Guess what ladies? If you are receiving spousal support and your boyfriend moves in with you, there is a very good chance that your ex can go to court and have the dollar amount you’re receiving drastically reduced or stopped altogether. So if you are cohabitating in a mutually-exclusive, sexual relationship, just know that it’s a very real possibility.
Which brings me to my own story of when my then-husband hired a private investigator to spy on his ex-wife.
One thing that really got under Rob’s skin was the spousal support he was paying to his ex-wife. When Rob’s youngest daughter decided she would no longer live with us because Rob refused to stop drinking around her and it was obvious that his child support would be increasing, we consulted with an attorney. When that attorney saw what Rob was paying in spousal support, he was gravely concerned. He told Rob that he wouldn’t want to risk going to court to revisit anything because a judge would likely increase her spousal support significantly. He didn’t think that Rob was paying nearly enough to his ex wife as it was. He was sick about the amount of money he was shelling out each month. He thought she should get a better job and stop being such a sponge on him.
Rob kept telling me that the second his ex remarried or started living with someone, he would file to have spousal support stopped.
One day I was at work and I got a phone call from Rob. He was positively giddy. “Guess what?” he said. He could hardly contain himself. “She has a new boyfriend and she moved him into her house!”
“Really? How do you know?” I asked.
His oldest daughter told him. “Whoohooo, baby, I’m filing papers to stop spousal support. Oh yeah!” He was literally whooping and hollering.
So Rob hired an attorney. At one of those meetings, I got a call from the two of them. “We need to hire a private investigator to stake out her house to prove her boyfriend is living with her.”
“No,” I said emphatically. “How much is that going to cost?”
The attorney thought about $2,500. “It will take a year or more to recoup the costs, if a judge cancels support, of the private investigator, attorney fees, and court costs. I say no. Would she really lie about her boyfriend living in her home?”
“Hell yes!” Rob said. “She’ll lie about anything to get my money!”
“I say no,” I repeated. But I was already so completely tired of Rob blaming me for anything and everything that went awry with his kids or ex-wife that I knew better than making that final decision. “But do whatever you need to do.”
And so Rob hired a private investigator and shelled out $2,500 to get photos of the boyfriend taking trash out to the dumpster, opening the garage door, and leaving his car parked outside the home over night.
I went with Rob when it was time for court. And Rob’s spousal support paid to his ex decreased by less than $200 a month. The judge looked at what Rob had been paying and thought it was far too low and that’s why he didn’t decrease it far more. And his ex-wife didn’t utter a single lie about her boyfriend living in her home. As much as Rob portrayed her as Enemy #1 and the main reason he was an alcoholic and screamed and had so much stress in his life, I actually never saw much real proof that she was any of the things Rob portrayed her to be. And here was one more example. Shocker- she didn’t seem to be a liar.
Rob and I were both sick about the ruling, though. We had shelled out close to $5,000 to have spousal support reduced by a paltry $200 per month. It would take two years to break even.
A year later, his ex and her boyfriend moved from her small condo into his large beautiful home with a pool in the back yard. Rob went back to court to try (again) to have his spousal support reduced or cancelled. This time, he represented himself. He was completely unprepared in court and stammered through the whole hearing. It was embarrassing to watch. The judge tossed out his request and spousal support remained unchanged.
Walking out of that courtroom was about as “fun” as I expected it to be. Rob was angry. I said as little as possible so he wouldn’t start screaming at me.
“I’m not doing this again!” he nearly shouted on the sidewalk as we left the courthouse.
“No, you shouldn’t,” I said.
And, true to form, that evening, Rob came home with those glassy eyes and a mint in his mouth, angry and agitated and drunk. And he started screaming at me about something ridiculous again. Another drunken Rob screaming rant. I loathed him. He disgusted me. He sat on the couch watching TV and I couldn’t keep my mouth shut one more second.
So here’s your few take-aways:
1) If you’re living with your boyfriend and you’re getting spousal support, be prepared for the consequences.
2) If you end up getting questioned about your new “roomie,” lying about it is a really bad idea. Honesty, even during divorce, is always best.
In 1987 I came home from Rome after I went as a Matron of honor to a far younger seniority couple in his plant. It had been three months of arguments with his father and me. Begging him to cancel his vacation to Rome and let the younger couple go that June To get married and have a honey moon, My husband kept reminding me we had not started our own sex life yet in the six years we were married and he had not had a day off since before our wedding thanks to the needs of the navy and our supposed thoughts after he returned home about cooperation in the community.
