What Counts as an Involuntary Reduction in Income?
Being your own boss sounds like fun until your dream of running your own business comes true. Suddenly, all the problems of the business are your problems and no one else’s. If the business is not financially solvent, neither are you, and by extension, neither is your spouse. Anyone who has tried their hand at entrepreneurship understands how it can take a toll on one’s marriage. Running a business takes up all your time, and sometimes it gives you nothing in return. To make matters worse, the bills come due every month whether your business venture generated enough revenue to pay them or not. To keep going in such circumstances requires an excessive level of self-confidence that is not exactly conducive to getting along with your spouse. The only thing worse than being married to an entrepreneur is being divorced from one. If you divorce an entrepreneur, you can break free from the emotional rollercoaster, and you are free to start a new relationship with someone who has the emotional bandwidth to treat you like a human being, but if you and your ex were sufficiently financially entangled that alimony or child support is involved, then many years must pass before you can disconnect from the financial drama. If your ex-spouse is inconsistent about paying alimony because of his or her unpredictable self-employment income, contact a Boca Raton alimony lawyer.
Can Your Ex-Spouse Stop You From Trading in Your Entrepreneurship Dream for a Salaried Job?
Veterinarians choose their line of work because of love, not because of money. The spouses of veterinarians know, on some level, that they will always play second fiddle to a revolving door of four-legged friends in distress. This was not what ruined the marriage of a Florida vet. He and his wife stayed together for 28 years, while the vet and two partners built their own veterinary practice. Eventually, the partnership broke up and the partners quit, leaving the husband to do the work of all three veterinarians. He put in 15-hour days at the veterinary clinic to keep the practice afloat as his marriage unraveled, and when he and his wife divorced, the court ordered him to pay alimony.
Several years later, exhausted and barely keeping up with his financial obligations, the husband sold his veterinary clinic to a larger regional animal hospital and continued to work there as a salaried employee. This meant less money, but better work-life balance and, more importantly, continuing his professional relationship with his feline and canine patients. He petitioned the court to reduce his alimony obligations to reflect his lower income, but the wife objected. She claimed that trading a higher paying, more difficult job for a lower paying, easier one counts as being voluntarily underemployed. Given the length of the marriage, the husband must have been no spring chicken when he sold the practice, so the wife’s objection sounds suspiciously like trying to stop her ex-husband from retiring.
Contact Schwartz | White About Divorce for the Ex-Spouses of Hopeless Romantics
A South Florida family law attorney can help you continue to collect alimony if your ex-spouse is chasing an ostensibly non-materialistic dream. Contact Schwartz | White in Boca Raton, Florida about your case.
