The interesting thing about so much of what we discuss in the manosphere is that while it is very often diametrically opposed to conventional wisdom, the data to back up our positions is typically relatively easy to locate and share. Our problem generally isn’t that we lack the data or the logic to win the debate, but that we are challenging fallacious beliefs which are deeply held by very large portions of the population.
While everyone knows that divorce is driven by men dumping older wives for a younger model, the data shows it is quite the opposite. While everyone knows that divorcées become the life of the dating party after they dump their loser husbands who were holding them back, the data shows something much more bleak. Even the “true life” divorce empowerment stories of Eat Pray Love and How Stella Got Her Groove Back are based on experiences which tend to disprove this common fallacy. Elizabeth Gilbert’s studly latin romeo turns out to be just shy of 20 years her senior, and according to her follow on book he married her for a visa. By my estimate Gilbert is 43 years old now, while her second husband should be celebrating his 60th birthday very soon if he hasn’t already. By all accounts Stella lost her groove when she found out her Jamaican adonis is gay, and (coincidentally) married her for a visa. One might even suspect that divorce didn’t really make Lorraine Berry sexy, despite her breathless tale of how divorce empowered her.
The pathology is highest when the question is about women divorcing frivolously. We can make an extremely strong circumstantial case that frivolous divorce is indeed quite common. We have the motive, in the form of divorce theft and (while unfounded) the commonly held expectation that divorcées experience magically better dating and marriage options than they experienced when they were younger and more attractive. We have the means, in the form of an incredibly biased family court structure. We also have the opportunity, in the form of no fault divorce and a church which looks the other way. We also have a society cheer-leading women on to divorce. Elizabeth Gilbert wrote about her own frivolous divorce and became a hero for women everywhere. Women even thought it was appropriate to see EPL as a sort of date with their husbands. This extremely strong circumstantial case is confirmed by the expert witnesses.
But the level of denial is profound. While it is absurd to argue that women aren’t routinely engaging in frivolous divorce and divorce theft given the explosion in wife initiated divorce concurrent with the introduction of incentives for them to divorce and the removal of disincentives, we are inexplicably expected to prove the much more plausible case beyond a reasonable doubt. Those who make passionate excuses for frivolous divorcées tell us we need to listen to the excuses, and of course there is always an excuse.
What we need is a confession. Not just any confession either. We learned from the good Christian women that a woman calling out the frivolous divorcée anthem “I’m not haaaaapy!” isn’t really frivolous:
…it can feel quite soul-destroying to stay, stay, stay. I believe in commitment and working for the marriage in the face of all kinds of adversity, BUT i think there needs to be more love and grace offered to those IN or even LEAVING unhappy marriages. “I’m unhappy” may sounds trivial on the surface, but that feeling is generally just the result of something more seriously wrong.
This level of confession isn’t enough. No case of wife initiated divorce (with the attendant collection of cash and prizes) is morally suspect unless the divorcée herself flat out tells us it was frivolous. I’m not sure, but I suspect the confession also needs to be witnessed and notarized, or at least made by the divorcée herself in a national publication.
We may be in luck here. Commenter TM shared a link to the Huffington Post article Is It Easier To Deal With Divorce When You Made The Choice To Leave? Click the link for the full article, where newly minted divorcée Jennifer Nagy tells us:
Although I was the one who decided to leave, I still found myself completely devastated and filled with regret — my entire world turned upside-down.
…I had the perfect life and the perfect relationship. I lived in a condo on the beach, had a great career and a kind and patient husband. I had friends, money to spend and security. The only thing that I didn’t have was happiness.
She also makes what is a surprisingly common comment by frivolous divorcées, that she wishes she could have shifted the blame for her own frivolity onto her husband:
I often wished that I could have been the one who was left by my husband. Of course, I acknowledge that being left isn’t any more fun, but I longed to be able to avoid taking responsibility for the choice that made me feel so unhinged. By being left, I could have retained the belief that I had done everything possible to save our marriage. When times were particularly tough, I could have gotten angry and blamed him. Instead, I had to deal with the loneliness, sadness and emptiness of divorce, while also experiencing crippling self-doubt and regret.
Lets review the evidence for the charge of frivolity:
- I’m not haaaapy! Check.
- Admission that she instigated the divorce for no valid reason. Check.
- Written by her own hand in a national publication. Check.
This might be it. We might have just found the one frivolous divorcée we can actually call frivolous. While the hordes of frivolous divorce enthusiasts and apologists will still of course claim that frivolous divorce in general is overstated, at least in this one case we can convince the deniers!
There is nothing left to do but cross our fingers and take it to the judges. First up is fellow divorcée mamacat:
…I know that in my case it took over two years before I stopped cringing about what I had done – institute a divorce.
However, I have never before heard someone claim that they divorced themselves out of the perfect marriage. That is a contradiction in terms, to my way of thinking. I do not see enough clues in the article to come to any kind of idea as to what, exactly, motivated the author to get our of her marriage, but whatever it was, it was something, not nothing, and therefor what she had was not a perfect marriage. If the only way for the author to save herself was to leave, then it was far from a perfect marriage.
