Hawaiian Libertarian: Just another statistic:
My long time high school buddy is now just another statistic.
A statistic that is casually dismissed by gyno-centric researchers as the man's fault for not building up strong enough social networks and the male's inability to "communicate."
My friend had no problem communicating at all.
posted by Helen at 10:14 AM
71 Comments:
Is it too hard for the study industry to hand over statistics on how men actually fair in divorce. I want real quantifiable numbers. On every blog, every comment section I see men complaining that divorce is unfair to them as they are busy handing over boatloads of alimony and child support over to their former wives, and then they never ever get to see their kids.
This might be true, it might not be true but I really want to see some numbers. I don't know any woman anywhere that is receiving alimony. I see some child support but it isn't enough to pay the daycare provider. Either my state of Maryland works vastly different than everywhere else or this business of child support and the alimony is a myth. Again, I just want to see some data before I believe it.
Moving on, on a mental health front multiple studies have shown that marriage benefits men much better than men. Married men are less depressed than their unmarried counterparts. They also are healthier and earn more. I won't speculate on this post on why that is, but that is what the data shows.
If women were put in such circumstances, all hell would break loose. Instead, people want "quantifiable numbers" at best.
Cham - in every divorce case I've known involving people I know, child custody presumptively goes to the female if she wants it, unless she is proven unfit. (I know of one where she didn't want it because she felt it more important to be able to go out and party. A professional women.)
In the case of my son-in-law, who won full custody of his son from his first marriage, the system is so screwed up he's had to go to court twice over not paying child support for the child of whom he has full custody!! Little miss no custody tells welfare workers she gets no child support. They assume she has custody and should get child support and sue him. Thank God my sister, who is a high ranking attorney in state government, is there to help him out.
This recent study linked to by Instapundit, shows divorced men as being more physically fit than married men.
As for me, my two minor children live with me because they refuse to stay with their mother who has definite mental problems but plenty of money. I get no child support because my ex would rather fight in court than support her children. (She was cited for non-support 6 times in a two year period at one point, but women are treated much more gently than deadbeat dads.)
Wanting quantifiable data on the bias against men in family/divorce courts is like wanting quantifiable evidence of blacks not being able to eat at certain restaurants in the 1950s.
Okay, Dadvocate, here are some more questions. What percentage of fathers are asking for custody of their children when divorce occurs? What percentage of them are getting custody, being it full custody or a joint custody arrangement? Fathers complain about child support payments, yet I want to know how many of them asked for custody? Again, I want to see some hard numbers. Who has them and where are they?
As a man who was very nearly one of these statistics? I know ALL about this. All the bullshit peddled is just that. Bullshit. It's about having your children stolen and abused and then being hated on for trying to stop it. Period.
This is why I wrote this book.
http://www.peternolan.com/Forums/tabid/420/forumid/58/scope/threads/Default.aspx
Married men are less depressed than their unmarried counterparts. They also are healthier and earn more.
Given female hypergamy, the inverse is more likely. Since women marry up, married men look like they "benefit more" from marriage, when in fact married men were on average taller, better looking, and wealthier before they got married.
Cham,
"but I really want to see some numbers"
Like a typical child you want someone to educate you. Try reading Stephen Baskervilles Book 'Taken Into Custody'.
Better still? Trying reading this page.
http://www.peternolan.com/Divorce/ScannedDocuments/tabid/538/Default.aspx
I have proven with irrefutable evidence that the courts in Australia are a criminal enterprise and that the Prime Minister and Attorney General are aware of their crimes and have taken active steps to suppress the evidence of these crimes. And still stupid women like you will say 'show me the numbers' while the evidence is before you. And women wonder why I call them liars and hypocrites?
Here is the evidence of the conspiracy to pervert the course of justice by the Australian Prime Minister.
http://www.crimesagainstfathers.com/australia/Forums/tabid/82/forumid/4/threadid/13/scope/posts/Default.aspx
I have spent a total of about 3,000 hours at a cost of over USD400,000 to expose the crimes of the women and the family courts they wield. I am now in the process of running the first case in Australia to retrieve a mans son from this satanic criminal enterprise.
Here are orders written by a satanic criminal calling himself Justice Colliers claiming that Ricky Partington is 'disabled' and claiming that Ricky Partington may never see his son ever again. A son he has not seen for three years and has been fighting in the family courts to see.
http://www.crimesagainstfathers.com/australia/Forums/tabid/82/forumid/3/threadid/37/scope/posts/Default.aspx
Ricky Partington is a god-damned hero. I have been searching for a man of his quality for more than a year in Australia. THAT is how rare they are. This man is willing to call judges the satanic criminals they are to their face. He is willing to call them the father killers they are to his face. He is willing to take the wrath of these satanic criminals on HEAD ON while they play God with his child. ALL THE TIME THE MOTHER ABUSING THE CHILD BY REFUSING CONTACT WITH THE FATHER.
I DESPISE women like you who still openly question the VAST BIAS in the family courts and the pussy pass for perjury, kidnapping, extortion and theft that pretty much ALL WESTERN WOMEN give to wives wielding these satanic criminal courts against the men they 'supposedly loved'.
Dadvocate,
"What percentage of fathers are asking for custody of their children when divorce occurs?"
Don't waste your time with bitches like Cham. I answered THOUSANDS of questions of women. Guess what. NONE want to help. I recommend this is the only thing presented to bitches like Cham.
http://www.peternolan.com/Forums/tabid/420/forumid/14/threadid/483/scope/posts/Default.aspx
When women have done the things on THAT list? Then I MIGHT listen to them.
What percentage of fathers don't ask for custody because they don't think they have a chance and can't afford thousands in attorney fees? Why should women be the presumptive child custody recipient? Why do we have to have "hard numbers" for men to have equal time/custody with their children?
Feminists will tell you that men win child custody or joint custody most of the time when they fight for it. Feminists won't tell you that men often only fight for custody when the mother is certifiably psycho or such.
