“Step it up and be Super-Dad.” That’s a well-intentioned prescription, but quite a tall order for a man who has just been sucker-punched in the gut, who has lost the love and support of the woman he thought was bonded to him for life, and who is facing a court system that places about as much value on the sanctity of marriage and the role of fathers as it would place on a collection of 20+-year-old back issues of National Geographic magazine residing in the local library.

We need self-help and support groups for such husbands and fathers, good ones that will be there for these men, providing assistance, camaraderie, moral support, so that they will know that, abandoned as they have been by their wives and by our rogue legal system, they are by no means alone. With this kind of back-up, a man’s plan to “step it up” and be “Super Dad” can come more sharply into focus.

I know my situation is one of those extreme cases.  My father is a sociopath and the best thing was for my mother to leave.  A long story short, she always though he would get better if she just stayed and prayed long enough.  For those of you who might not know, sociopaths don’t get better and there is no therapy or medicine that will ‘fix’ it. 

My father doesn’t love us.  He has even told me that he wishes some of my brothers wouldn’t come for visitation, he doesn’t want them around.  I was in a periouls situation physically and morally as a teenager and he never stepped up to be that Super Dad. He doesn’t call or visit me and my family. As an adult I understand now, he just can’t, he is not mentally or morally able to.  It still hurts.

But when I see a good dad out there letting himself get stuck in the “I feel sorry for myself”, not going beyond the hurt of his wife leaving him and reaching out to his children it upsets me.  I’ve been there with the twist of knowing my dad doesn’t really care any way. I see when my father doesn’t come for visitation how much it hurts my younger siblings even if he is mentally ill, how much more hurtful it would be when a good dad doesn’t fight for a good visitation schedule or misses a visitation.

So when I see a good dad who really loves his childrn being selfish because of his own hurt, when I know they can step up and be there for their children, it’s quite frustrating.  Dads do need to be encouraged to ‘step up and be super dad’.  Their kids are waiting for them.  Dads need to be lifted up in prayer that they will have the strength to fight the fight even if they don’t see the fruits of that fight in this life.  God will look down upon them with love and mercy knowing that they fought for thier children, just as God fights for each and every one of us daily.

Happened to me 20 years ago.  Married a convert who ran off with another man after 2 years of marriage.  I was amazed to find that ditching her marriage and ruining her family would not actually make any difference and she would get custody purely because she was a women.  I’d have to basically beg for what visitation rights I could get and she was going with her new lover to Northern Island so basically I was screwed either way.

Anyway she got custody left the mainland and went to Northern Island but our child turned out to be severely autistic so here you can see the providence of God in action.  I did my best, gave it my best shot, to bring the child up Catholic fought the system and lost, she got a huge cross of suffering and the child’s soul is saved because as an severely austistic baptised person he can’t be damned anyway.

Sometimes you have to go for broke and if you lose you lose.  God will find some other way to reward you.  Suffering is redempive.

Worse things happen at sea.

Soon my son will join the ranks of a divorce man.  His wife decided she would rather be with someone else…at least her actions prove that point, though she would deny it!  Her job comes first!  My advice to her and to any person who is seeking a divorce, what happiness you are seeking will never be found!  You are selfish.  Remember your vows…“better or worst, etc.?  I only wish I could be around at the end to see just how improved and happy you are!

I too have been on the receiving end of a “see you later, I don’t hate you I would just rather like to be with X instead” divorce. There is really nothing one can do except perhaps pray. With regard to the custody issue unfortunately money often comes into play. Lawyers do not come cheap and to fight for custody you believe you may be entitled to is not something everyone can afford. Being a “Superdad” and staying involved when your input is restricted by court alloted time, but one prays and does their best.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. Family court is a whole alternate reality if you are a committed father, not to mention a husband who did not want to divorce in the first place. Read the book Taken Into Custody by Stephen Baskerville to get a real eye-opener. The whole business is disgraceful, and it is a business.

