

Jail Becomes Home for Husband Stuck With Lifetime Alimony - spking
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-26/jail-becomes-home-for-husband-stuck-with-lifetime-alimony.html

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aaronlidman
In a similar vein, actor Dave Foley's divorce: (nsfw language)
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaC-2lj6HNg](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaC-2lj6HNg)

video tldr: He on a show in the 90s and making $1 mil+, the show was canceled
and he was without a job but stuck with the child support and alimony of
$17700 a month, which can't be adjusted down per the law. He hasn't been able
to keep up and doesn't can't go to Canada to see his kids for fear of being
arrested immediately.

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seanc722
IMO child support should have a limit... What child needs over 25k a year? I
live off of that today as a student... I feel that the other parent would take
a large portion of that money for themselves.

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jongraehl
There was a story recently about this happening to a woman (a soldier who was
only momentarily earning 90k/yr for hazard pay) recently with about the same
result. Retarded law, retarded idea - child custody as a meal ticket. Although
if this case is just about alimony, that's even worse.

Anyway, the particulars of this person's struggle don't matter. The default
marriage contract is stupid and it seems you can get into bad situations that
might not even be possible with a non-marriage contract; don't go into a
marriage blind.

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jlgreco
> _The default marriage contract is stupid and it seems you can get into bad
> situations that might not even be possible with a non-marriage contract; don
> 't go into a marriage blind._

In a handful of states it may be possible to accidentally find yourself in a
common law marriage. Common law marriage requires that both parties want to be
married, but that can become a "he said, she said" issue in a courtroom.

Thankfully I _believe_ this is a relatively rare issue and as I said earlier,
only a few states support the concept at all anymore.

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nateabele
Yet another reason why all marriage should be handled by private contract.
Solves _so_ many problems.

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malandrew
Totes. I was shocked that missing alimony payments can land you in jail. It
should be a purely civil matter.

Marriage as it currently exists is a stupid arrangement. One size does not fit
all. It's an opt-in to all sorts of contractual rights and
obligations/responsibilities, which two consenting adults should review the
same way they review any contract. Instead there should be a form with all the
obligations that you could have as part of marriage and you checkmark those
that box you and your spouse-to-be agree to.

Basically this checkbox form could basically be made up of all the items on
this list:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_and_responsibilities_of_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_and_responsibilities_of_marriages_in_the_United_States)

