[SouthernFreebird]

Spoken like a true FemiNazi

Oh please, I'm an old fashioned girl at heart.....I married a Christian man.....had my babies after marriage and my eyes opened after divorce.

In a nutshell men don't want to pay if they aren't milking the cow........If they have to shell out money they want something in return by way of the bedroom. It p*sses them off to no end to pay a womam child support when they no longer get to do the nasty with her. I think it's the height of selfishness to not want your children to be fed,clothed, and housed because your no longer benefiting from their mother.

and I'd really like to know where all the fathers who are being denied their children are cause the women I know can't pay the fathers to spend time with their chidren.....they have new girlfriend and new families and no time or interest in previous children

I said what I said because men on here were'nt being honest, men also cheat and destoy the family causing divorce....they are just as selfish, petty,and ungodly as any woman you refer to. Men are not innocent victims an this thread is nothing but fluff because you refuse to share responsibility for your roles in the family break-down.

[buccaneer81]

So that's your photo I saw in the dictionary when I looked up "Bitter Woman". You need to buy a clue. You sound like someone who would benefit mightily from our "family" aka feminist courts.

[independentmind]

Whoever said that women were whiners must never had read many threads on FR!

[Tennessee_Bob]

I said what I said because men on here were'nt being honest, men also cheat and destoy the family causing divorce....

Seems to me that the men on here were sharing their side of the divorce story. There are at least two sides to every story, you know. So how do you decide who's being honest?If you ask my ex, she'll tell you that she did nothing wrong.

Men are not innocent victims an this thread is nothing but fluff because you refuse to share responsibility for your roles in the family break-down.

Sure, I accept my responsibility for the breakdown. I also accept my responsibility in keeping the family together for ten years while she went and did her thing. It has a lot to do with what she said about a year and a half before I packed up my daughter and myself and got us the hell out of there - "The only reason I keep you around is to take care of the kids," meaning her three and the one child between us.

Let's talk about responsibility, shall we? In the two years plus since the divorce went through, this paragon of virtue called a mother has gone through three boyfriends and an abortion. Her oldest child was pregnant at fifteen, and a single mother at sixteen (mom let that daughter's boyfriend live with them for a time). The middle daughter has been busted and banned from Walmart for shoplifting, and the youngest daughter has been living with her father and his parents out in Las Vegas. According to to this "mother," none of that is her responsibility.

My daughter and I live with my parents while I'm finishing college. She gets good grades in school, attends church, goes to summer camp, and is healthy. She doesn't like going to her mom's house to visit, because, according to her, mom's house is too dirty.

Am I bitter? No - because I've got my daughter and we got out of that house alive and in one piece. I regret the time wasted, but that's water under the bridge. I look at it as a learning experience, and I got my PhD from this one.

Responsibility - yeah, right.

[Nea Wood]

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!

[maui_hawaii]

If the girl is not happily 'giving it up' she is not doing her duty as a wife. Period.

Its not the only thing involved in marriage by any means, but its a BIG factor.

President Spencer W. Kimball taught:

"Sex is for procreation and expression of love. It is the destiny of men and women to join together to make eternal family units. In the context of lawful marriage, the intimacy of sexual relations is right and divinely approved. There is nothing unholy or degrading about sexuality in itself, for by that means men and women join in a process of creation and in an expression of love."

....

Sexual relations in marriage are not unrestrained. Even though sex can be an important and satisfactory part of married life, we must remember that life is not designed just for sex. Even marriage does not make proper certain extremes in sexual indulgence.

.....

This man also went on to say that "sex is the #1 cause of all divorces"

[maui_hawaii]

President Spencer W. Kimball stated, "If you study the divorces, as we have had to do in these past years, you will find there are reasons. Generally, sex is the first; they did not get along sexually. They may not say that in court. They may not even tell that to their attorneys, but that is the reason."

[DennisR]

"In a nutshell men don't want to pay if they aren't milking the cow..."

True story. But is it not also true that women marry men for the express purpose of having children and having him work and pay to raise them? I am not saying that they do not love the man, but if the man they loved said "No" to having children--whether is was during dating or after marriage--what would the woman do? How would she feel?

And in the interest of full disclosure, I am divorced and have two married daughters. They were past the age of child support when my wife divorced me.

[Rebelbase]

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[been_lurking]

I said what I said because men on here were'nt being honest, men also cheat and destoy the family causing divorce....they are just as selfish, petty,and ungodly as any woman you refer to. Men are not innocent victims an this thread is nothing but fluff because you refuse to share responsibility for your roles in the family break-down.

So, if I read you correctly, the blame can be shared equally between men and women. Then why are the courts and laws so one-sided in favor of the women?

[gogeo]

That is just about the most stupid and self-serving post I've seen here, and I've been here awhile. This issue is like a Rorschach test for people. I think any reasonable person would argue that both genders are subject to human nature, for better or worse. No gender has a monopoly on virtue or vice. The relative virtue of men and women, however, is not the subject of the article. The article deals with the proposition that the family law system is causing men to rethink marriage, and that many women can't find marriage minded men. I think both are true.

As I said, it's amazing what one finds posted on these threads. One sure sign of a feminazi attitude is the seemingly uncontrollable urge to define any issue or problem as being a man's fault...it's reflexive, like Bush-bashing. It's easy to spot...look at any thread that examines the social effect of this particular area of law, and you'll find women blaming men. To my way of thinking, it reinforces the article.