P is for Proportion

Heretical Sex (hereinafter HS) draws our attention to a judge who "says mothers should have children taken away if they don't let fathers see them". Ok, this is a Daily Mail article from the UK, but still, the joyful bit of the article is that the justice in question 'Mr Justice Coleridge' advocates something like a '3 violations of visitation and then jail' policy.

Now that's all very nice, and better than the toothlessness that the current law seems to operate on with respect to how they treat women, but come on! Men can get tossed in the slammer after a couple months of not paying their peonage, and women? You've got to take them to court 3 times, and they've got to violate 3 orders. That's probably $100,000 in legal fees and two to three years just to get to see your children that the state kidnapped by gifting them (and your income) to your ex, and making you an unwelcome and infrequent visitor in their lives.

Is this common sense? Or is this taking one cup of milk, and passing it in through the bars of the concentration camp to where we keep our men?

The justice in question is clearly terrified of this being a hard and fast rule, terrified of the backlash against him in case the law might ever apply to women. He's afraid he's gone too far already, you can see, but it isn't enough.

-We're dying in here.

My Best To You In Your Struggles

-M

p.s. - All the old posts should be restored. Sorry if it came in a rush.

R is for Return

...or maybe 'republish'.

I'm going to restore my posts, which were moved back into 'draft' status because I was worried that they would show up in court. I won't do them all at once (there's a bunch), but I have done a bunch today, and will do more on subsequent days.

What's going on with me? Probably I shouldn't say, because folks are already guessing who the author of this website is. Suffice it to say things are worse than they ever were.

I am a non-citizen, really.

Property rights? What's that?

The biggest riot is that back when I was earning, my ex complained that sometimes she 'had' to shop at a department store she felt was below her (and we aren't talking Value Village here), and that got her an increase which I had to pay, along with the legal fees.

Today, I can't afford hot-dogs, let alone health insurance, housing, hair-gel, and other things that start with 'H'.

But adjustments aren't for me, no, no, no.

See, there's something different about me.

I'm not the woman.

My Best To You In Your Struggles

-M

F is for Finger

Another video to amuse.

T is for This requires comment...

One thing that is true about humans is that they do something, and then make up the reasons for it later.

In this case we have what I am sure is a lovely woman (Hannah Seligson), explaining why she isn't getting married.

Apparently there are 'un-travelled continents and four more career paths to explore'.

And there are. Career paths and continents, which can't be explored if:

1) no one has a very high-paying career to pay for them, and
2) no one has been roped into a divorce settlement to pay for them.

Now I do think Hannah is probably a decent partner, as she tracks her purchases with an eye to dividing it up based on who paid for what, and tries to avoid the messy divorces of the previous generation, but I wonder...

I wonder if she really would, after a 12-year non-married relationship, walk away with just the things she personally bought - or if she would walk across the street to the lawyers office, and discover that palimony is just as good as marriage, and take her ex 'partner' for everything she could get. I can hear her muttering about how 'that bastard took the best years of my life', and feeling all justified as she turns him into a slave for the rest of his.

Unfair? Unrealistic? Not if you look at the statistics. No, unfortunately, financially enslaving your ex is big business, and if Hannah resists the temptation, she is the exception, not the rule.

The delay in marriage might have something to do with unexplored contients and careers, but it is, in my opinion, mostly about men avoiding slavery.

Why did this particular essay tweak me enough to post? Because it reeked so strongly of sour grapes. Rare is the man who doesn't want to find a good woman, and raise children with her. Even more rare is the PERSON (no sexism in this post) who can resist enslaving their ex and ensuring their future casual explorations of careers an continents when the state hands it to them on a silver platter, courtesy of the partner whom they now dislike.

-And the tightness of the marriage market is all about this. With a judiciary/legal system that thinks that men were built to support women, no matter WHAT they do (no fault, remember?) marriage is going to become more and more rare.

It's not about 'adulthood', or the length of 'careers' - marriages and kids were more common when we were mostly working on farms and in sweatshops, and when 'success' was something that never happened. And it isn't about exploration, although the exploration is in there, but mostly by the women, and at the man's expense.

My Best To You In Your Struggles

-M

P is for Protect Yourself

Another problem that presents itself to men in divorce and separation is what happens when you lose you job.

You can find yourself building up arrears while your ex collects 65% of your unemployment, and sues you, claiming you aren't searching hard enough for the next job. When you get the next job, she may sue you claiming that this job pays lower than it should have because you didn't do an adequate search. And the odds of being sued in these ways are high, because traditionally, the man (whups, the 'presumed higher wage earner') pays for the lawyers fees. So she's got nothing at stake.

To protect yourself you need to keep a record of who you sent your resumes to, who you spoke to, and what kind of networking and investigations you did in hunting for your job. You also need to track salary information for these jobs (if available), locations you looked in, job titles and the like.

