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Great post, SouthernFreebird!

Here's another scenario for the fictional Katherine and Dan mentioned in the article, and a far more likely one:

Katherine and Dan get married while they're both young. He is trying to establish himself in his career. Perhaps he's still in school. She gets a job and puts him through school, or at least helps put him through. As he's trying to establish himself in his career, he's not always the best husband and father. He's obsessed with work. He works long hours. Sometimes he works at home, while Katherine keeps the kids quiet because "Daddy's studying" or "Daddy's working." Sometimes Dan brings the boss home for dinner, and Katherine has to be the good hostess, cooking a nice meal, making the house perfect, etc.

Katherine has either given up her career or else she works at some lower-paying "woman's job." She considers it worthwhile because someday Dan will reach his goals and then they can relax, put the kids through college, retire, and enjoy the fruits of all this sacrifice.

At age 40 or 50, Dan is established in his career. Middle-aged men are still considered attractive, plus he is successful, so all the young girls at the office are coming on to him. Katherine, on the other hand, at 40 or 50 is considered over the hill. She's not so slim anymore because of having kids. Dan is going through a middle-aged crisis, so he dumps his wife for Bambi, a young cutie at the office.

Yes, Katherine gets custody of the kids, but Dan didn't want them anyway, as they would have cramped his style. He wants to recapture his youth, he wants to date and party and travel with his new girlfriend. He doesn't want to be burdened by staying up all night with a sick kid, schlepping the kids to school and soccer practice, and so on.

So now Katherine, a middle-aged woman with no recent job experience, has to get a job. She certainly can't get a very rewarding or well-paying job. But if she didn't work at all, and just collected alimony, everyone would criticize her as a "typical lazy selfish ex-wife taking her poor, poor husband to the cleaners."

So -- she gets up every morning, gets the kids off to school, goes to work, puts in eight hours or more, picks up the kids after school, fixes dinner, helps them with their homework, etc., etc., etc., then collapses into bed. When the kids are sick, she's up all night with them, then has to get up and go to work. Sure, she's one of the "lucky" ones who gets child support, but she still has to work, and her standard of living has gone way down. Plus she feels stressed, rejected, humiliated, and stretched to the limit.

Not only that, but everyone acts like Katherine is some kind of evil witch for getting *anything* in the divorce settlement. "Poor Dan!" people say. "That greedy ex-wife of his got *his* kids and *his* house!" You see, everything accumulated during the marriage is seen as belonging to Dan, because he was the wage-earner. Katherine was merely "borrowing" these objects for as long as Dan allowed her to be his wife, and she was expected to cheerfully relinquish everything when he dumped her, even though she gave up her career and was a good wife and mother for all those years.

So now Dan marries Bambi, his little bimbo cutie. (Not much chance of *Katherine* remarrying, at her age and with kids. Besides, she's too exhausted to even date.) Dan's new little trophy wife now gets the benefit of Dan's financial success. Oh, sure, Bambi whines and complains about how unfair it is that Dan has to pay child support to his evil ex-wife and how this takes money away from HER and any kids SHE might have. But she fails to realize that, unlike Katherine, *Bambi* did not have to struggle through hard times, helping Dan start his career.

Now here comes the kicker. Now that Dan has a new wife to do the dirty work, he decides he wants his kids! After all, he has a stay-at-home wife now who will nurse the kids when they're sick, take them to school, etc., so naturally he wants the kids now. Maybe he really does love his kids, but he also figures that suing for custody is a wonderful way to hurt and devastate Katherine even further.

So, Dan goes to court and convinces the judge that the kids are better off with him and Bambi, because Bambi stays home all day and will be at the house with milk and cookies when the kids come home from school. Unlike Katherine, who sticks the kids in some after-school program until she gets off work! The judge agrees and awards the kids to Dan.

Now Katherine, after all her years of devotion and sacrifice, has nothing. She's lost her kids, her standard of living, everything. She's been tossed aside like an old shoe, while a home-wrecking little tart gets the benefits of all of Katherine's sacrifices and faith in Dan.

I am sick and tired of hearing about how poor, poor men always get the worst of divorce settlements, while evil, selfish wives "get everything." It is just as likely to happen the other way around, if not more likely. In fact, any man who doesn't come out better than his wife in a divorce settlement must have a really, really bad lawyer.

