Letter to Focus on the Family challenging their stand on No-Fault Divorce (good read)

To those who are concerned at
Focus On The Family and
Focus On The Family Action

Dear Concerned,

In spite of all the good that Focus On The Family has done in the area of family rescue, I believe you have missed seeing the major enemy: No-Fault Divorce.

It is true that divorce came as a result of feminism and hearts drawn away by self-centered, and selfish actions, but the major enemy, Easy Divorce, came as a result of uncontested changes in divorce laws in all 50 states.

All of us have done much to try to change the current anti-marriage, anti-family, anti-home, anti-male forces, but these efforts resemble someone trying to totally submerge an inflated inner tube. It cannot be done. It can never be done. Get it "down" in one area and it pops up in another one.

Until we completely stop no-fault divorce laws we are fighting a losing battle, much like someone fighting the wind with a tennis racket...plenty of holes for escape or free passage.

I truly hope that Focus On The Family Action will make this the first area of concern with relentless efforts exerted until this No.1 enemy of the family is totally destroyed.
I have called upon many "rights" and "family" organizations for their involvment, but all have responded with a definite "NO".

This is not a divorce issue, but a legal issue, defending the rights of American citizens guaranteed by our Constitution. These rights are: 1) due process - the right to hear the alleged claims of wrongdoing, with proof, defense, decision, and appeal; 2) equal protection under the law - the same legal "benefits" for both plaintiff and defendant, and 3) trial by jury of peers.

When divorce strikes, attorneys say there is nothing they can do to prevent it, but when you look at the constitutional rights, and the divorce procedures, there are endless actions that can be taken to prevent the illegal actions that go on in a civil divorce suit. Judges and attorneys can be confronted with legal actions about conducting business outside of constitutional law.

There is something seriously flawed (illegal) when the plaintiff in a divorce suit is granted a divorce EVERY TIME. Justice is NOT being served. This is NOT "justice for ALL".

A follow-up to this FORCED divorce procedure is "deadbeat Dads" being imprisoned without Due Process, Equal Protection, and Trial by Jury of Peers, over a CIVIL matter. That is illegality at its worst and MUST be ended. It harks back to pauper's prison...pay or go to jail.

We can all speak that we want to defend marriages and families, but if this issue is not addressed also, we are just fooling ourselves into believing that we really care about the rights of American citizens, and in particular, the ungodly treatment of our spiritual brothers. (75% of divorces are initiated by wives/Mothers)

All kinds of programs can be launched in support of marriages and families, but until we stop No-Fault Divorce our efforts to truly protect them are in vain.

I am reminded of a situation in the Bible where a giant named Goliath was doing his thing against the children of God without restraint, who were too afraid to be the eliminators. Then along comes little David, who had kept a good track record of what God had done in his life, and was certain that this giant should and could be slain - that the enemy should be dead.

Somewhere there is a "David" who has not yet heard about the situation with this giant No-Fault Divorce, but who will be more than willing to "step up to the plate" in the name of Almighty God, and put an end to his godless actions.

Is David a member of your "family"?

Please let me know how you agree or disagree with issues addressed in this letter.

Most concerned...and relentlessly active,

Billy Miller - Louisiana
brmiller (at) bellsouth (dot) net

No, let me explain.

In the "Last Stop, Willoughby" Twilight Zone episode the husband is not dissed at all. He is a caring, sensitive man who just plain can't handle a high pressure job but has to because his wife wants the high paycheck the high pressure job gives. He is a man on the edge of a nervous breakdown who turns to his wife for understanding but only gets, "suck it up, weakling". He wants to live in a simpler, quieter world. He is a man whose wife is bitterly realizing that she chose the wrong husband. He is not a ruthless predator and she can't make him into one. You can see that she has the ruthless ambition to have made a first rate executive and these two people are tragically mismatched. Neither really knew what the other wanted when they married.

I use this as an example of how the "deal" marriage of the 50's and 60's often didn't work for men.

And I'll bet lots of men felt the husband in "Willoughby", like meal tickets whose best would never be enough. And what economic use was the stay at home wife ? What did she do but watch soap operas ?

