A Guide to the Restoration of Marriage

[theplummer]

Here’s a question for you:

Do you believe that childcare should be divided 50/50 between spouses within marriage?

If not, why believe that childcare outside of marriage should be split 50/50?

If a couple has never achieved a 50/50 split within marriage, why believe that they can manage it when divorced?

(Just for fun, I’ll answer my own question. I don’t think a 50/50 childcare split is necessary within marriage, but I don’t think that it is necessary after divorce, either.)

Who says that a man going to work EVERY day, to bring home the money that makes a life possible for a mother to actually stay at home, is not actually DOING at least 50% of the actual childcare. Unless you want to claim that playing games, and watching television with your kids is somehow more important to the childcare than say paying the mortgage.

Your whole premise is flawed, and has been for…forever.

Childcare outside of marriage should not even exist. You should support that position whole heartedly since you are most likely a Catholic on a Catholic website. To promote otherwise should probably be condemned constantly as in direct conflict with Catholic teaching. However it is a major problem that does exist ( and I reiterate that the article I present handles this issue quite well and offers great solutions to the problem, except you refuse to even give it a gander). So my position is, two people engaged in conduct that has the potential to create life. That must be protected at all costs, even to the inconvenience of both parents. Both parties know the risk and both should be accountable for the child. Both financially, as well as raising the child, equally. When one parent chooses to “opt out”, of parenthood, the other party should be justly compensated. No one gets a free pass to be a derilict on my watch.

Third question is a resounding yes. It can and should be default position of the authorities. However, again I must point out that you are coming from the same flawed position that you were previously. The one that wipes more butts is not entitled to default custody. Sure there may be a short time of adjustment for a father to adequately care for his children if he hadn’t done much in the past. But to summarily assume that he’s incapable just because he hadn’t had to do it in the past is more flawed logic.

So you don’t believe 50/50 is necessary. Ok, if you were my soon to be exwife, I could tell you that I want 80% custody and you’d be fine with that?

 

[theplummer]

This is hilarious. I googled your “movement”, and the Facebook page only has about 8k likes. Who knows how many of those are people who just ‘liked’ it randomly one day? The “movement” isn’t mentioned in any sort of mainstream articles or on any non MRA type sites. I’ve never heard heard of anything like this in real life.

I checked out a couple of forums…and I’m not convinced these are guys that anyone wanted to be with in the first place. How many strong, masculine men need an online “movement” dedicated to making their own life choices? How many respectable, successful men actually eschew all romantic relationships with women? Sure, they may not marry or marry early, but actually avoid getting involved all together? More to the point, I have a hard time believing that people who spend so much time and energy on these sites aren’t actually slaves to their desire for a companion. It sounds like most would jump at the chance for a relationship. But I saw a lot of gloating similar to yours about how “the feminists” will suffer from this “boycott”. At 8K and no mainstream respect or even visibility… that sounds like desperate, grasping spite.

My aren’t we rather uncharitable in our generalized shaming language, specifically toward a group of men who feel disenfranchised by the country they are forced into possible conscription to fight and die for.

Not very “charitable” At all, are we?

 

[theplummer]

A 20-year-old PDF is not Holy Writ. If it says smart things, you can summarize it!

Things have changed a lot in the US since 1999–demographics, welfare regulations, food stamp prevalence, attitudes toward food stamps, attitudes toward unwed mothers, beliefs about divorce, parenting styles, etc.

One important thing that has happened over the last 20+ years is the emergence of a high-(name removed by moderator)ut, high-pressure middle class parenting style that emphasizes education, achievement, and requires close teamwork between two (TWO) parents and the children. See, for example, the infamous Tiger Mom. The Tiger Mom is not, needless to say, a single or divorced mother. At some point, even super duper progressive parents (while paying lipservice to heroic single mothers) started realizing that their lifestyle would be impossible without two fully-engaged parents. This is most noticeable in the coastal US. We used to live in a nice part of DC. At some point I realized, hey, I don’t know any middle class single mothers here! The reason was, a middle class single mother could not survive in DC. The only way to survive as a middle class family in the expensive parts of the US is as a two-parent (often two-income) family. At some point over the last 20 years, divorce became taboo in that kind of family.

And again your reluctance to read the article is exactly why you keep proving my point that the article is relevant.

Also, not just holy writ contains good stuff. One can find much good stuff from many writers of works written well before this one was. Ever heard of the term “classic literature”?