Clearly mamacat didn’t feel like Ms. Nagy made a strong enough case for her own guilt. Sure she claims she divorced frivolously, but you simply can’t take her word on it. But this might just be a fluke. Surely others are willing to take Ms. Nagy’s heartfelt confession at face value. Lets see what Huffpo commenter StuntHunt had to say:
It wasn’t the perfect relationship. It just looked that way on paper. There’s a yin and yang to every “successful” relationship. You can’t fake that.
Next up is mamacat again with some follow up thoughts. While she is certain the marriage wasn’t salvageable, she hopes that in the future this marriage might be salvageable:
Perhaps, with a really good therapist, it would someday be possible for them to reunite. I assume that at some point they felt mutual respect, admiration, and love.
Next up are the thoughts of Imhappy. No word on whether she is buying Ms. Nagy’s suspect confession or not, but she helpfully reminds us never to judge those who divorce even if they tell us they didn’t have a good reason:
Everyone has been so harsh on Jennifer. It’s impossible to judge her heart unless one has walked in her shoes. Marriage is such a convoluted matter that it is really such an injustice to cast a stone at Jennifer for having decided the way she did.
However LeeRose reminds us that non-judgementalism only goes so far. She passes judgment on those who frown upon frivolous divorce and stands proudly in solidarity with Ms. Nagy and her decision to end her perfectly good marriage:
Reading the bitter comments the group of immature men who hang around this section just to bash women, I consider you to be lucky
Sorry for the false alarm. If I ever run into a case of frivolous divorce which is compelling enough to convince the deniers, I’ll let you know. Just in case, are any of you a notary?
See also:
AMEN!
A book with all your writings would be great.
BTW:
Today is International Women’s Day (ugh), and I’ve no doubt the media groups will be prostrating themselves with talk about the “advancement of women”.
The problem is that factual polygyny and aging of population is a game changer. So there is oversupply of men even for 30+ women.
Dalrock – check out this thread.
http://www.boundlessline.org/2012/03/fickle-feelings.html?cid=6a00d83451c4ae69e20163029d099d970d#comment-6a00d83451c4ae69e20163029d099d970d
I have a theory about all of this.
Let’s – for a moment – take their words at face value. “I’m not haaaaappppy!” This is a trite and childish reason to destroy the family finances, and screw up your kids, obviously – but it also seems troubling. Why aren’t they happy?
A lot of this has to do with the constant opiate diet of the television. “You need our product, you need a new car, you need a new house, yadda, yadda, consumerism yay!” And that’s part of it. The TV constantly tells you about how green the grass is elsewhere. But there’s something more.
Women have too much freedom.
Very few people can cope with freedom; being self-employed is hard, it’s far easier to have a boss and work hard at your job, than to be a dreamer and pursue your passion in life. It takes tactics, discipline, commmitment, and a great deal of self-organization. Not many men can do this, and i think women are even less suited to it.
In the modern social setting women are free to do anything – they’ve been taught that since day one – but as a result, all things lose their flavour. They are left floundering in a sea of meaninglessness, unsatisfied because none of their actions seem to have consequences.
For a woman to be happy in a relationship she needs the security of a dominant husband. If men would stop ‘respecting’ (read: misunderstanding) women so much, and offer proper masculine leadership, then the ladies wouldn’t be feeling so miserable. Case in point: my girlfriend stood me up last night because she got sick and her phone died. If I ‘respected’ her I would have simply forgiven her, and moved forward. This would have planted a seed of destruction in the relationship.
Instead, I told her that I was angry (not furious, just angry) and informed her that she was going to make up for it by making me dinner tonight while *ahem* naked. She’s now able achieve grace and forgiveness by accepting her punishment (Maybe Doysteuvsky was onto something?). Instead of argument and boredom, she’s now eager to come visit me, and I’m looking forward to it.
If men put their foot down more, and told women how it was going to be, they’d be deliriously happy about it. This ‘respect’ for women in our culture is something that needs to change.
I don’t even know if denial is the appropriate word.
Emotions are inherently internal and subjective, whereas rational thought that uses facts and logic is external and objective.
You cannot ask someone to deny or justify feelings, they just are, and they are inherently irrational.
When someone is emoting as opposed to thinking, you cannot reach them with logic and reasoning by definition. Somehow you have to get them to move from an entirely inward-looking focus (the word solipsism comes to mind) to where they can acknowledge that externalities exist before you can even have a rational conversation.
Or, in other words, rationalization hamsters FTW! (if I correctly understand the meaning of that acronym)
What DOES it take for doubters to see the problems?
I mean, we already have the mainstream view of gold diggers who marry for money. What is so hard to believe that women will divorce for the same? Especially when they’re sold the divorce fantasies of ‘finding themselves and reconnecting to their dream lives.’ At this point I doubt they’d see a problem if someone literally said they married and then divorced someone for their money so they could bankroll trips to the Bahamas. They’d blame the man for not being able to keep such a firecracker of a woman or shake their heads at his mistake in taking her in while deflecting any attention paid to the moral character of such women.
