, "but the answer is not to create these roadblocks and hurdles
because there is an unhappy payer."

Cynthia Hawkins DeBose, a law professor at Stetson University in
Gulfport, said the bill, and others like it, could remedy some
inequities of permanent alimony, like protecting a new spouse's income
and ensuring that an ex-wife does not live in a $700,000 house while
her husband lives in a $180,000 one. Former spouses, she said, should
be permitted to move on and not be tethered forever.

"Over all, I'm mixed about this," she said. "I don't think alimony
should be welfare for the middle class, but I'm fearful of the tail
wagging the dog."

In Florida, as in most states, the alimony system works mostly as it
should. Ninety-five percent of those who divorce settle out of court,
and judges often make fair decisions, legal experts say.

David L. Manz, the chairman of the Florida Bar Family Law Section,
said his organization opposed the House bill because it was too
loosely written and would remove too much judicial discretion. In
remedying the plight of a small number of men, Mr. Manz said, the bill
could leave more divorced women vulnerable. He said he was negotiating
to change parts of the bill.

Even today, Mr. Manz said, divorce is more likely to hurt women. They
are still the ones who typically give up their jobs to focus on
raising children. Even when they do not give up jobs, their
child-rearing responsibilities can sidetrack their careers. Returning
to jobs after long absences is difficult.

"For every guy, there is a wife or former wife who got the short end
of the stick," Mr. Manz said. "Look at the standard of living of most
people in a long-term marriage: divorced men's standard of living goes
up, and the women's goes down. That happens every day."

"We are not in favor of disenfranchising someone who has given up her
career," he added. "What you are hearing about is a very vocal,
persuasive minority."

The men, and the few women, in Florida Alimony Reform agree they are a
minority. But they say the injustice in the system is no less
gut-wrenching. They say judges' attempts to follow the law and
maintain, after divorce, the same standard of living a couple shared
in marriage is mathematically impossible. Former wives often benefit
from this, they say.

Dr. Jose A. Aleman-Gomez, a Cape Coral cardiologist who was married
for 21 years, said he must pay $50,000 a year, or about 25 percent of
his salary, to his ex-wife, a practicing dentist with a solid income.
And Dr. Bernard R. Perez, a Tampa eye surgeon with throat cancer who
was married for 20 years, said he had been ordered to pay his former
wife 85 percent of his income; for the last three years, he has lived
in his brother's garage and is near bankruptcy, he said.

Each man was also ordered in court to carry a life insurance policy
naming his former wife as sole beneficiary.

The aggrieved men say they are not opposed to alimony. They are
opposed to alimony payments with no end in sight. In their view,
alimony should be awarded for long enough to allow a former spouse to
get an education, find a decent job or rehabilitate a career or, when
both spouses agree, until children reach a certain age. The Florida
bill would allow exceptions, like older women who cannot easily find
decent jobs.

"I am maintaining her standard of living but not mine," Dr.
Aleman-Gomez said of his former wife. He said he was paying off
$70,000 in lawyer's fees. "A person with a doctorate degree, with a
six-figure income, should not be receiving alimony," he said. "Alimony
is for the people who need it."

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