My ex and I were evaluated by the University of Kentucky Psychiatry Dept. for child custody. We were given the MMPI, STAXI Anger Assessment, and the Parenting Stress Index. My ex's results were out side normal limits on all three, all mine were normal. This made no difference in the recommendation of joint physical custody, which is what the UK staff told us they preferred before testing. I wonder what they would have recommended had the results been switched.
Of course, as I mentioned above, now that my youngest are old enough to stand up for themselves, they refuse to stay with their mother. My daughter has spent the night one time in the past 7-8 months with her mother because I was out of town that night. She's fed up with the psychological, emotional abuse but the court system disregards this and a woman with lots of money due to inheritance can keep things tied up in court forever.
Technically, our custody has never been settled. My ex pays not child support despite her near million dollar inheritance, pays nothing towards the children's health insurance although state law says it should be divided between both parents based on ability to pay and withholds any other support on a whim or to manipulate our children. I pay far more than my share because I realize the need for my children to have an emotionally healthy home and don't want to risk that to a biased court system. My ex derives some sort of perverted satisfaction in not supporting her children unless they submit themselves to her abuse.
From what I see, women like her aren't that rare but the courts give them the benefit of the doubt while a psychologically healthy, loving father must prove himself.
Don't waste your time with bitches like Cham.
I've debated with Cham many times. I don't really think she's a bitch, but is definitely on the wrong side of the fence on this issue. She reflects the popular culture on this issue. Women get a pass, men must prove themselves.
peternolan9,
It is not only women who don't listen, it is also the men who have not been through the hell that some of their peers have been through in divorce court etc. They think it is always the man's fault for whatever reason, thinking that their chivalry will someday win them a reward. If the worst doesn't happen to them, they think the men who do have problems are somehow to blame. It is only when they go through a horrible divorce themselves (like Alec Balwin etc.) that they truly see that the courts are stacked against them. BTW, I think Baskerville's book is very good, though it is a sad reflection of what many men go through alone and with no support from the women or men in their lives. It is very sad, especially when men take their own lives because they don't know where else to turn. Keep up your good work.
Dadvocate: I'm not on any side. I just want to see some statistics that are generated from a reputable study.
Cham,
Women rarely pay alimony. Perhaps you will should take a look at the stats from the U.S. Census Bureau.
"Divorce experts say that fewer and fewer men are rejecting outright any talk of seeking alimony. The percentage of alimony recipients who are male rose to 3.6% during the five years ending in 2006, up from 2.4%, in the previous five-year period, according to the U.S. Census Bureau."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120700651883978623.html
It seems that a whopping 3.6% of those receiving alimony are men...at least four years ago, not a very high percentage.
In addition, 84% of child support providers are men:
http://www.resource4familylaw.com/topics/childsupportstatistics.html
This means that out of 100% of child support payers, only 16% are women, again, not very many.
Helen, I don't doubt you for a minute. I am still wondering, though, about what percentage of men seek custody of their children when they get divorced. An additional question would be what percentage of people getting divorced ask for alimony and what percentage get it?
As I said earlier on another blog this morning, sometimes what is most interesting is not the results of the studies that get performed, but the studies that don't ever get done. People, governments and research organizations often fund studies they feel are going to shore up the ideas and cultural beliefs that they like and want buttressed. Studies that might not provide statistics and data that will oppose our commonly held cultural beliefs often don't ever happen.
I will cite an example. We have loads of studies that show marriage is a good thing. We have studies and statistics that scream marriage makes people healthier, happier, less depressed, better parents, more stable, better people, more socialized and less likely to be criminals. If we believe all the studies we would think that once we get married rainbows and puppies fall from the sky.
Yet, this week the 2010 census data is in. It turns out that Americans are getting less and less married and more and more single. There must be good reasons for this, yet there are almost no studies to show why people are turning off to marriage. I can think of a few good reasons but we will never have the statistical data to back them up.
Cham,
I have the feeling that if someone tells you his own story or the story of a close relative, you would just say it's an aberration.
If, conversely, someone gives you statistics, you go down to the individual and ask if he REALLY tried, if he REALLY had a good lawyer or whatever other crap game you are trying to pull.
I'm watching a situation right now with a close relative. I feel like exploding at the advantages she has and the shit he's put up with. But I realize if I describe the situation, you would just say I made it up.
Sooner or later women like you are going to go out of fashion - big time.
You have no empathy for men, but something tells me that you would demand the usual empathy - and the usual advantages based on chivalry - that women are given.
I'm surprised, frankly, that there aren't more men who hate women.
Target, the challenge is in the numbers. I see bloggers, posters and commenters complain about how bad the courts treat them. Let's say 10% of people have a bad outcome with their divorce, and those same 10% go to the Internet and write posts about their discontent. We aren't hearing from the other 90%. Rather than writing paragraph upon paragraph about a specific situation with one specific court and one specific judge it might be better to come up with some nationwide data to support one's hypothesis. If people feel the courts are biased and can prove it I, along with millions more, will enthusiastically get on board with some outrage.
Thanks for the linkage, Dr. Helen.
Dealing with this has been quite morose and depressing. I've been blogging about men's issues for almost 4 years now. I was initially inspired after watching the dissolution of my uncle's marriage - my ex-aunt left him and there three kids for a bad boy motorcycle thug...she never paid a dime in child support, yet the courts did nothing to enforce their own orders. Seeing my Uncle go through this is what inspired me to research divorce laws in the USA. But my friend's experience has made all this MRA issues very real for me...much more than simply trying to understand how my ex-aunt got away with screwing over my uncle and my 3 cousins.
No child support enforcement when it was a woman who cheated on her husband and broke up the family.
Yet my friend who killed himself? Child support was taking over half his income...than he had his hours cut because of the economy causing his companies downsizing.
The courts would not give him a revised payment. He was facing homelessness due to not being able to pay his property taxes thanks to the child support payments. Worse still, his ex had alienated his kids against him....the last time he talked to his 8 year old daughter on the phone, she told him she didn't love him anymore and did not want to see him anymore. No doubt coached up by her mother to say the most hurtful thing a man could probably ever hear in this life.
