Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Interesting stats on divorce

I thought readers might be interested in these divorce figures (via Maggies Farm):

The divorce rate in America for first marriage is 41%
The divorce rate in America for second marriage is 60%
The divorce rate in America for third marriage is 73%


I thought this was also worth noting:

The divorce rate in America for childless couples and couples with children
According to discovery channel, couples with children have a slightly lower rate of divorce than childless couples.

Sociologists believe that childlessness is also a common cause of divorce. The absence of children leads to loneliness and weariness and even in the United States, at least 66 per cent of all divorced couples are childless.

Labels:

57 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

makes sense.

Once you have been divorced once, you understand that "till death do us part" isn't serious.

Also, without children, there is less incentive to stay together when hormones pull you to another relationship.

11:04 AM, December 08, 2009  
Blogger Dave Cornutt said...

"Sociologists believe that childlessness is also a common cause of divorce. "

Maybe it's a matter of semantics, but it sure looks to me like that's confusing cause with effect. Childless couples get divorced because it's easier, but I see no evidence in the stats presented that not having children is actually a significant cause of divorce.

11:58 AM, December 08, 2009  
Blogger Jack Steiner said...

14 years into my marriage I can't imagine doing this another two or three times.

Wouldn't say impossible to a second, but a third forget it.

And that is really a stretch. At some point it gets to be a bit expensive to keep paying attorneys to help you split up again...

12:31 PM, December 08, 2009  
Blogger Mike said...

It's certainly rare to have a couple go "gee, we don't have kids, and it's not that great anymore, let's just get a divorce," but don't kid yourself. A childless married couple that has no intention of having kids is basically just a more committed dating relationship. The primary ancient reason for marriage was for the purpose of having a family. Even today, the laws still partly reflect that. Couples that reject raising a family have nothing but finances keeping them together when things get bad or undesirable.

12:58 PM, December 08, 2009  
Blogger Mark Roulo said...

"It's certainly rare to have a couple go, 'gee, we don't have kids, and it's not that great anymore, let's just get a divorce,'..."

But it is common for a married couple to "stay together for the kids." By the time the kids are out of the house, it may not be worth the trouble to get divorced.

-Mark Roulo

1:18 PM, December 08, 2009  
Blogger Quasimodo said...

Once you have been divorced once, you understand that "till death do us part" isn't serious.

or you understand that when you make a vow your word doesn't mean much

1:34 PM, December 08, 2009  
Blogger DADvocate said...

Occasionally, I consider the possibility of getting married again. Statistically, there's no point in trying. Too little gain for the risk of what I could lose (again).

Judging from the single women I meet in my age range, etc, it would take an intensive, wide ranging search to find someone with whom I'd be willing to give it a shot. Plus, I really enjoy my freedom, especially freedom from being nagged.

2:02 PM, December 08, 2009  
Blogger Unknown said...

Wow dadvocate, your last paragraph is EXACTLY how I feel, just change the single women to single men. No more marriage for me either, but a long term monogamous partner who would retire with me on a beach sure would be grand.

3:47 PM, December 08, 2009  
Blogger BarryD said...

Couples that reject raising a family have nothing but finances keeping them together when things get bad or undesirable.

That's also true of those who get divorced within months after the last kid moves into the college dorms, and this certainly happens.

The inconvenience of adding "children" to "finances" when considering a divorce doesn't equate to anything deeper sustaining the relationship. Your post reminds me of Bill Murray in Stripes: "You can't leave! The plants will die."

If one wants a long-term partner who will retire with him/her on a beach somewhere, there'd best be a stronger bond than the inconvenience of divvying up the kids and cash.

My wife and I had a son. He died. Yet, today, we both find more to sustain our relationship than before. We choose to be together; we want to be.

Are there ever times where the incredible inconvenience of splitting up is an added motivator for one or both of us to seek a deeper love for each other, instead of a way out? Sure there are.

But, if you really think that disincentives are the only ties that bind, I pity you and I pity your spouse even more.