Three years ago my wife sucker-punched me with divorce papers, and we proceeded down that road of a custody settlement. The advice given thus far is sound advice.  But two things I add for anyone in this awful situation.  First, forgive your wife for what she is doing.  If you truly forgive her, you won’t be going through the whole ordeal in a state of anger, ready to lash out at any moment.  Take the high road and turn the other cheek as Christ taught us.  Second, be careful what you wish for.  Not all men are mentally equipped to handle single-parenting.  Nothing can bring a man to his knees more than a screaming infant, or a child that keeps you up all night, for many nights with sleep issues.  But, God only gives us what we can handle, right?  Be discerning in what you know you can handle but do stay involved with your children.  They do need a father.

I wish mine had left for someone else, I could have blamed him. Mine left for a player to be named later. Both Kids over 18, my daughter just barely. I lost her for 4 years but she is coming around now.

The first “anniversary” of the divorce just passed - I too never saw it coming.  I am extremely grateful to the Lord though for the way He stayed right next to me through it all.  I asked Mary, Joseph, and St. Michael to intercede for me a great deal, and at each point along the way my lawyer and I were able to win the battles we needed to.  Before we would go to court I would think about Jesus’ resignation before Pilate, “You would have no power over Me unless it were granted you from above.”  I now have 50/50 custody and, beyond all my expectations, the kids and I were just able to get a mortgage on the home we rented this past year. 

It is still a hard cross to bear, and I sometimes feel anger bubbling to the surface, but the Lord has given me the grace to keep my head.  I see this the flip side of the Sacrament of Marriage.  Just as Jesus gave us a share in His own love for our spouse on our weddings days, so too now he allows us to share in the pain of being rejected by a spouse - a pain He knows all too well.  If union with our Lord is the goal of life though (and it most assuredly is), then divorce does nothing to hinder that - God is utterly brilliant in His ability to use horrible circumstances to bring out the image of Jesus in our souls.

God bless you, Shane and all the others suffering this!

I’m glad to see this issue and, by extension, all the fathers suffering from the injustices here described, receiving some recognition in a very public way. I linked here from the New Advent website. Many thanks to you, Ms. Bean.

Have to say, though, that I must return shock for shock - Ms. Bean’s shock that the majority of divorces are initiated by wives for my shock that she didn’t know. It’s probably true, though, that most people don’t know.

As far as I can tell, it is often presumed by observing third parties that a woman who has initiated a divorce is absolutely justified in doing so - that is, that her husband deserves to be divorced. The unreasonableness of this position seems to escape many. For example, I was once standing near a group of women who were talking about some friend who left her husband. One of them said, “Ah - he must have cheated on her.” They all echoed their agreement and moved right on to the next subject, no questions asked. The possibility that the problems in the relationship might have been more nuanced and complex, or that the blame could be more evenly distributed, even in such a way that simply reflects unfavorably on the woman, positively escaped these and, I think, most women today. The end result is that even good fathers who are, perhaps, guilty only of being human are not only divorced and left with all the many difficulties that entails, but generally find themselves blamed for the fact that their wives betrayed the marital bond and generally ruined their lives and their children’s lives.

This ties into a larger problem facing men today, namely, that of misandry. Yes, I am using the word ‘misandry.’ There is a general sense in our society that men are scum and women are, well, the glorious saviors of civilization, who can single-handedly launch our beleaguered world into a dazzling new era of peace and justice. Men are the problem, women the solution. In short, it’s a men/bad women/good meme. We are culturally blind to the good men routinely do, and the evil women routinely commit. The point I’m making is not that we should begin demonizing women as a sort of affirmative action-style correction to a gross social distortion, but that we ought to better recognize the humanity in both sexes, and that as humans, we all begin life fundamentally focused on ourselves, when our destiny is to remain focused on Christ.

