Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
It's Lacey, and I'm Lauren, and welcome to another episode of the Llamas Podcast.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: And so today we're going to continue on talking about, like, reality TV and how it works with real life and laws. So we're continuing talking about Sister Wives today. And once again, I'm struggling with allergies and my nose has stopped up. So I apologize for that, but we will start.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: I'm sleep deprived.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: I got sleep. My nose is just, like, nice. And it is already June, but the allergy count on the weather channel was high.
[00:00:41] Speaker A: So, yeah, I'm just living with Lucas, trying to adjust to sleeping in a cpap, which means I'm not sleeping.
He fell asleep in the mask. Yeah, he's got the whole mask. He fell asleep in it last night. Well, it just covers the nose and he fell asleep in it last night, so that was really good. One of my friends said to play music. Kristen did, and that really helped.
Like, he rocked himself to sleep, and then I added the oxygen, and he kept it on for about 15 minutes before he freaked out. So great progress because this has taken us, like, a year to even get to this point. But because we're not at this point, the sleep doctor said I have to sleep with him every single night because if I don't, if I leave the room, he takes the mask off, and so that means I have to stay in the room. So right now I am sleeping with him. Thankfully, there's two beds in his room so I can sleep.
Like, when he falls asleep, I move him over to the other bed, but I have to, like, keep him right beside me until then. And it's been rough. I'm exhausted.
I know it sucks. I wish I could just take it myself. But, I mean, he's. He's really resilient. Like, I mean, I'm shocked last night happened where he actually fell asleep in it because I didn't think we'd get there. So, you know, baby steps.
[00:01:58] Speaker B: Can you get my husband a cpap? Because he snores all night, every night.
[00:02:02] Speaker A: Well, then he needs to get a sleep study.
[00:02:05] Speaker B: I don't think he has sleep apnea. I think he just, like, snores. But it's annoying because he. He'll be dead asleep snoring, and I'll have to wake him up.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: So I knew that was Mark. I can't do. I can't sleep with snoring. Cannot.
[00:02:21] Speaker B: Well, and speaking, I guess, of all this trying to sleep when other people are snoring, I imagine that would be hard when you have to deal with four different other spouses and rotating amongst all of them and their different sleep. Sleep patterns and habits.
So today.
[00:02:41] Speaker A: Machines.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: Well, like, I guess, like, does Cody, like, in this type situation, does he have, like, right, you know, like a different toothbrush too? Like, what. Does he carry a different pillow around every night? Like, that's one thing on the poly family is they said they do switch pillows to. So, like, in the poly family show, the men rotate bedrooms and they switch pillows. But then I'm like, you're sleeping. Okay. I'm weird about, like, body gunk, and I'm thinking, like, you're sleeping in somebody else's sheets with all the, like, body soils. I'm like, what if they didn't take a shower right before they went to bed? I'm like, there's body and everything. Like, natural stuff. But, like, yeah, out. It grosses me out. And like, from a germy perspective, bodily perspective.
And then I may not even use top sheets. Like, a lot of people don't anymore, which is a sin.
[00:03:39] Speaker A: But my mom, she doesn't wear one.
[00:03:43] Speaker B: Shouldn't have a top sheet.
That's weird because most of the people in her age group would.
[00:03:50] Speaker A: She just leaves with a comforter.
[00:03:52] Speaker B: No, there too much grossness.
[00:03:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: But in that sense, like, what we were talking about today, like, okay, so in these situations, like, the biggest thing, I think the drama we've had recently with sister wives comes into, like, the issue with the land and Coyote Pass. So one thing is, since they are not married, well, they're only married to one.
A lot of stuff comes into plays with how they own real estate and stuff. So in South Carolina, if you own a piece of property with you and your spouse, it doesn't automatically go to your spouse at their death unless it has, like, so we don't have. Was on his tenants by the entirety, which a lot of states do. Like, North Carolina has it. That means if you're married and you own your home together, it automatically goes to the spouse. Outside of that, outside of probate, outside of everything.
