Featured Image Credit: Inside Edition
Topics: Lottery, Money, Sex and Relationships, Social Media
Niamh Shackleton
Topics: Lottery, Money, Sex and Relationships, Social Media
What would you do if your ex came into a huge amount of money shortly after your divorce?
Well, this is a situation Eileen Murray had to face after her ex husband Mike Weirsky won a multimillion dollar jackpot shortly after they went their separate ways.
The two were married for 15 years, over the course of which Mike struggled to hold down a steady job.
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With this in mind, Eileen was the breadwinner of their household.
Now, for anyone who was financially dependant on their significant other during their relationship (like Mike was), they may be eligible for alimony. This is where the breadwinner continues to pay their ex partner money for a period of time, even after their marriage has ended.
WomensLaw.org explains: "Your spouse can be ordered to pay you alimony if the judge finds that you were financially dependent on your spouse during the marriage ('the dependent party')."
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In Mike and Eileen's case, Eileen was order to pay alimony to her ex for five years after their divorce.
But little did she and the judge who ruled on the alimony payments know that Mike would go on to be a multimillionaire just five months after their divorce.
In 2019, he won a staggering $273 million in the Mega Millions lottery.
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After his huge win, Eileen spoke to Inside Edition about it all and the alimony she still had to pay him despite being substantially richer than before.
"To him, [the alimony] is pocket change at this point," she said.
"Think about the amount of money that he has just won. What I'm paying him is a pittance."
Understandably, Eileen argued at the time that she'd like to stop paying him alimony.
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"I don't want anyone to misconstrue that I'm coming after him," she said, insisting that she wasn't interested in getting her hands on any of his winnings.
Snippets of Eileen's Inside Edition interview are still doing the rounds on social media to this day, sparking people to share their thoughts on the matter.
Speaking on Mike winning both the lottery and getting alimony from his ex, one person said: "He won twice!"
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Others argued that it was the right thing to do to give Eileen a bit of the money after supporting her ex for so long.
"It would be a nice idea to gift her a little $$ money to make her life a little easier," one said.
"She did support him throughout the marriage," they added.
"I’d still give her a few mil for supporting him all those years and move on," agreed someone else.
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What do you think?