I’d like to express one grievance I have with the Church I so dearly love. Our late Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, spent considerable effort educating the world about the meaning and value of womanhood - the feminine genius, he called it. I’m very happy he gave us all this gift, and I am sure it was much needed by many, especially women who perhaps doubt whether the Church values their contributions to human life or find themselves torn by a culture that no longer understands or affirms anything close to real femininity. On the other hand, I am saddened and pained by the fact that His Holiness had little to say (if anything) to men by comparison about the meaning, purpose, and value of masculinity, that he offered them nothing to affirm the good of their manhood and encourage them in the unique ways men build civilizations that are truly Christian. In an age when masculinity is thoroughly denigrated and undermined across the secular culture, the Church remained, and remains still, silent to men. We stand inside the Church looking out at the world, and within here there is a vaccuum of complete silence with respect to our unique situation and needs. We men need to hear her speaking to us, and proclaiming to the world on our behalf, that God has given us value and purpose, and we need to know what that value is and what that purpose is in a profound and thoroughly Christian way. Perhaps we are so accustomed to thinking of men as self-reliant and independent that we are slow to realize that men also need to be supported in many ways. Women do, too. It is simply the reality of being human.

Instead, what I typically hear from the Church, both clergy and laity, is more of “what you men need to do” and many lists of ways we screw everything up. I hear the demands of Christian women, normally bitter and cold in tone, and rarely adjoined to anything close to a recognition of my humanity. If I dare to admit that something is difficult, or ask for patience as I try to do better, I meet sneering mockery: “Aw, you poor man, life is so hard for you!” Then I go out into the world and there meet an even more intense hostility to that which I am fundamentally: a man. This all plays out in many ways, times, and places - again, and again, and again. And though, God help me, I will never excuse myself from my commitment to Christ, and all the sacrifice and self-giving that entails, God knows, God alone knows how hard many are making it. I am tired of women who do not listen, who see things solely from their own perspective, who freely insult me to my face with full cultural sympathy, who speak to me callously and coldly and who otherwise treat me as someone less than human. I am getting bitter and very, very angry. Something’s got to give.

All good comments.  I only add: NCR, you are very late to the discussion table.  But it is good at least that you are here now.

Any fool not enamored with the myth of woman-as-perpetual-victim [perhaps one hour of listening to Dr. Laura ought to be enough to cure anyone of that childish fantasy] ought to know the now very-old statistic that in 2/3 of cases, it is the woman that initiates the divorce, and that a man that wants to keep his marriage is more often the victim.  [Note to ncr: if you are shocked to learn this, shame on you!]

If you want equal rights, this is what you are going to have to live with.  So anyone that wants equal rights in every situation, and particularly within the spousal relationship, is an accomplice in the destruction of the institution of marriage, and in causing the suffering of those who suffer unjustly as a result of that destruction.

Anyone with a biblical understanding of woman understands that she is the weaker vessel [in the words of St Peter] and thus naturally more prone to make bad decisions when the going gets rough.  This is the practical, as opposed to the theological reason, why God makes man to be the Head.  The law, however, in insisting upon absolute equality, refuses to acknowledge this fundamental anthropological and real-world truth.

It follows that as our philosophy is wrong, that the law based on that philosophy will also be wrong and will work harm.  It is up to us to teach others, and to change the law, as we should any unjust law.  The biggest impediment to doing so, is our own aversion to countenancing the reality of sexual inequality.

Courage to you all.

By the way, wanted to pitch a blog I like to visit called The Thinking Housewife (@ http://www.thinkinghousewife.com). The name of it might turn off some right away. Well, the woman is traditional, to be sure, but perhaps not in the way we’re used to. In particular check out the links on the right sidebar. Maybe you won’t agree with everything she says, or even most of it, but if nothing else I think her perspective throws our culture into clearer relief.

When I came home from work one day to find the note on the kitchen counter, I was incapacitated for about an hour. I was utterly incapacitated.

She was gone with our son with a full day’s worth of interstate between them and me before she stopped in a Catholic Church parking lot and the miracle brought her home. If her mother had had any respect for and understanding of the sacramentality of Catholic marriage, she wouldn’t have lobbied so hard and so constantly for her to leave.

That was our fourth anniversary.