And this isn't a joke - the burden of proof in one of these cases does not fall upon the accuser - the woman - it falls upon the support-payer; the man.

It is up to you to prove that you are doing or did do an adequate search to the court, and show where you searched and how.

I have been there, and I know.

They want to see how many folks you contacted, if you followed up, and where the jobs were located, and are liable to parse this data closely. It's a big deal. And if you fail to prove that your job hunt was sufficient, then you get the joy of 'imputed income', which is where the court pretends, for its calculations that you are making your old income. (i.e. when the facts don't allow you to come up with your insane support numbers, just plug in the pretend facts that will help. Nice.)

BLATANT PLUG:

So to deal with this documentation/job search issue I use a job networking tool that has good job-hunt reporting, called 'The Job Networking Assistant', from Anonymous Developments, who have just rolled out their latest version. The software costs a big $20, and automates your job search and networking efforts in a way few tools can. It autodials, generates professional-looking customizable emails, pulls up maps of job locations, tracks referrals, and a lot more. Upgrades are free, and revisions generally roll out every couple months. If you are a divorced person hunting for a job, this may be the best $20 you ever spent.

The standard version of the software is available for download as a free trial - just follow the link here.

Oh, and I get a big piece of the action, so do buy it and use it - it's good for networking, even if you haven't lost your job or aren't divorced or separated!


My Best To You In Your Struggles

-M

Your comments and thoughts are always welcome, - and do please hit the ‘Donate’ button, if you can.

B is for Back in the Slammer

"She called me, and we're going back to court" related the lawyer.

"We'll make a motion, and the judge will go for it and he'll be tossed back in the slammer."

"And he's not a bad guy, he isn't mean or abusive, or intentionally delinquent, he's just out of work. He's a business suit kind of guy. A manager, and he can't get anything."

"I try and tell her that you can't get blood out of a stone, and that she's wasting her money on me doing these motions, but she doesn't care. Every few months we do it again, like clockwork.

He gets out, more arrears build up, and she gets me to toss him back in."

"You'd think the judges might 'get it' but they don't. It's the system. I figure eventually she will see the argument of diminishing returns, and then it will stop."

There you have it. More or less exact words from a lawyer, about to throw an honestly unemployed man back into jail, for not forking money he doesn't have over to a well-heeled woman who can afford to torment him and keep him in jail.

Yet another case of legal gynocracy. Peonage. Debt servitude. Debtor's prison. Slavery. You name it.

And in today's economy, doubly depressing. More and more men are in this position today. Probably more than ever before. But the law says that the man is guilty. Guilty under all circumstances. Guilty until proven innocent.

Fall late on your payments, and you are guilty of violating the plaintiff's RIGHTS. She has a RIGHT to your money, even when you have none. And not paying is a jailable offense.

Remember that this is what marriage can be, and for many, many men, what it is.

Back in the slammer with you now...

Welcome to the Gynocracy.

My Best To You In Your Struggles

-M

Your comments and thoughts are always welcome, - and do please hit the ‘Donate’ button, if you can.

P is for Purple Heart

I can't help but admire this video and feel for our servicemen who come back to find out exactly what this country turns married/divorced men into.

The statistics they cite are shocking - 70% of servicemen return to divorce - 90% will be divorced within 5 years - 1.5% will get treated fairly by the courts.

And they shouldn't be treated to this sort of abuse - but fairness shouldn't just be for heroes either. I worry that what goes unsaid here is that all men live in this world, and that fair treatment should be for all men, not just heroes. Doesn't every man deserve a fair shake in a divorce, an opportunity to succeed, and not just be a wage-slave to a wife who now has a no-work sinecure?

With that said, do please view the video. It is eye-opening.



Your comments and thoughts are welcome, and please hit the ‘Donate’ button, if you can.

My Best To You In Your Struggles

-M

Note - I have some first-hand experience with some of this in my own circle of friends and co-workers: See O is for Opportunity for the story.

F is for Food Stamps

So, like perhaps many, I am reduced to below the poverty level by my ex’s expectations of being able to live in the manner to which I would like to become accustomed.
But someone said to me; “Hey! You have your kids a whole lot of the time, and you are below the federal poverty threshold! You should apply for Food Stamps!”

In a different year, a different month, I might not have gone.

But this year, with no interviews, no prospects, no one answering my calls or requests for part-time work, or any kind of work… …with everything up in the air, and out of my hands, - I went.

I mean, I have $2.00 in my bank account, and that doesn’t buy food, and although I have a few extra pounds here and there, the kids need to eat.

So I do some online forms, get an invite to the local SocialServiciesAtorium, (which is almost impossible to find) and arrive in time for my ‘appointment’. Three hours later, they call my name, and I go in.