A lot of the suburban 1950s angst came about when the ethnic city neighborhoods broke down after WW II. The Veterans loans made it possible for people to leave the cities for the newly built subdivisions (Levittown, Long Island was the first of many.)

When people left these crowded inner city neighborhoods behind, they gained space & a lot of labor-saving devices, but left long-standing social groups. Some of these families had lived in the same city neighborhoods for generations. Entire extended families lived within a few city blocks of each other. Parish churches' bounds covered a few square miles because their parishioners were so densely packed into these row houses.

In this world, women were *critical.* They were the keepers of community life - when they weren't working inside their small row houses, they were outside - scrubbing the steps, visiting with friends and relatives, and most important keeping *watch* on everybody, their kids *and* others. People were poor, families were large, but there was a great deal of social cohesion.

When these families moved to the suburbs, often that connection was weakened. Families tried to recreate that level of sociability in the early suburban developments, but it wasn't the same as being "on the street" with people your grandparents grew up with. Everyone was from "someplace else," and sterile consumerism filled the gap. The long phase of suburban isolation had begun, and we're still suffering the effects.

I use this as an example of how the "deal" marriage of the 50's and 60's often didn't work for men.

The old Twilight Zones are *full* of these kinds of stories. So are novels of the time, like "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit" or Mary McCarthy's "The Group."

I don't think it was a "media conspiracy" - these stories were immensely popular because they *did* resonate with the people who saw/read them. People paid a terrible price (not immediately obvious in the short run) for that suburban tract house. In many ways it *did* change women from "producers" to "consumers," and nothing was worse in that era than to be considered "old-fashioned."

Not that it mattered, because by the mid-1960s the last of the middle class (with children) were fleeing the cities like rats abandoning a sinking ship, and the burnt-out wrecks (or gentrified condos selling to the retired) "alone are left to tell the tale."

the absolutely whacko morons who'll gleefully use a cross as a club...

Solutions? From others? You know what you need to do in situation(s) only you know.

I did go to our church for solutions, and it is right to do so for the sake of accountability. Our pastor did ask me to give hubby 8 months to get counseling. He also gave hubby the name and number of a place to get it. Hubby went to two counseling sessions, and honestly, despite the enormous hurdles that lie ahead for him, had he continued with the counseling and proved that he was *trying* (even though I wanted out like you wouldn't believe) I would have absolutely stayed in the marriage as long as he endured. Unfortunately, after the two sessions he quit going at all.. and after waiting the promised 8 months I filed.

Four years later, I have learned to regret that he didn't keep going.. and I wish I might have pushed him harder to try. Divorce has absolutely devastated our children irreparably. Of course our problem was enormous.. couples who divorce because they simply don't get along.. need to try every possible solution.. and try it again.. before dissolving their marriage. Even in my case it was hardly worth it.

A lot of women know what they need (or want) to do.. and it's not the right choice. A third party must be consulted so that an objective decision is made. (BTW..You're attorney isn't an objective third party! :) )

Our children still don't know why we got divorced.. the reason is unspeakable and I'd be horrified if they found out. I will go to my grave with the secret to spare them the shame.

...I was told repeatedly to allow God to do a miracle. I waited 15 years...

You have a slight credibility problem here. "Unspeakable" things tend to be both illegal and difficult to hide.

You aren't helping the matter by hyping his problem to the moon, and saying, "But I can't talk about it." You are talking about it, to anyone who will listen. By hyping it and refusing to actually name it, you are in effect demanding that the entire world dismiss your sin of divorce while condemning his unnamed, unwitnessed sin.

If his crime is indeed so unspeakable and horrifying you are aiding and abetting by not contacting the proper authorities.

If everyone you did name the problem for thought counseling was the solution, chances are it is hardly so horrifying.

Your point about the breakdown of the extended family as families moved out to the suburbs is excellent. After all, what was the point of Dr Spock ? You don't ask a book to tell you how to raise your kids. You ask your parents. You only turn to a book if your parents aren't nearby. And with the replacement of the extended family with the nuclear family clustered around the TV the role of the mother as primary caregiver is diminished.

