Edwards v. Edwards

2012 WL 6197079 (2012)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

H and Alice (W) were married on April 7, 1991. When the parties married, H was 36 years old and w was 39 years old. H served in the military a total of 22 years. H attended Murray State University and received an associate's degree in design technology. w earned a bachelor's degree in health information management, and while H was stationed in Japan, she obtained a master's degree in public administration. W held a variety of jobs in the locations H moved to while in the military. After Husband retired from the military, they eventually moved to Dyersburg, Tennessee, and purchased a home there. On July 26, 2010, W came home to find a woman sitting on the parties' couch in the den, wearing only a pink negligee and a 'shawl' over her shoulders, and smoking a cigarette. H was there too in pajama pants. H and the woman quickly left the marital residence together. They both went to the woman's apartment for the night. H filed seeking a divorce on the ground of irreconcilable differences. W alleged inappropriate marital conduct and adultery. H also claimed habitual drunkenness or abuse of narcotic drugs and cruel and inhuman treatment or conduct that renders cohabitation unsafe. H calculated his monthly income to be $4,480.97, comprised of $1,747.97 from his military pension, $1,733.00 in wages from managing St. John Apartments, and $1,000 in rental income from the marital home. H's monthly expenses were listed as $4,316.00. Of that amount, $1,663 in expenses related to ownership of the marital home, including the mortgage payment, utilities, carpet, and repairs. As part of his monthly expenses, Husband included the $278 payment to Wife as her portion of his military pension, and $521 on the $6,119.47 debt to Mr. Langley. The remaining expenses were Husband's personal living expenses, such as rent, food, and clothing. H was working as the apartment manager for St. John Apartments, where he lived at the time of trial. In that position, H claimed, he earned $400 per week before taxes. W found a job as an adjunct professor at a college in Dyersburg. She also worked as a substitute teacher in the Dyer County School System. Husband estimated that Wife earned about $1,000 per month. H testified that W liked to stay up late at night and sleep until the afternoon, and implied that she declined jobs that interfered with this schedule. H admitted that the mortgage on the house was not paid in September, October, December 2010, or January 2011. In October 2010, the mortgage holder notified H that it intended to foreclose on the home; by then, the mortgage payments were in arrears in the amount of $8,000. H borrowed money from just about everyone to avert foreclosure. H flatly denied that he committed adultery during the parties' marriage but the facts speak otherwise. W estimated that her expenses would be about $2,300 per month. She testified that she had to get $6,000 in dental work because Husband hit her on the head and broke her tooth in a confrontation. The dental surgery to repair the tooth cost about $6,500. When H and W sold their marital residence in Florida, they received about $141,000 in equity. She said that about $37,000 of that money was used as a down payment on the Dyersburg marital residence, and the rest went to pay the parties' living expenses. The court found that H would have income of $4,202.97 per month (which did not include the $278 pension payment to W) and reasonable expenses of $3,238 per month. After the sale of the home, the trial court found, Husband would have an income of $3,202.97 per month and $1,650.00 of reasonable monthly expenses, giving him a monthly surplus of $1,552.97. The trial court found that W earned income of $1,278 per month, comprised of $1,000 per month from her jobs as an adjunct professor and substitute teacher, plus $278 from her share of H's military pension. It determined that W had $2,200 of reasonable monthly expenses, leaving a deficiency of $922 per month. The court granted W a divorce based on H's adultery. The trial court awarded W transitional alimony of $250 per month for a period of 36 months, as well as alimony in futuro of $750 per month. At a second hearing the futuro was increased by $278 in lieu of military money. H appealed.