This sort of stuff is very common with all sorts of ideologues.
What is scary is how common it is among normal “Christian” women. Some of them literally cannot see any case where a woman’s feelings led her astray.
One of your most excellent posts, Dalrock.
I’ve got a simple rule for frivolity insofar as divorce is concerned.
Was it over one of the three A’s, as a person from the 1950s would interpret such?
No?
Then it was frivolous and you deserve to lose substantial status because of it. It is very likely your children will bear substantial resentment towards you until you pass away. A truly orthodox church CAN forgive you but CAN NOT say what you did was anything other than a betrayal.
A lot of this has to do with the constant opiate diet of the television. “You need our product, you need a new car, you need a new house, yadda, yadda, consumerism yay!” And that’s part of it. The TV constantly tells you about how green the grass is elsewhere.
Man, you are so 20th century. TV viewing is actually declining, and declining the most for the under-30 set. Today’s modern, empowered, strong, independent woman don’t need no TV for her dose of discontent – not when there’s Facebook available 24/7 via any net connection. Remember the 10th anniversary High School reunion? Remember how everyone tried hard to impress everyone else with their $ucce$$? Remember how worn out you were at the end of it? Well, Facebook for many folks is like going to their High School reunion every time they log in.
IMO social media is as much a factor in modern discontent, unhaaaapiness, whatever you call it as any other technology and more powerful than TV. If choice addiction was a drug, social media would be the grower, the refiner, the pusher and the needle, all wrapped up in one package.
IMO, of course.
Paul
Or, in other words, rationalization hamsters FTW! (if I correctly understand the meaning of that acronym)
Nice double entendre, intentional or not.
So, um, can we say THIS is a case of frivolous divorce? Can we at least have agreement on that?
Or will we continue to hear that frivolous divorce is “overstated in the manosphere” after definitions are spoonfed to the masses?
Yeah, a follow up on Christian Forum (besides me getting banned).
This was posted by a moderator there:
“We have added the following to the SoP:
Divorce is not to be promoted in this forum except in cases where individuals are in physical danger. Those who are contemplating divorce due to extenuating circumstances may be able to find support in the recovery forums.
This forum needs to be supportive of maintaining marriage. That said we recognize that there are circumstances which may lead one to consider divorce. The recovery forums are better suited for dealing with these issues.”
Then notice this caveat:
“Please remember that when someone shares a personal experience it is not up for judgement. Divorce is always a last resort, but we will not allow judgement of those who do make that choice.”
I would also guess that they don’t think anyone should feel guilty for having had a divorce for frivolous reasons (since they must have done it as a “last resort”).
[D: Wow. Very telling.]
How much does anyone want to bet they will see an uptick of “violent husbands” over there on CF.
No way I’m going to wade into the comment swamp over at the HufferPo, but it seems clear to me that for some number of women in the modern world, nothing a man does for them can ever be enough. The woman in this case had pretty much everything she desired in the material sense, and yet the Problem With No Name reared its ugly head. So…why should he have done anything for her?
It’s kind of a Zen koan.
“What is the thing that a man can do for her that will lead her to happiness?”
“No thing”
“Then clearly, men should do no-thing for her…”
deti, back in the 80’s I used to argue with lefties about the Soviet Union. Even after Solzhenitsyn’s multi-book volume told of the horror of the Gulag in minute detail, they continued to insist that every evil was an “isolated incident” that I was “taking out of context”. They were true believers in Socialism. So I predict that there’s no way, so far as true believers in feminism are concerned, that any number of demonstrably frivolous divorces would ever be more than a series of “isolated incidents”. Because feminism is a branch of Marxism, and because the hamster is strong…
If you get divorced, it is ips facto proof that it wasn’t a perfect relationship. If it was perfect, the woman would have been happy.
If she would have been happy, there would have been no divorce and no problems.
Definitionally there will never be a frivilous divorce for the same semantic games that “educated” people say there is no altruism.
You can’t have altruism because people do everything for a reason. (I kid you not on that logic), the only altruism to occur would be an act of kindness with no reason behind it.
You can’t have frivilous divorce because a woman would have to get divorced as an act with no motive (even emotional). Until you find that kind fo divorce they shall never accept that a divorce was frivilous.
That being said I long for the day when men and society realize that a woman’s happiness is frivilous, irrelevant, and unimportant and it becomes a complete nonissue. Where a woman saying “I’m not happy!” gets answered with silence.
Anon Reader:
You sound like my dad. I’ll always be grateful to him for teaching me about the evils of the old USSR, making me read The Gulag Archipelago (Solzhenitzsyn) and Free to Choose (Friedman), and teaching me how to think.
A textbook Dalrock demolition job.
At this point, this is exactly the tack to take with these clowns: with all the hamster rationalizations and the usual avalanche of bullshit what on earth does a woman actually have to do to be regarding as a frivolous divorcee??
I’ll say again—this is a great & hard hitting post.
Let’s hear the old arguments again from the days when we debated whether frivolous divorce is “overstated”, shall we?
That’s not what I said!
