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Divorce does funny things

theparisreview.org

111–120 of 386 posts

Re: Divorce does funny things

#111
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been through it, there's nothing you can do and if the mother is really out for blood she will use your child against you. Women get rights, men get obligations.

If men file for custody they get 50/50. Men who ask for full custody also statistically win more often. You are doing disservice to both kids and men when you tell them they cant have it.

If it gets ugly the bias in favor of women gets stronger.

All of this is anedoctal but in my experience I saw many women willing to use false accusations of violence knowing it was a win win. They knew they wouldn't be punished even if it was proven the accusations were false. And that is a powerful tool to get custody.

And of course for younger children the custody to the mother is often enshrined into law directly.

Re: Divorce does funny things

#112
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been through it, there's nothing you can do and if the mother is really out for blood she will use your child against you. Women get rights, men get obligations.

If men file for custody they get 50/50. Men who ask for full custody also statistically win more often. You are doing disservice to both kids and men when you tell them they cant have it.

> If men file for custody

But that's not a random sample. Given the widely perceived bias against men, one would expect only the men with the strongest cases to try for custody, and you would expect them to have better outcomes than average men.

If as an experiment you randomly selected a group of men and got them to file for custody, their success rate would probably be lower.

Re: Divorce does funny things

#113
post #9

As a divorced man, I can attest to this wholeheartedly. There's an energy a man gets when you're building a family that helps motivate through the struggle. When you get divorced, especially when kids are involved, there's an expectation in our society (court system, social pressure, etc) to continue life as if that energy still exists, it simply doesn't. It's maddening. Breaking up a family is lose-lose. There are n…

>There are no winners, but men are the biggest losers.

Whether or not this is true in the statistical sense, I don't think it's a really useful piece of information. Everyone's relationship is different, as are the ways they react and cope (or don't) with it ending.

Re: Divorce does funny things

#114
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also take preventive measures, establish an offshore company and move all your assets on that. Move money in off-shore accounts. If you have nothing under your name, nothing can be taken from you.

...but I only met her last night for a beer and dinner, you mean I have to set up an international group of companies to protect my stereo, fancy dining table and car? Yes, son. Otherwise you'll lose everything. Here's a list of firms that can help... What a world we live in. I doubt nothing you wrote but the steps that lead to your understanding seem as difficult as my own. Society is truly a mess.

Always was

Re: Divorce does funny things

#115
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relationship market seems like it's the best it's ever been, from a standpoint of equality, that is. COVID unfortunately brought domestic violence rates up, but I wouldn't lump that in with the generality of "relationship market", it's a more serious & specific issue. edit: Ahh, by the time I finish posting you've come and brought up the "nuclear family" Hard to imagine anything good will come from a discussion hingi…

> Relationship market seems like it's the best it's ever been, from a standpoint of equality, that is. What makes you say this? Last I heard the trend of it getting harder and harder for men has been continuing. When one side has to go crazy going to the gym and making themselves interesting and whatever to stand out while the other side just has to put one blurry picture with no text on any dating site to get inunda…

HN being tech oriented, thus male commenters tend to live in gender skewed cities. Bay Area, Seattle, etc for the 25-45 age range. Where yes some men might have harder time.

But really there are approximately same amount of men to women in the dating/family making age group. Being normal, mildly interesting, and not a slob is all most men will have to do to find women to date. The reason a some men don't get dates on dating apps, is they send the dumbest of messages. Putting out zero effort and expecting something is rarely going to yield results.

Re: Divorce does funny things

#117
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they? At least among wealthy men, it seems much more common for them to remarry and make a brand new second family while the ex wife is left doing most things for the first set of kids. Plus, it’s significantly more common for men to leave their wives when their wives get diagnosed with cancer than vice versa. IMO, divorce sucks worst for whoever is the most conscientious person and invested in the family, regard…

All can be true. Reading statistics, on average, men are financially better after divorce women worst. Men feel more lonely after divorce and women feel happier after divorce. Men are more likely to find new partner sooner after divorce, women are more likely to stay single for long time.

> Reading statistics, on average, men are financially better after divorce women worst

How is financially better calculated? Things like child support and alimony seem to not be counted for a lot of purposes - like tax - so the woman could be poorer on paper while actually having more money in practice.