And what do I find out? I find out that the needs basis for food-stamps is GROSS income. The fact that the courts take all that money away (alimony and support) - 65% of my unemployment income, is immaterial.

Divorced men, it seems, are supposed to shrivel up and die; at which point the insurance that the court requires us to take out against our lives will ensure that even our deaths do not inconvenience our heartless ex-spouses.

The agent who helped me suggested that I go back to court. I told her I had been there, and that they had increased the amount, and the term, and charged me my ex's legal fees, because she was unable to live in the manner which she had expected, or hoped to.

I'd like to expect to eat. She's worried about her ski trips. Inequity? Not in New Jersey, in New Jersey, its...

Just another day in the Gynocracy.

-M

Additional comments:

If you are looking to try and get food stamps anyway, don't bother with the online form, that information is autmatically lost, and will just end up kicking out a 'you must come in for an interview' letter. Call your local contacts for social services, and outline the basic numbers of your case. They can probably tell you if it is worth your time to do anything more.

I also recently passed one year out of work. Unemployment needs to be recertified at that point, and that takes a phone call. No one will tell you this, though. Instead you are told you will recieve a credit for your filing, but that it is not payable. You talk to a human to get the payments flowing again, assuming that you fall within the extended unemployment benefits guidelines.

If you have a LITTLE money, try http://www.angelfoodministries.com/ for assistance with your eating needs. Also call your towns and churches for information about food pantries.

Best of luck!

U is for Unbelief

Not so long ago I was talking to a lawyer, because one of my friends, once again, couldn't believe that things are the way they are in family court.

What is funny is that another friend over the last half-month spent their own time and money researching the same thing on my behalf for the same reason - they couldn't believe me, and my lovely partner. Couldn't believe that I was effectively a slave and there was nothing to do. They got the same answer, an answer that said that there was no hope, and whereas bankruptcy might keep me off the street, nothing would keep me from being a slave.

What is less funny is that I just reported on the results of my efforts to the first unbeliever. And that friend still doesn't believe. "There is something wrong there." Sure there is.

We don't want to imagine our country, our legal system has gotten this out of control, become this evil. But it has. Need evidence besides my word, and all the same tired statistics? Here's one: imagine being put in jail, actual debtor's prison, for 14 years because your ex claims you stashed away some money that she wants, without ever having a hope of a trial, or even a charge against you. It happens, and in this case (H. Beatty Chadwick) it has happened.

Hide your heads in the sand, unbelievers. It won't save you or your brothers, or husbands.

And you can continue to wonder why marriage rates dwindle and the country becomes weaker and weaker.

My best to you in your struggles!

-M

M is for Men, and Millionaires

Saw a news item from The Star Ledger at NJ.Com, and just immediately, immediately felt the hot breath of institutionalized misandry... ... Let's start with the title:

Judge dismisses millionaire's suit against his former wife

Now, in the case in question, we have a severely alienating former wife (how severe? try claiming to your kids that your ex has hired a hit-man to kill you), who has traveled across state and country lines to hide herself and his children in a friendly venue.

What venue did she choose? Three guesses, and the first two don't count:

New Jersey.
New Jersey.

and the one that counts:

New Jersey.

But what is the headline? It is about this RETIREE man's 'millions', not about the kidnapper's flight across borders, her lies, or her choice of venue.

Hello! First of all - it is misandrous to look at a case of kidnapping and alienation, and make the title about the supposedly deep pockets of one of the parties. If the woman had millions (and if we look at the settlement, it seems she does) we wouldn't be mentioning those in the title (and we don't).

Second of all - it is misandrous to look at a retiree, and call him a millionaire. If I were at retirement age, and had a house to my name and the assets necessary to keep me in some form of comfort for the rest of my life (kind of the definition of 'retirement') I would be... ...A MILLIONAIRE... (oooh-aaaah). Houses here in NJ, and also in many parts of Canada easily go for half a million, and that is just for your generic, middle-of-the-road house. So there is half your mil there. Now just look at what our putative millionaire needs to make it through the rest of his life. Imagine he lives 10 years. 50K x 10 years = another half million. And that isn't a rich lifestyle, or even allowing for inflation. And would they be mentioning these 'millions' if we were talking about a woman? No, we'd be talking about the man who stole his children and fled across state and international borders.

Third of all, it is particularly misandrous to look at a man in court, and particularly pick up on his net worth. Men go to work, they earn money. It's what they do. You might as well make a big deal about a seagull flying, or a mole burrowing. But apparently men with money, men earning money, men working to earn money, and men trying to keep the money they earned are all wrong/evil, and so that becomes the headline, not the Canadian kidnapper with the 11-odd million in Canadian Dollars who fled to the US/New Jersey.