You took ONE comment out of a 1,000 + thread and blew it all out of proportion! THAT’S NOT FAIR!
You’re taking my statements out of context!
You’re all just eeevil, eeevil MRAs!
That’s not what that debate topic was about!
You’re just making this personal! That’s mean and nasty!
So what does “frivolous divorce” mean?! Hmmmmmm?!
Dalrock calls it “pathological” but does anyone here deny the pathology is across the board in our society? It’s not just women who have been made idiotic and insane by PC–it’s every domain of our world.
For society to see how screwed up women are would also see how screwed up everything is.
Found this blog post from today off the HuffPo link that is germane to Dalrock’s point:
I Just Wish He Would Have An Affair!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/monique-honaman/i-just-wish-he-would-have_b_1297919.html
[D: Great find. Thanks for sharing it, and welcome to the blog.]
“I often wished that I could have been the one who was left by my husband.”
I heard this same nonsense when I got divorced so I actually laughed when I read it in that article. I also heard plenty of other nonsense about how I was her best friend and how I was the best thing that ever happened to her. Was it all BS? At that point I didn’t care. I had a reasonable settlement and just wanted her out of the house.
So I smiled and nodded. And the day after the divorce was final the lights went out and she went into shock.
I know this is anecdotal, but in my neighborhood the divorced women either never go on dates, date guys that are a clear step down from their ex husband, or are being used by some guy who has no interest in commitment. Most of them do not have a better life. If they do it is mostly a facade propped up by divorce settlement money. All of it falls in line with what you have documented with fact Dalrock.
At least one of your earlier posts wrote about the declining fortunes of divorced baby boomers but I see another tidal wave on the horizon. Divorced women in their late thirties and early to mid forties who were raised on this you can have it all mentality. Most that I know live paycheck to paycheck or on credit cards because they eat out, take vacations, buy clothes and on and on without any regard to the future. It’s like they believe some guy financially recovering from a divorce will forget about all that pain and give it another go. Just like women are told that they will have multiple babies because they will forget about how painful it was to have that first baby. All they will remember is the joy of the moment.
I doubt many divorced men will feel the same way.
Here’s another take on the HuffPo piece:
http://www.ncregister.com/blog/how-to-find-yourself
Written by a woman. Go figure!
[D: That is an outstanding piece. Astonishingly good. Thanks, and welcome to the blog.]
TB, that thread at Boundless is so predictable. First the denial that women file the majority of divorces, then what that balloon pops it’s immediately replaced by “well, the men must have done something to cause her to file”, all accompanied by furious revving of hamsters & self-righteous indignation over the very idea that women can be fickle.
Same Stuff Different Blog (SSDB) in short.
And the richest of the ironies is that all this was spawned by an article in which a woman has kept stringing a man along as her fiance for two years. I’m certain any man who suggested that she’s keeping one branch in her hand while looking around for a better one would be banned even faster than Tim was. Because that would say some things about women that just aren’t in harmony with the Boundless philosophy…like, “hypergamy”.
I agree with mamacat: “I do not see enough clues in the article to come to any kind of idea as to what, exactly, motivated the author to get our of her marriage, but whatever it was, it was something, not nothing, and therefor what she had was not a perfect marriage.”
Basically the marriage wasn’t perfect, otherwise she wouldn’t have left. It was good, probably very good, but not perfect. But the problem is thinking any marriage, short of perfection, should be ended. Perfection is impossible for something as complex as marriage. If that’s your benchmark you are doomed to failure and disappointment. Therefore, choose a quality partner and work to make your marriage as successful and rewarding as possible.
Hang on…
I’ve got something coming through on the tele-printer…
‘I was married for ten years’, [tick] ‘and my husband and I made love every day’ [tick] ‘and , so I divorced him’ [tick] ‘and I was over it in three months’ [err] ‘and it’s his fault because since the divorce, he having been sober through our marriage has hit the drink and is alcoholic proving he was an unfit father and husband, thus I was right to divorce him’. [I thought we were nearly there but no]
– and that is what a female acquaintance of mine, a herder of four cats, with a grasp of cause and effect that would puzzle even David Hume, said explaining her latest divorce. Sorry, about that. I really thought we had it, but, no, sorry.
[D: Well done!]
Great post. The best post I’ve seen on this recently was by the Elusive Wapiti. The report he links to is certainly apposite as well.
Oh, the horror of the hamster…..
http://elusivewapiti.blogspot.com/2012/02/second-chances-on-divorce-superhighway.html
@Anonymous Reader
“Man, you are so 20th century. TV viewing is actually declining, and declining the most for the under-30 set. Today’s modern, empowered, strong, independent woman don’t need no TV for her dose of discontent – not when there’s Facebook available 24/7 via any net connection.”
You are, of course, correct, though I’m only 30. I dropped out of Straight Society sometime in the early Aughts, and the only time I’ve had television since then – a roommate insisted – I found it utterly baffling that anyone would tolerate the sheer levels of BS coming on during the commercial break. I’m reminded again of that line from Fight Club:
“Our great war is a spiritual war; our great depression is our lives.”