In South Carolina, we have to have, like, joint tenants with right of survivorship, which can be done for anybody. Not husband and wife. But in these situations, like with Coyote Pass, they all own this big chunk of real estate and all on different parcels. And, like, the only ones that's married in this is Robin and Cody. So, like, in applying for loans and applying for all these documents, Robin and Cody were one unit, and the others are separate units. And. And they own their property separately. And Cody has no control over how they do things because they're not married. It's not, it's their own pieces of property. So in this whole situation they bought this whole big plot of land to try to, you know, have this family like.
And in that situation the issue is that Mary and Janelle were holding out to get their money. And I don't blame them one bit. But if, you know, he was.
The thing is when you are not married to somebody, you don't have legal right, like especially with real property. I think this is one thing people don't realize. Like if you're going to buy a house with somebody and you're not married, but you don't put your name on the deed, even though you have helped pay the mortgage, pay the bills, but your name isn't on the deed, you don't have any legal rights to that property. So realistically that property can it. But once you're married, it doesn't matter if your name's on it or not because in most states we have, you know, equitable division of these assets. So like Robin and Cody share, you know, he could have fought in court to do something like if she was like divorced, all this type stuff. But like with Janelle and Mary share, he couldn't really do anything about except possibly filing like a partition type action to like force them to sell. But that would have been really hard and really complicated where he just had no rights to that. And thinking of these type situations, like with real estate, I think it was really complicated. But also in the medical realm, I feel like that is somewhere we see a lot of complications with the poly families because legally like end of life decisions are your next of kin.
Well with outside of Robin, Cody can't make those decisions at the time. Even though they consider themselves married and everything, Cody isn't making those decisions for Janelle and Mary. And that's something I was just thinking about. Like if they went into the hospital and there was a situation like should we operate, should we do life support, would have made the decisions for them at that time because technically like he's not your spouse. Recognized by law.
What.
[00:07:43] Speaker A: Follow up questions.
So with the Land Coyote pass it was in lots and like there was a lot like that has Cody, Robin and Mary on it. If they can't agree on what to do, it's sold and then divided in thirds or divided in half and then half goes to Cody and Robin because they're one unit and then half goes to Mary. Like how does like. But since they're on the deeds, doesn't that give them some rights even though they're not married?
[00:08:10] Speaker B: Yes. So, like, it depends, like, how they're on it. Like if they were 50, 50 owners or if they were a third. A third, A third. So like, the deed can specify, like the percentage ownership. But no, like, Cody could not do anything and sell that land without Robin and Mary's consent.
And even say Cody had paid, you know, the majority of the interest, what is on the deed controls. So there is no equitable division. Like, say, you know, it was 100,000 and Cody paid 90,000, but the deed says a third, a third, a third. He has no right to try to force Mary to do anything.
[00:08:51] Speaker A: Gotcha. Am I. So if, like you said, let's say they were all still married and Janelle needed a emergency decision made medically, while that usually would go to the husband, if she had done a health care power of attorney and designated Cody as that, would that be a way around it?
[00:09:11] Speaker B: It would if she actually did, like a health care power of attorney.
And if she had put that in writing or like a healthcare proxy, those type things, but without that, he would have no right to make her decisions.
And I guess since their children are adults, it would have went to the adult children to make that decision, not Cody. And I don't know, like, they never really talked a lot about the legalities of this stuff. They did. So I do wonder, like, did they ever put these documents in place? Or like they said, like, you know, a lot of times I think Janelle was the one that helped control the finances. But when they had a bank account, were they all on just one bank account where they all had survivorship rights or, like, did they all have these separate bank accounts? And in those situations, like, since he wasn't a spouse or she wasn't, say, say Cody had his own bank account, then he dies.
