Posted on 07/06/2002 5:00:19 AM PDT by buccaneer81
A 'marriage strike' emerges as men decide not to risk loss
By Glenn Sacks and Dianna Thompson
Katherine is attractive, successful, witty, and educated. She also can't find a husband. Why? Because most of the men this thirtysomething software analyst dates do not want to get married. These men have Peter Pan syndrome: They refuse to commit, refuse to settle down, and refuse to "grow up."
However, given the family court policies and divorce trends of today, Peter Pan is no naive boy, but instead a wise man.
"Why should I get married and have kids when I could lose those kids and most of what I've worked for at a moment's notice?" asks Dan, a 31-year-old power plant technician who says he will never marry.
"I've seen it happen to many of my friends. I know guys who came home one day to an empty house or apartment - wife gone, kids gone. They never saw it coming. Some of them were never able to see their kids regularly again."
Census figures suggest that the marriage rate in the United States has dipped 40 percent during the last four decades to its lowest point since the rate was measured. There are many plausible explanations for this trend, but one of the least mentioned is that American men, in the face of a family court system hopelessly stacked against them, have subconsciously launched a "marriage strike."
It is not difficult to see why. Let's say that Dan defies Peter Pan, marries Katherine, and has two children. There is a 50 percent likelihood that this marriage will end in divorce within eight years, and if it does, the odds are 2-1 it will be Katherine, not Dan, who initiates the divorce. It may not matter that Dan was a decent husband. Studies show that few divorces are initiated over abuse or because the man has already abandoned the family. Nor is adultery cited as a factor by divorcing women appreciably more than by divorcing men.
While the courts may grant Dan and Katherine joint legal custody, the odds are overwhelming that it is Katherine, not Dan, who will win physical custody. Overnight, Dan, accustomed to seeing his kids every day and being an integral part of their lives, will become a "14 percent dad" - a father who is allowed to spend only one out of every seven days with his own children.
Once Katherine and Dan are divorced, odds are at least even that Katherine will interfere with Dan's visitation rights.
Three-quarters of divorced men surveyed say their ex-wives have interfered with their visitation, and 40 percent of mothers studied admitted that they had done so, and that they had generally acted out of spite or in order to punish their exes.
Katherine will keep the house and most of the couple's assets. Dan will need to set up a new residence and pay at least a third of his take-home pay to Katherine in child support.
As bad as all of this is, it would still make Dan one of the lucky ones. After all, he could be one of those fathers who cannot see his children at all because his ex has made a false accusation of domestic violence, child abuse, or child molestation. Or a father who can only see his own children under supervised visitation or in nightmarish visitation centers where dads are treated like criminals.
He could be one of those fathers whose ex has moved their children hundreds or thousands of miles away, in violation of court orders, which courts often do not enforce. He could be one of those fathers who tears up his life and career again and again in order to follow his children, only to have his ex-wife continually move them.
He could be one of the fathers who has lost his job, seen his income drop, or suffered a disabling injury, only to have child support arrearages and interest pile up to create a mountain of debt which he could never hope to pay off. Or a father who is forced to pay 70 percent or 80 percent of his income in child support because the court has imputed an unrealistic income to him. Or a dad who suffers from one of the child support enforcement system's endless and difficult to correct errors, or who is jailed because he cannot keep up with his payments. Or a dad who reaches old age impoverished because he lost everything he had in a divorce when he was middle-aged and did not have the time and the opportunity to earn it back.
"It's a shame," Dan says. "I always wanted to be a father and have a family. But unless the laws change and give fathers the same right to be a part of their children's lives as mothers have, it just isn't worth the risk."
Dianna Thompson is the founder and executive director of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children. She can be contacted by e-mail at DThompson2232@aol.com. Glenn Sacks writes about gender issues from the male perspective. He invites readers' comments at Glenn@GlennSacks.com.
LOL! That's worthy of it's own thread.
Type two, or "hostile workplace" harassment can be ANYTHING.
Literally anything the person perceives as "Harassment"
(He stared at my butt and created a "hostile workplace" He made fun of my shoes and created a "hostile workplace" He said feminists are dimwits and created a "hostile workplace" Waah! Waah!)
Truly, as a manager I discriminated in my hiring practices after a stupid complaint over "harassment" by a female who couldn't manage to show up on time. Asking her to do so or go work somewhere else was evidence of a "vendetta" and "harassment"
But, the timeclock was on my side. She got the boot and I got a raise.
At last we agree.
Yes.
Physical attraction is the reason a man and woman marry and become one flesh.
If you wish to do away with this attraction you will have to talk to God and make your pathetic little case to him.
Now look who's "whining"
Not lacking in all drives apparently ;-)
It is the little things that count, and the little things that loom large when things begin to sour. When you care about someone else at least as much as you care about yourself the relationshp is bound to flourish.
i was pointing out the serious nature of some of the posters' dilemmas and life stories: unless you have been through or close to someone who has been through the legal meat grinder, the thread sounds like an ed gein reunion. this subject hurts so much precisely because of the twisting of love into greed and the intrusion of the state into what was a religious matter. if the guys here hadn't had higher hopes, they wouldn't be hashing this out and trying to make it better. it's bad enough when your dreams crumble, but to have the courts sifting through remains is unconscionable.
this is quite beyond t&a.....
Consequently, I think many people who do not respect the Covenant of marriage as God defines it are left with unrealistic hopes and misconceived notions of what marriage is in reality.
In short: They set themselves up to be continually dissapointed by using the media as a measure of what should constitute a "marriage" This dissapointment leads to marital failure.
Here is where we have to disagree. I'm an agnostic on a good day, and after celebrating our 11th anniversery the 29th of last month, we're working on 12 years of marriage.
That needs its own thread. This one's full already.
Okay, well regardless I hope we can agree about the unrealistic expectations people may have when measuring marriage in reality against what is portrayed in the media. (and when you start talking about single parent homes you toss out another standard right there..)
PS: Congratulations on your marriage. May it last till death do you part.
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