Now we’re past our fifth, with another child, and we’re both as committed to each other as ever we were. But the situation in this culture is such that when I tell that story, it is as if impossible for someone to believe that my wife just left me, that it wasn’t my fault. You will have assumed that I was abusive somehow. How would I have ever seen my son again if she hadn’t felt Waugh’s “twitch of the thread”?

This is Confidential to David: Not intended to hijack thread - please skip if off-topic remarks bother you:

David! God bless you, my brother. I don’t blame you for feeling unappreciated. Men’s role, I think, is that of knight in shining armor, the protector, and the putter of things into order, wherever he goes. These are honorable roles! The reason that you don’t hear much about men’s special roles, I believe, is that the radical egalitarians in our culture insist that in a just society, men’s and women’s roles are to be completely interchangable. (I’m surprised that the NFL hasn’t yet been hailed into court for not hiring a female first-string linebacker.) This radical egalitarianism, which denies and denigrates the unique roles of men and women, is most unChristian.

I am no one to you, a stranger on the internet, and anything I would say to you like advice must be taken with a grain of salt. However, if you were to cultivate a love of the Blessed Virgin Mary, our Mother, if you were to pray her Rosary - even just one decade a day to start, if that’s all you can manage, I believe our Holy Mother, the Queen of Heaven, would wrap her arms around you and assist you with everything you need. Do you know that the knights of medieval times, used to recommend themselves to Our Lady, and carry her colors into battle. On the eve of his acclaiming (being knighted) the knight-to-be would remain awake in the chapel all night, fasting and praying to Our Lady for her help and protection. She never lets anyone down who goes to her for help.

May Our Lady Queen of Heaven bless and protect you and yours, David.

Marion, I greatly appreciate your warm and encouraging words. I am much drawn to Our Lady and have been trying to pray her Rosary daily. She is indeed a tremendous source of comfort and help, a woman whom I can truly trust (and a powerful one at that), who is able to appreciate my masculinity fully (not harboring some grudge against it or deep-seeded distrust as other women do), and who wants to help me mature into a warrior for her Son, Jesus Christ. Our Lady is certainly worthy of our complete devotion and loyalty, for sure. Thanks for your response, Marion. God’s blessings to you as well.

David, I can see from what you have written that you are already her son, although (if you will forgive me for saying so) you may not yet know it. You will prevail against all the temptations the Evil One has been throwing at you, you will resign yourself confidently to the will of God, and all will be well with you, as long as you remain a true knight loyal to his Queen and Lady.

Please remember me in your prayers. Thank you.

Trust in God, if it is his will man can not stop it. Unfortunately the trend of the day is disposable everything including marriage, God never said life will be easy and only He can judge us righteously. We all are God’s children, no matter the circumstances He will never abandon us- even when we make it hard. So how far are these dad’s willing to go before it’s too hard and set their cross down and give up? I commend the dad’s willing to go the distance, yet women have been doing this for centuries (with Gods help of course)yet when it’s a priority we call it a labor of love. I suggest walking the Stations of the Cross and the hardships Jesus encountered, where would we be if he said “This is too hard”, and walked away? There is nothing the cross can’t bare and heaven can’t handle. Pray

Can we see some evidence for this claim:

“The majority of divorce proceedings in the United States are initiated by wives.”

?  How can people make these claims?  I’d like to see the supporting research.

Dear Mary,
From
http://www.divorce-lawyer-source.com/faq/emotional/who-initiates-divorce-men-or-women.html

Two-Thirds of the Time
It’s the wife who files for divorce in about two-thirds of divorce cases, at least among couples who have children. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the proportion has changed slightly over the years; for example, in 1975, approximately 72 percent of the divorces in the U.S. were filed by women, whereas by 1988, only about 65 percent were filed by women.

The Same throughout the 19th Century
A study reported in the American Law and Economics Review in 2000, “These Boots Are Made for Walking: Why Most Divorce Filers are Women” also showed that more recently, women file more than two-thirds of divorce cases in the US. Even though the individual states’ data vary somewhat and the numbers have fluctuated over time, throughout most of the 19th century about 60 percent of divorce filings were by women.