The article gives us some background, so the writer (Margaret McHugh) did her homework, thank you very much, and perhaps we can blame the editor for the misandrous title.

But the article also reminds us of how much we have lost:

"New Jersey law simply does not allow recovery for the causes of action Segal asserts," [judge] Rand wrote, citing the 1935 Heart Balm Act that abolished causes of action for alienation of affection.

Nowadays, a man can be divorced without cause, and without recourse, and becomes subject to the theft of his children, half his assets or more, his future income, plus (of course) child support, and he cannot, under any circumstances, raise the behaviors/actions of his ex-wife in court and hope to win compensation.

The bias fairly drips from Judge Rand's pen:

Even if the Heart Balm Act didn't govern, Rand wrote he would have thrown out Segal's civil case anyhow because Segal failed to show Lynch's actions rose to the level of intentional or negligent infliction of emotional distress.

"If Segal has become emotionally estranged from E.S. and W.S., it is, to a large degree, the result of his own actions and not because Lynch 'intentionally and maliciously' poisoned their relationship," Rand wrote in the 29-page decision.

[...]

Rand criticized Segal for continuing "to file highly-publicized, vindictive and baseless lawsuits against the children's mother."

Let's see - claiming to your children that their own father hired a hit man to kill you? Running across state and national boundaries to hide so that a private investigator must be paid to even find you and the children you abducted? Nope, no reason to assume anyone was harmed there. No basis, no basis at all.

And part of the article is about how the husband filed the suit in an unusual court - but no wonder:

Last month, Family Court Judge Thomas Weisenbeck dismissed Segal's attempt to cut her spousal support, saying Segal made the same unsuccessful arguments in Canadian courts, and he ordered him to pay her $7,000 legal tab.

The husband already has seen what FAMILY courts in NJ do at some length. You go to court, and pay the wife's tab AND yours, so you can lose.

Finally, way, way down in the article we see:

In 2005, a Canadian court awarded Lynch $11.1 million (estimated at $10.3 million in U.S. dollars) in spousal and child support. She received two properties that Segal contends grew in value and are worth far more than her award.

Interesting. We call the husband a 'millionaire' in the title of the article, but did we bother to look at the (stolen) net worth of the wife?

Finally, it might be worth noting that Segal never married Lynch.

That's right.

She stole his children, and 11.1 Million Canadian Dollars, plus legal fees, all for being a 'Common Law Wife'. Segal lived with Lynch for five years in Toronto.

That's right: five years of 'unmarried life' = 11.1 Million Canadian Dollars, plus the right to steal your children.

And here is what far too many men try to deny - not marrying your partner does not protect you from anythnig. The state has made any kind of long, middle, and even short term relationship with a woman a very dangerous proposition for men.

No wonder the marriage rate is in the can, and older women might as well try and piss up a rope as try and get hitched. No man with an ounce of fiscal sense is likely to gamble that this wife might not change her mind on a whim, and turn his 'golden years' into years of slavery, while stealing his kids.

And a big shout out of 'Congrats' to New Jersey for being the international venue of choice for alienating moms.

Well Done, Well Done Slytherin, I mean, New Jersey!

My best to you in your struggles.

-M

H is for Dr Helen

Wow, I posted a comment on Dr Helen's Pajamas Media post titled Single Men in Never-Neverland and suddenly a small torrent of visitors are giving the hamsters in Blogger's serverland a workout.

But this is exactly what I had hoped for, I hoped that people would come, and read, and learn what can and does happen to men in this country, and learn how our rights have been eroded - almost to nothing.

Welcome, Welcome to Dr Helen visitors.

Please read, check my sources, and think about what you find. It is my prayer that if enough people become informed about the situation that men face in this country today, we may start seeing some real equality between the sexes, and might just reduce the incidence of male suicide, of which 14,850 deaths per year in the US are attributable to the loss of children, financial stability, civil rights and freedoms that come with divorce - for men. With total male suicides running about 22,500/year, the odds are that if you know a man who committed suicide, they are a divorcee. Putting it simply two-thirds of male suicides are divorcees.

...Think of all those children without fathers - oh, but they probably didn't get visitation anyway...

Quoting from my prior post on this subject:

One can only wonder what value the approximately 148,000 men killed by divorce over the last decade would have added to our country if they had not been driven to suicide by our country's misandry.

Imagine the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of children growing up over the last decade without fathers; [and the] brothers, sisters and parents bereft of their [brother, or son].

- Men who died for the crime of getting married to the wrong person.

The total loss is mind-numbing.

