Women face complicated financial challenges amid divorce
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
When her marriage fell apart and Lacey Plummer decided to move out of the home she shared with the father of her two children in June 2016, she had no job, no money and nowhere to live except with her parents.
“I completely 100 percent see why women end up in shelters now if they don’t have a family or someone to help them,” said Ms. Plummer, 36.
As the wife of a computer programmer for 11 years, she and her children, ages 6 and 3, had lived in a three-bedroom home the family owned in Monroeville. She was a stay-at-home mom; the family took vacations; went out to eat on a regular basis and they didn’t worry about bills.
The marital separation has thrown life into chaos.
Her credit cards are delinquent. She depends on her parents to provide a home and daycare while she works part-time for $8.50 an hour. She has been forced to use food stamps and welfare. The home in Monroeville is in foreclosure.
Divorce often presents financial challenges. Both husband and wife likely will need to lower their standard of living after a split, and women raising children on their own have always been more vulnerable to poverty.
“One primary reason for financial distress after divorce is that, instead of one household, there are usually two separate households to support when a marriage ends,” said Lynnette Khalfani Cox, founder of AskTheMoneyCoach.com, based in Mountainside, N.J.
“That means two sets of housing payments, two sets of utility bills, two sets of grocery expenses, and so on,” she said. “When you add to the mix the financial needs of children — including everything from school supplies to the cost of extracurricular activities — it’s easy to see why kids, and often women,
suffer economically in the wake of divorce.”
Returning to workforce
After being a stay-athome mom for six years, Ms. Plummer returned to the workforce after moving into her parents’ four-bedroom home in Lower Burrell, Westmoreland County.
She had worked as a paralegal before the children came along. After experiencing the dark side of the legal system during her marital separation, she decided to become a preschool teacher.
At the moment, all of the $8.50 an hour she earns working part-time at a preschool in Lower Burrell is going toward paying her Shadyside-based attorney, whom she was able to hire at a reduced rate through Neighborhood Legal Services, Downtown.
The Plummers have not yet filed for divorce. Until now it was mainly because of the expense, but Ms. Plummer’s attorney, Jeffrey Pollock, has offered to prepare a simple divorce, which she will be able to file.
Mr. Pollock said he has been retained to represent Ms. Plummer in her custody case. The divorce and child support are separate legal issues.
Since Ms. Plummer’s case came to him through Neighborhood Legal Services, he is paid only $70 an hour instead of the usual $250 to $500 an hour. There seems to be a need for such services. “I have eight cases now where I charge only $70 an hour,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ms. Plummer depends on family and friends for basic needs.
“Anything for my kids — my kids’ shoes, my kids’ clothes, my kids’ food — is all coming from my parents,” she said.
Emma Johnson, creator of the website Wealthysinglemommy.com, said there is a lot of pressure on mothers to sacrifice everything for the kids and this country has created a culture where the stay-at-home mom is idolized.
“What it does is it creates women who are financially dependent on men,” said Ms. Johnson, who is based in New York. “We still believe this idea that marriage is forever and that hasn’t been the case for 40 years.
“In terms of investments, real estate and bank accounts, women are not equal participants,” she said. “They don’t know how much is in the account or even if their names are on the account. So, if something happens like divorce or the husband is disabled or unemployed, women are at a total disadvantage and have less earning potential.”
What bills get paid
As of Nov. 28, Allegheny County court records show Ian Plummer is $6,916 behind on his monthly courtordered child support payments of $1,293. But, according to Mr. Plummer’s attorneys at Cordell & Cordell, the court record is only part of the story.
A spokesman for the firm said arrears are assessed in every support case. The amount varies depending on the length of time it takes to get into court and the amount of support.
For example, if someone files for support on Oct. 1 and does not go to court until Dec. 1 and the support order is for $2,000, then the arrears would be $6,000 — $2,000 each for October, November and December.
Ms. Plummer said the money she had been receiving from welfare stopped when her child support order went into effect.
Lisa Turbeville, a certified divorce financial analyst and owner of Watermark Financial in Mt. Lebanon, often works with dependent non-working spouses in the midst of a divorce.
“They will usually have to reduce their expenses and it could impact their activities and where they live,” Ms. Turbeville said. “Quite often it’s the stay-athome mom[s] who gets into a situation where their job skills aren’t up to date and they have gotten behind with retirement savings and career advancement.
“It becomes a juggling act of what bills get paid and which don’t.,” she said. “Credit card debt skyrockets. The car breaks down and there is compounding stress. Some of it, frankly, is adjusting or not wanting to adjust to their new financial reality.”
Ms. Plummer is unsure of what direction she will take to re-establish her life.
For now her children are safe, happy and everyone is comfortable in her parents’ four-bedroom house.
Her father, a retired chemical operator for PPG Industries and her mom, a homemaker, have taken the children under their wing.
“I know we will be OK,” she said. “My children absolutely love living here. My grandma, which is their great-grandma, lives next door. They are close with her. They are close with my parents. They love it here. My parents have done everything for them in the past year and a half.”