Replace television with the constant stream of pre-masticated culture coming through Netflix (?), terrible summer blockbuster movies, Facebook narcissism, or whatever people are using nowadays.
It’s bizarre to think that I’m an expert at SEO, online networking, linux and computer hacking, and yet I have no idea what’s going on with all of this nonsense.
I thought the huffpost story was priceless; glad to see Dalrock has written another great article on this subject.
TheMan commented on today’s ‘holiday’ (international woman’s day, celebrated even by google). By most accounts it’s essentially a communist creation (there were attempts to downplay or erase this association):
http://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1920/womens-day.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Women's_Day#History
“I had the perfect life and the perfect relationship. I lived in a condo on the beach, had a great career and a kind and patient husband. I had friends, money to spend and security. The only thing that I didn’t have was happiness.”
Then I’d say it’s her doing.
There are some people who just need to change their attitudes, and there are others who go through genuine, inexplicable depression. Ladies, if you do the latter and you have a great family and great surroundings, do NOT blame it on them! The problem’s inside, and that’s where you need to work. See a therapist, get a new job, talk to your husband, do something, but don’t attribute the source to being the loving people around you.
Good one, Dalrock.
It’s bizarre to think that I’m an expert at SEO, online networking, linux and computer hacking, and yet I have no idea what’s going on with all of this nonsense.
No, it isn’t. I once worked in a TV station in operations. Surrounded by TVs and clocks all day. Visitors to my home were often surprised that I didn’t have a TV set or clock in the living room. “Pushers don’t take their own junk”, I would reply. So there you go.
(In fact, I had a little Sony 8″ portable tucked away high on a shelf. When I wanted to watch TV, I took it down, turned it on, and when done put it away. But after 8 to 10 hours surrounded by monitors and TV’s, the last thing I wanted to see after all that was another TV set.)
Horrifying. This is why we need the government out of marriage. Churches should write the contracts and members who marry can sign them, forcing them to get church approval to divorce. That’s how it was done for years – you had to get an annulment from the church (still do in some cases, depending on your denomination). Folks who initiate frivolous divorce should be excommunicated. Folks who marry folks who initiated frivolous divorces should ALSO be excommunicated because they too are adulterers. This should be a warning to the guys out there even considering marrying a divorcee.
Matthew 5:32 – “But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”
It is important to note that only the innocent party is allowed to remarry.
If people knew this stuff, if it was faithfully preached from more pulpits, I think things would be in better shape, at least among believers. But, apparently most churches are too sissy to practice church discipline.
@TFH
“Will the woman’s living standard go down if she divorces?”
You might want to qualify that by “materially and immediately”.
Something to thing about;
Over the years I’ve spent some time researching infidelity and I’ve encountered something some refer to as ‘The Fog’. What the fog is at it’s base is an altered way of thinking, very much like the Rationalization Hamster which justifies the action of cheating in the mind of the spouse who has strayed. They vilify their spouse in every which way imaginable to the point where any action which may have been taken by their betrayed spouse even in support now becomes an effort to control them negatively in some way shape or form.
I had even encountered a case where a betrayed spouse was blamed for being controlling simply for providing the income to allow their wandering spouse to go back to school. No, I’m not joking!!
At the end of the day, it’s simply a protection mechanism, an altered way of thinking to allow the cheating spouse the benefit of being a victim somehow of their big bad lout of a spouse. To be honest, both men and women can suffer from the fog to justify their actions, gotta make that point clear. However, this to me is what Dalrock’s post on pathological denial sounds like. What woman in their right mind wants to admit they effed something up? Once more, what women in their right mind wants to read about a woman who admits that they effed up their perfectly good marriage? Understand, when a woman reads about that, it does make them reflect on their own shortcomings and that can be uncomfortable to say the least.
Let me put it to you like this; on an infidelity forum I used to frequent, I encountered a woman who would justify cheating to the men who had suffered their wives cheating on them and tell them it was THEY who needed to win their wives back. She, on the other hand, had cheated on her husband who had left her high and dry once he found out. It didn’t take a genius to realize why she had taken the approach she did. All the advice she was reading was undermining her own justifications, she couldn’t have that.
Bet money that this pathological denial is simply the same thing under a different label.
Last time I had a live-in, several years back, she pulled the “I’m not happy” shtick. I pulled her suitcase out of a closet tossed it to her and said, “I’ll expect you gone by the time I get home tomorrow.” Suddenly she was apologetic, we had sex and afterward I said, “I’ll be home by six tomorrow, so I’ll expect you gone.” It was like she couldn’t comprehend it. I had been getting progressively tired of her non-sense, but the sex was convenient, and she wasn’t adverse to bringing other women to bed, so it limped along for a while.
That is why I will never marry. If I had been married it would have taken months, or even years to get her gone – and with my assets heaven only knows what some idiot judge would give her. No thank you. These days I dangle the carrot of “some day I wouldn’t mind having a family” but never mention it again, although every woman that I’ve seen for longer than a few months will bring the topic up in some way, even though I’m significantly older than they are. Women are always angling for that perpetual meal ticket – use it to your advantage, but never be a sucker.
