I don't think she's confessing to being a hooker - they expect to perform for pay, and understand that the "contract" is for specified services and then it ends.

This woman wants to continue to be paid (for how long?) for services she used to render, as if her long-term affair with a married man created an enforceable contract between them.

Will someone please tell me what the hell is it with these nutbags and their over-inflated senses of entitlement??

Flynne - There's a saying I created that covers this one nicely:

"Give 'em a vagina, and they think they rule the world."

And that's really all it is. This is her way of saying "I have the pussy, I make the rules."

You've got to be kidding! Sorry, that was my immediate reaction. But get real. And damned if they can use the family values bullshit they usually do to justify the insanity. If this doesn't encourage women to be mistresses instead of wives, I don't know what does.

So she bummed off this guy for years and now he's dumping her and she's panicked what the hell will I do? Get a job. Duh! You know, like you should have in the first place instead of using him. You never loved him; you loved his money.

Brian, we could say the same about guys, you know, using their penises in lieu of swords or something! o_O

Right, because the penis mightier than the sword. ;)

There's a little motto I live by. it says:"I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

So, yeah, this decision is highly immoral. Here's a woman who was knowingly maintained a relation with a married man. She enjoyed his gifts when they were freely given. Now that they are at the end of their relationship, she's using legal tactics to have more from a doomed relation?

I just can't bend my mind around the decision of the Supreme Court on this. Looks like it's now open season for scorned woman.

"Give 'em a vagina, and they think they rule the world"

Well, you're just a hater, aren't ya? Not like penis's don't do really really stupid things ALL the time. Oh, like cheating on their wives and paying to support the freeloading mistress. For years.

I am pro-legalized-prostitution too. But yeah, this just takes the cake on idiocy. Not so much her, because why not try for everything you can get-it's the amreican way- but the court for allowing it. They did not live together. She should not have any right to anything past all his "gifts". Did she pay taxes on them? Did he? There's a good question

This is really surprising. Palimony cases are generally just dressed-up contract cases where one party provides money and the other provides regular companionship (not necessarily sexual). The amazing thing in this case is that they never lived together, so the money-provider benefited from none of the services one would typically expect of the "kept" party (cleaning the house, making dinner, etc.).

Really odd.

I'd see myself in jail before I'd see myself in that man's shoes, they can hold me in contempt of court all they'd like. At least on THAT judgement they'd be correct, and it would be contempt that is highly deserved.

So she "became dependent" she's not his child, nor does she have one by him. I wonder, did they say how many dates a pair has to go on before the one who pays for dinner is responsible for the light bill?

And what was she doing all that time? Eating danish?

Why the devil didn't she get an education between bedroom rompings? Clearly she didn't mind taking stuff from him?

You know what would have been REALLY great?

If that guy had paid her way through school, and then argued before the court that since he supported her while she was getting an education, he is entitled to half her earnings.

Don't think the court would have gone that way? Well why not, its just the flip side of the same coin, with the same legal justification.

The bloody court was at least as dumb as the plaintiff in this case.

"As the trial judge so aptly phrased it," Wallace wrote, "'the parties' relationship was best characterized as a dating relationship.'"

So let me ask this...in what dating relationship does the woman in question abdicate responsibility for taking care of HERSELF?!

So let me ask this...in what dating relationship does the woman in question abdicate responsibility for taking care of HERSELF?!

Given women are looking to be married at a far greater rate than men I would suggest most dating relationships would apply

Another reason to maintain the illegality of prostitution: So the community won't have to adjudicate the billing disputes.

Pretty unanimous responses here. Just to propose a more ambigious ethical conundrum... What would you think if he were not married? And that they were living together? With no children? Do any of you buy into the concept of common law marriage?

If that guy had paid her way through school, and then argued before the court that since he supported her while she was getting an education, he is entitled to half her earnings.

OHHHhhhhhh!

This is something I wish to see before I die.
:D

Liz, If they were "Just not married", I would ask to see the paperwork. If that condo was brought by the man but there was some legal paper out there giving rights to the woman on the propriety, I would say she got a case. If not, too bad for her.

"so the money-provider benefited from none of the services one would typically expect of the "kept" party (cleaning the house, making dinner, etc.)."

I disagree. The 51 year old got to sex with 23 year old for seven years. That is definitely worth something and it should cost him.

Any sexual relationship with a generation gap is an exploitation in both ways. There are no victims but just two abusers. If I use Spitzer as an example, she should be paid $4,300 per sex. If you do the math, three times a week for seven years, you have about $4,700,000.