With that said, the text of my comment on Dr Helen's post follows:

M :
It isn't news to most men that Marriage isn't a cost-effective proposition. But what probably is news, even to men, is how likely it is to end up stripping them of anything resembling rights and disenfranchising them. The financial ruin that follows divorce is credited for the huge rate of male suicide compared to women.
But this is just one element of our society's war on men - even more horrific is how men are punished in an entirely different way by the courts than women are. As a culture we seem to be saying that we don't want men anymore. Don't be suprised if they respond by finding some way to go elsewhere.
-M

MBTYIYS:
-M

K is 'For the Kids'

Hey Fred, whassup? Buy you a drink?

Sure, get me a Sam Adams.

So Fred, how's the new job treating you?

Not so bad, except we're at a standstill. All work is halted while we wait for the layoffs.

Ow, that's not so good.

Yeah, but that's not what I'm worried about. See, I've lived through lean times before. But the judge just increased my alimony.

No! How'd that happen?

She went to court and claimed that she wasn't able to live the way she had during the marriage.

Didn't she bankrupt you with her spending when you were married?

Almost. You remember - It took me a decade, and all my assets to clean up the bad credit, and the credit bills she stuck me with.

Couldn't you raise that as an issue?

Sure, but remember, we live in a no fault state. It's not her fault she lived beyond her means, just my responsibility to keep her there. Heh-Heh.

Nice. Does she work?

Yeah, which I hoped would make a difference. Her earnings almost doubled since the divorce.

I guess your earnings went up more?

No, I'm taking home about the same, a tiny bit less, in fact. But the judge said that in the divorce she had 'contemplated' being able to maintain the same lifestyle that she had during the marriage, and said I had the ability to pay to support that. I got her legal fees too.

I guess she made a big presentation with her monthly expenses and what she pays and all.

Not reallly. She just claimed in court that she had to shop at Wal-Mart all the time.

Wal-mart?

Yeah. It's like a joke, except not funny. She buys everything from LL Bean. (Laughs)

Nice work if you can get it. What happens if you lose your job? Will your ex understand?

You've got to be kidding. She'll sue my pants off first thing.

What for? You got a secret bank account somewhere?

No, but she thinks that my family will bail me out, and the legal fees will all be mine anyway, so she might as well.

While you are out of work?

Sure - the court will say my being out of work is temporary, and 'impute' my old income to me.

Ow, well, I suppose there's unemployment.

Not really, see if I'm out of work for more than a month, my arrears will get high, and they'll start taking 65% of my unemployment.

Remind me again why we stay in the country?

It's the kids, dude, it's all about the kids.

Let's drink to the kids.

Yeah.

MBTYIYS:
M

S is for "Should Men Get Married?"

Dr Helen opined some time ago on 'should men get married?', and the outlook isn't cheerful, as I have noted in this blog before (see here and here.

I think some of the commenters on Dr Helen's blog have it right. On the odds, marriage in general is not a winning proposition.

But looking at this again, I wanted to review it in terms of real money, and see how it stacked up.

In general people get married for the following real benefits;

Love
Sex
Children
Cheaper to live together

I think that covers it. So let's put a value on these things. Yeah, I know, you can't. But we are talking about stuff that is getting settled in a court of law, so let's think of it like a lawyer would:

Love: hardest to quantify, but let's value it like having a personal executive assistant who is paid enough to actually care about your stuff. Say $80,000/year.

Sex: note we aren't talking porn-star stuff here, we're talking real world, in a busy life. A decent prostitute would cost you $200/night, but I'll knock that to $100/night because you have her on retainer, and it happens to be the same person as your executive assistant.
So that's maybe $10,000 per year, if you are lucky.

Children: they say you can't put a value on a human life, but the courts do it all the time. They seem to think that a life is worth something like $100,000 per year. Sometimes they treat kids like more, sometimes much less. Let's go with $100,000 per year, for however many you have.

Cheaper to live together; well, this just isn't true. You might get a cheaper year at first, but year 2 you'll find yourself redecorating so that everything matches, and once you have kids you need a new house, clothes for kids, your wife not respecting budgets, finance charges... Come to think of it, it has to cost you at least $50,000/ year.

Ok, so if your average marriage lasts 7 years, let's assume that the first 4 are pretty good, and the last 3 living hell. So we'll go with 4 years of the personal assistant and sex for $90,000/year.
Total value for the average marriage: $370,000

But the kids and living expenses are yours until the marriage ends, and so we can net the two ($50,000) and multiply by seven: $350,000.

So the total value received from the average marriage is about $720,000.

Not so bad, right?

But the problem is that the average marriage DOES end in divorce. And men lose their kids, and pay alimony and support.

So if having your kids is worth $100,000/year, having that kid stolen away and kept from you with only brief weekly or monthly furloughs is losing that benefit. Think of it as them being unjustly imprisoned, which they will be until they are 18. So assume 10 years of unjust imprisonment fot your kids: $1,000,000.