Yet his ex and the kids were there at the funeral, and the daughter was reading a eulogy in which she told her daddy that she will always love him and that she misses him terribly.
It's absolutely disgusting that the system enables women to play such games with minor children to hurt their Father's. I felt like spitting in her face at the funeral.
The family court system is the most vile, and civilization destroying institution to ever take hold in this country.
This sort of thing cannot go on forever. It is unsustainable. Eventually, some really bad things are going to happen, the more families are destroyed like this.
Helen-
"It is not only women who don't listen, it is also the men who have not been through the hell that some of their peers have been through in divorce court etc."
What I've found is that most people, male or female, believe that the courts are "fair" even though they've never been involved. They believe this because their fundamental worldview would be.. well.. pretty much destroyed if they accepted the truth of the matter.
I've had a number of arguments with people, describing what I've been through and they will flat out tell me "No, that can't happen. The courts wouldn't do that!" And it seemed crazy to me that I would have to ask them, having never been through the system, how they would know what would or wouldn't happen better than me, someone who has been through the system.
At least now I understand why they resist so much. Were the courts to no longer be "fair" they'd have to reevaluate much of their understanding of the world. It's a cognitive burden that they are not willing to bear without substantial proof (i.e. someone they know going through the meat-grinder).
Cham-
First, you have to define "custody" in a meaningful manner. "Joint" custody is far from 50/50 (often it means that the mother has full physical, and they share joint legal custody).
Second, don't confuse correlation with causation. Just because men who are married happen to enjoy certain traits (health, wealth) does not mean that said traits were granted via marriage. There is a large selection-bias when measuring marriage statistics.
Third, if you want stats, go look for them. If you want somewhere to start, pick up "From Courtship to Courtroom: What Divorce Law is Doing to Marriage"
Cham - the numbers are out there. You can find them rather easily if you really want to. But, beware. Many studies are along the lines of asking women in shelters if they've been abused and extrapolating those numbers to the general population. Or, as in Kentucky, asking only women if they've suffered spousal abuse and then declaring all spousal abuse committed by men. Honest numbers are hard to come by because honest numbers aren't politically correct.
Here's one of the problems: Even if the laws were followed completely in a gender-blind way (and they AREN'T), the following can happen due to the structure of society:
Mr. and Mrs. Normal get married. They have a daughter. They both work and both make around $50k.
Mrs. Normal meets Mr. BigBucks and gets divorced. True 50/50 physical custody (daughter alternates every two weeks, same school district). Man pays hefty child support although he is struggling. She drops down to 10 hrs./week work and is driving a Mercedes and living in a huge house.
The pressure is on him, although she has a much greater lifestyle with hardly any work.
And then the daughter starts acting up in her mid-teens. Finally the mother throws her out and she goes to live with dad full time.
It's a true battle to even stop child support. A true battle. That's mom's additional shopping money.
And let me get this straight: the kid is hard to handle, lives full time with dad who is just barely cutting it, and mom is on easy street. Nevertheless, she pays no child support.
Because ... in that state, it is based on the income of the non-custodial parent. She gets it all from Mr. Big; she has hardly any income of her own. Plus, the attorney tells the man that he would not only get a pittance per month in child support (if that), she would become an ultra-bitch with any decision if he went against her like that. So just don't do it.
In that case, the laws or the chivalrous judges were not really at fault, it's society's failure to recognize that women are far more likely to MARRY UP.
It is true, though, that a man in that situation as a non-custodial parent, leeching off a woman, would be ordered by the judge under the principle of "imputed income" to FIND A FRIGGIN' JOB and pay substantial support. Women are just not told that, although they are much more likely to be in that situation.
And Cham is just being intentionally blind. She's almost trying to provoke people here. I don't quite understand what her game is.
We have studies and statistics that scream marriage makes people healthier, happier, less depressed, better parents, more stable, better people, more socialized and less likely to be criminals.
As I said before, said studies equally show that only healthier, happier, less depressed, more stable, more socialized, and more law-abiding people get married. The direction of causation is unknown without longitudinal studies being done i.e. tracking people before they get married and see who actually becomes married. My bet is that marriage causes nothing. Unhealthy, unhappy, ill-socialized people just aren't selected as spouses.
Dadvocate, I'm turning into a study fan. Take for example this very popular CNN article, More Education Means More Faith in Marriage. From the title you would think that colleges and universities are hammering home to all their students that they should get married and that their students are listening. So we conclude, go to college and get convinced to get married. However, not so much. If one looks at the statistics they may find that earning a degree will increase your earning potential. Therefore, one could see that a college educated woman pairing up with a college educated man would bring in a lot more money to one household. So the couple would have one house payment and one utility bill which means that yes, puppies and rainbows would fall from the sky as they get to take better vacations and buy better furniture. Colleges don't teach students that marriage is a good idea, the students figure that one out on their own.
Now one would also conclude from the title that poor people are just too stupid to see the intelligence of getting married. It turns out poor people aren't that stupid. When one spouse in lying on the sofa all day eating Twinkies and watching TV, the other working spouse quickly concludes that their partner is a drain on their financial resources and makes the correct decision not to tie the know and incur further financial and emotional challenges. Somebody should clue in the Marriage Works people. Frankly, I'm getting sick of their misleading billboard. Yes, marriage works if you both make a pile o money.
"Therefore, one could see that a college educated woman pairing up with a college educated man would bring in a lot more money to one household."
----
And then one looks at reality and sees that a man with a degree in engineering who marries a woman with a degree in social work - and then she quits her low-paid job anyway - is going to be in deeper when she starts demanding shit.
Cham - the self-appointed intellectual - is going to tell you how it's going to be.
And I FULLY agree with Randian that the marriage statistics on more income etc. are based on the fact that a guy with a good job will probably get married, while the toothless bum on the street may delay his marriage a few months, or may delay his appearance at the debutante ball.