 

[MJJean]

Is that California? It sounds very exotic as a system.

That’s another issue to bear in mind–law varies a lot from state to state, so there really isn’t a lot of point in generalizing. Obviously, there are national trends (like toward gay marriage or toward joint custody), but there regional oddities.

I’m in MI.

Back when I was younger, and dinosaurs roamed the burbs, the norm was much different.

Mother got primary custody and father got every other weekend, rotating holidays, and a couple weeks per summer. Support was set based on father’s income alone. Alimony was set based on length of marriage, but paid unless/until the woman remarried.

For those who chose not to marry, there was little recourse if the relationship ended.

There have been a lot of changes, I think for the better, over the last 10-15 years in how family court cases are handled.

 

[pensmama87]

Who says that a man going to work EVERY day, to bring home the money that makes a life possible for a mother to actually stay at home, is not actually DOING at least 50% of the actual childcare. Unless you want to claim that playing games, and watching television with your kids is somehow more important to the childcare than say paying the mortgage.

Your whole premise is flawed, and has been for…forever.

Childcare outside of marriage should not even exist. You should support that position whole heartedly since you are most likely a Catholic on a Catholic website. To promote otherwise should probably be condemned constantly as in direct conflict with Catholic teaching. However it is a major problem that does exist ( and I reiterate that the article I present handles this issue quite well and offers great solutions to the problem, except you refuse to even give it a gander). So my position is, two people engaged in conduct that has the potential to create life. That must be protected at all costs, even to the inconvenience of both parents. Both parties know the risk and both should be accountable for the child. Both financially, as well as raising the child, equally. When one parent chooses to “opt out”, of parenthood, the other party should be justly compensated. No one gets a free pass to be a derilict on my watch.

Third question is a resounding yes. It can and should be default position of the authorities. However, again I must point out that you are coming from the same flawed position that you were previously. The one that wipes more butts is not entitled to default custody. Sure there may be a short time of adjustment for a father to adequately care for his children if he hadn’t done much in the past. But to summarily assume that he’s incapable just because he hadn’t had to do it in the past is more flawed logic.

So you don’t believe 50/50 is necessary. Ok, if you were my soon to be exwife, I could tell you that I want 80% custody and you’d be fine with that?

I’m really confused by your post. It seems to me that you are saying that people (women?) who stay at home aren’t actually doing anything, that “real work” would be contributing financially to the household, and that nobody besides parents should care for their own children?

I hope you can clarify, because those positions seem greatly out of touch with reality, in any time period in any culture.

 

[theplummer]

I’m really confused by your post. It seems to me that you are saying that people (women?) who stay at home aren’t actually doing anything, that “real work” would be contributing financially to the household, and that nobody besides parents should care for their own children?

I hope you can clarify, because those positions seem greatly out of touch with reality, in any time period in any culture.

No what I am saying is that working outside the home is just as important in providing actual childcare as the one inside the home. The whole arguement of, well since I’m the one who stayed at home with them, so I should be the one to keep them now, is just a rationalization and an attempt to use the children as “mutilated beggers”.

 

[pensmama87]

No what I am saying is that working outside the home is just as important in providing actual childcare as the one inside the home. The whole arguement of, well since I’m the one who stayed at home with them, so I should be the one to keep them now, is just a rationalization and an attempt to use the children as “mutilated beggers”.

It could be that, but I have a hard time seeing that it could be ONLY that.

 

[MJJean]

Your first assumption that 50/50 custody is the default position is patently false. The Social Security Administration Title IX-D federal child support enforcement block grants prevent father’s from having an equal shake in custody matters. States, counties, and family courts, and all family service organizations , and its employees, including judges, benifit financially by maintaining the status quo of biased family court proceedings.

** I did not say everywhere, but it is in my state unless there is some reason the non-custodial parent cannot keep the child for certain days ( example, due to work schedule) or has been judged unfit.

Federal child support enforcement is somehow unfair to the father? How so? And you are aware that child support and custody/visitation are separate issues? So it’s not like men who fall on hard times and cannot keep up their support payments are denied access to their children by the court.**

The whole divorce industry is corrupt, and BIG BUSINESS. In order for this industry to profit, one party MUST have a dostinct advantage to the utilization of the system, which forces the disadvantaged into fighting the system, therefore feeding the system to its own guaranteed profitability.

**There isn’t much of a divorce industry here.

Our county has made filing divorce papers free if you are low income.

