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.

I agree fully. There are ways to prevent pregnancy in the event capricous promiscuity is the desired mode of behaviour.

The underlying problem is irresponsibility, on the part of both participants. Unless, of course, he is getting screwed in more ways thn one, and her plan is to get pregnant in order to collect the check. He may be told that she has taken care of pregnancy protection when she has not.

Although the balance sheet doesn't work for productive people, in the low income spectrum, it works hand in hand with state and federal programs (WIC, low income housing, etc.) to add up to a modest living. The real victims of this are children who may grow up as a bargaining chip. Dad can do something about that, but it takes determination and effort.

Bottom line: Guys have a choice, and they are exercising it, in the bedroom as well as at the altar.

This removes one of the premier means of traditional control women have exerted over men.

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!

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