She deserves every single penny of it.

so in those 7 years Chang, she got what? nothing? A place to live etc. obviously she was also there for the evenings festivities?

they're both adults, the age gap is meaningless in that case... this is a pretty straightforward exchange. if either is owed money, he is owed RENT.

No, no Chang. Spitzer never paid anyone for sex; you pay a whore money to GO AWAY after sex - important distinction.

And that is this gentleman's situation now - he has to pay to make her go away. There are cheaper ways. The court just gave him a good financial reason to have her "done".

"obviously she was also there for the evenings festivities?"

Unless you are blowing off the 51 year old president of the United States, I don't think the 23 year old would call it exactly festivity. It was job for her. Thus, it is named appropriately, blow job.

I consider marriage as legalized exclusive prostitution contract. Any party, who performed a "job" needs to be paid when the contract ends. That is what alimony is all about.

The 23 year old needs to be paid for the job she performed for the overweight 51 year old, who promised her big diamond ring.

"Any party, who performed a "job" needs to be paid when the contract ends. That is what alimony is all about." Chang

So just to make sure I'm getting this right, the money and house and anything else given to the person while diong the job isn't to be counted? It's only after everything is over, that you have to retroactively pay for the job that was done. Is that what you are saying?

The difference in cases, is that marriage is actually a legal union... while there was no contract at all for the Lady in question. Looks like, from your point of view, that either way the guy pays. as if until the moeny is transacted, the woman isn't receiving any benefit, right?

"I consider marriage as legalized exclusive prostitution contract." Chang

What looks like prostitution one direction, looks like indentured servitude the other, doesn't it.

So I guess this answers the question "What's the difference between a gold-digger and a prostitute?"

A prostitute can't sue you for back pay.

Details: http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1200996339591

If that guy had paid her way through school, and then argued before the court that since he supported her while she was getting an education, he is entitled to half her earnings....

He did pay her way through school. She got a master's degree in art history (because she "liked art"). It's not the most marketable degree so she's not earning anything with it. She is complaining of financial dependency since she cannot get a good job with that degree.

According to the article, they dated for twenty years. He paid for her education, fertility treatments, and the condo during that time.

She now finds herself at 43 years of age, with no significant work experience, holding a nearly useless degree, homeless (he kicked her out of the condo), childless, and dumped.

I'll concede that the guy was an ass.

But, at some point in twenty years, how did she not figure that out? How did she not say to herself, "I've got to get a job and some financial security?"

Well, you're just a hater, aren't ya? Not like penis's don't do really really stupid things ALL the time. Oh, like cheating on their wives and paying to support the freeloading mistress. For years.

Well, yeah. I'm a misanthrope. I hate everyone equally.

And just because I give women shit all the time doesn't mean I think men are all that. But how many men do stupid shit like this, versus the number of women that do it? So it's gotta have something to do with that double X chromosome, don't ya think?

I mean, seriously now. What man is going to stay in an uncommitted relationship for 23 years with the continuing expectation that one day he'll finally have her all to himself?

None. But I could certainly see being in an uncommitted relationship for 23 years with a woman with the expectation that she would NEVER leave her husband for me.

It's called perverse incentive. A woman has no real incentive to involve herself in a monogamous relationship with someone that is not committed to her alone. A man has PLENTY of incentive to maintain as many women as he can in his stable of exclusive "fuck buddies". All the variety, none of the risk!

Do any of you buy into the concept of common law marriage? "Common law" only applies where statutory law hasn't overruled it. In most states, there is no longer any such legal concept. And even when there was common law, it required that the two held themselves out as man and wife for a specific period of time. (Don't know about the laws outside the US, but I imagine it's much the same - if there is such a thing as "common law marriage," then it is triggered by some very specific facts that simply don't arise when a man is keeping a mistress.)

If that condo was brought by the man but there was some legal paper out there giving rights to the woman on the propriety, I would say she got a case. If not, too bad for her.
If he did in fact buy the condo in her name, then she owns it - he gave her a huge gift, in that case. I don't see how giving her a huge gift should put him on the hook for *continuing* to pay her.

But given that he apparently kicked her out of the condo, it sounds like what he actually did was give her years and years and years of free rent. In that case, she should have looked ahead to her future and put aside some of the money he was giving her.

Change: "She deserves every single penny of it."