Knew a guy back in the early 90’s making almost $150K per year – that was real money back then, and he was living in a room of someone’s house because in CA they take 1/3 of your salary for every kid and he had two, so that coupled with alimony and he had to petition the court for enough money to live in a room. I always told him he should pack up and move to South America and punt on this crap. But he was a sucker… Oh, his wife divorced him because, she “needed to find herself”… Of course she wanted him to continue paying for her to f**k her way through every bar she could find. The kids would call because she was drunk, and the courts would never grant him custody of his kids, even though the kids wanted to be with him. It is so f**ked up..
@Davis M.J. Aurini 1:30 pm
„If men would stop ‘respecting’ (read: misunderstanding) women so much, and offer proper masculine leadership, then the ladies wouldn’t be feeling so miserable.”
BS. Look, women cannot have it both ways. Either they disempower and marginalize men legally by electing politicians favoring anti-male laws – as they have been doing for decades –, or they allow men to exercise ’proper’ masculine leadership. They can either choose one or the other.
@Anonymous Reader 2:03 pm
„TV viewing is actually declining, and declining the most for the under-30 set. Today’s modern, empowered, strong, independent woman don’t need no TV for her dose of discontent – not when there’s Facebook available 24/7 via any net connection.”
Do you think it’s a coincidence that mainstream TV apparently caters to almost exclusively women, especially young single women?
Pretty much 100% of the stuff women say about themselves can safely be dismissed as BS.
“…a kind and patient husband” says it all to me. Sounds like she married someone who did not light her fire. She probably married him because he had all the qualifications on paper. That was unfair to him (of course he should have seen it). She stuck out for 9 years which, to me, speaks to her good character–trying to make it work without passion. A marriage that starts without passion will either end or be a dead marriage.
TFH–
I think it depends on two things predominantly:
1) Is she quite sure she will get custody of the kids; and
2) How much her standard of living will go down if she divorces.
@ Doug1, TFH
I think this hits closer to the mark. The standard of living for women does, in fact, decline in the US when they divorce.
I’ve seen references to democracy and marriage being unable to coexist. Is there a historical reference for this? thanks
Hollenhund, it is no accident that daytime TV and increasingly prime time TV caters to women. But the Arbitron rating company discovered last year that over all TV viewing is down, and it’s down the most in the under 30 cohort. They are more likely to “watch TV” on a computer screen.
dragnet, how do you know that the standard of living for divorced women declines after the divorce? I’m not saying you are right or wrong, I’m suggesting that whatever source you have for that information might not be as accurate as it should be.
Anonymous Reader – ”dragnet, how do you know that the standard of living for divorced women declines after the divorce? I’m not saying you are right or wrong, I’m suggesting that whatever source you have for that information might not be as accurate as it should be.”
I’d have to say that the issue is not so much with the accuracy, as it is technically correct (I have seen the published numbers before, but don’t have a reference handy), but rather that it isn’t the accurate marker that it’s held up to be.
First off, the only practical way to determine the “standard of living” of people (married vs. divorced, in this instance) is to impute it based on the only readily available financial data that the government can provide – their taxable income. In general, this might be a valid measure, but for the purpose of comparing the standard of living of post-divorce persons with married persons of the same gender, it can fail spectacularly (in many instance.
For married people, it will typically be either their combined taxable incomes (if filing jointly – which still predominates). And, of course, for those who’ve divorced, it will be just their own taxable incomes. On the surface, it seems reasonable enough.
But…
Then what isn’t being figured in is that the person making the transfer payments (alimony, child-support, and even health care coverage costs) is the only one being taxed on the income of that money. The person on the receiving end (since the taxes have already been paid) is not taxed for that money. The net effect is that the payer (and, it’s still typically the man) has all of that money that is taken form him to be given to the other person counted as part of his taxable income, while the person receiving it does not have it considered as part of their taxable income.
On paper, most divorced women will (especially in the first few years) be reporting a taxable income which is less than half of what she and her husband reported before divorcing. But, when one considers the more elusive measure of available income (the money actually available to the individual to spend, both on needs and on wants), it is often the case that the divorce woman will have more money available to her than does her ex husband.
Now, this is not to say that she will have it better off, as even with the transfer payments, she is likely to have less overall money to spend than she did when she was married – because wives control about 80% of a families spending.
The real thing to look at is the relative decline in what each individual has as “disposable income” after divorce. Women may have less money to control after they divorce, but in a typical situation, the man will have a lot less disposable income (on paper), but because it is now all his alone, he may actually have more that he can spend on his wants than he did while married.
This is why we get that misinterpretation that men often gain from divorce. The difference being that after divorce, they have ~30% of their income available for themselves, as opposed to the (perhaps) 10% they had when they were married.
The bottom line is (in my estimation – no data to back it up) that the incentives for a woman to divorce will correlate with her ability to get transfer payments (and/or assets that she can liquidate). A woman, without kids, who makes less that her husband, but is not eligible for long-term alimony (and, especially if a solid pre-nup prevents her from making off with a significant portion of his pre-marital assets) is probably the least likely of all women (statistically speaking, of course) to divorce.
