Alimony Done Dirty

The Realities of Financial Abuse

Not until two years after my divorce could I speak the words - ‘my marriage was abusive’.

It’s not that I didn’t know; I just couldn’t admit it. Admitting it meant that I had accepted it. Accepting it illuminated just how little I valued myself for a very long time. I couldn’t handle the shame I felt about that.

Why?

Because I blamed myself.

I blamed myself because I took the blame for most everything for so many years. I covered for mistakes I didn’t make and was the queen of sincere apologies for things I didn’t do. I was a ready scapegoat and I rarely fought back. My self-worth was a deeply hidden secret that my marriage continually demanded I destroy.

But what really helped me admit to it being abusive was that the post-divorce landscape was abusive too. To be sure, it happened in different ways but being out of the marriage made it easier for me to recognize continued bad behavior.

Most of this was financial which was where I was most vulnerable. And the thing about which I had the most fear. And the most continued dependency.

And now, it’s where I have the most anger.

This…is my story of alimony done dirty.

I worked as a full-time at-home mom for 24 years. For 19 of those years, I also worked a part-time job, including all of the years I had preschoolers. Through all three pregnancies, I worked for the same employer without a single week of maternity leave. For four years, I worked full-time. One year I had zero income. It was my third year working as a personal trainer. I was told to quit because “too many men are looking at you. You should focus on the children more.”

Funny, how he was perfectly fine with any man who he deemed important in his industry looking at, leering at or even groping me. The clear distinction was his presence. If he wasn’t around, he couldn’t feed off the attention.

For all of these years, I was the one to leave work when a child was sick or school was out. I drove to all the doctor appointments and after-school activities. I managed the home, meals, cleaning, repairs and finances. When we decided to do a home renovation/addition, I was told to quit my job to oversee the project. I was a Cub Scout leader for five years and a Girl Scout leader for 12. I was treasurer for the elementary school PTO and the high school girls’ lacrosse team. I delivered made-from-scratch cupcakes or cookies on every birthday for each child. I sent homemade lunches to school with the kids and to work with him. I taught Sunday school classes, packed suitcases to go on vacations and unpacked them when we returned. (I quit going on family vacations after the beach trip where everyone came in from the beach to a meal I cooked and served only to be asked by his mom to remove the filling from the deviled eggs and add more mayo.)

Each time I asked to complete my bachelors degree, I was rebuffed. “What do you need a degree for? You can find part-time work without that.”

Meanwhile, I supported his career in innumerable ways. When I was pregnant with our third child, he decided to take on a major writing project. Every evening was dedicated to this work. For months, I provided care for our two preschool-age children from bright-faced wake-ups to sleepy-eyed, I-love-you-Mommy goodnights on weekdays. I took on all the yard work for the season because he needed the weekends to catch up on sleep. At eight months pregnant, I finally put my foot down about push-mowing our hilly backyard in the August heat. For years, I contributed to his freelance side hustle by proofreading countless artist bios and press materials and handling all invoicing. When he helped start a new company in 2006, I jumped in to handle accounts receivable on top of my own part-time job.

There’s no point in being only partially vulnerable in this so here’s the reality of my earnings during my marriage.

• Total earnings in 26 years - $386,334

• Yearly average - $14,859

• During the years I worked full-time, my salary dropped three years in a row ($51k to $45k to $38K) because my then-husband divulged his earnings to one of the owners. I was expressly told, “your husband makes enough money for your family. There are men here that make less than you; they need raises.” What I couldn’t afford to disclose was that my epic hustle in that job was my attempt to make enough to support myself and my kids once I filed for divorce.

• The year we separated, I made $13,309.

• The year we divorced, I made $24,589.

• Both of these are a small fraction of what he earned.

Regrettably, I was slow to recognize how my financial dependence had been deliberately constructed by the demands for employment interruptions, by disallowing my efforts to further my education and by establishing close relationships with my employers over the years.

So when divorce came our way, yes I was in dire need of significant future support. I hired a lawyer for the divorce; he did not. I took on more than half of the marital debt just to get out. I handled the details, we negotiated and he signed. It was all a done deal.

Or so I thought.

The control was there from the beginning. I repeatedly asked to receive the twice monthly payments via bank transfer but he insisted on bringing checks to the house. I didn’t need the ‘here you go’ as he laid the check down on the kitchen counter as if he was doing me some favor. Just move it to my account and stop waiting for a reaction.

But a reaction was the desired result. The less I reacted, the worse things got. It all started after he revealed his other relationship to the kids. I began receiving phone calls with lists of complaints and points he wanted to debate. Some of these were over an hour long. All were about money. All, I recorded.

It was in one of these discussions that he whined, “Renée, if you’d just try harder, you could get a job that pays $100,000.”

Full stop. First, that’s not exactly how the real world works especially when you aren’t someone who tells anyone who will listen how great you are. Second, why $100,000? Why was my time worth only a fraction of what his was? Why should my expected standard of living be less than his? We had shared a financial trajectory for many years. The money may have come in under his name but I had contributed mightily to his ability to earn.

I listened to the diatribes but had no interest in hearing what sounded like half the country music industry thought of me…that I was an awful person and agreed that I “was taking too much of his money”. Exactly none of these people who supposedly now hated me had lived my life - my life with him and my life after him.