There are a few state sponsored legal aid offices that are awesome.

They have also gone mostly paperless, so cases move faster with less in person appearances for the couple and their attorneys. This saves the court and the spouses time and money.

Instead of fighting it out in hearing after hearing, it’s increasingly more common for couples to use mediators and share an attorney to hammer out a fair agreement to present to a judge. Even couples who choose to have separate attorneys save a lot of money using mediators. Turns out, saving a boatload of money is a great incentive for divorcing couples to reasonably negotiate with each other.**

I mostly agree with the rest of your post, and I must bring up the fact that what you articulate brings us back “full circle” to my original post as to why men are choosing to opt out of relationships with women and there’s a name for it. MGTOW.

Equality feminists created this problem and MGTOW’s are happy to let women lie in the bed that they made for themselves. No longer will they be duped into a relationship that does not protect them or benifit them, and essentially hands women a loaded gun, hoping she never gets angry enough to “pull the trigger”.

This is why I feel that the article I linked above is so critical for serious review.

Any of the guys who think they are getting out of moral and legal responsibility by not marrying are fooling themselves if they are sexually active and/or living with someone.

Sex makes babies. Birth control has a failure rate, people make mistakes, have a “Aw, what the heck?” moment, etc. Every sex act could result in a child and the father will end up having to pay child support, medical, childcare, etc.

And cohabitating couples also have recourse in the event of the relationship failing.

So, really, un-married men cohabitating or who are sexually active are handing the woman the same gun they would be if they married and aren’t even getting the benefits of being married.

 

[pensmama87]

My completely non-scientific, gut feeling on this, bolstered by anecdotal evidence only:

We’ve got two camps. One is big into the fairy tale image of romance, marriage, happily ever after. The other, which could have quite a few defectors from the first group, takes an adversarial and suspicious approach to interpreting any actions by the opposite sex.

Neither seems really suited to making selfless lifelong commitments.

There’s a third camp which “gets it,” but is perhaps smaller than in previous generations.

It’s also been my experience (and I think this is supported by statistics) that those who know (and especially are raised by) those in successful marriages are more likely to do it themselves and maybe have a better understanding of the work involved. DH and I have had our troubles, but my parents are still married, his parents are still married, and in fact almost nobody in our extended families has gone through divorce. That has probably been a huge factor in our favor as we have been working things out right at the same time a lot of other couples begin deciding to throw in the towel.

 

[theplummer]

Oops, I made a mistake on citing the Social Security Administration title IX-D law. It should be title IV-D. Sorry for the confusion I may have caused.

One point to the title IV-D. Did you know that the block grants given to states for family law and child support enforcement compliance have been greater than the total amount of all parents nation wide actually owe in back support. Wouldn’t it be cheaper if the federal government just gave the money to the primary custody parent on behalf of the delinquent parent, in the “best interest of the children”? Then all payors would be “current” I their support obligations, and enforcement issues would be a thing of the past, and all these organizations could fade away into non existance. Nah, can’t have that. We have to keep people employed in useless government jobs, don’t we.

 

[theplummer]

It could be that, but I have a hard time seeing that it could be ONLY that.

I agree, but the No Fault divorce laws actually created an environment ripe for abuse.

As I clearly identified the term “firvorce” earlier. This is the type of divorce I’m talking about. Mainly

 

[theplummer]

Any of the guys who think they are getting out of moral and legal responsibility by not marrying are fooling themselves if they are sexually active and/or living with someone.

Sex makes babies. Birth control has a failure rate, people make mistakes, have a “Aw, what the heck?” moment, etc. Every sex act could result in a child and the father will end up having to pay child support, medical, childcare, etc.

And cohabitating couples also have recourse in the event of the relationship failing.

So, really, un-married men cohabitating or who are sexually active are handing the woman the same gun they would be if they married and aren’t even getting the benefits of being married.

Hence the MGTOW movement. I’m not saying I’m completely on board with the whole movement, it’s largely a secular huminist phenomena. It’s a bunch of men who haven’t been reconciled with God and they are just trying to figure it out on their own.

However, I do hold the Church leadership accountable for much of the ills that is the disparity of modern family. The Church sat relatively silent when no fault was introduced. It sat silently when the Christian values that mandated that the “male kinship model” or “patriarchy” was systematically destroyed, even within the Church teachings. It has dat silent for so long that we are now faced with the realizations that sodomy is now on par with sacramental marriage union.