One other fact here for the kids at home:
Lots and lots and lots of married men are wishing they could be out of the marriage. They just want peace and quiet. They don't want to have to constantly spring for every demand of the pig, they don't want to spend almost all of their waking hours working for the pig, and they resent the constant demands of the pig.
But they stay married. That is due to several reasons, mostly the fear of living in abject poverty while they have a big job that supports the woman they now hate. But also fear of losing contact with their kids, the fear of being alone and a multitude of other things along those lines.
They are old men now who are stuck. They play a great role. They are interested in the mind-numbing shit that their brain-dead wives constantly spout. They try to be attentive. They do what they have to do, and hope that they die soon.
Women don't understand the extent to which they are shown chivalry in society. They fully don't understand.
Now let's move on to the depressions studies: Married vs Unmarried. I am totally agog about this business. A Howell, White and Howell-White study says married women are equally depressed as unmarried women. Okay, good enough, women are all equally depressed. But NOT SO FAST.
Oh, Bella DePaulo, a pychologist, seems to be on her game. There are lies, lies and statistics regarding depressed married men and women. This Pyschology Today blog post gives us some insight into these pro-marriage data analyzers. This paragraph from the post says it all:
Horwitz, White, and Howell-White compared those who got married and stayed that way to those who stayed single the whole time. They found that the men who got married did become less depressed but the women did not. This journal article includes one of my favorite lines of all time. Explaining why they did not include in the got-married group the people who married but then got divorced, the authors said:
"We do not include this group because clearly they are not deriving any benefits from marriage."
So the researchers threw out the data from members of the study group that got divorced AFTER they got married. Since 50-60% of marriages end in divorce you would think that depressed married people might, just might, get a divorce. So there was a big bunch of good data from this study that got thrown in the trash can because the data would not support the hypothesis of the esteemed psychological researchers.
So people, after you get married you might be tip-toeing on daisies and singing in the sunshine abliss in pure happiness,.....or maybe not.
Although there are periodical scandals in the area of scientific studies, I pretty much believe in the results because they are also tested later on by others.
In the area of psychology, social work, sociology and other "soft sciences", I have no trust at all. The people conducting the studies have strong agendas, they don't want to know the truth and, frankly, they are morons compared to the people who major in hard sciences (if my observations in college count, which they probably don't).
In any case, don't waste your time on psychological or sociological studies. Give them the respect they have earned.
"The people conducting the studies have strong agendas, they don't want to know the truth and, frankly, they are morons compared to the people who major in hard sciences (if my observations in college count, which they probably don't)."
This is why I agreed with that other study, that said mental illness was prevelant in society. I think if you don't want to know the truth, you are mentally ill. That describes a whole lot of people.
In the future, such people will not be allowed in positions of authority, not until they are cured. It will be a BIG job.
Add medicine to the list of bogus study generation. I was reading about a group of doctors, who had reviewed major studies, and found them all pretty much bogus, riddled with errors.
Statistics do not lie. They say exactly what they represent. The problem is, what you THINK they represent may not be what the statistics say... read and understand the studies.
Also:
"Now one would also conclude from the title that poor people are just too stupid to see the intelligence of getting married."
No, poor women are TOO SMART to get married. Take a non-working 2 child mother collecting child support (Child support is non-taxable non-reportable income), give her section 8 housing, WIC, Food stamps, Whatever the health plan is called... I ran the numbers back in the mid 90's and here's what I found:
Her "husband to be" would have to earn around $29K per year AFTER TAXES to replace the benefits she's getting from government entitlement, that she would lose most of upon becoming married.
Cham,
Show me quantifiable statistics showing me the percentage of women who want custody of their kids. How about starting with the assumption that both men and women want their kids, then YOU demonstrate that men don't want their kids as much as women do. Otherwise your just another anti-male bigot.
The bias in your assertion, that men don't want custody of their kids as much as mothers, is disgusting. The idea that you have to be convinced that men care as much about their children using "quantifiable" statistics, whatever the hell that means, before you would get upset about the FACT that women are overwhelmingly given custody of their children in divorce cases.
Well two can play this game. Show me the quantifiable statistics that women aren't more bitter and angry during a divorce, so fight harder to punish their soon to be ex-husbands. Show me the statistics that show men aren't better people than women, by allowing their children the fiction of thinking that the person getting full custody of them, the mother, is a good person, while at the same time allowing their children to hate them because fathers know it will be easier for their children to deal with the separation.
I live in Maryland, too, and only know ONE father who has full custody of his kids, as opposed to the mother. Want to know why? The mother was a full blown drug addict and demonstrably unstable. Even with all this fully documented, and even without the mother fighting for custody, the courts still tried to award at least partial custody to the mother.
Ken
Hi Cham
In NZ (where I live) men win half the parenting cases that go to court. However, only 10% end up there because.
1. The assumption is shared parenting.
2. The child's needs are paramount. The child has a court appointed lawyer. If you are an abusive parent, you are named. And lose day to day care.
3. Child support is defined by a formula and enforced by inland revenue. It is a percentage of your income.
4. Assets are split 50:50 and there is a discouragement of spousal support -- the idea is a clean financial break.
Now, the people running the courts tend to be pro women, and you need a darn good case to move kids away from what they are doing -- and a fairly big budget, but you can fight for your kids.
You need to change your laws. Look at the NZ law. Look at the decrease in male suicides. Consider what the deaths are doing to the children that are now being raised by Ma and the boyfriend du jour. Look at how political pressure -- and the leadership of both political parties being done in the family courts -- led to considerable changes.
(Yes, I have an interest. Solo Dad, raising two boys. I will NOT marry or be with any person who might try to use any jurisdiction that does not explicitly mandate equality between mothers and fathers. That includes the USA)
More questions more statistics required. Someone show me the percentage of women asking for custody in the event of divorce and show me the percentage of women who receive custody. We can get to the bottom of all of this but honest quantifiable statistics and data needs to be gathered, recorded and tabulated.