The concept is fundamentally the same as TFH points to – follow the money.
Which is probably why a lot of women seem to have a replacement guy(‘s income) lined up before they file.
what’s “wrong” that they feel so unhaaaappy about, often times, is simply that their unrealistic Disney dreams and expectations are not being catered to. Part of this is their fault….
but who the hell taught them that there would be princesses and ponies?? Being a human is hard, disgusting effort, with a good dose of suffering, for reward. Scrubbing floors and doing laundry until you die? What would make womyn exempt from the destiny of all the generations that came before them? Clue in, womyn. You are dirt, just like us.
Whether or not you are happy, girls, depends on your outlook on life, not on your man. If you expect that your man will make you “happy”, or that if you divorce you will suddenly BE happy, you are boned. Kill yourself.
I can respect a lot more a womyn who can just come out and say “I’m a stupid idiot who filed a frivolous divorce and now feel unhinged and I know I suck” a lot more than the ones who want to blame everything else. Own your shit, ladies. I know you are going to be retarded psychos, but at least OWN IT. only then, can we begin to correct it.
DAVIS M.J. AURINI is 100% correct in his comment above. That is, in fact, the solution.
Samuel is right, being a human isn’t going to be perfect for anyone, not even royalty or billionaires. Everyone has their own sets of problems. Only those who accept reality and learn to find joy in the day to day activities will be happy. Women who like being a homemaker make good wives. Women who don’t make awful wives, because they cannot find joy in the day to day work. Usually they find no joy in their careers either – simply changing the work doesn’t always make one happier. Happiness is in large part a choice. I find joy in my work, and the things most other guys think are grueling or try to avoid, I embrace and like to do. That’s why I’m happy, and others can’t wait to find other employment. Women who aren’t haaaapy are usually ignoring their problems and seeking a solution that provides them a short-term emotional high, but because they didn’t address the underlying issues, they sink right back into being unhaaapy – except this time with a broken family, no husband, and few prospects for marriage.
An interesting observation came to me after reading much about happiness in the above conversations. My fiancee (who is not North American) will pretty regularly ask me if I’m content, but not if I’m happy. I have concluded that I appreciate this in her, and that it is yet another item to tuck away in the “I’m really glad I decided to MGTOW on this” department.
Paul:
2.42 From an attitude of contentment (santosha), unexcelled happiness, mental comfort, joy, and satisfaction is obtained.
(santosha anuttamah sukha labhah)
santosha = contentment
anuttamah = unexcelled, extreme, supreme
sukha = pleasure, happiness, comfort, joy, satisfaction
labhah = is acquired, attained, gained
Paul: Maybe she wants a postive answer. It’s hard to think of situations where you answer “I am not content”.
@Davis M.J. Aurini
Your comment early on reminds me of one of the old twilight zones. A guy had what he thought was a gardian angel watching over him in heaven. He got everything he wanted. he won every bet he always got the women and everything and everybody was agreeable. In time he was bored to misery and called on the angel to complain. In the ends he asked that he go to the other place because heaven was “hell” so to speak. The “angel” then let him know he already was in the other place.
What all of the unhappy women have is everything they wanted and no responsibility what so ever. What’s a good christian woman to do?
Oh gawd,he was *patient* and *kind*
Oh the horror,the horror.
Much preferred is the strong pimp hand
(with whores)
How much her standard of living will go down if she divorces
For a woman to consider that is asking too much. Woman are more intuned to if HIS standard of living will go up. Women also don’t think in terms of standard of living they think in terms of how much money do I get.
My wife has an expensive trophy car she just had to have to show up the cunts at work. She needed brakes she did a search (I told her where to look) and she found out brake pads were 100 plus dollars a pair. Also the job at a shop would run 500 to 1700 dollars. She bought the pads and I brought my tool bag and impact wrench home from work and did the job. A couple years ago we had snow and ice in Dallas over the super bowl week and the heater in the house stopped lighting. Wife was really worried on this one I brought her up to the attic with a multimeter explained roughly how all heaters work as I told her I have never ever seen this type before. Opened it up had oldst daughter turn it on and watched start up sequence come to an end before it lit. Wrote down model and serno of unit opened the phone book and made a call. Drove 8 miles round trip in ice and 27 dollars later we had heat. Both together could have easily cost up to 3K dollars, put on a credit card and it cost even more. 1 to 2 percent of women have the capacity to understand this paragraph enough to actually appreciate it. The rest see it as an entitlement or just stupid stuff guys do so they can get back to their hypergamy and christian right of happiness.
Lavazza,
nice verse, thanks, I like it and think she will too.
Actually I can think of a lot of occasions where I would hear “I’m not content”, but then again I have a twelve year old daughter. In my fiancee’s case I think she just wants affirmation of how I feel about being with her.
I guess this is what happens when you give legalize ‘feelings’.
But wait- there’s more!