Moreover, in some of the states where no-fault divorce was introduced, over 70 percent of the divorce filings were by women. Among college-educated couples, the percentage of divorces initiated by wives is a whopping 90 percent.

“Still a man (or woman) hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest” (Paul Simon—The Boxer)

Summaries of the article in the American Law and Economics Review in 2000, “These Boots Are Made for Walking: Why Most Divorce Filers are Women” are available online, but the complete text is available online to subscribing members only.

The article is cited and expanded on in an article about women and divorce that appeared in a recent issue of _The New York Times_

http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/regional/071100ny-col-tierney.html

I lived in the court system for 10 years, this is a crock.

I have worked with women who were mentally and emotionally worn down by these “Dad’s” but not really a provable thing in court.

No one gets divorced against their will, its’ nuts! I am a strong Catholic and an advocate for Holiness and Happiness and I have seen narcissism, sickening mental abuse by men who claim to be FORCED against their will,,,trust me ten years and hundreds of thousands of dollars for my case and each case I work on - it ain’t so,,,,

Coming at this from a Catholic perspective every single case has been annulled - why because it was invalid. The Dad, the husband had extreme behaviors and made it impossible for the family to function.

This article reflects a story about a “dad’s perspective” if you really wanted the whole perspective interview the “mom.” Court is not hostile to Dad’s. It’s hostile to both parents and mostly Mom’s.

There is no law against “revenge” or “emotional abuse” those things can not be proven hence “dad’s” at least the several I have witnessed can be very clever in kicking someone under the table while no one can see what is happening under that table.

I’ve watched Dad’s pinch their children in just the right spot where no one can see, while crying that their children are being brainwashed against them.

No, the Catholic Church can only get involved in the annulment process and seek to help with Church teaching prior to the divorce. Otherwise an article like this does not give the full story, does not help the victims and makes a Dad look like he is under Parental Alienation Syndrome which is a false diagnosis.

A wonderful man I’ve known for many years, a husband and a father of six children,. . . one day his wife announced that she wanted another man, and it was “Sayonara, Charlie” to my friend. That was it. She wanted the kids, and she got them. There is no way my friend was abusive or vengeful . . . ever. The worst I’ve seen him do when someone says something silly is to smile and say, “are you sure you mean that?” and chuckle. He’s truly a sweetheart.

Sure, there are rotten apple husbands out there whom women are well rid of, but some of the women may be rotten apples, too. And they dump perfectly decent fellows on some whim, destroying the home, the family, their children’s lives, and his life, . . . all because she *can*.

Again, for as many rotten apple men are out there, there are every bit as many rotten apple women, too. Sometimes they’re married to each other. (Their poor kids). But often as not, they married some poor sap - or “sapette” - who won’t know what hit ‘em until after the house, the car, the kids, and the bank accounts are gone, and their lives destroyed.

After many years, I’ve come to believe in a form of quasi-arranged marriage, in which the woman’s family and friends and the man’s family and friends are very much involved in vetting the other party in the relationship from the get-go. Before you get too attached, bring them home and see what Mama and Papa have to say. If Mama and Papa no like, and you trust Mama and Papa (i.e. they’re not mean controlling freaks, but nice, caring parents), then don’t proceed with this relationship. My sister (25 yrs married) and I (23 yrs) made very happy marriages with “boys” our parents very much approved of; our brother is miserable with a woman about whom my parents had expressed serious reservations from the beginning.

Trust Mama and Papa. No, I’m not kidding. I’m serious.

Wedding, please correct me if I’ve misunderstood you, but what I gathered from your comment is that you want us to believe that when it comes to divorce proceedings, all husbands are narcissistic, abusive, and otherwise mentally disturbed, while all wives are the unwitting, innocent, maligned victims of said husbands. In your view, when families fail, it’s always dad’s fault. Is that essentially the portrait you’ve offered us? It is neither persuasive nor reasonable. Can you tell us what kind of work you did in the court system? Were you a lawyer? A family advocate? It sounds like you worked in a women’s shelter… in any event, the conclusions you offer do not sound reasonable.