4:02 PM, December 08, 2009  
Blogger Dr.Alistair said...

i just really want ot be with the woman i`m with right now....and she wants to be with me.

she`s my third and i`m her second.

the stats can get te f**c, as they say in scotland.

i have noticed that psychiatrists and msws all study stats and then never use them again once they graduate.

politicians like stats too.

my position is that i`ve learned a lot in 49 years, about how to live and communicate and yes, i made mistakes and poor choices...but i`m confident that what goes on between my woman and i is permenant.

so, the person i was, that contributed to those stats..no longer exists.

at least in the sense of being destructive in a relationship.

4:55 PM, December 08, 2009  
Blogger DADvocate said...

Vicki - there's probably lots of us who feel that way. I prefer the mountains to the beach, but I could get into sailing and sea kayaking.

7:46 PM, December 08, 2009  
Blogger The Crack Emcee said...

Marriage is supposed to be a once in a lifetime thing. I did it.

Never again.

8:10 PM, December 08, 2009  
Blogger Aurelian said...

No shit Crack -

I did it for 16 years until she literally went crazy. Long term relationship next, not marriage. She starts talking "more permanent arrangement" the brakes come on.

8:56 PM, December 08, 2009  
Blogger Topher said...

dr. alistair,

Your post backs up my feeling about marriage today - for those who are committed, mature, loves of their lives, a marriage ceremony and certificate is redundant. They will be together forever whether or not they were pronounced so.

When you think of that and the immense costs of divorce, it might make you think that formal marriage is really more of a threat than a bond, a way to add some insurance and disincentive to people who aren't really built to go the distance.

Conversely, those who have poisoned couplehoods are not going to have their problems washed away by a fancy party called a wedding.

For the doubters, no proof will suffice; for the faithful, no proof is needed.

10:16 PM, December 08, 2009  
Blogger Flash Gordon said...

I'm suspicious of those stats. I fact, I don't believe them.

2:39 AM, December 09, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It would be interesting to calculate the net flow of money from men to women in all of these legal actions.

I know that around 7 billion is paid out in alimony every year. The net transfer of assets from people who earned them to people who get them based on marriage / divorce would obviously dwarf that by magnitudes.

3:40 AM, December 09, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I suspect Tiger Woods is about to join these divorce statistics.

He earned the money and the woman takes it away from him because of these artificial, odd, throwback rules/laws.

But still, every year, millions of men line up like cattle for the slaughter. If they DON'T get divorced, they can like forward to a lifetime of indentured servitude to a nagging bitch.

The reason for all of this is that God/Nature gave women a window of time when they are young in which they can attract the men to the extent that men want to marry them. If the men could see their lives when she is 47 years old, demanding, bitchy, unsexy and absolutely worthless in terms of earning money or helping out in life - and the men are legally bound up to support her and try to meet her demands - the men would probably rethink things.

Oh Boy, sign me up.

3:46 AM, December 09, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am not sure if any of these stats mean much. In the first link, the first-time divorce rate is listed as 41% but in the second link the rate for first-time marriages is 50%. That is a very big difference in stated rates. I had assumed till now that we were at about 50% for first marriage divorces...now I am unsure.

With the joblessness and recession, all these matters will be significantly changed for a few years.

8:23 AM, December 09, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

There is a difference between the actual (historical) rate and the projected (future) rate for people who marry today.

I think those were 41% and 50% respectively, and there isn't really a problem there.

Add in the very real fact that a good percentage of marriages that end in death (instead of divorce) are not happy ones, and the fact that men usually pay in marriage and upon divorce, and you wonder why men get married. I fully understand why women - for instance Heather Mills and Tiger's wife - get married. I completely understand that side of it, just not the men's side.

8:27 AM, December 09, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

By the way, Mary Winkler's marriage was a "successful" one - it didn't end in divorce.

8:28 AM, December 09, 2009  
Blogger Derve Swanson said...

I think most married couples who choose badly find themselves ... stuck; some get themselves out of that rut.

With children, you're really stuck, and since there's no escaping the former spouse permanently because of the children, I suspect they indeed soldier on in their marraiges. For better or worse, and where there's innocent kids now party to the arrangement, statistics show the kids are generally better when the parents suck it up and just stay married, since you indeed are forever connected.

I also wonder how unhappy in his marriage the person who wrote of the lonely and "weary" lives of the childless. Betcha he's stuck in a rut, and thinking of all those wearied childless keeps him going. Just a hunch.