I had promised two years before 3 days after his return home I was trying to get him to understand the need for the same woman getting married to stay on day shift instead of him using his returning UAW seniority to put her on seconds since he returned from the navy with over eight year seniority on her. I was just trying to get him to observe a time honored tradition of a Une wedding. .
To get him to stay I had to swear on my bible. and sign a notarized copy of what I swore to. That when the rest of the family and myself returned from Rome, any time, any where, and any way he wanted his vacation I would be both the sex partner I had promised, and travel companion. The rest of the family and I talked about how to replace the vacation he had stayed and worked.
We talked about the best time he could consider We arrived at the time after the Holiday shutdowns, He could make the triple time working through Christmas ad that to the amount he could take for his four weeks vacation he had coming and he could use the Personal time of 20 days he had to use for whatever purpose he chose. He could use that to replace the Christmas and thanksgiving holidays. That way there would not be any one denied the time they wanted because of seniority and we could figure out a place that was just as interesting as Rome he could go in mid winter, when there was nobody wanting off. We could take our time and have a honey moon of our own On a nice Island beach, out of the cold of the Midwest as a apology and replacement for the time he had not had off .
Returning he was not going to listen to reason. HE was waiting to leave on a western road trip the day we flew in from Rome and I was just supposed to accept his decision to ruin over 100 other Vacation plans, in his department. HE became angry seconds after getting into the van to go home asked me if I was going to keep my word or break it, again.
I was crying, his mother was crying as well a his aunt. We were begging him to consider that he would get his vacation in January. It was just six months away. Even though he had not had a day off in six years we could figure out how to get him time off that did not hurt someone else. My husband demanded one more time was I going to keep my word. I said not while he was using it as a gun to every ones head. I said just take me home and we could all sit down and figure things out with his seniority please! we could think of something that would work for everyone, including him, Just because he had seniority over 80 percent of the plant did not mean he could not be nice about his time off. Just take what was best for all.
It was a test to see if I would keep my word and I Ended up going home to my mothers 45 minutes after getting in the van I was put on a bus with the savings of 20000, He said when the dissolution hearing happened he would give it all to me and start from zero and find a different wife after he killed his interfering father.
All any one wanted was a little compassion from him. Understanding that the unions seniority clauses did not allow for different society needs.> HIs father had him put under a judicial order, to stay home and let the court decide the time off he could have. He would never even try the courts decision the next 13 years, Even drawing the sheriffs department into the fray several times. WE would tell him that he could plan something with his time off after the New Year. It was an easy solution to stop his fighting with us about his seniority rights, I told him that if he would try the mid winter vacation just once I would start the denied sex life. Just show some compassion for other people. It was an easy fix to the problem if he would just stop being stubborn. IN 1998 I was facing him down on Christmas day, his father and the judge had been tossed out the front door and told they were not welcome in his house for the holidays and he told me if I tried putting the dinner up before he had his fill then he would break my arms. He had just arrived from work, We had put the two sandwiches to take him together for his dinner at his work gate. When we went to the club for after dinner drinks. Two other young men just using pot in our house left through closed windows he had his fill and left with me telling him I could have saved a couple of plates for him when he got home instead of showing us his rear.
Then on December 23 1999 he was going to defy his father and the judge and go with me to Bavaria for the millinialls When the sheriffs department showed up to jail him for just three days to hold him on the job He was prepared with the legal things they had to do to jail him. HE demanded a list of charges being used to jail him or a warrant for his arrest and all Miranda rights afforded so he could sue for false arrest and wrongful incarceration. We came back on his birthday holding an olive branch out with a 1300 dollar gift. The offer of starting our sex life at a B and B I had reserved a Jacuzzi room in from the 7th of January to the 24th 2000 on the straights of Mackinac.
All he had to do was call his local union president and say the tradeoff was acceptable. HE did accept the company’s paying him double the Triple time he made. HE however made every ones life hell on earth that day. MY Christmas gift was a box of dog sh** For his parents waited a Wagon wheel cemented upright with wrist ties to tie him to the wheel so we could whip the uppity slave and put him in his place.
IT had to be the most hurtful and embarrassing day to me and his parents over not getting his choice and seniority about time off. Eight years later I was standing in front of him telling him we knew he had not had a day off in 29 years. WEW knew he had the seniority to do as he damn well pleased but couldn’t he just accept that we had canceled our double berth on the orient express. I took a single berth and he had to go work in place of his2 year seniority trainee because he just married his 4 month pregnant bride. I was crying just one more time we had made a nice surprise vacation to start on the second of January, HE dislocated my shoulder and went after his father to strangle him to death. WE came back to being arrested and jailed.. The younger man was terminated and the community took another flip.The union got hard about seniority rules Termination was the rule for impeding those rights.
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