I’m going to suggest you start reading the document again. We agree on way more than you know, and we probably want the same end result.

I just feel that the title of the document may threaten the elephant in the room of the extended privilege that women have attained through the legal system. I get it, people with privilage never want to give up that privilage, the first step in maintaining that is to even deny that a privilage exists. The next is to ignor the evidence. The third is anger. Then comes bargaining( rationalization). And the final is acceptance.

How fast you choose to move through the five stages of grief is up to you.

Every woman that I’ve been able to convince to actually read the document has gone through every stage of grief, and has come out the other side realizing that their whole world view on relationships was actually MORE HARMFUL to women than the ideology that they so desperately clung to before they read the document.

So, I’ll go ahead and re link it here with my most sincere request for you to “take a look”.

fathermag.com/news/Case_for_Father_Custody.pdf

How can you know how to combat an enemy if you don’t know his strategy. I’m offering you my strategy to prove to you that I’m really not your enemy.

 

[theplummer]

My completely non-scientific, gut feeling on this, bolstered by anecdotal evidence only:

We’ve got two camps. One is big into the fairy tale image of romance, marriage, happily ever after. The other, which could have quite a few defectors from the first group, takes an adversarial and suspicious approach to interpreting any actions by the opposite sex.

Neither seems really suited to making selfless lifelong commitments.

There’s a third camp which “gets it,” but is perhaps smaller than in previous generations.

It’s also been my experience (and I think this is supported by statistics) that those who know (and especially are raised by) those in successful marriages are more likely to do it themselves and maybe have a better understanding of the work involved. DH and I have had our troubles, but my parents are still married, his parents are still married, and in fact almost nobody in our extended families has gone through divorce. That has probably been a huge factor in our favor as we have been working things out right at the same time a lot of other couples begin deciding to throw in the towel.

You are spot on. So how do we change the tide and help folks who didn’t have the advantage of two parent intact families?

 

[MJJean]

Oops, I made a mistake on citing the Social Security Administration title IX-D law. It should be title IV-D. Sorry for the confusion I may have caused.

One point to the title IV-D. Did you know that the block grants given to states for family law and child support enforcement compliance have been greater than the total amount of all parents nation wide actually owe in back support.** Wouldn’t it be cheaper if the federal government just gave the money to the primary custody parent on behalf of the delinquent parent, in the “best interest of the children”? ** Then all payors would be “current” I their support obligations, and enforcement issues would be a thing of the past, and all these organizations could fade away into non existance. Nah, can’t have that. We have to keep people employed in useless government jobs, don’t we.

My DH and I have debated the bolded many times. It’s an area where we have agreed each argument has merit and we just simply disagree.

Let me give you some background. I met S at 16, he was 18. He had two children with two mothers that he wasn’t paying support for or even inquiring about, much less seeing. I was foolish, using the Pill, and became pregnant accidentally when on a course of antibiotics for a lung infection.

I “did the right thing” and married him civilly. I also encouraged him to work, support ALL of his children, and generally man up. It never happened. He was physically and mentally abusive, he wouldn’t keep a job, he didn’t care for ANY of his kids, etc. I hoped that being a husband and father would mature him and, predictably, it did not.

I had a condom failure during the “marriage” and gave birth to a 2nd child a year before I finally had enough and separated from him with the intention of divorce.

His child support for TWO children was set at $86 a week. He has never paid a single penny.

While I was separated I met M. We fell in love immediately and wanted to marry. I found out that I could handle my own divorce as there were no disputes. No custody issues, S didn’t want anything but “reasonable visitation”. No property to divide and no other assets. I had moved in with M, so there wasn’t even personal property to divide. My divorce was granted 3 months after I filed and M has been caring for my children ever since. They were 1 and 6 at the time, they are now 21 and 16 along with a child my DH and I have together, who is 14.

M, being a step-father who has been the only father in the kids lives all these years, thinks it would make more sense for the government to pay mothers and fathers their support directly.

I think that such a system would be a terrible idea. Men would be free to impregnate woman after woman with no consequences. They would be free of moral, legal, and financial responsibility for the lives they helped create and that is a HUGE problem for me.

Is the current system inefficient? Yes. Can it be ineffective? Yes. Is it too costly? Yup. But I think the solution lies in overhauling the system to increase effectiveness and efficiency, not letting fathers be entirely irresponsible when it comes to their children.