I have spent almost 6 years going through the family courts in england. I have been out of them for a couple of years, my ex having died.
The system isn't biased, society and individuals are. I am bitter and twisted over what happened, but am logical enough to know there is good and bad in all. i just have no faith in those that apply the system.
I could not endure the family courts again, so i remain single with no intention of having another child. My son is doing fine and the question..'Do children need fathers?'...is replaced in my mind with 'Do children need mothers?' My experience tells me they don't so i would say the 'glass ceiling' needs smashing with positive discrimination infavour of fathers until there is a 50/50 split in sole custody awards. Wherever a man wants it, it should be given...letting women concentrate on their careers and paying maintenance.
Saying that, I don't understand the need for alimony/child support. I dont get any, i lost a considerable amount of money in the divorce and my wage alone supports us both. I'm not a high wage earner and i go without when i can't afford.
I'm just grateful my son is free from the damage his mother was causing him, a few more years in family court and watching him suffer may well have resulted in me shuffling off this earthly realm.
I also have a letter of apology from court welfare in relation to biased treatment i received. I fought for 2 years to get that and is one of the proudest achievements in my life.
I'm not really bothered if women don't appreciate what i have been through, i just smile when they wonder why i won't commit.
There we go, another super great question, "Do children need mothers?". We've quantified in numerous studies that children need fathers, so let's apply the same fact finding mission to mothers and find the answers.
Ironic, Hawaiian Libertarian titled his post "Just another statistic" and what becomes the focus of this discussion? Statistics. Forget right/wrong and reality, statistics is what we need.
You can have all the right/wrong and reality, DaDvocate, but laws are most likely to change when a group presents lawmakers with quantifiable data from a number of reputable sources. All the complaints and sob stories posted on the blogosphere may allow the authors to vent and make new friends with people who have similar challenges but won't affect any long term positive change for the better.
Cham,
Click on the link Helen quoted from, it quotes an article which itself cites studies.
Demonspawn said...
Helen-
"It is not only women who don't listen, it is also the men who have not been through the hell that some of their peers have been through in divorce court etc."
What I've found is that most people, male or female, believe that the courts are "fair" even though they've never been involved. They believe this because their fundamental worldview would be.. well.. pretty much destroyed if they accepted the truth of the matter.
I've had a number of arguments with people, describing what I've been through and they will flat out tell me "No, that can't happen. The courts wouldn't do that!" And it seemed crazy to me that I would have to ask them, having never been through the system, how they would know what would or wouldn't happen better than me, someone who has been through the system.
At least now I understand why they resist so much. Were the courts to no longer be "fair" they'd have to reevaluate much of their understanding of the world. It's a cognitive burden that they are not willing to bear without substantial proof (i.e. someone they know going through the meat-grinder).
I think Demonspawn has nailed it. Those of us who have not gone through divorce and a custody battle have a hard time believing things can be as bad as so many divorced men say. However, that may well be because of an irrational belief in the fairness of the judicial system, one that has been severely undermined in recent decades.
The assumption is shared parenting.
2. The child's needs are paramount.
US courts make the same "assumptions". They don't mean anything, because in practice "shared parenting" means mom has de facto sole custody, even though formally she merely has shared custody, and "the child's needs" are pretty much whatever mom says they are. Guideline support payments are also grossly in excess of the child's total needs (not wants, needs) for middle class and higher child support obligors. Mom's half (and then some) is basically paid by dad. Any excess over what mom actually spends is a tax-free bonus to her.
TO: Cham, et al.
RE: The 'Study' Industry
Is it too hard for the study industry to hand over statistics on how men actually fair in divorce. I want real quantifiable numbers. -- Cham
Don't hold your breath.
Case in point....
....in the late 80s the federal government paid a lot of money to one of the 'study' industry companies to research the sexual habits of the American male.
A five year study that was published—in part—in Planning Perspectives in a series of articles in '91-92.
I say "in part" because the organization that conducted the 'study', studied both heterosexual and homosexual males.
In the articles, they published all KINDS of data on heterosexual activities: frequency, types of activity, number of partners, etc., etc., etc.
However, when it came to the homosexuals, there was hardly anything.
Three guesses as to why....
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[What they are telling you can be important. What they are NOT telling you can be vital.]
Chuck, we always have to be cognizant of what will happen if we conduct an honest and above-board study whose results can be duplicated, when the study doesn't tell us what we want to hear. For example, we are addicted to a "Tough on Crime" policy, yet when we do a study on what happens when we incarcerate for even the most minor of offenses, we find that those that have been incarcerated for minor crimes are much more likely to re-offend, turn to violent crime in the future and choose a permanent criminal career path. Not exactly the result we wanted, eh?
So if one were to perform a study and look at the numbers on how men fare in divorce court one might come to 3 potential conclusions.
1) Men/fathers system-wide get a raw deal compared to women/mothers. Laws need to be reviewed and changed to make the results more equitable.
2) Specific judges, specific jurisdictions give men/fathers are raw deal. Specific judges and specific jurisdictions need retaining and closer monitoring.
3) There is no bias, though a percentage of men perceive they have been treated unfairly and are prone to writing blogs, comments and posts on the Internet.
"3) There is no bias, ..."
----
The problem is that one set of people would look at exactly the same facts and say there is no bias at all, and another set of people would see it as bias.
Lots of men think that it is the man's responsibility to work and take care of the woman. They would not see any bias in the "quantifiable", statistical fact that it's almost purely men who pay alimony to women. They would not think there is bias in the fact that men who are parasites off women are frequently ordered to find a job (under the principle of "imputed income", and probably in violation of the 13th Amendment), whereas I have never heard of a case in which a judge ordered a woman to get off her useless behind. AND ... I think women are more frequently in the situation that they work less while the new guy contributes more money to the relationship, but your mileage may vary.
Lots of things are already evident. You don't need a study. Almost all alimony payers are men, for instance.
Women who are even ordered to pay child support are in default at around twice the rate of men (I think men: 29%, women: 50%).