Huffpost article about women wishing their Beta husbands will cheat, so they have an excuse to divorce.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/monique-honaman/i-just-wish-he-would-have_b_1297919.html?ref=divorce
Paul: To be content is to have your needs fulfilled. Not understanding the difference between needs and desires is the source of a lot of misery.
Greyghost
and your repair story is great stuff. Your points require thinking abstract, women dont do that so much. Things work when switches are hit, right? Cars work with gasoline, right? Its not about her knowing how to test with a multimeter, or change pads, its about her knowing that SOMEONE has to do it. Sadly a subset of men from the generation right after the boomers (Im a late boomer, born 62) and yea even some of our bunch, didnt learn anything either. Now you have Home Depot teaching these free classes and they are packed out with younger guys wanting to DO something, anything, besides live connected to devices and such. Its a good trend, one of very very few. The DIY pendulum seems to be going the right direction.
@ emp…
Thanks
What made me think of the stories was the comments on living standards after a divorce. The first time I really thought about “what men do” was when a guy was telling about a women who’s husband had died. She was probably the typical wife, but she confessed to the guy that she had no idea how much her husband had done. How much pleasentness and happiness did she cheat her husband and herself out of ignoring his gifts to her while he was alive.
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Just – sigh. It’s exhausting just to read about the stupid, it’s almost paralyzing. Really, lady? REALLY? I wish your husband had left you, too – as in run away, really fast, and didn’t look back. I imagine he feels the same way.
I second Tina’s upthread recommended link to Simcha Fisher’s piece – it was exceptional.
@Hollenhund: “Pretty much 100% of the stuff women say about themselves can safely be dismissed as BS.”
Winner, winner, chicken dinner!
There is a legal standard relating to the admission of unreliable hearsay evidence. Hearsay is generally inadmissible – that is, as long as Hollenhund is alive and available to testify, Joe Blow can’t testify “Hollenhund told me _____”. The reason that the second hand account is inadmissible, is because it’s believed to be unreliable. However, if the second hand account relates to something that paints the speaker in a negative light, it’s thought to be admissible and reliable because few people will admit negative things about themselves. Example: Joe Blow can testify, “Hollenhund was drunk and depressed, and he told me that he spends a lot of time at work literally picking his nose.”
The standard I propose – when a woman is telling you something about herself that paints her in a negative light – as in the HuffPo writer who left her husband for no good reason – then it’s probably true. If she’s telling you how she left her husband and her life is great, it’s wonderful, her new man is aweseome – it’s not reliable and you’re talking to a bitch who is gnawed by regret, poorer, and is dating a fat 60 year old guy who thinks banging her beats losing his immigration status.
Pathological Denial in action…
I was a witness to a “frivolous” digits e a few years back.
In the end, despite the fact that there was incontrovertible proof of her infidelity (in the form of cuckoldry), she was given the maximum percentages of alimony and CS for their circumstances (military couple.)
A year later, she’s constantly complaining about how her cash flow is insufficient to maintain her “dream” household. She also complains about her growing boys (getting divorced when your children are days away from puberty will cause that to happen) and her higher cost of living (because she’s an idiot.) In her zeal to jump back on the carousel, she gave up free housing and utilities and food (along with 75% of his $3600/month salary.) Now, she’s living off of $1500/month in chilimony and being pumped and dumped by various guys (who either see her as a target or get cold feet as soon as she starts mentioning her finances), while her ex has happily embraced the fact that he doesn’t have to deny himself the things that he wants to keep her haaaappy. In fact, she has yet to realise that the reason for her prior ease of life was based on the fact that her ex-husband’s demands in the relationship were a full fridge, full gas tank and 3-5 bottles of mixable liquor (note: no mention of fidelity. If she’d bothered to make even *one* child with him, he wouldn’t have been so eager to sign the papers.) So, in the end, she traded total access to almost $3000/month (after paying for food, alcohol and petrol) sans housing costs, to be given $1500/month with no ability to even consider requesting an upgrade in benefits (the sole benefit of military marriage: her benefits are frozen at his rank at time of divorce) and having to live with her parents (because even 2-bedroom apartments in nice neighbourhoods would eat up half of her chilimony.) The last time that I spoke to her, she was complaining about the fact that her sons had grown a combined 10 inches in the last 18 months (necessitating all-new wardrobes at retail prices, instead of having access to brand name clothes at almost wholesale cost from the BX/PX.) In comparison, her ex was promoted 6 months ago and had already earned $4000 that she can’t touch. Everyone wins.
Paul: “When someone is emoting as opposed to thinking, you cannot reach them with logic and reasoning by definition.”
There is a name for this phenomenon: emotional reasoning. Read this: http://daphne.palomar.edu/jtagg/emotion.htm. This is in fact what “rationalization hamster” operates on.
This is more common among women. Most of you probably heard of the generalization that ‘women are more emotional, men are more logical’. MBTI Type data actually supports this. 75% of the women population are Feelers, while only 25% of men are Feelers. Feelers are more in tune with their feelings and take emotions into account more when making judgements compared to Thinkers, so one should think that they are more susceptible to emotional reasoning.
The only doubt I have is about how the Type data was collected.
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