It's not going to be split between all of them. Unless he had like a will or like a payable on death to all of them. It is just going to go to Robin or Robin's.
Then the issue of the kids come into play. Like, since these kids. I don't know what the laws are about birth certificates in the different states, but I don't even know if his name could go on their birth certificate since they were born outside of wedlock to somebody else that was already married. I don't know what those laws are.
But in South Carolina, for a birth certificate, the husband, even if, you know it's not the husband's Child. Child is automatically put on the birth certificate. I had a person I know one time, and they had been separated from their wife for years. They just never officially got divorced because of the expense with divorce.
And after they'd been separated for years, she had a child that was not his. These were two white people. The child came out biracial, so obviously it was not his. But in the terms of the law, he was a presumed father until court, until something else in court could prove otherwise. I, obviously, they didn't even have to go through the DNA expenses and all that because everybody knew who the dad was.
But this guy still had to show up in court and go through all this because he's the presumed father because of being in a marriage.
So I don't know how all of that worked for them. But the thought process with estate planning was, if Cody dies, will these kids have to go, like, prove paternity in the probate court if he didn't have a will? And on the flip side, if one of the kids died, like, what happened when Janelle. Does Cody even inherit from Janelle's child? And I will say in South Carolina, typically, children don't have to prove as much to inherit under the paternity side of things, but a parent actually has to prove that they were the parent and involved in that child's life to be able to inherit if they weren't on, like, the birth certificate and weren't a part of their lives.
[00:12:09] Speaker A: And I think this kind of goes into a lot of what I was saying last week or.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: So, I mean, for me, I believe in monogamy, but I don't judge what other people do. Right. To each their own. And if this is somebody's religious beliefs, so be it. Who am I to say, like, you just can't do that? The problem is the legality of it, though. And I do understand from a public policy standpoint, these issues. Right. Because like you were saying, going back to. Let's use sister wives as an example, let's say Cody needs an emergency operation, and you allow him to legally marry all the wives, and all the wives disagree on what should happen. You know, let's say he's on life support. Whether or not to take him off that or not, you're going to have to have laws that guide medical professionals on who gets to make that call. If there's no existing power of attorney, and that's, you know, complicated. Let's say Cody and Robin tragically pass away and he's married to all the kids. Well, Do Robin and Cody's children go to Janelle or Christine or Mary? If there's no will and there's nobody doing legal guardianship, that's an ugly fight. And I just don't think the state has the resources, and I don't know that we can make enough statutes and laws to guide all these situations that can arise if we allow people to legally marry multiple people. And I do understand not criminally prosecuting it.
If you hold yourselves out right, you're not getting the marriage license. But, like, I don't think Cody should have been or any of the wives been criminally prosecuted. They were all consenting adults. And if they want to hold themselves out as a marriage and in a religious marriage, I don't think it should be penalized criminally.
You know, only time it's an issue then for me, clearly, is when somebody is not old enough to consent.
But I just think there's just so many situations like land, taxes, child support, all. Huh.
[00:14:27] Speaker B: Like, child support. Like, how do you determine if he's actually supposed to have to pay child support or not when you're married?
Because married people don't pay child support. And if there's never, like, then, yeah, honestly, family lawyers, y' all should be out there wanting polygamy because think about all the money you can make, like, when they separate and divorce, like, and the child support issues. And like, especially, like.
Like in Cody's situation, you know, he knows he's the dad, but in these quad families where you don't know who the dad is and you start getting into all this litigation, y' all could be making some big bucks with this.
[00:15:06] Speaker A: And think about this. Let's say, like, Cody and Christine divorced, right? But he's legally married. If this was. If this was allowed to all the other wives and all of his kids are minor children, and he wants 50. 50 custody.