Is there bias in that society will shame a "deadbeat" man, but will not put such pressure on a woman in that situation? I dunno. Big chunks of society will tell you that it's a man's responsibility, and that women shouldn't have to work.
Is there bias in the fact that some female divorcees wind up far richer from the property settlement than they would ever be on their own, by their own work, and that money is taken away from the man's earnings from work? Big chunks of society think that marriage is 50/50, so it's absolutely fair. I personally see bias.
And life goes on.
And then there's the double-slam argument I've seen from some women:
She gets custody of the kids, and argues that even the high child support is not enough, she's losing lots of money by having custody.
But then the man sues for custody, he doesn't even want child support from her, and her argument instantly turns into: He's just suing for custody because of money - he just doesn't want to have to pay the child support.
Well, which is it? If he gets custody, according to her first argument, he will not only be in the hole for the amount she claimed, he will be in way deeper because he isn't getting any support from her.
So maybe it's not just about the money for him.
"1) Men/fathers system-wide get a raw deal compared to women/mothers. Laws need to be reviewed and changed to make the results more equitable."
--------
"Laws" (statutes) are already (mostly) written in a gender-neutral way. That's not the problem.
Family law is written in a much looser way (as opposed to patent law, for instance). The judge has a bunch of factors to balance when he comes to a decision. What usually happens is that the judge just does whatever he or she wants and can easily justify it by tweaking the balancing factors. So the decisions of judges are based on what society as a whole tends to think at the time. Men pay alimony, for instance, and women don't, unless there's a huge, huge, glaring difference in incomes and the judge is trying to prove some kind of point, and that's just how it is. Society thinks that men should work and provide for and protect the little Pumpkin, and she should just take.
I've said this in this blog numerous times, and I'll say it again. Cham, this one is for you, too.
Park your ass in the last bench against the back wall in a divorce court in any town, anywhere. Sit there the entire day, for at least a week. I promise you, what you will find will open your eyes.
Consider the thought that the stats you seek are being purposely kept from public scrutiny, if being gathered at all.
My personal situation was pretty wild and will never be over with. But I got my kids out, raised them the best I knew how, and they are all doing fine. And with all things considered, at the end of the day, that's what matters.
"the fact that men who are parasites off women are frequently ordered to find a job (under the principle of "imputed income", and probably in violation of the 13th Amendment)"
ALL child support and alimony orders are in violation of the 13th Amendment. Period.
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Getting divorced is not a crime.
Having a child is not a crime.
The exceptions for the 13th (service to the State) does not apply as the money goes to the ex-wife, not all people (men) are equally burdened, and, even in the case of a State agency collecting/disbursing the funds, payments to the ex-wife stop if the ex-husband stops paying.
In fact, if you look up the definition of and cases about indentured servitude, you will find that CS practices (seizing passports, etc.) are textbook examples.
"He's just suing for custody because of money - he just doesn't want to have to pay the child support."
I've loved this argument and turned it around a few times: If it costs X to support the child, and the man is going to going to "save money" by increasing his custody, then the only possible situation is that he is paying child support in excess of X. So, if any woman were to argue that he is only seeking custody to lower his child support, in reality she must be desiring to keep custody in order to keep payments in excess of child-rearing costs! So the argument is not "he's seeking equal custody to reduce his costs" it is, instead, "she's fighting equal custody to keep money for herself"
There is NO OTHER WAY to interpret that argument, even if it truly is "about the money" for him!
TO: Cham
RE: Actually....
....I'd LOVE to see a well run study that has no bias in it on 'family court' operations.
But, as I was attempting to point out, and you obviously either misunderstood or refused to recognize, it's hard to come by such when political correctness enters into the picture.
I cited the study on American male sexuality from the late 80s. I also offer all the latest business on 'human caused global warming'.
Scientists are no longer in the work for the pure research. They've been corrupted by the 'money'.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[I heard the word of the wise man;
Saying there are only two ways you can go.
One way you can save your riches.
And the other save your soul. -- Rich Mullins, Ready for the Storm.
TO: Target & Cham
RE: That Time....
Sooner or later women like you are going to go out of fashion - big time. -- Target
....IS coming.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The feminist movement died, one millisecond after the first impact. -- Niven & Pournelle, Lucifer's Hammer.]
Somehow family law payments (from men) trump everything else.
They can't be included under bankruptcy, the fact that a judge orders payments greater than the man makes in a month under "imputed income" doesn't matter (see the discussion above about the 13th Amendment), in fact nothing has a higher priority than getting Little Miss Single Mother her money.
I am thankful I never got a woman pregnant before I really caught on what the game is. I am thankful I didn't get married before I really caught on what the game is.
"nothing has a higher priority than getting Little Miss Single Mother her money."
Research Title IV-D. There is federal money for states based upon how much child support they collect via a "child support action" (this is why direct checks to the mother are not allowed, as they are not actions and do not qualify for federal money). That is why states are resistant to 50/50 custody with little/no CS involved. It is why violating CS is highly punished while violating visitation is nothing.
Family court is a cash-cow for governments. The system is such that in any other instance of law it would be considered a conflict of interest. Family courts are simply the most corrupt form of law out there.
The moment I read about the case described below is the moment I decided I would never marry:
A physician married a woman, and they lived happily ever after with him working 12-hour workdays and making big bucks, and her spending more than he could ever hope to keep up with, while not working a whit.
But after around 15 years, he started developing anxiety attacks (this was in the 1980s, today people are more aware). In any case, he had a problem.
The wife started in with someone else and filed for divorce. She was out for big bucks. The physician was ordered, under "imputed income", to make massive payments every month to her as alimony, although other physicians and psychologists testified that he probably couldn't work at his old level.
And he couldn't.
To make the payments to her, he had to start selling off assets.
At some point, he had nothing more to sell, and was simply down and out. Despite that, he working as much as he could.
She didn't work at all, she never did, she shopped, shopped, shopped.
--------
I read that case and it physically sickened me. And I know women who would do that.