I agree, but the No Fault divorce laws actually created an environment ripe for abuse.

As I clearly identified the term “firvorce” earlier. This is the type of divorce I’m talking about. Mainly

No fault divorce also helped women and children get out of abusive situations. Not to mention enabling men and women in getting out of adulterous marriages, marriages where they were being financially abused and marriages where the relationship has deteriorated to the point where the couples inability to function causes harm to the couple and the children.

It used to be very difficult, time consuming, and costly to prove fault, much less actually get an attorney to handle the divorce.

For single parents, low income parents, and low income people in general, no fault has been a lifesaver. In some cases, literally.

Hence the MGTOW movement. I’m not saying I’m completely on board with the whole movement, it’s largely a secular huminist phenomena. It’s a bunch of men who haven’t been reconciled with God and they are just trying to figure it out on their own.

I’m going to suggest you start reading the document again. We agree on way more than you know, and we probably want the same end result.

Every woman that I’ve been able to convince to actually read the document has gone through every stage of grief, and has come out the other side realizing that their whole world view on relationships was actually MORE HARMFUL to women than the ideology that they so desperately clung to before they read the document.

So, I’ll go ahead and re link it here with my most sincere request for you to “take a look”.

fathermag.com/news/Case_for_Father_Custody.pdf

I’ll give the doc a read when I have more time. Unless I forget. Kids and dogs…

** In case anyone is wondering and does not know, my first “marriage” was declared null this year as I continue the conversion process.

 

[MJJean]

You are spot on. So how do we change the tide and help folks who didn’t have the advantage of two parent intact families?

Sometimes, having parents who divorced teaches the children how difficult divorce can be and the experience of watching their family go through divorce makes them very determined to make their marriages work. The problem is that it doesn’t give them the tools to.

 

[Xantippe]

Who says that a man going to work EVERY day, to bring home the money that makes a life possible for a mother to actually stay at home, is not actually DOING at least 50% of the actual childcare. Unless you want to claim that playing games, and watching television with your kids is somehow more important to the childcare than say paying the mortgage.

**Every day? Is he working 7 days a week? That sounds really hard on the at-home parent.

Please bear in mind that if there are children at home, the longer the working parent works, the longer the at-home parent needs to work.

Also, bear in mind that your description of the at-home parent’s activities is 1) disrespectful and 2) almost certainly false. I’m the world’s laziest upper-middle class SAHM, I have housecleaners twice a month plus a husband who knows how to do dishes and various other domestic tasks, I cook as little as I can, and the description you give is simply not feasible for a family with children at home.

We have a 2-year-old at home, as well as a 10-year-old and a 13-year-old. Here is the absolute minimum that I need to do to avoid chaos and squalor:

–2-3 loads of laundry a day (sort into darks and lights, pre-treat stains, sort clothing by family member, hang up wrinkle-free dress shirts immediately, be sure kids have appropriate uniforms every day–school rules are complicated)
–unavoidable mending
–strip beds, launder sheets, make MBR bed, have big kids make beds with clean bedding
–grocery shop 2-3 times a week with Baby Girl
–keep Baby Girl safe from cars and machinery and falls and oncoming grocery carts
–keep Baby Girl out of stuff
–make sure it’s safe to eat stuff in refrigerator, clean periodically
–feed Baby Girl 5-6 times a day
–clean up kitchen after feeding Baby Girl (probably 4+ times a day)
–encourage Baby Girl to brush teeth
–change Baby Girl’s diapers and clothes as needed
–attempt to potty train Baby Girl
–put Baby Girl down for naps and bedtime (with appropriate reading and jigsaw puzzles)
–monitor the condition of clothing and shoes and purchase clothing for every single member of the household including school uniforms (husband is responsible for buying his shoes, but I get everything else, right down to his socks)
–make doctor apts. for every member of the family
–make dental apts. for every member of the family
–make therapy apts. as necessary for kids (none right now, thank goodness!)
–get big kids up for school, encourage to get dressed, eat breakfast and pack lunches
–drive big kids to school (two drop-offs)
–pick up big kids from school (two pick-ups)
–monitor homework
–music practice reminders for Oldest
–make sure kids tidy their bedrooms and do occasional major organization with them
–get big kids to their apts. and extracurriculars and camps and birthday parties (with help from husband)
–make sure big kids eat fruits and vegetables
–dose sick children appropriately (I’m official pharmacist at our house)
–keep up with school communications and keep in touch with teachers as needed
–monitor big kid grades online
–do some home remediation of big kids (with help from husband)–for example, bad handwriting
–nurture big kids’ social lives with playdates and invitations to their friends’ families
–go to parent-teacher conferences and attend start-of-year meeting with all of special need child’s teachers
–attend other school meetings and school events
–research and book extracurriculars and summer camps for the kids (with help from husband)
–make sure big kids bathe on reasonable schedule and give Baby Girl a bath
–trim Baby Girl’s fingernails and toenails as needed
–tidy up Baby Girl’s room
–get kids haircuts
–plan birthdays and do invitations (my husband helps with the actual birthday parties)
–be “big picture” person for our home finances as well as keeping monthly spending on track (husband is bill-paying guy)
–maintain home maintenance to do list
–manage family calendar
–help husband avoid double-booking himself with conferences
–deal with tradesmen (plumbers, lawn guy, exterminator, etc.) when husband is out
–deal with landlord (when we were renters)
–periodic removal of dead vertebrates from property (husband is large insect guy)
–pick up slack when husband is out of town for a week (do dishes, take out trash, talk to mechanic, etc.)
**

