Mrs. Gordon Gekko

Greed is good, says Michael Douglas in Wall Street. I don't think my wife ever saw the movie, but certainly she identifies with Gordon Gekko.

She doesn't really think she is greedy. She just thinks that she is entitled to more than most. I don't know why that is. She comes from a very simple background: A trailer in the hills of the Smokey Mountains. Maybe she is greedy because she fears that she will someday go back to the trailer (unlikely since her mother deliberately burned it down for insurance money).

I've known people who lived in the depression who would not waste anything, because they had so little back then. But, I never knew them to be greedy. So I don't know where this comes from.

Of course, ask any divorced male if their wife is greedy and I'm sure most would launch into a story about unending greed. I realize that it is a common reaction to having all your stuff taken, even if it is legal. But she surprises me nonetheless.

Right now I am waiting for the lawyer to provide the written agreement that we are supposed to sign. This is after months of negotiating--which was actually me reluctantly agreeing to each new demand that she placed on me. Hopefully, she will not think of new demands while we wait.

And also while we wait I have time to think about what just happened to me--a car crash in slow motion. It was a rocky relationship, to be sure, but I thought we were trying to fix it. That was always the discussion, anyway. I would try to be more married, she would try to be more unmarried, and I would complain about it. This went on for a few years until last July when I finally told her that it seems like she hasn't really been trying. "No, I haven't," she says. Finally she admitted that she hadn't been trying at all. It wasn't my imagination.

"It seems like your relationship with Nannette [her drinking buddy] is more important than your marriage," I say.

"It is," she admits.

So here we are. She wanted out. She wanted her share, our child, and a new house. And this is where I think greed comes into play. I think that if you are not committed to a marriage, and have strayed a bit too, you should say, "I'm sorry," take your stuff and a reasonable amount of marital money, and quietly hit the road.

So what is reasonable, equitable and fair? I can think of a lot of things that would be fair but not reasonable or legal, and I would probably end up in jail.

In our relationship, I bought the house before we got married. I paid all the bills while we lived there for 10 years, slowly going deeper into debt. Of course lots of husbands do that when their wife stays home. Only she didn't stay home. She worked a good job, bringing home about 80% of what I brought home. But that money was separate. It was hers.

Time after time, over the years, I would see the debt growing and would ask her if she could just contribute something to the household bills. Pay the water bill, maybe? Each time she would be intensely defensive and angry. She would refuse to pay anything except her car payment which I refused to pay. I would be afraid to even bring up the subject, and perhaps that was her plan.

Bills add up. It is not a small house. We did not share the cost of the mortgage, insurance, property taxes, electricity, gas, gasoline, telephone, cell phone, Internet, cable, water, sewer, newspaper, and Home Depot.

I have been through this a thousand times in my head. How do you get a spouse, who has resources, to contribute?? I could shut off the electricity, but then I'd have to buy the candles. I don't know the answer, but for 10 years she had no housing costs.

During this time I also begged her to save for retirement. She was bringing home good money (or bringing it somewhere) and she was putting only a few dollars into her 401K. But she told me that she doesn't care about old age. Why save for that??

I was looking forward to old age, though, so I saved what I could.

Now, when you divorce, here is what happens: She gets half.

My ex-wife gets nearly half of the value of the house that she never put any money into. She gets half of my retirement, and she gets a check every month from me for the next hundred years. What could be more fair?

Since I am "keeping" the house, I get to buy it again, a second time. This time I buy it from her, even though she never helped buy it the first time.

I get half of her 401K, which is enough to buy a new TV to replace the one she is taking, and I get to sign the check I will send to her every month for the next hundred years.

I know I am bitter, but come on. This can't be right. She had free housing for 10 years, why do I have to continue to house her when she is the one who wants to leave? Doesn't seem right, but my lawyer says it is legal. The courts can't be bothered to decide if a marriage was an equal partnership or not.

And this is just the money part. The real crime is the custody thing. We are both involved parents. We both take care of our daughter and have good relationships with her. I want her to continue to have a real father in her life, not a father-like guy she sees on certain weekends.

I read about studies that say it is important for a child to have a good relationship with a father, especially daughters. I also read articles that say it is a child's right to have both parents as much as possible. They are entitled to that.

At first my wife agreed. Then she talked to her lawyer and decided that she could do better for herself. So we went to a mediator where she insisted that she get more days per week than me. We left the mediator with a compromise. My wife would get 4 days a week and I would get 3. In a couple of years we would equalize it.

That was OK for a week. Then my wife decided that the equalization point should be pushed back one year. I argued but agreed in the end.

Then my wife decided that it shouldn't be "equalized." Instead the time sharing should be "re-evaluated." This means that we don't have to equalize our time. In fact, I could even get less time. I argued but had to agree in the end because my lawyer told me to.

Then my wife decided that the agreement should not refer to "shared-parenting." Apparently that is a bad thing. She wanted that removed from the agreement. I argued it vigorously and she eventually relented on that one point.


So in the end, she gets half the assets that she never contributed to; she gets the majority of our daughter's time; she gets child support; and she has not yet moved out. She is still in the house.

My lawyer tells me, and I read in books, that although there is a trend to give fathers equal time with their children, most court decisions still follow the old tradition begun when mothers were always in the home and fathers were always working long hours. The mother gets the weekdays and the father gets a visit every other weekend.

Sure, we could argue it all in a court, but that means Home Evaluations, psychologists, thousands of dollars in legal fees, and in the end, I would lose. So I agree.

Besides, her first two husbands gave up too.