Um, if she was just effectively trading sex for material goods, the terms of such a transaction had already been informally established and the transaction long completed. Unless she had an agreement in advance with the guy that the price of her services included future alimony, it doesn't make sense. It's like, I sell you software, we agree the price is $20, and the trade takes place. Years later I sue you for thousands of dollars, saying for example that you are still benefiting from the software. Does it still make sense to you?

Now the exact price is seldom negotiated that explicitly with strawdaddy-ism but it's safe to say that if you're still getting action after years and years of paying some particular price, that that price had been implicitly accepted.

If she is really dependent they should legally make her a dependent.

"Right, because the penis mightier than the sword. ;)"

I beg to differ!

By "Change" I meant "Chang" and by "strawdaddy-ism" I of course meant "sugardaddy-ism" :/ I don't know what gremlin is adding mistakes to my posts :)

But how many men do stupid shit like this, versus the number of women that do it?

In my experience, men and women do about an equal amount of stupid shit. Now, they tend to differ in the *types* of stupid shit they're likely to pull - when you hear about a situation where a lover of a married person has hung on for 20 years in the hopes that the married person will get a divorce, the lover is almost always female - but on the whole it's about the same amount.

I can see scenarios in which childless, unmarried couples might set up a scenario in which one person has a claim on the other's assets after they break up. If, say, a guy waits tables for years to put his girlfriend through med school debt-free, with her promise that they'll marry when she's done, and she dumps him near the end for a doctor, I think he should be able to sue for partial recovery of wages. But this isn't one of those cases. It sounds as though this woman behaved very foolishly, but the law doesn't exist to save people from the non-violent, non-fraudulent consequences of behaving foolishly. A man who promises his mistress that he'll leave his wife is almost always lying - this is one of the few constants of the universe. I'm sorry that this woman, unlike Carrie Fisher's character in "When Harry Met Sally" and about eighty gazillion other fictional characters, didn't wise up soon enough to have a happy life of her own, but such is life. God knows she had enough cultural cues and hints.

By "Change" I meant "Chang" and by "strawdaddy-ism" I of course meant "sugardaddy-ism" :/ I don't know what gremlin is adding mistakes to my posts :)

Check your computer for one of these

marion:

In my experience, men and women do about an equal amount of stupid shit. Now, they tend to differ in the *types* of stupid shit they're likely to pull - when you hear about a situation where a lover of a married person has hung on for 20 years in the hopes that the married person will get a divorce, the lover is almost always female - but on the whole it's about the same amount.

I beg to differ. If we were to assign a numerical value to the stupid level of an action, and then multiply that level by the number of times that action took place, and then summarize it along gender lines, I'd be willing to go out on a limb and say that the woman column will have a much bigger number than the man column.

Most of the stupid shit that men do to themselves (that doesn't result in death) rarely leaves them in a position where they need to steal from someone else to survive.

What the woman in the letter has done is shoot herself in the foot with a howitzer.

Most guys wouldn't go with anything bigger than a .50 BMG, tops :)

Acctually brian I'd be willing to bet that men do more stupid things then women.

Men are natures bitch, we aare like a shotgun blast of genetic differences in a race to see which genes will survive the longest.

I'm willing to bet that the thought "I wonder what would happen if I did. . . "
not only pops into guys heads far more often the women, but is followed thru by men more often as well

"I consider marriage as legalized exclusive prostitution contract. "

Chang, I'll bet twenty bucks you never said that to your mother in front of your father.

...the law doesn't exist to save people from the non-violent, non-fraudulent consequences of behaving foolishly.

Very well said! Although, unfortunately, to match reality you need to change doesn't to shouldn't.

As for the debate about men or women doing more stupid stuff, I'm going to guess it's about equal, but of course very different. We're both robots programmed to replicate our genes, but with necessarily different strategies for doing so.

The macho things that men do are more obviously stupid from the perspective of individual health and happiness, but they are risks that paid off for men's genes in the past.

Yeah Shawn - the movie 'Jackass.' Nuff said.

And finally, while I have no problem with prostitution, and think it should be legalized, it's not. And isn't this woman, in actuality, with her case, confessing to being a hooker?

Shhhhh....or the feminists will hear you slut shaming this poor victim of the patriarchy.

Actually, think of all the women you know and think of all the men you know and think of all the people you know who have done things stupid enough to literally affect the rest of their lives.