8:30 AM, December 09, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If I had the opportunity to get wined and dined for 4 years while I don't lift a finger for any work at all - and I got to take out my frustrations on the spouse whenever I wanted, making the spouse's life hell - and millions were being transferred to me during the 4 years and then a lump sum of $70 million was transferred to me - tax free - at the end of the 4 years, I would take it.

I would take it.

And that's exactly what Heather Mills marriage to Paul McCartney was.

OF COURSE women want to get married - and they usually "marry up", or at least think they are doing so - but I honestly haven't figured out at the tender age of nearly 50 why men should do so. I've been very happy in my life with long-term girlfriends.

Aside from religious reasons (which I'm not into at all), I can't think of a single good reason for a man to get married. Social pressure from your relatives and friends is not a good reason in my book.

8:34 AM, December 09, 2009  
Blogger Cham said...

I don't have kids and I'm not lonely or weary. I'm quite happy. I am wondering where this guy got his data.

FWIW, Someone did a study a few years ago that shows women with kids are more depressed than women without kids.

8:36 AM, December 09, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

And if your reason is pressure from your girlfriend ("enter into this one-sided arrangement where I can take all your stuff or I'll leave you"), find a different one. One who is not a thinly veiled hooker.

8:36 AM, December 09, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm with dadvocate and vicki. I'm getting close to the end of divorce proceedings that have taken as long as the marriage lasted (about 4 years) to get through the courts and that alone is enough to put me off the idea of getting married again. It's not worth the agro, even though I feel sad about it all.

Part of me still wants that kind of commitment, but I also know how easy it is for one partner to just decide they don't want to try anymore, even after having two kids together. So at this point, I'd be happy with a stable, committed relationship without any pressing need for marriage. Maybe after a few years I'll consider it, but aside from the romantic notion of it, it seems a bit pointless for me now.

9:03 AM, December 09, 2009  
Blogger Derve Swanson said...

JG, you sound like a whooor. No offense. I doubt most mothers think of themselves as whores making the best arrangements for their time and body like that. No polls handy, but I've a hunch...


Aside from religious reasons (which I'm not into at all), I can't think of a single good reason for a man to get married.

Children and family. Home and hearth.

Some guys want children, and take care to check out the quality of the soil where they're planting their seed.

Sure you can still breed on the run, but no woman no child for the most part. And many men want some input into how that child is raised, rather than leaving all that up to the place they left the sperm.

9:06 AM, December 09, 2009  
Blogger Derve Swanson said...

And JG, from what I've seen of the new relationships out there, often it's the women with the homey-like "things" and incomes that lure the men into the marraige-like relationships.

Plus the promise of all the cash and goodies to collect if you go the way of the "wedding day is the marraige" route.

9:09 AM, December 09, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Mary sez: "... often it's the women with the homey-like "things" and incomes that lure the men into the marraige-like relationships."

-----------

I think that's pretty much on the low end of the socioeconomic ladder. You must watch a lot of daytime talk and court shows. The girl has a 27" TV and a bunch of worthless souvenirs and knick-knacks as part of her "interior decorating" in her trailer. And she's still interested in marrying up, because her husband-to-be says that his cousin is going to get him a job at the saw mill.

Or something like that.

As far as "home and hearth" goes, I am probably an oddball because I just never cared too much about that.

As far as kids go: A man damn well better be rich to have them today. If Cupcake decides to leave with them, he is going to be forking over lots of money. Or go to jail.

Last point: Are women really worth all the money that men pay for them? Sometimes the women taking the most have the worst personalities. They take and take and treat other people like crap. Why is that worth anything?

9:38 AM, December 09, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Home and hearth" redux:

A lot of men I know are not particularly interested in the big house in the suburbs thing - they are in one because the wife pressured them.

I understand from real estate agents that the wife is usually the decision-maker and driver behind the big house thing.

9:48 AM, December 09, 2009  
Blogger Derve Swanson said...

I think that's pretty much on the low end of the socioeconomic ladder. You must watch a lot of daytime talk and court shows.

No, I think men are just getting hit harder in the recession, and gathering household "things" is often seen as a woman's pursuit.

