Question: When my ex-husband and I divorced three years ago, my lawyer suggested spending what I considered to be an outlandish amount of money ($7,500) to hire an expert to value my ex’s pension with his employer, a large multinational company. My lawyer told me that this type of expert testimony would be necessary to prove value to the judge so that I would get my fair share. My expert came up with a value of $800,000, and the court gave my ex and me each one-half. Based on my getting this amount, which was supposed to continue for the rest of my life, I agreed to take alimony for four years until my husband retired, when his payments to me would stop and the pension begin.

I was scheduled to begin receiving payments of my half of his pension late this year, and I was counting on that cash each month to support me, along with Social Security. As it turned out, his pension is one of those we all have been reading about, and I may be lucky to get thirty cents on the dollar. This will ruin my retirement and my life. I’ll probably have to sell my house, but with the real estate market going out of sight, I don’t know if I will be able to afford anything similar. I want my lawyer to go back to court to get my alimony, but he says it’s too late. Other than cry, is there anything you can suggest?

Answer: The pension crisis that is hitting current and future retirees will also impact the lives of millions of unsuspecting divorced and divorcing men and women throughout the United States, creating a new challenge for matrimonial lawyers, not to mention certified public accountants, certified valuation analysts, and actuaries who assist in these cases.

Based on a recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), current legislation and regulations don’t provide protection for more than 44 million current and future retirees – and their families. Because Congress has dropped the ball yet again and left loopholes big enough to drive tanks through, big business has underfunded its obligations to employees to the tune of nearly $500 billion. Few have been penalized for this. As a result, the government agency that insures pension benefits -- The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (“PBGC”) – is more than $23 billion short of what it needs to pay current pension obligations.

And, with courts now allowing the airline industry to use bankruptcy to walk away from the balance of its unfounded promises, it’s not outside the realm of probability that you might not only not receive the pension you bargained for, but, as a taxpayer, you and the rest of us may also see our tax dollars used to cover these pension payments – a situation not unlike the savings and loan bailout of years past.

What to do? Crying won’t help fix this systemic problem. If your agreement and decree terminated your alimony based upon your receiving the pension, depending on the wording, you might have an option. If you do get back in court, remember that your ex has been fed from the same spoon and may not be able to pay any support. We suggest that you raise a stink with your state’s U.S. senators and your member of Congress, as they are the folks directly responsible for this travesty that places the interests of big business over that of the individual.

Next Week: It’s not just private pensions that could ruin divorce settlements.