I was reviewing a divorce case assigned to me yesterday and noticed something interesting. The case was originally filed 5 years ago in 2002, with the wife petitioning for a legal separation against her husband. They had 3 minor kids, and according to documents filed at that time, the husband made over $5K a month and the wife was unemployed. Because the three kids would be with the wife 80% of the time, the temporary spousal support and child support orders, according to computer-calculated formula, came out to be $1600/month for all 3 kids, and $800/month spousal for the wife. The judge signed off on that order, and a wage assignment was sent out to start deducting the husband’s paychecks for those amounts. (Both the husband and wife were at that hearing.) But they didn’t submit a Judgment to finalize anything in that case to close it out.

Now, 5 years later, the wife submits an AMENDED Petition. She is now asking for a divorce, not just a separation. Okay, that’s fine. She’s asking for her maiden name to be restored. That’s fine, too. At the part where they list the minor kids in common, she listed just the 2 younger kids. I looked back at the first Petition and calculated that the oldest of the 3 kids is now 21 years old, and child support terminates as a matter of law when a kid reaches age 18. Okay, that looks normal, too. That’s all that’s asked for on this Amended Petition. The husband did not file any papers in response to the Amended Petition, so he went into default and the courts now are able to grant (at our discretion) everything the woman had asked for in her Amended Petition. So I turn to her proposed Judgment, which was not served on the husband.

This is what she wants us to sign off on in her Judgment:
* she continues to receive $800/month spousal support with no termination date
* she continues to receive $1600/month child support
* she gets the full deed to their house.

Wait a minute. Did she actually expect me to okay this just because the numbers match an old order from five friggen years ago?! The 2002 calculations were based on her not having a job, and him earning over $5K/month. She submitted no current Income and Expense Report, so how do I know that she’s not currently employed? Maybe she makes a lot of money now, and HE’S unemployed? Who knows?! AND…in her Amended Petition, she didn’t request spousal support! Didn’t even mention it. So as far as the defaulted husband knows, the only requests she has are for a divorce and her last name back, plus the mandatory child support for their remaining 2 minors, and maybe that’s why he didn’t bother answering the Amended Petition, cuz he was okay with that. Did she not expect me to catch that she never asked for support, and was trying to sneak that by in a permanent spousal support order? We don’t have jurisdiction to order something the defaulted spouse was never informed of. Plus, the amount of child support she wants was calculated years ago based on 3 minors, but now she only has 2 minors, so we (as the courts) have already lost jurisdiction to award child support as to the 21 year old. 3 years ago, in fact. As for the house, in the Amended Petition she wrote that there were no separate or joint assets at issue. And now there’s a house?

I ran it by the original judge who issued the 2002 order, just to be sure, and he confirmed that I was right and complimented me on my “good catch.” The law’s already unfairly on the woman’s side and she still wants to be sneaky about it. I’m not trying to be anti-woman here, but hearing about and seeing so many women milk the system for a free ride that they didn’t earn (especially since California is a no-fault state so the woman can cheat on her husband, and if he divorces her, she still gets to take half his crap and be paid for life), it just really pisses me off. Gender aside, if somebody gets half of MY hard-earned assets that I’d spent my whole life collecting just cuz a relationship didn’t work out, they’d have to make sure I don’t own weapons of mass destruction. The law may have made sense back in the day when women weren’t allowed to be educated or earn money, but these days, if women aren’t working, in most cases they’re just plain lazy and shouldn’t be rewarded with perpetual money from the ex! These women have such an insane sense of entitlement. Yet, since divorced women are rewarded by the system for not working, or for not earning top dollar, what’s gonna motivate them to get off their asses? “Hey, the less I make, the more free money the ex needs to pay me! Hell if I ever work again!”

I don’t even know why I’m ranting, really. Cuz the worse these women make themselves look, the better I look by comparison.