Men often get trapped by the trappings, it seems to me. Especially those who can't cook or maintain their own things independently (cars, clothes, toys, etc.) If you need someone to feed you, take care of the clothes, take the care in to get it services, be there when the lawn care guys and housekeeper comes, that's pretty much a middle-class or upper-middle class marraige.

Some people voluntarily give up their independence, some weren't very much independent to begin with. Either way, some probably marry for the wrong reasons and then are disappointed when what they've "bought" doesn't match up with what they thought they were getting.

As far as "home and hearth" goes, I am probably an oddball because I just never cared too much about that.

Nothing wrong with that. You just asked why a man nowadays would go the marraige route, and for plenty of them, the wanting kids and a home thing is the reason.

Are women really worth all the money that men pay for them?

If you have to ask, you're probably paying too much, friend.

9:52 AM, December 09, 2009  
Blogger Derve Swanson said...

I understand from real estate agents that the wife is usually the decision-maker and driver behind the big house thing.

I suspect the real estate agent profits too off of trapping a person into something they don't want...

Question is: why are so many men today too weak to stand up for they want?

My theory is... just like the feminized frogs, the guys are becoming just as needy in wanting the wedding day show for cash and prizes; the signing up for things on the gift lists at department stores; the wanting a big place in the suburbs to play house in...

It's only after reality has kicked in a bit, only then do they question what they wanted at the time. Then they're trapped by the trappings, and often it's too late. Particularly if the family has grown beyond the original two, and now there are other little people's needs to plan for.

Independence -- an underrated value making a comeback lately, it seems.

9:57 AM, December 09, 2009  
Blogger Unknown said...

Cham --

"FWIW, Someone did a study a few years ago that shows women with kids are more depressed than women without kids."

And, there are studies that show women with kids are happier. Social studies are no more than opinion dressed up in numbers to be made to look like science.

11:20 AM, December 09, 2009  
Blogger Dr.Alistair said...

i`m a romantic idealist and i found another one to share my life with.

our relationship isn`t about accumilation of assets. we both have two children, and actually , mine are quite a bit younger than hers.

we just enjoy the hearth and home thing. children, cats and dogs, dinner by the fire, cottaging in summer, tobogganing in winter.

i do like these things and can`t do that alone....so, i found someone who shared values that i found important in life (though i don`t like country music and she doesn`t inflict me with it...)

lifetime commitment...sure. marriage? i guess i`m old fashioned. she and i like the sound of my last name.

and as i get older i will learn to like travel.

it`s what the relationship asks for.

12:21 PM, December 09, 2009  
Blogger Aurelian said...

Mary

I will tell you why they don't stand up. Because, in most cases that I have seen it leads to divorce and men getting socked by the system. I stood up to get involved more in the dream we had for 24 acres of property and a 6,000 sq. ft. home and she just freaked. Thought it was hers to do with as she thought fit. My idea is that we would take the best part of our respective dreams and combine them. No. It was her dream that counted. This lead to divorce and loss of the property. She has the property but can't maintain it with one income and what I pay her in alimony. It now is truly a shithole but she still has it and that is what counts for her. The house is literally falling apart but that is her problem and not mine.

1:09 PM, December 09, 2009  
Blogger Dr.Alistair said...

precision in language. describe what you want clearly, define your boundaries as clearly possible...and listen to the responses you get.

my girlfriend`s son dated a girl for a year or so and then broke up with her.

soon he found that he missed her and they got back together.

he discovered quickly why they broke up in the first place and he suffered daily with her attitude and expectations.

he finally broke up with her just before leaving for italy for two weeks.

he has dated a few girls since, including a really attractive girl who has shown interest in him for a while now.

he dated her once and put her feet the fire over a few issues that he didn`t agree with and she freaked out and called him all sorts of names before storming out of the club they were in.

as he said later, some guys his age don`t mind dating a party girl as long as they get a piece....but he wanted a girlfriend, not a pr********.

many guys don`t figure that one out until they are really scorned....and old.

girls will tell you thier values early on. they will tell you about how they expect to be treated and what they need from you.

if you aren`t too busy imagining sleeping with her you can learn all sorts of things about how she sees relationships and men and what will happen if you live together and share finances.

saying you didn`t know what she was like is like running out of gas.....