The laws are simply sick. Society is sick.
With regard to the chivalrous men who poke their finger in my chest and tell me that no woman of theirs will never work:
I have no empathy. When they get divorced, because they are controlling assholes, their sit-on-their-fat-ass wives will get tons of money out of them in alimony and a property settlement.
Good. I don't like the family court procedures, but these guys have to stick with the program.
What I don't like is the guy who marries a women under the understanding that they will both work unless kids come along ... and she quits work two weeks after the marriage (TWO friends of mine complained about that, and I don't have many friends).
They still get drilled all the same. She spouts the same crap that "he forced me to quit working", as if anyone could force little miss loudmouth to do anything she doesn't want to do. Apparently there is no woman in the world who is just lazy. Sickening.
Demospawn:
Listening to Neal Boortz a couple weeks back, he came up with updated figures from what you describe above concernining how much money would need to be made to equal what a single baby making machine can scrounge from the government. His figures are above 37 K.
TO: br549
RE: $37K???!?!?
Now THAT'S impressive.
Where did he get his data? Where can I get that data?
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The Truth will out....]
Not sure where he got it from. He has a moment on his show just after the 12:30 (eastern) news break with daily reports of where tax monry goes. I tuned in to it on that particular day just at that time during a lunch break. I am sure you can phone the show and speak with his firewall to obtain the stats.
cham, to get any sort of custody in court in ontario canada today i would have had to prove my ex wife unfit.
needless to say, i wasn`t about to denegrate the mother of my children in court just for some legal position...though it would be nice for teachers to address me as my children`s father when i call the school due to one issue or another.(i`m not even legally entitiled to a report card.)
my children stay with me substantially more than they do with their mother because she works shifts and socialises, whereas i live in a stable home with my wife and two other children from her previous marriage, yet she still suggests that in the spring she will be returning to court for child support, with the likelyhood that she will see a judgement in the region of $400 for each of our two children...which will be used to pay down her income property, and not to further support our boys.
my ex felt legally empowered to ruin my financial health and my mental stability for a year and a half so that she could get what she felt she deserved. she did this with the support of the legal system which allows a certain segment of our population to never grow up and deal with their lives and obligations as an adult.
i moved on and put my life together which she resents, and so she will come around again with her lawyers and break what she can`t have herself, once again.
and my children? they are resilient in ways i couldn`t have possibly imagined three years ago...and i`m eternally grateful for that.
no court in the land can stop me from sitting by the fire with our children and my wife after making gingerbread cookies, as much as my ex would like to think she can.
Dr. Alistair, I don't doubt your for a minute. I certainly hope you are keeping a log recording the number of nights your children stay with you. I am no expert on Canada but here in my city the rules are different. Our schools are run by a forward thinking guy who is one step of everyone else. He understands that not just parents rear children, but so does the entire extended family and neighbors. He's set up a system that allows just about anyone to speak to a teacher on a child's behalf. It is working out really well, a child's school challenges aren't all on the mother's shoulders.
On this board I see a lot of complaints about how men are treated in divorce court. If you visit other boards more suited to women you see a lot of complaints from women about how their exhusbands were able to take half the assets they brought into their marriages after a divorce. Each side seems to have their issues. As an educated therapist I am sure you know that one can't rely on anecdotal evidence from just a few people who you don't even know.
I'm on another board right now discussing another subject that is equally poorly researched, correlated and studied. People assume what they want to assume, they see what they want to see, but they aren't anywhere approaching the conclusions that might have something to do with the truth. The limited data available points to something else entirely.
TO: All
RE: HERE....
....boards more suited to women you see a lot of complaints from women about how their exhusbands were able to take half the assets they brought into their marriages after a divorce. -- Cham
....is a VERY telling 'indicator'.
Notice that women 'complain' that their ex-husbands get HALF of the assets that they brought into the marriage.
A COMPLAINT about HALF! As if they should get ALL of what THEY brought into the marriage, while men are expected to give up HALF of what THEY brought in.
Hoooow niiiiiice....
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The Truth will out....]
Chuck, you aren't making any sense.
TO: Cham
RE: Show Us....
I'm on another board right now discussing another subject that is equally poorly researched, correlated and studied. -- Cham
....this board's url.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Take the fight to the enemy. -- Military axiom]
TO: All
RE: Making Sense
Chuck, you aren't making any sense. -- Cham
What was it Cham was saying just a bit ago about....
Oh....Yeah....
People assume what they want to assume, they see what they want to see, but they aren't anywhere approaching the conclusions that might have something to do with the truth. -- Cham
How apropos.....
Cham by citing the complaint I picked out of her argument (above), appears to support these womens' complaint. Why? Because she doesn't cite the fact that the same rule applies to men who bring things to the marriage as well.
[Note: The first serious indicator I had that my first wife was planning divorce was to discover that my inheritance from my Father's estate, had been moved into a CD in HER NAME ALONE. I got HALF of it back because the judge in 'family court' ruled my inheritance was a 'gift to the marriage'.]
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The Truth will out....]
Very interesting comment thread. It's all behind me now but I do have a few comments. My wife was a prescription drug addict and alcoholic. She wet the bed every night. How's that for a turnoff ? In the divorce, I asked for custody of our 7 year old but the court psychologist said my wife was so screwed up she couldn't tolerate the loss of her daughter. My daughter, now 30 and married, came to live with me when she was 18 and the child support stopped. Over the years, I have heard some ugly stories but have never been judgmental toward her mother who has finally stopped drinking.
The alimony stats are distorted because child support is not taxable to the mother so any lawyer worth his salt will max out the child support for his client. Only when there are no children does alimony come up.
The comment about peace and quiet hit home. I now live in the mountains with my dog. He never complains. My ex-wife even visits once in a while. She remarried to a guy with a lot more money than I have. He's a nice guy although he threatened to leave if she didn't stop drinking, I understand from my daughter.
My ex even insisted that I operate on him (I'm a retired surgeon). He was a little worried but I told her to tell him that there was no one in the world who would take better care of him. She really settled down once she had another guy hooked.