Next let's look at support/alimony.
Your average wage-earner makes somewhere in the $40-50,000 range,
But I suspect this is NOT what your 7-year marriage, 2.5 kids father makes. I think this father earns more likle $80,000, on average.
And, alimony and child support are going to, on average, eat around 2/3 of that - costing you a real $53,000 per year, for the next 10 years or so: $530,000

Now let's talk about what you lose in the divorce. Most people have net debt, which is divided, but your average 2.5-kids-7-year-marriage-father doesn't. You can't live in debt with kids and a family to worry about. You have to make things work every day, and have a plan for when it doesn't. You have to have half a year in assets to float you when your company goes under, or you get fired. So you have 50,000 in liquid assets plus retirement, and a house that is probably worth, on average, $175,000. Half of these go to your wife in divorce. This is a real expense to you, because, on average, the man earned the money that paid for them. I am sure people will argue about this, but we are in the small numbers here compared to the above: of $225,000 you lose $112,000 to your ex.

Now let's talk legal expenses. Let's just say that you aren't very acrimonious, and you only have a few legal problems after the divorce and put your total legal costs at $60,000 including what you have to file to really end support at the end of the whole period. I think that the average is higher, but let's use this.

Now let's talk about your personal situation. You may think that the above covers everything, but you have lost one other thing that is not accounted for in the above, which is your freedom. You are REQUIRED by law to not only keep earning what you were earning at the time of the marriage, but to get reasonable raises. You are an indentured servant for ten years. What is reasonable compensation for being required to consistently earn a particular number for the next ten years without fail? Nowadays people change jobs every 2-3 years, and are often out of work for months (see the half a year in assets above). So a very real cost of having to be a wage slave for ten years is the coverage of the job transitions. Let's say there are three job transitions during the 10 years, and they last 4 months. four twelfths of $80,000 , multiplied by three job losses is $80,0000 you will need just to cover the financial implications of the job transitions.

But again, what about what the real value of you committing to being a wage slave for 10 years, minus the financial implications, just the 'I have to slog off to work for people who I don't see and who mostly hate me' factor. How much would you demand in additional compensation for working for a firm that hates you, while withholding 2/3rds of your income, and committing to this situationfor 10 years? Well, it would have to pay me back the 2/3rds, or I wouldn't do it, but I am already counting that as a negative above, so I won't double count it, so it becomes how much to work for people who hate me for 10 years, plus the stress of jumping through hoops to get the next job and the next job where they also hate me. I think, that I would need to see double my salary before I committed to this kind of situation. So for your average working divorced father, we are talking about a real value of $80,000 per year (he already earns the 80k, this is the doubling part). Over 10 years that is $800,000

So total cost of the divorce, including your suffering: $2,694,500
Compared to your anticipated benefits (including your joys in children, sex, help) of: $720,000.

The net benefit (cost) of the average marriage is way negative: ($1,974,500).

If someone proposed to you a venture that would on average eat up the next twenty years of your life, which represents a total cost of about two million dollars including pain and suffering, and which leaves the average person very unhappy, would you do it?

Or more simply: On Average, Should Men Marry?


The simple answer, based on the numbers, is:


No,
Nixt,
No Way,
Not,
Not in Twenty Years,
Not in Two Million Dollars,
Not on Your Life.


But I want to end on a positive note, and that is the following, which many of you may not find positive:

The analysis above is correct for the average person,

- but the average person should not marry,

- and the person that they should marry should not be average.

For marriage to work, it must be entered into by loving, giving, dedicated people who will both try hard to put their partner's interests first, day in and day out, on the easy days and the hard days, in the good years and in the bad years, and enter into this venture knowing that many of the years may be very tough years.

For marriage to work well, it must contain two souls who are ethical, moral, upstanding, honest, and brave.

If you can be the kind of person described above -if you can always put your lover first -even when you are fighting, and if you can find someone who is always putting you first, and loves doing that, and whom you can trust with your life and the things you care most about, even when you are fighting...

- then marry that person. It will be the best thing that you ever did.

My best to you in your struggles!

-M

E is for Effect, as in ‘Cause And’

Traditionally Men work longer hours than women, at hard dangerous jobs, with less leave, in order to:

* win improved lifestyle
* win improved choice in mates
* win ability to have offspring
* win improved outcomes for offspring
* win comfortable retirement
* win ability to leave legacy to offspring

But today’s misandrist legal/social systems take away:

* Lifestyle – if you even date a woman, she can claim you said you would support her, and she gets a significant portion of your income for an indefinite amount of time.
* Mates – lacking assets or disposable income post legal action, men have reduced choice in mates.
* Offspring – legal action awards children to ex-wives/partners leaving men without children, and as children are used as weapons against men, with reduced desire to have more children, not to mention with reduced financial resources to rear children. They simply cannot afford them.
* Offspring Positive Outcomes – It has been very well documented that children from broken families do less well, especially in homes lacking a father. Funds transferred to the woman via the legal system are often spent for her comfort, and not for the care of the children.
* Comfortable Retirement – Retirement assets are subject to marital division, and can also be raided to create the funds demanded for the woman by the legal system. And as the man’s income is likely severely impacted by divorce/palimony, it is much harder post-legal action, for him to save for retirement. He is lucky if he can just get by.
* Legacy – As the man’s assets are pillaged in divorce, along with his retirement savings, and his future income, it is very unlikely that he will be able to leave any sort of legacy to the children who likely have been forcibly separated from him.