Sadly I have to agree with Brian on that unprofessional (hey, I'm neither a scientist nor a statisian) sampling. I'm 50 and in my life, myself included (grrr), there's far more women in that categorey. I am willing to admit I screwd up big time when I was stupid in love/lust. I like to think I learn from my mistakes. I haven't screwed up like that again and I've outlasted any guy I've dated in the fear to committ department but that's not exactly what I'm talking about when I say I will pay for this mistake 'til the day I die.

How many men you know in dire straits because of a woman? How many women there because of a man? At least when it comes to "love" (the topic of this thread), I fear women are stupider.

That does not mean we shouldn't have to live with our mistakes and it does not mean that alimony now needs to extend to the not married, not living together, childless idiot who trusted him to take care of her forever and ever.

Gimme a break. Shit, and don't hand me the art degree nonsense. I've no degree past my high school diploma and I'm taking care of my own ass. And there are countless housewives who re-enter the work force with a bigger gap out of it than 7 years.

Chang, your stance is utterly ridiculous. First, of all, did she state a fee in advance for "services rendered" that he agreed to? Second of all (if said gifts weren't that) if she should recoup those unasked for fees, she should have to go back and pay 7 years rent, groceries, cable television, electricity, etc., etc., etc. Methinks it's a wash.

"I consider marriage as legalized exclusive prostitution contract. "
Chang, I'll bet twenty bucks you never said that to your mother in front of your father."

My mother said basically the same thing years ago. My father happened to be out of the room. i don't know about Chang's mom.

Ludicrous all the way. He paid everything for years on end, sure he talked about marrying her, but after the 5th year you'd think she'd have gotten the hint that he's not likely to leave his wife. And come on, he promised? Well gee I'm pretty sure he also promised his wife he'd be faithful to her, get real, how much could that promise have been worth? Why should reward gullibility, stupidity, greed, narcissism, and dependency?

Now, think about that for just a moment...is she really SO bloody stupid that she figured he'd marry her after 25 years instead of 20? Please, she had to realize eventually that she was just a side dish he could afford to pay for.

He gave her the education of her choice, a place to stay at no cost, covered all her expenses, for 20 years, all while he's still married to his wife.

Did she really think that was going to last forever?

She GOT paid, had a 20 year long vacation, oooh now she has to work retail...sniffle, she should count herself lucky the guy's wife doesn't sue HER for disrupting their marriage, stealing of affection, etc. How'd the girl like to pay THAT back?

Ok babe, you can have some support from him, but you have to pay all that money back to the wife since you were infringing on her territory.

Maybe the guy isn't exactly a role model for our youngsters, but he wasn't nearly as bad as the grasping ex mistress.

I wonder how many dinner dates I'd take a woman on before she could sue me for grocery money if we stopped dating.

I wonder how many dinner dates I'd take a woman on before she could sue me for grocery money if we stopped dating.

Starting like that, you are in deep trouble after the first dollar you put in the hands of a woman. I am tired to see women out there asking for preferential treatment as if they were still living in a Victorian age.

The biased divorce system literally killed the institution of marriage for the heterosexual male since the risk of getting ripped-off is so huge. Now, looks like the judiciary want also to kill the notion that men should offer anything of value to a women. The fear of being financially enslaved will be too high. This is the thing that kill chivalry; greed.

"I consider marriage as legalized exclusive prostitution contract. "
Chang, I'll bet twenty bucks you never said that to your mother in front of your father."

I've never said it but if I'd thought of it at the time but there were a few points at 12-14 years old during and after my parents divorce where I would have just to spite either or both.

These days I'm hesitant to say it to my mother (even though I firmly believe it given our current "family laws") but can easily imagine her pushing me to via her own actions. Can't say it to Dad or Step-Dad because they're both dead. Dad would've agreed with me probably despite the fact that in his last few years he shacked up with a gal who pretty much was around for his money which was well proven after he died.

I'm still kinda in shock at how much my mother thinks it would be great if her best friend's daughter and I were interested in each other or that we'd "be a great couple". One line was something like, "well you'd be well suited because she makes good money and you have money invested and do well from that". Or the vague lines like "well apparently she's looking somewhat at a job in your town, she always liked it up there. I told my friend if you buy a house one of these days you could rent her a room if she moves up there".

The big thing here is this, the daughter is married... Uh, sorry Ma, but she's off limits and I'm not looking to get anywhere near that. If she ever gets divorced and happens to be interested, have her give me a call a year or so after the divorce is final. Can't guarantee I'll be free or interested back though. Maybe its my mother's urge for grandkids that driving her insanity.

Damn that was long.