And no, I am not divorced myself. And I am no "Feminazi." I have just seen variations of the above scenario happen over and over and over again!

To all you men who cry and moan about what poor victims you are and how rotten women are, you should stop and think: Don't you sound just like male versions of "Feminazis"? If there were a male version of "National Organization for Women," I think some of you guys would join it. Yes, you truly believe that you are victims and that "the system" is set up against you and that the opposite sex is evil. But don't Feminazis feel the same way, in reverse? Chew on that!

All the more reason not to get married; women will make up statistics based on anecdotal evidence to use against you in divorce court. :^)

Chew on that!

Aha! A pristine 1950s society preserved deep in the jungle of Kalifornia. Who woulda thunk it.....

"Yes, you truly believe that you are victims and that "the system" is set up against you and that the opposite sex is evil. But don't Feminazis feel the same way, in reverse? Chew on that! "

We are looking at the conditions in this country now, and voicing our opinions based on those observations. I have eyes, and I see what is happening out there.

As for sexual morality, the typical young lady of today will hit the sack with almost anything that walks or slithers down the road. It is not uncommon for women to have had hundreds of sex partners before they get married somewhere in their mid to late 20s if they get married at all. They have "explored their sexuality" with both men and women. The poor guy coming home doesn't know if he will find the little lady in the sack with the guy from next door, the girl from next door, or both.

At last glance, the divorce rate was fifty percent. It may be more by now.

STDs have become much more prevalent in the last few years. That is a direct result of prevailing promiscuity in this generation. Some of these STDs are brutal. They are disfiguring and permanent in their effects, even rendering many women incapable of having children.

Ok, considering all factors, the man is facing a woman with no morals, all the viciousness of a pissed-off king cobra, and the health of a person with one foot in the grave. And, the woman thinks she is doing the man a favor by offering him her lily-white hand. The hand is all that she has left. The rest was used up a long time ago.

I am happy that I got a good woman before all of the nonsense that is going on today became common.

So now Katherine, a middle-aged woman with no recent job experience, has to get a job. She certainly can't get a very rewarding or well-paying job. But if she didn't work at all, and just collected alimony, everyone would criticize her as a "typical lazy selfish ex-wife taking her poor, poor husband to the cleaners."

Thank you for pointing out this scenario. I have seen it almost as often as I have seen the shrewish, feminazi-type who eats her male life partner like a spider.

The "Katherine" in your scenario is all the more tragic because she is one of the very few good women who actually live the true spirit of marriage. It cost her. I've seen it.

I'm not saying that similar scenarios to the one you outline don't happen.

But what about when Dan is working those late hours, going on business trips which are just that--business, and being faithful to Katherine.

Who gets OD'd on Oprah and Rikki Lake and decides that he can't possibly be being faithful to her (despite sexual harassment laws in the workplace, etc.) and decides to keep the score even. (In reality, Bambi would have to approach Dan, or he would be risking a very embarassing dismissal and lawsuit. Bambi might be a cutie, but that doesn't mean she is a dummy.)

So Katherine is busy being unfaithful while he is slaving away. etc., etc. After all, she has all day while the kids are in school, and Dan is a little tired to be heartthrobbingly romantic when he gets home from his day at work.

You illustrate the bias we complain about when you assume that the male is the one who is unfaithful, and in the process smear many of us who have been faithful until the hour the gavel dropped.

You would reframe the scenario to make the male the evil partner, the one at fault, just as the courts have traditionally done.

While it takes two to make a marriage, it only takes one to destroy it.

>I am not divorced myself. And I am no "Feminazi." I have just seen variations of the above scenario happen over and over and over again!

Your post at 136 is a classic for some wives. I too saw many similar scenarios before the laws swung the way they are now, although I saw more that were trying to recover from the welfare abyss while the ex-husband and his new honey lived in high class digs. Either party can we seriously injured and sometimes the fault is seriously on one side and not the other. Besides the monetary devastation, the emotional wounds sometimes never heal.

Actually the article wasn't about whether people have been treated unfairly in family court...it's about whether it's inherent in the family court system, and whether men have changed their behavior toward women because of that inherent flaw.

You do understand the difference, I hope?