Anyway, I made enough money to survive OK but all the stories in the comments strike me as true because I lived a lot of them. For example, her first request for temporary support was an amount equal to the gross revenue of my practice. Fortunately, that didn't stand long. I can't emphasize enough getting a good lawyer if you can afford it.
I have seen firsthand... actually having been in the courtroom... a case where I felt the judge decided things so that the woman in the case unfairly benefitted and the man was unfairly burdened. If someone were to put statstics in front of me that showed it's not really all that common, it would not make me any less inclined to say something needs to be done about it. Injustice is not something that only matters when it happens to large numbers of people.
In the case I saw, it was when my ex-husband's parents were getting a divorce. They had only one child, him, and he was an adult who did not live with his parents. His mother held steady employment and had been with the same company for over ten years. She made enough money that she was able to pay for her own lawyer when she filed for divorce, and she had paid for several rather expensive hobbies of the previous decade and paid all her expenses when she traveled for concerts or conventions related to her hobbies. She was not needing to contribute to living expenses, as all of that was paid from her husband's wages... as it had been for the twenty years they were married before she went to work.
She filed for divorce because, and I'm quoting what she actually said to me," Being married to him isn't fun anymore. It hasn't been for years." (Not surprisingly, just a few months after their divorce she started seeing a man who had lived around the corner from them for several decades, went to her church, and had become widowed in the last few years.) My ex-husband's father did not leave her, and she left him because of her own preferences... not because of something like abuse or financial neglect. In spite of the fact that it was his paychecks over the years that had entirely paid for the house, he already expected he would have to be the one to move because it was in both of their names and he didn't want to fight her for it. He bought some land outside of town, bought himself a trailer, and moved out. She got the fully paid-off house, the fully paid-off car that was in her name, everything that was "hers", and half of what had been "theirs".
But she also was awarded alimony. That's what I've never understood. I was there in the courtroom, and I heard her lawyer make a case for how she would not be able to afford to keep the house on her wages. But she made a choice to leave him because "it wasn't fun anymore", and she had never had to contribute to the cost of things over the years. She had gone to work because she was bored after their son left for college, and because she wanted hobbies that her husband couldn't fully fund AND pay for all their living expenses. I've never understood why the judge didn't tell her to sell the house and move somewhere she could afford, if that was the problem. She had no minor children who would have had their lives disrupted by the move. She probably could have moved into the nice apartment building that was just a couple of streets over from the house. I've known people who lived there... it's a well-maintained building, and very affordable. A woman in her 60's would not have been out of place there, and it's a reasonably quiet building.
Yet, I've seen my ex-husband's father struggle to balance his finances because he's retired and she gets a chunk of his check before he ever sees it. She, on the other hand, is doing just fine financially. She hasn't cut back on spending on her hobbies, and now also has an inheritence from her sister who had no children to leave her money to when she passed away.
It's not a case where the man gets screwed over on custody, due to their son having already been an adult, but it's still an injustice.
"American women are generally immature, selfish, extremely arrogant and self-centered, mentally unstable, irresponsible, and highly unchaste."
--
But that's why we love them!
I'm personally looking for an over-40, clipped and frosted haircut, no-job-for-20-years American woman with a really bossy attitude and extremely high demands with no reciprocation ... but I just can't find one!
Anyone know a cousin or something?
I hate to admit that extremely high demands combined with an inability to do jack shit for society is a sexual turn-on for me. That's exactly the kind of woman I want.
TO: tether
RE: Heh
I saw this ad some time ago, but I don't recall where....
Domineering, coldhearted, vicious bitch seeks submissive, warmhearted, caring man for INTENSE love/hate relationship!
Sounds like just what you're looking for.
I recommend checking the personals in the Blue Oyster.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[ How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? -- Proverbs]
cham, i really don`t care about the statistics, i know this happened ot me and i see it happening to many guys in forums, in coffee shops, on the bench in my soccer games and elsewhere.
my ex wanted the high life and when i wasn`t shaping up to bring it to her feet she had a snit and took what she could and ran.
since i left she hasn`t dated much because she`s in her 40`s now and guys my age with the money she`s after choose the younger one every time, and the ones who stay around for a bit lose their patience with her moodiness (out-and-out crankiness....) and the simple fact that they see younger ones to give their money to to for a while.
and you are right cham, guys are no picnic either from time to time, but leaving is an option....just clear your tab on the way out.
the word is honour...or in american english, honor....not "your honour".
On the request for statistics/studies: try reading actual peer-reviewed journals reporting statistics collected using true controlled experimental methodology. Stay away from bogus crap like CNN, or 'Psychology Today', since they 1) water everything down to the dumbest denominator; and 2) routinely confuse correlation with causation.
On the built-in bias in family court (and yes, it does exist): it merely reflects the built-in bias in our society at large. Case in point from the other side of the gender divide -- I am a woman who supported myself (and my children) post-divorce. Very lucrative career. Bought my own home, drove a nice car, put my kids through college. It pisses me off that people automatically assume that I received my lifestyle by taking some schmuck to the cleaners. Nope. I earned every dime of this myself, including putting myself through college and grad school, with zero help from the ex.
Sexism is alive and well in our society. On both sides.
JB, I'm totally fascinated by this Psychology Today blog (I know, you say no good) which pretty much is about studying the data generated from peered review journals reporting accurate statistic and the resulting cheeseball media articles that focus on the statistics that support whatever they want to say. There is perfectly good data out there, though the resulting media blather is very light on the truth. You can't have almost 50% of Americans (and growing according to the yearly census) choosing the single lifestyle and at the same time say that marriage makes you healthy, wealthy and wise. People are choosing to be not married for some really good reasons, yet most of the media articles continue to pound it into the masses that smart people are married people. These peer reviewed articles reporting statistics are dry as a bone, but now I understand why my friend with the PhD in psychology is fascinated by them. This is the only place one can find accurate information. It's all in the numbers.
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