..it takes preparation.

caveat emptor.

or some such.

4:36 PM, December 09, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Dr." Alistair,

Spare us your "wisdom".

I really truly mean that.

Near as I can tell, you are almost 50 years old and you have had your current relationship for a very short period - you are still in the infatuation phase. Since you have a new relationship, it also means that you have fucked up every other relationship in your nearly 50 years.

Your "wisdom" about preparation - like preparation not to run out of gas - falls a bit flat; not only because of your own hypocrisy, but also because people can and do cover up their real intentions. Especially, especially women, as they are learning how to do that when boys are catching frogs or taking apart a radio.

Please ... you're embarrassing yourself. You truly are. Just go off and live your charmed life - with all your preparations for your current infatuation - and spare us the wisdom.

Sickening.

5:31 PM, December 09, 2009  
Blogger David Foster said...

Are the numbers quoted really correct? Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see anything at the link that specified the original source of the data.

6:07 PM, December 09, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

David,

There was a study recently from a university (I'm fairly sure it was Rutgers) that quantified a projected divorce rate of 50% (for couples getting married today). The divorce rate was a bit lower than 50% on a recent historical basis.

I remember that study because someone used it to show me that the divorce rate was NOT 50%, so she could safely marry in the knowledge that it would last forever and ever, and the kicker was that her own evidence showed (near the end in the projections section) that she had a 50% chance of divorce as a newly marrying person.

There are people with agendas on both sides. The anti-marriage people want higher numbers and the pro-marriage people want lower numbers. Further, both camps can't believe the numbers presented by the other side, or even neutral numbers.

My take is: The divorce rate is pretty high. Men usually pay and pay and otherwise suffer (like having their kids taken away) upon divorce. I think that's reality.

6:15 PM, December 09, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah, and I know on the other side that Heather Mills suffered.

Right.

6:16 PM, December 09, 2009  
Blogger 1charlie2 said...

girls will tell you their values early on. they will tell you about how they expect to be treated and what they need from you.

if you aren`t too busy imagining sleeping with her you can learn all sorts of things about how she sees relationships and men and what will happen if you live together and share finances.


Very true in most cases. Oh, there are those outliers where a person turns 180 degrees, but they are rare. I've had several friends (both genders) who complained down the road about their partners, and they hated hearing "But s/he was like that all along. Don't you remember when . . . ?"

Which is why, years ago, I stopped giving people advice about their prospective partners when they asked me. No one listened. Even though sometimes one's friends (not wanting desperately to climb into so-and-so's pants) are more objective judges than you are.

Happily married 21 years now. Chose someone whose interests were not exactly like mine, but whose primary values were. Which is the advice I will gIve to my own children. It doesn't guarantee success, but I think its absence all but guarantees failure.

6:28 PM, December 09, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Another strategy is to marry an ugly or fat woman (who probably won't leave you) and then just don't leave her. Because it all seems to be a competition here.

6:36 PM, December 09, 2009  
Blogger Xiaoding said...

"Since you have a new relationship, it also means that you have fucked up every other relationship in your nearly 50 years."

What if they were lousy relationships? Then, it would be correct to end them. You can't make a judgement about this, without further info. You seem to be assuming, that a long relationship, is a good one. Well, not if one partner is slowly poisoning the other one!

7:57 PM, December 09, 2009  
Blogger David Foster said...

JG...no question the divorce rate is high, but the 60% and 73% numbers for second & third marriages don't feel right to me. True, some people are just bad actors and can't get along with *anyone*...but OTOH, surely there are quite a few people who improve with age and/or learn what drives them crazy about the other sex and avoid it in their next marriage.

8:28 PM, December 09, 2009  
Blogger SultanOfSuede said...

I'd like to see a study describing the rate of divorce in relation to the number of couples having sex before marriage. Meaning, are chaste couples more likely to have a lasting marriage.

You can spot a dud on the dating scene if you talk to them long enough and about enough things w/o throwing in physical intimacy. People in general have biochemical responses to sex which bonds them and can cloud their judgment. Men especially confuse intense pleasure with worthiness for marriage.

