A 'Marriage Strike' Emerges As Men Decide Not To Risk Loss

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.

Though you would never know it, I have 5 kids. I say two things as an avoidance of temptation, or as a way to make sure that a situation does not arise where I am given a chance to compromise myself, (even the appearance of) 1:I have 5 kids (this is usually enough to send the flirtatious gentleman in the opposite direction) 2: My husband is 6'2 and weigh's 200 pounds (is the failsafe backup if the visual of 5 kids isn't enough.) and as a last resort ( because of the lack of courtesy this one comes into play more and more)3: I am calling the police if you bother me again

Has it ever actually gotten to the point where the jerk was so clueless that you had to threaten him with point number three? Just curious.

Unfortunately...yes. I actually had someone banned from entry to my place of employment. Then he would wait in the parking lot ...I eventually did have to get a restraining order and God knows there were plenty of witnesses. I still have a co-worker walk to my car with me.

I only got the nerve to tell my husband about him after I went through legal channels. Usually the first two do it, but it is painful to admit that when you are moral it is not respected at all by many. They think you are being coy and playing hard to get. One guy actually had the nerve to say to me "I don't want to exchange rings or anything...just a nice night out, some dinner and we see where it goes." I was so insulted that I was speechless- a condition unknown to me.

One of the reasons I am no longer exceedingly active in the political scene is because of this. I used to get suggestive e-mails from alot of the guys I worked with. It drove my husband crazy.

Boldness goes hand in hand with what Don Meyers was saying about women having 'explored their sexuality'....the typical gal these days has been around the block a time or a hundred. Gross.

Guys are not particularly happy about the lack of ladies. I mean ladies in the truest sense of the word, not just females....don't be surprised. You should hear some of the gals I know talk. Some are worse than the horniest guy.

here is a story for you men -- My cousin's wife walked out on him and their three children (and one was an infant). Harry, my cousin, raised the kids -- you know the bathing, soothing, helping, disciplining, etc. for many years. Then the ex-wife takes Harry to court suing for legal custody (and child support). She claimed she could be a better mom since she did not work. She wanted to be there for her children. The judge listened to the case and made a decision. He decided to give the kids to the mom but since they lived close, he told the mom that she would have to give Harry the kids when he got off work and pick them up before he went to work and Harry would get the kids on the weekends. AND NO CHILD SUPPORT. This way both parents would win - she would take of the kids during the day and get to know them and Harry would not have to pay for a babysitter. She refused the deal. Harry got the kids (which is what he wanted) and never saw or heard from her again.

The judge was a woman.

Are you actually deluded enough to think that buying a house makes you mature? That's like saying the ability to make a woman pregnant makes a man a "father". You confuse what women actually did with what women could do. All those things you list were accessible to a woman that wanted them, but most women made a conscious decision to take a different route, for better or worse.

In other words, nothing you posted indicates any level of new-found maturity in women. Ignoring the apparent fact that someone pissed in your Wheaties, you obviously have no idea what maturity actually means. HINT: It doesn't mean being able to buy and drive (horrors!) a car with a big engine. Any incompetent drooling imbecile can do that, so I personally wouldn't claim that as a mark of maturity and achievement unless your standards are really low.

I hadn't been separated from my wife more than a week before a couple of female co-workers tried to "comfort" me (one was married). Now, six months down the road with a single, that would have been another story. But the boldness I saw really amazed me.

Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about that. Guys who are going through a divorce can be a hot commodity -- its an interesting phenomenon. I remember women making passes at me that I would never have expected it from, before I was even divorced yet. Madness. It seems that there is something about a minty fresh divorcee that makes all kinds of women try and trade up. I have a reputation for being a nice guy and having a lot of other things that generally makes a guy marketable, but the sudden avalanche of attention from all directions weirded me out. Apparently I was more attractive to women at that stage than in any other status I've been in.

ObDisclosure: I was married briefly when I was young and stupid. No kids or bitterness or anything -- I didn't get raped over it. Ignoring the fact that we should never have gotten married, she was mostly an honorable girl.

Oh, my goodnes, you are EXAMPLE A of the guy who would refuse to grow up, even for his kids.

How do you get that from my previous post? First of all, you really haven't defined "growing up" except to say that a male isn't apparently grown up unless he transforms himself to your liking by spending all his time doing "home" stuff. You cite "too many men in your neighborhood" as having spent the same time on the golf course as they did before they had kids. I doubt that statement is true, but regardless, I think that's between them and their wives. By the way, you do have their golf time documented, don't you? Or are you just making things up to further your anti-male agenda.

Those hobbies of yours are fine as long as you have time for them. I enjoy hobbies, too. So does my husband. But guess what? We're not so SELFISH as to put our pleasure ahead of our children's needs. Kids need love, and real love is spelled T-I-M-E.

Where, in my post, did I say that people shouldn't take time to play with the kids? (In fact, where did I say those were hobbies of mine?) Don't put words in my mouth. I would venture to say that your definition of "spending time" is way out of whack - I mean you accuse a good portion of the male population in the neighborhood of being wrong while you claim to be right. The law of averages is not on your side.

Like I said earlier, I've heard your ever-growing accusations, but I've not yet heard from the other side. Something tells me it would be drastically different from what you present here.

I do hope you never marry.

I suspect that if I ever do, it will be with someone who isn't a control freak. You know, someone who knows what she wants and sees it in me. Not someone that would attempt to mold me to fit her variable definition of the ideal man.

I believe I said it was a generalization, but everyone's reading comprehension is not necessarily very good.

General bashing then. It would have been much more forgivable if you had cited specific people to bash and given reasons for it. Instead, you bashed men "in general" as if to say that this is a normal trait of men. You were wrong, of course. Reading comprehension generally requires logical writing. You haven't made that leap yet.

Men have grown up, eh? That's why so many children don't have fathers anymore, and why men have laundry lists right down to chores expected, dress size, and hair color in what they will "accept" in a woman. What a howl; they may be homely, boring, and have a limited work ethic (and an ex and former family to support, but they demand everything.)

So many children don't have fathers any more precisely due to the easy divorces that women get. Have you still not read the article? It is the childish women (and NO, I didn't say all women), self serving as they may be, that have chased the fathers out of the house and taken a good chunk of their earnings to boot. And where did you find this horse-hockey about "laundry lists"? Yeah, many men are choosy about who they pick as mates, but are women not choosy? Or do you just look at the wallet and see how much you can soak him for at the divorce in 2 years.

If I didn't know any better, I'd say that you didn't like men. In fact, I'd say that you hate them so much that you'd marry one just to divorce him and take half his paycheck.

My father's generation was a generation of men. Mostly boys have been raised since WW2.

So marry your father.

Tortoise, you're wasting you time with this one. She's arguing like crazy, but has made so many leaps of faith that I can't keep track of her religion any more. She still hasn't read the original article, or has read it and decided that she likes the option of keeping that atomic bomb next to the bed so that she can rake her next victim over the coals financially. And all the while, she'll be trying to claim the high moral ground, whining "he wouldn't change", and "I thought he'd sell the Harley".

Funny how certain women make a bad choice, then somehow blame the man. What's not funny is that the court system lets them get away with it.

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