So, the benefits of the male work ethic of the 19th and 20th century have been eroded so as to make them almost nonexistent, especially when you tack on a significant tax rate.

I think that the impacts of this are many-sided, and far reaching, including:

Male-Female Relations:

* As the man has become not just disposable, but a cash-cow to women, men will be less interested in relationships, and so women must try harder to lure men with increasingly sexualized behavior, dress and body modifications (such as breast enlargement).
* Some women will use money as an incentive to men to enter into relationships with them – advertising that they don’t need the man’s money and he can feel safe. And how to advertise? Expensive clothing and jewelry.
* Meanwhile as relationships with women are hazardous, men are more likely to engage in anonymous or pseudonymous one-night-stands or brief affairs, where women are brought, not home, but to a hotel.
* Women having become ‘the enemy’, men are much less likely to include women in their social groups or outings, instead seeking company that they can relax, and be safe and stress-free with.

All these reactions to the elevation of women above men in the legal system tend to increase the objectification of women, and increase division between the sexes. A women’s movement that started out claiming it wanted equality and moved to superiority is now driving men and women back into behaviors that they claimed to abhor.

Economic:

* Men are much, much less likely to seek high-power jobs, or take on ambitious projects, knowing that they can get trapped in a very high-stress job, with all the income going to an ex-spouse or partner.
* Men are more likely to leave for countries that will not enslave them. (And as we know, many do and have.)
* Men are more likely to opt-out of the above-ground economy, working under the table or for cash jobs that are hard to attach to.
* Men may begin hiding their friends, and their friend’s assets from abusive spouses and girlfriends, and from the police that are sent to enforce unfair judgments.
* Young men raised in households without fathers are even less likely to pick up a strong male work-ethic, and instead are likely to live on the margins of society.

The economic reactions to the elevation of women above men in the legal system injure our economy, with workers choosing underemployment, black-market employment, or leaving the country entirely to take their labor elsewhere.

Both of these sets of reactions seem potentially to be things that can feed back upon themselves, with women needing to become more and more ‘sexy’ to get noticed, and men who do work to their full advantage within the legal/economic system being disadvantaged, compared to those working on the black market, or scraping by 'on the dole' rather than having it all taken away anyway.

And is this a picture of our culture today? Increasing sexualization of women, with men becoming more and more shiftless, as the economics of marriage and even mid-term relationships make it impossible to hang onto your freedom, your income, and your assets? With highly motivated men living double lives - one life for the aquisition of money and power, and another life of anonymity, to protect what is gathered? Is this the country we want?

It certainly looks like where we may be going.

O is for Opportunity

This guy sat next to me at work, maybe a year ago, and one day he heard my story, and shared his with me. It is not an uncommon one... Starts with a dedicated family man (FM), brother of my co-worker (CW), and FM's opportunistic wife (OW). FM has kids with OW, and OW sees her road to eternal gravy opened up and takes him to the local 'Pump-and-Dump', aka the NJ Divorce Court. You would think that FM would just live in poverty and slavery for the rest of his life, but divorce creates so very many ways for women to steal money from men without any realistic chance of punishment that it boggles the mind.

See, FM gets called up to go to Iraq, and OW starts complaining she isn't getting her blood-money. CW, not wanting to see his brother get in trouble, or his niece/nephew suffer, starts paying her support directly. Some time goes by, and CW is able to contact FM (who was out of touch due to the nature of his work in the military) and FM swears he *is* paying. OW claims otherwise, and so CW, out of consideration again for his niece/nephew and to keep his brother (FM) from being immediately arrested upon his return, keeps paying OW. Finally FM returns from Iraq, and shows CW his check stubs. OW claims that she never received any money during the period. They look at going to court, but none of the payments were being made through probation, and there was no written agreement between OW and CW, so OW can and will claim that the payments to her were a gift. Also, if the thing goes to court, FM will pay both his and her court fees, which will easily come to $9,000, rendering the whole court proposition uneconomical.

So there is no punishment for, or repaying by OW. She has 'worked the system' and collected twice for what she probably shouldn't have received in the first place.

Ain't NJ Grand? Talk about your 'land of opportunity.'.

