As of the end of January 2016, we had 94 members in the 2nd Wives Club of South
Carolina. (We now have over 100!). 44% of our members answered
a recent survey. The statistics are telling:
- The length of the first marriage ranges from 7-30 years, yet all are paying permanent alimony.
- The professions of the husbands run the gamut. They are mechanics, physicians, salesmen, construction workers, attorneys, engineers, and business owners.
- While 88% of the second wives work, only 44% of the first wives do. The second wives who do not work are on disability. One is retired. The second wives work as administrators, ministers, teachers, professors, chefs, physicians, accountants, and in real estate and finance, to name but a few professions.
- Monthly alimony payments range from $300/month to $8000/month. The average alimony payment is $2,183.41.
- This amounts, on the average, to 33% of the husband’s income.
- Over half of the second wives have contributed to or paid the alimony of their husband’s ex-spouse, either short or long term (meaning more than a decade).
- While half of the first wives do have a college degree, the biggest complaint from the second wives survey participants is that the first wife is intentionally under-employed. Several participants wrote that their husband’s ex-spouse has declared her intent not to re-marry and to make her ex-husband pay until he dies. The survey participants comment that one should not be penalized for the rest of one’s life for a failed marriage, that this divorce without finality and separation is cruel, and that their husbands cannot retire.
- Some would-be second wives refuse to marry their partner, fearing they are putting their own finances in jeopardy, for example, if the first wife takes them back to court for more alimony based on their combined income. This happened--per a court order--to one of our members at the end of December 2015; her income was included to justify the alimony her husband had been ordered to pay, even though it was determined by the court that he was not underemployed!
The Second Wives and Partners Club of South Carolina inherited its name from similar organizations in other states. The purpose of the Second Wives is to emphasize that permanent periodic alimony negatively impacts the lives of women, children, and men.
Please support Alimony Reform in South Carolina. We believe alimony has its place, to provide equity for both parties at the end of the marriage. But in this day and age, permanent alimony should no longer be the most common form of alimony awarded in South Carolina.