The new tract houses were designed in a way to isolate the house from pedestrian traffic with large lawns. No porches where people could sit and greet passersby. Not like southern towns with porches and rocking chairs or tenements with people on the front stoop. It was intentionally difficult to recreate tight communities.

I can't help but think of the cynicism of the dating ritual of the time. Where the girl coyly doled out flesh on the basis of how much the boy spent on her (first base, second base, etc). The "bad girl" was ostracized because it was not in the interest of the "nice girls" that sex be cheap.

You have a slight credibility problem here. "Unspeakable" things tend to be both illegal and difficult to hide.

Sorry, I meant unspeakable to my children. They wouldn't understand or shrug in indifference like you or anyone else on this board. It's their father, a man they love and look up to. They would NOT understand.

By hyping it and refusing to actually name it, you are in effect demanding that the entire world dismiss your sin of divorce while condemning his unnamed, unwitnessed sin.

That was my biggest problem. How to just say, "trust me, it's bad enough" without revealing the problem was impossible, especially around my church family. I found it easier to just let them point the blame at me, and they still do. At his father's funeral, a girl who was at one time my best friend came to me and said, "I was so angry with you when I heard about what you did. But I have since forgiven you because I realized you alone are going to have to answer to God for what you've done." I said nothing. My point was that people were very quick to judge.. and there was no love offered at all.

You on the other hand don't know me. Nor anyone else posting here. You don't know my name.. and so yes in anonymity I can talk about it. But not as you say to anyone who will listen. Those that know me, except a small close circle of family and friends remain in the dark. Even his own brothers and mother don't know the truth.
I don't name it because of a slight risk that someone on this board does know me. Sorry. Just being careful.

The "bad girl" was ostracized because it was not in the interest of the "nice girls" that sex be cheap.

It's not in the best interests of *anybody* that "sex be cheap" - the illegitimacy and AIDs explosions attest to that. "Bad girls" are still ostracized in many communities because people realize that casual sex outside of marriage creates social chaos.

Another common misperception of the 1950s is that casual sex (especially adultery) didn't occur. Mary McCarthy wrote a devastating short story called "The Man in the Brooks Brothers Shirt" (a stab at the popular book "Man in the Gray Flannel Suit") which lambasts casual adulterous sex. The Billy Wilder film "The Apartment" does the same for casual office sex in that era.

You could write *volumes* about 1950s-style suburban architecture and community design.

Herbert Gans's book "Levittown" talks a lot about what new suburbanites did to relieve their loneliness & isolation. They created all sorts of clubs - book clubs, sports clubs, cocktail parties - but none of it, from my reading, seemed to have been much of a substitute for Bubbe and Zahde around the corner to help out with the grandkids.

Ironic, isn't it, that "empty nesters" and gays spend fortunes on rehabbed and gentrified townhomes in the very neighborhoods that fifty years ago held large, vibrant family-oriented communities?

After all, what was the point of Dr Spock ? You don't ask a book to tell you how to raise your kids. You ask your parents. You only turn to a book if your parents aren't nearby. And with the replacement of the extended family with the nuclear family clustered around the TV the role of the mother as primary caregiver is diminished.

Excellent point. Not only is the role of mother as primary caregiver diminished, but also all the *other* roles of women - "maiden aunt," grandmother, big sister, etc.

When grandmother's advice isn't welcome, that is going to diminish grandma's importance in *everybody's* eyes - including the eyes of her husband. So then you get the depressing spectacle of grandma getting facelifts, lipo jobs, a retirement home in FL, becoming just another kind of social parasite - like her displaced-homemaker daughter.

Amazing what VA loans & the Eisenhower expressways wrought. Talk about the law of unintended consequences.

"I did go to our church for solutions, and it is right to do so for the sake of accountability."

Fully agree you did the right thing, and regret if I sounded unduly harsh *or* implied [it] wasn't or wouldn't be the proper thing to do, initially.
Still one must rely the church is run by a competent man of God, one who fully understands what's at stake these days.
I find that to be the exception, not the rule.
Just my .02.