Oh, and let me say a little something about slavery. First step in slavery is to reduce someone's legal standing. Making them pay their abuser's legal fees, making their abusers immune to perjury charges, placing the burden of proof on them... And forcing them to turn over the fruit of their labor without any real ability to challenge need or justice, and all under threat of seizure, prison and punishment. Support is slavery, pure and simple.

T is for To Look At

We live in an interesting world.

I apologize for not commenting on it more, but I am busy being a slave to my ex.

Just yesterday, I got yet another missive from the local probation department informing me that they were trying to take more money from me. Never mind that they already were taking the maximum allowable under law, 50-60%, far more than the maximum 10% a convicted criminal would be subject to. If I wasn't living already below the poverty level, it would be laughable. Actually it still is laughable, because there is nothing else to do about it.

Today, like so many days, was spent strugging to be able to support my evil ex, who demands more than I can earn, and figuring out how to keep my home for another few months. You who haven't lived as a divorcee have no idea how horrible it is. I can't imagine ever advising anyone to get married at this point in my life.

The scariest part is that my ex, like many others, insists it isn't personal. Just business. Ruining the rest of my life is just business. While she earns big-bucks, she also gets to take me to the cleaners every week, irregardless of my income or situation. And it is just business. Not personal. She doesn't need it, I can't afford it, but it is just business.

Because the state of New Jersey allows it, and because she can.

Just the practical, day-in-and-day-out business of misandry.

But anyway, things to look at:

Our friend John Doe has coined a good, useful and important word Patriphobia. So many of us are hated, ejected from our lives and families, rejected from the world and society. Why are divorced men so evil? Because divorced women need them to be. I think Patriphobia has a use, but perhaps not exactly the one John Doe is thinking of. I think that what John is pointing to is misandry. Patriphobia is what inspires VAWA, and encourages judges to give temporary restraining orders. Hating men is misandry.

In other news...

Imagine stalking your ex, putting on rubber gloves, a camoflage outfit, getting a high-powered rifle, and then shooting your spouse. What would a man get in terms of sentance if he did that? This woman (Claire Margaret MacDonald) got a license to kill.

As her husband lay bleeding to death on the ground, MacDonald stood over him and berated him for five minutes, telling him how she "hated him for making me do this".
MacDonald then tried to cover up her crime by telling police that a rabbit-shooter had threatened her husband the previous day.
Only when police began questioning her children did MacDonald change her story and claim she was a battered wife.
[...]
During the trial in the Victorian Supreme Court, MacDonald's defence counsel, James Montgomery, told the jury how Mr MacDonald had "totally dominated" his family, and in particular his wife, through "physical, verbal, psychological and sexual intimidation". Unfortunately the allegations could not be tested in court as Mr MacDonald was not around to refute or challenge them.

Imagine a rapist claims to work for the local health department to trick an eight-year-old into letting the rapist into the house. Then the rapist rapes the 8-year-old at knifepoint. Does this person get bail? If she is a woman, and the victim is a boy, the bail is $1500. Anyone see this on the news? No? Gee, wonder why? Didn't happen in some dark part of the 3rd world. It happened in Rochester, NY.

We are all concerned that there are not more male role models in schools, and that boys don't succeed in school in part because there are no men there. Women who have spoken to me cannot imagine how a man would ever take a job in a school given the current environement of misandry. Dr Helen points out that many parents reinforce this problem by requesting female teachers, thus making the man in such a role even more rare.

Hey! The Equal Opportunities Commission is sleeping at the switch! Here is a worksite, (hat tip Eternal Bachelor) without a single woman! I am sure the story is the same at worksites across the US. What's up? Shouldn't construction employers be 'encouraged' to hire a certain percentage of women? Huh?

But I'm not done with the Eternal Bachelor website, no far from it, he informs us that the courts have put men on notice that they may be held responsible in the future for the suicides of women - it's being called 'psychological manslaughter'. Can't make this stuff up. The man in this case was actually tried for it. Nice. Welcome to the gynocracy.

Did you all see this? Men travel far more for business than women do. Twice as much, actually. Gee, wonder why? Think it has ANY impact on that 'wage gap' we keep hearing about?

Or how about this from Mensactivism.org. Apparently it's twice as easy to fire a man as a woman. That just might contribute to the wage gap too. If you can't fire them, you'd better pay them less to make up for their unproductive months, years, decades...

Or how about this widely cheered study that women pretty much outlive men everywhere, including a pithy catchquote: "Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition."
If I celebrated 'the fact' that women lived shorter lives than men, wouldn't that be not only sexist, but just plain evil? I thought so.

My best to you in your struggles

M

Technorati Tags: Fathers Rights, Patriphobia, Parental Alienation, Bias, Wage Gap, Women Murderers, Life Expectancy, Misandry, Equal Rights, Men's Rights