I've met women online and talked to them via email, chat and webcam. Overtime, they reveal those traits which would make them compatible/incompatible with me (or anyone else). The psychosis, if it exists, will eventually manifest and since my judgment isn't clouded by hormones or previous biochemically-charged encounters, I can pass on to the next opportunity. Obviously, under better circumstances, it would be ideal to meet women in a normal venue (no bars) like what our grandparents had. But, heck, the community based activities America once had are moribund.

I don't feel any pity for men who don't assess women on the basis of their worthiness for carrying on their names and then get taken to the cleaners. "I didn't know she was a crazy @#*@!." Farmers don't cast their best heirloom quality seeds on bad fields, but men do this regularly with the most messed up women. The cycle of crazy white women and their lawyer henchmen can only be stopped when men start acting a little more like Stoic, pagan Romans.

Master yourself and you can discern a good woman if and when she comes along. Keep having sex with whomever you meet and end up miserable. Do the math: Sex on average lasts between 3 and 12 minutes according to a recent study, yet a man can spend psychic/emotion/spiritual/money on a marriage that is a barren field. He's tilling exhausted soil, led their by his other parts of his body besides his brain.

12:18 AM, December 10, 2009  
Blogger Mom said...

Numbers sound right.
Marrying second time you've already failed once.
Marrying third time you've already failed twice.
Sometimes three years of experience is just one year three times.

2:26 AM, December 10, 2009  
Blogger Unknown said...

I am on the second marriage, it has lasted better than 16 years so far. One of my close friends has had three marriages, the last one has lasted something like twenty two years. I don't think we are that atypical. I don't trust the numbers.
JD

7:00 AM, December 10, 2009  
Blogger Derve Swanson said...

"Sex on average lasts between 3 and 12 minutes according to a recent study."

Seconding that, "I don't trust the numbers" skepticism.

Or maybe ... I've just been blessed?

10:07 AM, December 10, 2009  
Blogger Dr.Alistair said...

tether, tether, tether....because you refuse to change your tune regarding women, when someone makes a suggestion out of some considerable learning, growth and maturity, you have to attack the messenger.

if you break the message down objectively you will see that there is a strategy worth applying to the next few women you meet.

allow them to discuss thier feelings and attitudes toward relationships, money, ethics....etc..and you will be suprised how much they will tell you.

people love to talk about themselves, and they will tell you what they`ve got away with and what they expect.

and you do the same, whether you think you are or not.

then you have a choice.

the element in a system that has the most flexibility has the most control.

and that used to work for you didn`t it?

tantrums.

do you think that women don`t get your anger and resentment...the thing you project on to them?

i make these statements, not from an ego position, but from the understanding that men need to be able to exert flexibility over women in situations where they traditionally throw money around and lose all sense of measure because the woman is attractive.

to hell with the pretty face, there are thousands of them. we need to find out what`s on the inside, and the sooner a man can get a grip on his instincts, the sooner he can settle down and find out what she`s really like...beneath the hair-do and pretty dress.

so tether, i will ride out your challenges and your anger, and keep repeating what i know to be true of us all as men; that we want to find a partner that we can trust.

unless i`m actually wrong.

10:53 AM, December 10, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I honestly thought the first marriage divorce rate was higher. I was relieved that I didn't see the statement "fourth time's a charm". I know a couple guys who would try it just to see.

6:42 PM, December 10, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Men should know exactly what they are getting into with marriage.

Many men make the mistaken assumption that a woman should be grateful if he "took her away from that" and she sits on her ever-widening butt, watching Oprah and Dr. Phil, while he works a soul-destroying, stressful job.

Wrong.

Exactly the opposite. The legal position is that she is now officially a dumb shit without any job skills and either you or the taxpayer have to pay for her. And I - and most people - and the judge - will vote for YOU.

That means alimony, and $7 billion in alimony is (officially) paid in the United States every year. I can back that up. That also means asset transfers when Pumpkin would rather fuck her unemployed boyfriend but have you pay for it. And I have no idea what that amount is, but I don't think 100s of billions would be off base. There is a massive, massive transfer of money to women.