Oh, yeah, and hang out on CAF a lot and watch TV with Baby Girl. As I said, I’m the laziest upper middle class housewife you’ll ever meet online, but I have a lot on my plate.

The one that wipes more butts is not entitled to default custody. Sure there may be a short time of adjustment for a father to adequately care for his children if he hadn’t done much in the past. But to summarily assume that he’s incapable just because he hadn’t had to do it in the past is more flawed logic.

**If a husband wants to spend time with his children in future, he should spend time with them in the present.

Every father that isn’t disabled in some serious way should make an effort to master the basics of caring for his children at each stage of life. He should know how to feed them reasonable meals, change diapers, brush teeth. He should know the bedtime routine, and he should be able to go a whole 48 hours with no mom at home. Also, basic first aid is important, as is knowing what to do with a sick child.

And yes, mom ought to be willing to work if the family needs her to work.
**

So you don’t believe 50/50 is necessary. Ok, if you were my soon to be exwife, I could tell you that I want 80% custody and you’d be fine with that?

If you’d been providing 80% of childcare, I would have to acknowledge that it was fair.

 

[theplummer]

My DH and I have debated the bolded many times. It’s an area where we have agreed each argument has merit and we just simply disagree.

Let me give you some background. I met S at 16, he was 18. He had two children with two mothers that he wasn’t paying support for or even inquiring about, much less seeing. I was foolish, using the Pill, and became pregnant accidentally when on a course of antibiotics for a lung infection.

I “did the right thing” and married him civilly. I also encouraged him to work, support ALL of his children, and generally man up. It never happened. He was physically and mentally abusive, he wouldn’t keep a job, he didn’t care for ANY of his kids, etc. I hoped that being a husband and father would mature him and, predictably, it did not.

I had a condom failure during the “marriage” and gave birth to a 2nd child a year before I finally had enough and separated from him with the intention of divorce.

His child support for TWO children was set at $86 a week. He has never paid a single penny.

While I was separated I met M. We fell in love immediately and wanted to marry. I found out that I could handle my own divorce as there were no disputes. No custody issues, S didn’t want anything but “reasonable visitation”. No property to divide and no other assets. I had moved in with M, so there wasn’t even personal property to divide. My divorce was granted 3 months after I filed and M has been caring for my children ever since. They were 1 and 6 at the time, they are now 21 and 16 along with a child my DH and I have together, who is 14.

M, being a step-father who has been the only father in the kids lives all these years, thinks it would make more sense for the government to pay mothers and fathers their support directly.

I think that such a system would be a terrible idea. Men would be free to impregnate woman after woman with no consequences. They would be free of moral, legal, and financial responsibility for the lives they helped create and that is a HUGE problem for me.

Is the current system inefficient? Yes. Can it be ineffective? Yes. Is it too costly? Yup. But I think the solution lies in overhauling the system to increase effectiveness and efficiency, not letting fathers be entirely irresponsible when it comes to their children.

No fault divorce also helped women and children get out of abusive situations. Not to mention enabling men and women in getting out of adulterous marriages, marriages where they were being financially abused and marriages where the relationship has deteriorated to the point where the couples inability to function causes harm to the couple and the children.