Re: Divorce does funny things

#118
post #58

On infidelity - to some extent people's personal business is not my business. But if I hear that someone was unfaithful to their spouse, my business trust in them goes waaay down. If they're willing to break trust with the person closest to them in their life, what chance do I have as a mere business partner of not being screwed over at some point?

i think that's a little naive. cheating is a highly emotional thing. business relationships are a rational thing. although some people are mixing both up, most of people i have worked with manage to separate. one of my moost loyal colleagues is cheating on his wife for years. and yet, he is loyal to the tasks and to the company. hence, i find your view a little naive and funny and perhaps would label it with some -is…

Sorry for expressing it this way, but what's naive is thinking your colleague is loyal. It is much simpler to just consider that he hasn't found a situation to screw you and the rest of the team yet, and that when such a situation happens, there's a chance he will act accordingly.

To me he has simply been unmasked as someone who is doing whatever he is currently incentivized to do, rather than someone who respects agreements. When you respect agreements it means you stick to it even when the situation changes to make it less favorable. When people do this it makes a lot of things much easier, since agreements can be relied on.

If you've ever been screwed over in business, you'll find your partners go to all sorts of lengths to pretend they were within their legal rights, which are conveniently just next to their moral obligations.

Re: Divorce does funny things

#119
post #58

On infidelity - to some extent people's personal business is not my business. But if I hear that someone was unfaithful to their spouse, my business trust in them goes waaay down. If they're willing to break trust with the person closest to them in their life, what chance do I have as a mere business partner of not being screwed over at some point?

I don’t know. What if the partner is a bad, manipulative actor, but it is just too difficult to dissolve the marriage? For the sake of children, financial commitments, costs, unfair legacy laws and so on?

It’s certainly not unheard of, so I’ll keep sweeping personality assessments based on cheating at bay.

There’s clearly also other reasons, I’m not saying cheating partners are always poor martyrs of circumstance.

Re: Divorce does funny things

#120
post #70
post #58

On infidelity - to some extent people's personal business is not my business. But if I hear that someone was unfaithful to their spouse, my business trust in them goes waaay down. If they're willing to break trust with the person closest to them in their life, what chance do I have as a mere business partner of not being screwed over at some point?

It's only that black and white to you because of your naivety and a lack of understanding of how the world really works. The solution for this as for many other things is to switch off the computer and actually go out and experience the world and become more worldly. Otherwise, you will end up building a mental model of reality that quite doesn't exist.

You were right to hide behind a throwaway account. It's honestly quite easy to construct scenarios where cheating is entirely rational. But even the mere idea of such things make people revel with disgust. I don't expect to change anyone's point of view, but I will provide a very simple example to at least frame the mindset of a potential cheater:

"You are happily married to your partner but after a few years your sexual relationship has ceased to exist. What used to be causal, recurring sex has now become something of a burden. One partner constantly initiates, but the other is disinterested or even disgusted. This goes on for years. You discuss therapy, but your partner won't hear of it. Your marriage is entirely functional and even productive otherwise. You think about divorce. But you've really put in a lot in this house. You still love your partner, but they've changed. You have kids and responsibilities and a life together, and yet an emotional and biological part of you is ground down to a fucking pulp. It's very easy to just say "Divorce!" and clean your hands of the whole affair. But you're not stupid. You know your life could be ruined. Everything you've built can be taken away. The trust and relationships you've built could be destroyed. Your partner is almost an intimate part of your life, and ripping them out is like ripping your own heart out. You're not strong enough to do it. It's cowardly. But you're not perfect, and neither is your partner for putting you in this spot anyway.

So what do you do? You risk it all, because you can't figure out any better. You're putting it all on the line for one little pity fuck that you don't even enjoy, that fills you with regret. You are ashamed of yourself. But deep down you still know that no matter how much love and affection and stability exists in your world, you cannot abandon that single, little fraction of your primate brain that just wants to fuck. You can lie and you can pretend all you want. Make whatever concessions exist in this world for the greater good and the happiness of all mankind and all that fuzzy stuff. And yet, at the end of it all, there's still just you. Alone."

I can easily come up with a dozen scenarios. Relationships change. Power dynamics change. The role of sex in a relationship changes. People change. Sometimes it's not even about the sex, but the possibility of sex and the projection of one's own self worth and affirmation of their attractiveness and self-esteem as they battle life's hurdles.

It's so easy to assume a puerile black and white opinion on the internet. The morally and ethically -Right.Thing.To.Do- stares at you proudly with their throbbing member. But people are not that simple, it's just not that easy.

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