"Our pastor did ask me to give hubby 8 months to get counseling. He also gave hubby the name and number of a place to get it. Hubby went to two counseling sessions, and honestly, despite the enormous hurdles that lie ahead for him, had he continued with the counseling and proved that he was *trying* (even though I wanted out like you wouldn't believe) I would have absolutely stayed in the marriage as long as he endured."

I believe you.

"Four years later, I have learned to regret that he didn't keep going...and I wish I might have pushed him harder to try."

Yes but hindsight's always 20/20, isn't it.

"Divorce has absolutely devastated our children irreparably. Of course our problem was enormous.. couples who divorce because they simply don't get along.. need to try every possible solution.. and try it again.. before dissolving their marriage. Even in my case it was hardly worth it."

Well you'd know your situation best, but I'd beg to remind you insofar as your children are concerned?
I just recently heard a famous psychologist -- & one I respect, *not* easy for me to do -- say something most profound to a couple contemplating divorce but for the children, haven't.

This guy -- who's BIG "pro-family," incidentally -- said, "There're times children are damaged when their parents remain together."
Of course he was speaking of instances where there's gross abuse, be it physical or mental seemed not to make much difference to him.

After careful thought of what I'd witnessed in my lifetime, I had to agree with the man.

So perhaps you'd better serve your own interests by focusing on what you have now instead of what you had (if that's what's happening)?

Because it sounds to me like you had nothing to lose.

...& everything to gain. ;^)

"There're times children are damaged when their parents remain together."

True enough. In fact my parents got divorced when I was 15. They'd fought so much through the years that when they told us we all said, "It's about time!" My mother must've been sad to hear that..

I myself stayed much longer then I should have and had we divorced when the kids were much younger I believe they'd have been more resiliant about the changes. I shouldn't have waited. Absolutely, it was a mistake to wait. My other mistake was not letting them see the any of the conflicts. I didn't want them to have the childhood I did. So I kept quiet until they weren't around. When suddenly they were told we were seperating they had absolutely no reference to point to of any problems. They thought we were fine. Ah.. life is full of regrets.

>There're times children are damaged when their parents remain together.
True enough. In fact my parents got divorced when I was 15. They'd fought so much through the years that when they told us we all said, 'It's about time!'"

So you see?
Not many nutcrackers out there I put much stock in but the one who made [that] statement, I do.

"My mother must've been sad to hear that..."

Unless she told you so herself, you've absolutely no way of knowing what she thought.
Who knows?
She *might've* been just as concerned about how y'all were going to take it as you were about your kids, eh?
In which case she'd have been more relieved than anything else.
Right?

"I myself stayed much longer then I should have and had we divorced when the kids were much younger I believe they'd have been more resiliant about the changes. I shouldn't have waited. Absolutely, it was a mistake to wait. My other mistake was not letting them see the any of the conflicts."

See it?
Far too much second guessing of yourself, my friend.
Some will say it's self destructive while others manipulative but *I* say, stop it.
OK? ;^)

"I didn't want them to have the childhood I did."

Well they did.
It's damned unfortunate the man you chose couldn't be more responsible and up to the task; but, that wasn't in the cards for you that time.
Fine, what's done is done.
Important thing *I'd* ask is, did you learn anything?

"So I kept quiet until they weren't around. When suddenly they were told we were seperating they had absolutely no reference to point to of any problems. They thought we were fine. Ah.. life is full of regrets."

You're to be commended for shutting up & eating all manner of crap for the kid's sake but, life is not necessarily "full of regrets," either.
Lousy choices are regretful, sure.

What life is, is chock full of reality.
And given what I'm witnessing happening in our society today exposure to some reality can't happen too soon, or nearly enough.
The kids today often appear borderline neurotic, they're *that* disconnected from "realty".
And all that damage is inflicted by a well meaning adult, too.

Ever wonder what the "wise" reflect on before attaining wisdom?
Maybe a few *regrets* *if* they're truly wise to know the difference.

Yup, regrets.

...the stuff of wisdom. ;^)

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