The more he talked about how many people made jokes about me, the more I liked myself for not caring and frankly, not even believing that I was so despised.

The timeline, for brevity:

• The verbal agreement to split the mortgage payment until one of us refinanced the house (to maintain equal equity) is broken.

• He and/or his mom begin sorting through my mail at my mailbox.

• Escrow check #1 is intercepted. He forges my signature and deposits it. Returns only half when I object.

• When I refinance the house into my name, he demands a full 50% of the equity despite the inequity in payments.

• Escrow check #2 is diverted to his new address. Again, forges my signature and deposits it. Returns none of it.

• Refuses to pay his half of our last year of shared tax liability.

• I receive the first confirmation that he is monitoring my bank account balances. I will change banks four times in the next three years to attempt to prevent this invasion of privacy.

• Complains to one of our kids that he can’t buy a second house because I haven’t paid off my portion of the debt. This, only six months after our divorce.

• With no explanation, I begin receiving letters from a lawyer demanding an ever-changing list of items from the house. These include things as trivial as an oven mitt and a spatula. This confuses me because twice he has asked for items and despite my anger over the stolen money, I have given them to him.

• A month later, he locks me out of an account I am legally required to pay. He deletes my auto-pay and changes me from “secondary account holder” to “authorized user”. This distinction is crucial because authorized users have zero rights to make account changes or make payments.

• For at least three months, the account goes unpaid which trashes my credit.

• Three months after that, I am charged with contempt of court for not paying the bill.

• The first thing that’s spoken to me in the courthouse negotiations is, “You receive too much alimony”. Inexplicably, my lawyer looks at me and agrees.

• This is the same lawyer who advised me to withdraw my order of protection the year before so that “things will go better for you in court”.

• Hours later, my lawyer signs an agreed order against my repeated protests and without giving me the opportunity to review the document. The aggregate loss to me for this is more than $60,000.

• This renders me unable to make my mortgage payments for most of the next year. As the sole provider of shelter to our two daughters during the pandemic, I gratefully take advantage of pandemic-related forbearance programs.

• The following month, my home is vandalized in a way that looks like an attempted break-in. Many with whom I consult agree that a break-in would have been easy at that entry point. This is, as one man said, “an attack on your mind”.

All of this was because things had somehow changed from him asking directly for items he wanted to sending demand letters from a lawyer and then a lawsuit based on manufactured grounds.

Why? What did I do to deserve any of this? What switch flipped to make our situation so deeply contentious?

And you know what I felt about all of this?

SHAME.

I sometimes expressed anger when I spoke to my friends about my situation but what I was experiencing was straight-up shame. The anger was rooted in my inability to handle the shame. The anger was at myself. I felt ashamed that I hadn’t done more to prepare for my future alone.

I do not and never will regret staying home to raise my children. There are many things I could have done better during those years but I loved them with everything I had and gave freely from my capacity even when there wasn’t enough to go around.

Following the enforcement of the “agreed” order, stalking issues intensify and I am forced to take defensive action to protect myself and my home. I incur significant financial expenses, including:

• Three separate camera systems and monthly monitoring fees for each

• Firearms, ammo and training

• Multiple private investigator sweeps of my home and acreage

• Multiple inspections of my car for camera, listening and tracking devices

• Legal fees for numerous court appearances and legal advice

• Multiple router replacements

• Recurring fees for several high-security digital protection services

• Recurring fees for credit and banking monitoring

• Changing locks

• Other line items I cannot reveal

In addition to stalking and litigation, another method he has used to great effect is his knowledge of my love for and commitment to our children. The most glaring example of this is that in the years since we split up, two of our kids have had car accidents. In one of these, three of us were injured. I paid the medical bills and he pocketed the insurance money intended for car repairs.

He went so far as to tell one of the girls, “Hey, I’m gonna make some money on this deal!”

He knew that I would not let them go without vehicles so his refusal to surrender the insurance checks became my problem to solve. I paid for one of the repairs but the other was far beyond my means. Though it shames me to admit, my parents graciously stepped in and covered the entire cost.

This is a common form of post-divorce abuse. Men know very well the commitment their former spouse has for their children. This becomes an easy and reliable means of financial manipulation. Mothers are by nature protectors and nurturers. When we are called on to also be providers, we generally find a way no matter the cost to ourselves.

Many women are like me in being the disadvantaged parent in terms of earnings, education and employment outlook. That fathers use our motherly instincts as a means of punishment is beyond reprehensible. Again, like many other moms, I was, for a very long time, unwilling to place blame on him to the children.

This pushed me further into silent suffering.

Though it may seem that I stand on lower moral ground in speaking up about this, I reject that notion. For decades, I was groomed to expect, want and need less.

The truth is I have done without post-divorce even more than the lack of provision I experienced in my marriage. This is supposed to be the time in my life when I have full agency. Yet less than 20% of alimony payments are made on time. When I total the amount received and place it next to the total of the expenses I’ve incurred to protect and defend myself, the facts are staggering.

More than 80% of the post-divorce financial support I have received has been spent to survive his malevolent behavior.

Has this money ever really been mine?

Or does it merely flow through my account to be spent at his indirect direction?

Silence is what brought me to this horror show. I opt for speaking up in an attempt to find the nearest exit.