Alimony laws need an update
By Elizabeth Benedict
Published: Thursday, March 29, 2012 12:01 PM EDT
What happens in family court usually stays there, hidden from public view. But when divorce strikes, we soon find out how antiquated and arbitrary our alimony laws are and how easy it is to drown in legal bills because of them. Egregious alimony awards can lead to years, sometimes decades, of acrimony. Instead of acting as co-parents to our children, these antiquated laws easily turn divorced parents into lifetime adversaries.
Comments
Jlamarel
Mon, 04/02/2012 - 21:46
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Agree with article
Several years back I asked a good friend when he and his partner, whom he was planning to start a family with, would be getting married. He responded that he did not believe in marriage and went on to say his parents were married for 18 years and have been divorcing for 22 years. I heard what he said but did not understand what he was saying; however, Connecticut law has made this unfortunate reality of our current laws crystal clear to me. I am only going on my fourth year of being divorced, but I can say that the current laws encourage legal battles that in my case have only taken from our collective ability to pay for our children’s college education. Good, consistent, and uniformly enforced laws are a cornerstone of any modern society and divorce law is no exception. We must act to update our out-of-date laws for the benefit of our common society and especially for our children.