If you have kids, they are hers in the eyes of the legal system. That means: You pay for them, but she otherwise controls everything. So get that checkbook-writing finger ready. Otherwise, you go to jail. And I'm not kidding about the jail thing.

Lots of other details about marriage today. Look into it if you are a man.

9:07 PM, December 10, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

And I know that YOU will never get a divorce. CupCake is the most wonderful woman in the world who would NEVER resort to nasty stuff in family court. She doesn't even know about that stuff.

And I have never run across a man who talked otherwise, a man who said that he would probably be getting a divorce.

There ARE men who enter into prenuptial agreements - like Steven Spielberg and Jack Welsh (look those up, LOL) - but even they think it is "real".

Women are women. You think they are some individually good thing, but they are a commodity. You would not act that way if you didn't have a sex drive, and sex is a commodity. There are even prostitutes who provide the "real girlfriend experience".

Being naive and stupid is fine if you remain poor your entire life. Otherwise, use some thinking to oppose the biological actions that naturally arise and that are later rationalized.

9:12 PM, December 10, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

At an age at which boys are taking apart radios, and reading about science, and helping their dad change the oil in the car ... girls are learning how to manipulate.

That is why the standard process in the Western world is that men earn the money in reality and women take it away from them in various ways that don't involve any contribution to society.

And I know some women earn 100s of thousands as "diversity coordinators" (e.g. Michele Obama before she quit) or as women's studies professors or as any number of other bullshit, made-up jobs ... but in the final analysis, you have to have production and engineering and inventions and technical progress and business systems. And that mostly spells men and some women who aren't manipulative cunts.

The rest of the woman get wealthy by simply taking the money away from men. Very skillfully.

9:19 PM, December 10, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

10:35 PM, December 10, 2009  
Blogger Dr.Alistair said...

ok tether. i agree. in fact i agree to the point where i see it as a cultural tragedy....but we have to transcend the anger toward women if we are to find a way back....if that`s at all possible.

i will be fifty next year and my girlfriend is not far behind. we have both seen the damage done in our own lives and that of those around us in this affluent hub of communities here in suburban toronto....and we are both committed to living quietly together and seeing our children grow and get on with thier lives.

we have both come out of relationships that left us with nothing. we could have continued to fight for assets, but both realised that the legal game is for lawyers and judges to win, and we pay the bill monitarily and psychologically.

my ex kept a house, a car and sole custody of my children because of my decision. but is she any happier now because of her "win"? no. in fact the last few years have made someone who used to be an elegant beauty into a hardened old woman.

she is left with the idea that she has one last thing to do, that is to get the monthly cheque. the one that all her friends have that allow them the spa treatments and the trips and so on that oprah told her she deserves.

i told her that i would sit in jail before i would give her another dime and that she could explain where i was and why...if she dared to petition the courts again.

i am so angry that i could physically kick her head clean off her shoulders for what she did and why...but i`m angry at her. not at all women or the next woman who might try the same thing...because i`m paying attention.

it`s what comes after the battle. hypervigilance. and it probably won`t go way any time soon.

and i worry about my girlfriend`s daughter. her mother tries to instil some values in her about work and family, but the little tart likes to tease the boys and get them to fight...because she`s hot...and i`m grateful she`s off at college because if she wants to live and work with us a hangover isn`t an excuse for yardwork and dishes....even if your dad is rich and pays for everything.

10:18 AM, December 11, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hypervigilance. True. Looks like I haven't been to easy to get next to myself, alistair.

I found a good one, or she found me I should say. Me, the guy who used to say......well never say never I guess.

She's got a really nice bass boat.

6:57 PM, December 11, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anyone who is in the 3 minute range needs to find, isolate, and become acquainted with his pubococcygeus muscle. It's the group that one uses to shut down urine flow. It also uhh....moves ejaculate through the pipes and out the end of the cannon, as it were. Exercise those boys, build them up (they don't really get used all that much, spike) learn to control them. You'll end up in the marathon league.

7:18 PM, December 11, 2009  
Blogger Dr.Alistair said...

well done br. and good luck with the training. i don`t know about the marathon though. 30k is good enough for rock and roll!

4:25 PM, December 12, 2009  

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