Write Your Legislator (Letter Template)
Please use this as a model for emails you WRITE TO YOUR LEGISLATORS RIGHT NOW. Time is of essence. Use your own words and your personal story. Keep the letter short. Keep the paragraphs short and easy to read. DO NOT use negative language to describe your ex-spouse, lawyers or judges. Legislators will be persuaded by your personal story. DO NOT condemn "the system."
WHEN YOU RECEIVE A RESPONSE, PLEASE FORWARD IT TO FAR at info@floridaalimonyreform.comDear Senator or Representative _____:
My name is X, and I am your constituent. I live at (your address), and I work as a doctor/lawyer/police-office/teacher, etc. I/my husband/my son pays lifetime alimony. (OR: If you are 65 and over, say your age and whether you still work and at what.)
I urge you to vote in favor of meaningful alimony reform, and to support new and upcoming proposed alimony reform legislation.
Florida’s alimony laws are anti-family and anti-marriage as they give no incentive to an alimony recepient to remarry.
The Florida and national media, including USA Today ( see story here http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/basics/story/2012-01-05/alimony-law-reform/52642100/1 ) and the Anderson Cooper daytime show, have shined the light on the vast problems in our antiquated alimony laws, including the shameful case of the 72-year-old bedridden Alzheimer sufferer who is forced to pay alimony until he dies, for a marriage that ended 20 years ago. Media interest grows by the day.
Choose one of these sentences: 1. The current laws keep my ex-spouse and me tied together in a dependent financial arrangement that is worse/more toxic than a bad marriage. 2. Instead of becoming co-parents to our children after divorce, my ex-spouse and I have become enemies who must keep returning to divorce court whenever our circumstances change. 3. Instead of ending our failed marriage, my ex-spouse and I are permanent legal adversaries.
TELL YOUR PERSONAL STORY IN ONE or TWO BRIEF PARAGRAPHS. (Keep it short, to the point, and do not use negative language to describe anyone.)
For example: I/my husband has been paying alimony for X years, and I must continue until I die. I have no right to retire and see my payments end. I pay X% of my weekly net salary, and in my divorce, my ex-wife/husband received X percentage of the marital assets, including X percentage of my pension and the house. I am required to pay her/her health insurance and to maintain a $X life insurance policy, which now costs of $X a year but which will cost me X-times that when I reach 70 years old.
Because of this obligation, I have had to 1. declare bankruptcy 2. foreclose on my house 3. move in with my mother 4. acquire $X of credit card debt. While I work X hours a week to pay alimony, my ex-wife/husband chooses to work part-time/chooses not to work at all, and to spend her/his time going on vacations/etc. She has lived with her boyfriend, a doctor, for X years, and has told our children that she will never marry because she would lose the alimony.
I hope you and your staff will visit Florida Alimony Reform's website to learn more about why HB 549/SB 748 are so urgently needed: http://www.floridaalimonyreform.com. Please read their "Shame of Florida" publication, with 33 alimony "horror stories."
I will be writing again and calling to follow-up on this important legislation.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
YOUR NAME
YOUR ADDRESS W/ ZIPCODE
AND YOUR EMAIL