It used to be very difficult, time consuming, and costly to prove fault, much less actually get an attorney to handle the divorce.

For single parents, low income parents, and low income people in general, no fault has been a lifesaver. In some cases, literally.

I’ll give the doc a read when I have more time. Unless I forget. Kids and dogs…

** In case anyone is wondering and does not know, my first “marriage” was declared null this year as I continue the conversion process.

I do really admire your DH for stepping up. As did I , so I speak from experience here.

And I’m glad everything worked out.

I don’t want to hurt your feelings but you chose to be with a man who had already proven not to take care of two other children, and you hold him fully accountable for your choices?

You also engaged in out of wedlock sex, used birth control. As do most women. Madmen are not out raping and pilliging women of today. They are willing participants.

My oldest daughter is learning a really hard lesson as we speak. She chose to have sex with a very undesirable man and now she’s on her own. Taking care of a child all by herself. Working. Doing it all.

It’s not something to be admired. It’s something that shouldn’t happen. But it does and it’s a direct result of the sexual revolution, birth control, no fault divorce, no one has any shame today. No one is allowed to tell someone that they made a bad choice. And most of all, the government totally supports people who make bad choices, sometimes repeatedly, with zero natural consequences.

This is why things need to change. How do we change it. Simple. Read the PDF document I’ve supplied.

Father’s would be in children’s lives, ghettos would be reduced. Lots of childhood maladies would be remedied. Suicide would be greatly reduced, drug abuse, intimate partner violence. Etc.

One thing about creating social justice laws. There are always unintended negative consequences that are never noticed until it’s too late, then what’s the government to do? They just create more laws that have even more unintended negative consequences.

It’s a never ending cycle.

One thing further about the PDF link I’ve provided. Even though it’s is academic and largely secular in research and point of view. It completely aligns with the teachings of Jesus and the Catholic Church regarding marriage and family.

 

[Xantippe]

No what I am saying is that working outside the home is just as important in providing actual childcare as the one inside the home. The whole arguement of, well since I’m the one who stayed at home with them, so I should be the one to keep them now, is just a rationalization and an attempt to use the children as “mutilated beggers”.

Nah, it’s just an acknowledgement of the fact that a guy who doesn’t know the name of his kid’s doctor or dentist, doesn’t know their teachers’ names, doesn’t know their friends’ names, doesn’t know their clothes sizes, doesn’t know the baby’s bedtime, doesn’t know how much medicine and what kind to give them, and doesn’t know what to feed them for breakfast really doesn’t have any business having full custody.

Is that really so controversial?

 

[Xantippe]

My completely non-scientific, gut feeling on this, bolstered by anecdotal evidence only:

We’ve got two camps. One is big into the fairy tale image of romance, marriage, happily ever after. The other, which could have quite a few defectors from the first group, takes an adversarial and suspicious approach to interpreting any actions by the opposite sex.

Neither seems really suited to making selfless lifelong commitments.

There’s a third camp which “gets it,” but is perhaps smaller than in previous generations.

It’s also been my experience (and I think this is supported by statistics) that those who know (and especially are raised by) those in successful marriages are more likely to do it themselves and maybe have a better understanding of the work involved. DH and I have had our troubles, but my parents are still married, his parents are still married, and in fact almost nobody in our extended families has gone through divorce. That has probably been a huge factor in our favor as we have been working things out right at the same time a lot of other couples begin deciding to throw in the towel.

Yeah.

It makes a big difference when you’ve grown up seeing your parents fight but smooch the next day and do the same thing every week.

That’s not ideal, of course, but it does give you a sort of basic optimism.

 

[pianistclare]

Nah, it’s just an acknowledgement of the fact that a guy who doesn’t know the name of his kid’s doctor or dentist, doesn’t know their teachers’ names, doesn’t know their friends’ names, doesn’t know their clothes sizes, doesn’t know the baby’s bedtime, doesn’t know how much medicine and what kind to give them, and doesn’t know what to feed them for breakfast really doesn’t have any business having full custody.

Is that really so controversial?

Agreed. I get the impression some people think it’s pretty easy. All done with mirrors.
Noone talks about what’s best for the children. Moving out with someone who they barely know and has no real parenting skills beyond bringing home a paycheck, or staying with the nurturer who has been with them 24-7 and also knows how to make spaghetti.

Ask a kid. I’ll bet I know who they’ll pick.
But then, I’m a big bad evil woman.