One of my good friends is currently paying roughly 40% of his take-home pay to his ex every month, and the courts have mandated that he must continue to pay her indefinitely. I'm just absolutely appalled that this shit actually happens. And things keep getting worse for him.

Some backstory: they got married in their 20's, he's in his mid 40's now, and they had what seemed like a solid marriage. They had three kids, owned a home, he worked full time and she gave up her career to take care of the kids.

Long story short, things got rocky when he had to start working 70-80hr weeks to finish a massive construction project. She started to resent him because he couldn't help around the house as much, and eventually she started cheating on him. I don't know the full story, but the details are pretty irrelevant.

He hired a lawyer and they had a classic "messy" divorce. The first part of the settlement was to split the sale of the house and cars; she got a massive bulk sum, and he spent most of his half on legal fees for his and her lawyers, as well as other incidentals. Next, as I mentioned, the judge mandated that he pay something like 40% of his six-figure take-home pay to her each month, which is for alimony and child support.

There is some calculation or guideline courts use to determine if payments are "indefinite" or not, which they did not meet, but her lawyer somehow convinced the judge to do it anyway. The lawyer that he paid for, by the way. There's technically a chance that the payments could end at some point, but his lawyer said that it almost never happens.

What's worse is now she's planning to move with the kids east to the other end of the country in very expensive city. So either he stays where he is and never sees his kids, or he moves, has to find a new job, and struggle to pay rent on a 1-bedroom apartment that his kids will despise staying at every other week.

My friend has always been an upbeat and positive guy, but this whole situation has absolutely destroyed him. He never smiles or laughs anymore, it's like he's carrying a load on his shoulders everywhere he goes. He's quite literally trapped. He can't take time off work to upgrade his education, can't switch careers (unless he makes at least the same salary), and if something happens where he can't make his monthly payments, he could literally end up in jail.

Anyway, I just wanted to vent about how fucked up this legal system is. Considering the fact that fewer than something like 3% of alimony recipients are men, I'm sure there are a lot more men out there in a similar hopeless situation. This needs to change.