Okay, how does that schedule work? Are the kids going to change nights when Cody changes nights? Like, if his 50, 50 Sunday to Wednesday, does that mean if he's with Robin Sunday and Monday and Janelle Tuesday and Wednesday, the kids just stay with him, or does the wife get to pick which wife they go to? So, like, all of these things come into play. And I think that's why, as a public policy matter, we're not going to see, at least in our lifetime, where you can legally marry multiple people. Because it's just. It's way.
I just don't think there's enough.
I mean, family is already messy. Family law and all these things that we're talking about with disputes that can happen.
I mean, just when you add all of these extra layers, I just don't know that the. The courts can handle it. Like, I don't know what you can.
[00:16:12] Speaker B: Do when even think about taxes. Like you mentioned before, like, you know, as a society, we were built to push families because as you say, like we push the nuclear family because taxes. You get a tax write off for being married. You get tax write offs for having kids.
And so think about that from a tax perspective all the way. The IRS code and regs would have to be completely redone because who gets to count the dependents? And do you all file taxes as one big tax return? And let me tell with the IRS is a nightmare in itself. On right. Anything to redo everything to fit this is gonna be insane.
[00:16:53] Speaker A: Like, yeah, yeah. Like, it's just. I just don't think as a.
I just don't think it can work. I just don't think it can work legally. I can understand the spiritual marriage part and if people want to hold themselves out as spiritually married and stuff. But then you have to understand if you are. If this is what you believe in and you're going to hold yourself out as spiritually married and stuff, then you know what the risks are, are in buying property with this person, having children with this person. And so, like, you know, I guess my advice would be if anybody is going to live, I hate to call it, like, if this is your life, if this is what you want to do, just protect yourself. Like any. The more you can get in writing, the better it's going to be. If you're, you know, if there's four of y' all and y' all are going in on property, make sure everybody's on the deed equally.
[00:17:47] Speaker B: Like an LLC where there's like rights and stuff, like operating agreement contracts.
[00:17:53] Speaker A: You almost have to set your family up as a business. Right. And designate where kids go if something happens to one of you. Both of you have just everything documented in writing with a lawyer and honestly set it up as a corporation because I just don't think a marriage license and your standard marriage license is going to cut it in a poly family.
I just hope that they can legalize it because of it.
[00:18:22] Speaker B: I think. Well, and kind of speaking of this, I would love to get somebody in the future as like an expert like on our podcast as a. Yes. That talks about reproductive rights and how all that. Like, it's kind of a spin off topic, but like how IVF and like all of this works with like same sex couples or even like sperm donors and like egg donors and those type things. Because in today's time, so much is changing and like our laws have got to like, I don't think Polly is ever going to be. But we do see a lot of people using egg donors, sperm donors who can't conceive on their own. Are same sex couples doing things like somebody's egg, but somebody else is carrying it? There's actually something that one of my clients recently was telling me about their same sex couple. They're married, but they're going to use one egg and the other partner is going to carry it. And like they had to go through all these hoops legally. And so I think it'd be cool in the future for us to kind of talk about the different ways with just fertility rights and who has the rights to eggs, because that was a big issue between Sofia Vergara and her ex husband before Joe Manganiello was their eggs and who had rights to those and like how technology has really changed that. So I would love it in the future for us to find somebody to come in and really talk about those issues with us. But I think today we're like pretty much wrapping up Sister wives, but I think we're still gonna do reality TV next week and kind of talk a little bit more about the Mormon wives and some of like their legal aspects and some of the cease and desist letters. And we can even judge Whitney for posting her video while her child was really sick with RSV and just discuss the mom aspects of it too.
[00:20:08] Speaker A: Perfect.
Well, I'm looking forward to that because, you know, I binge watched both seasons and I am just stalking a lot of them on Tick Tock. So I will see you next week.
[00:20:20] Speaker B: Have a good week. And we look forward. Follow us on Instagram, social medias, whatever. Send us dms and if you are an expert in fertility laws, send us a dm. We'd love to have you on here.
[00:20:31] Speaker A: Yep, sounds good. Bye.
