Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Shacking Up Is Overrated

The Daily Mail (UK) reported today on the "curse" of the 9/11 widows.

They talked about the disparity in payoffs to the different widows, the way some got $7 million and others got only $250,000 and a lot of people are unhappy about the difference. The way Congress wrote the law, though, required that the age and earning potential of the deceased be taken into account.

Some of the widows went on spending sprees, trying to medicate their grief and fill the emptiness with things that left them just as empty afterward.

But the story that got to me was the one about the non-widows:

The most bitter family disputes have involved the relatives of unmarried victims who had not prepared for their mortality as they were only in their prime.

Lisa Goldberg's partner, Martin McWilliams, would surely be appalled at the tangled legacy he left his tiny daughter, Sara, and the corrosive financial struggle which has faced her mother, a paramedic. The couple were not married, and McWilliams, a fireman, left no will.

McWilliams's estate was entitled to $2 million, but as a domestic partner, Goldberg didn't have the automatic rights of the widows of other firemen.

Her baby, Sara, would get everything as McWilliams's next of kin, but his family wanted to control the money.

Each month, Lisa must apply to court to access her daughter's funds for treats such as trips. She has to collect receipts to support her claims.

'I've lost five years to this injustice,' says Lisa. 'It's not about the money. My existence with this man has been deleted. That's the hardest thing that I have to live with, besides him really being gone.'

I used to work with a man who has a little girl with his live-in girlfriend. When I asked him one time why he didn't get married, he said they didn't need some piece of paper to keep them together.

That's true. But if anything happens to him, that "piece of paper" would protect his girlfriend--the mother of his daughter--from what happened to Lisa after 9/11.

Lisa's existence with Martin has not been deleted. She still has the little girl the two of them made and were raising together. And what she's going through is hard and even demeaning, but it's not an injustice. Marriage was available to her, just as it was to the other widows who chose to take advantage of it. But Lisa and/or Martin didn't see the need for that piece of paper. Now she knows how important paper can be.

Marriage is not to be taken lightly. It's not to be entered into on a whim. But when there are children involved, marriage offers protection in a way that shacking up doesn't. Just ask the 9/11 non-widows.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

For those who choose not to get married, or are unable to solemnise their relationship, I have one suggestion: get a will.

It's not hard to figure that out.

janice said...

I work with a 53 year old woman who was living with "Rudy." They dated for 22 years, bought a house together about 16 years ago. They split everything, from groceries to a throw rug, right down the middle. When he past away last year Laurie learned how important that piece of paper meant. Even with a will, "Rudy's" mother was in charge of everything and forced Laurie to hand over little worthless (except to Laurie) trinkets because they now belonged to Margaret.
It was a painful, ugly mess.