There are also narcissistic, abusive, and otherwise mentally unhealthy women in society who would, as married women, “make it impossible for their families to function.” It stands to reason that some of these women actually are married, and, moreover, that some of them wind up in divorce court, where they manipulate their children, portray themselves as victims, and use the court system as a venue for emotional abuse and revenge. It’s hardly sane to imagine that such women are few in number compared to men of the same sort.

You said we need to listen to the mother’s perspective to get the whole perspective. Well, of course we do. We all know that. The thing is, we’ve been *hearing* the mother’s perspective for a long time now. In fact, we hear women’s perspectives on virtually every facet of life - on the radio, on the evening news, in the newspapers, and across the Internet. Please excuse me, but women are very good at talking about themselves today. By comparison, there is near-total silence on the part of men concerning themselves. We do not really have a cultural “voice.” So yes, it’s high time for the dads to speak and tell us their stories. I, for one, am listening, and it sounds like many others are, too. We are not all convinced that these men are lying, manipulative, exploitative trash taking their helpless wives and children to the garbage dump.

I remember how once in an argument about the ‘cause’ of divorce, a woman eventually ‘came to grips’ with the fact that 2/3 of women initiate divorce by wondering what it was that men were doing to make the women so unhappy that they had to leave their husbands.

Wedding’s post is a variation on that theme.

I don’t think we need to argue that men are imperfect, as are women.  Both men and women can cause the other to become unhappy.  Also, people can become unhappy without any fault on the part of their spouse.  None of those observations seems to require argument in my mind.  Rather, the issue is, what are the observed consequences when women have the power to take their happiness into their own hands after being married, just as men have this power?  And the answer is: they will initiate a divorce about twice as often as men will.

That is simply a very good argument for bringing fault back into divorce proceedings, to my mind.  The end of fault has been the effective beginning of the tyranny of the female.  Bring fault back, and, even if both sides want to line up their psychological ‘experts’, the playing field will be level once again.  Once the playing field is level again, the incentive to exercise arbitrary power will be eliminated for lack of a means to exercise it.  And that, my friends, is how to destroy the plague of divorce.

Not all men who don’t want a divorce are good men.  My ex husband was an abusive, controlling, cold hearted, sexual pervert who went to daily Mass and made the appearance of a great “christian” to those around us. Only the children and I knew the difference. I tried to pray for 20 years that he would be a good and loving husband. I finally divorced him for the sake of the children.  He made a huge deal of my wickedness for leaving him, and acted as if he was the victim.  He still does. I no longer trust any man who claims to be the “victim” in the marriage, and who “claims” to have not wanted the divorce.

I am a former wife who filed for a divorce she never wanted or asked for because he didn’t want to be married anymore but didn’t want to deal with the details.  Data can be manipulated, “I can get you any result you want, what’s it worth to you?”  Quoting a pop song… it’s not my attitude about life, just the secular reality.  I never used our daughter as a weapon, my entire life was an open book to him, giving him access to call or visit her whenever he choose to, which was frequently as a child, less so now that she is an adult dealing with a mental illness… too many details again, I guess.

I know that both men and women of good will can be burned by “Family” courts, as they truly are not acting in the best interest of the children in far too many cases, in my opinion. In my case, I left an abusive situation, and yes, I was the one to file for divorce, as I wanted to protect my children from the physical and emotional abuse that they had endured for as long as they could remember from their dad. Where I live, the one who files is ususally the one who gets initial custody, and then the courts decide later on who is deemed to be the “most stable parent” for the kids. In the end, I did end up with custody, as my ex was convicted of child abuse. But believe me, I did not feel that the court was a particularly mother friendly place either.

Would I want to keep him away from my children at all costs, though? To a certain extent yes, because they have been physically hurt, but then, I do want them to know who he is as a person, and I want to give him a chance to love them as they deserve to be loved. So I do out of faith, and following the letter of the law, let my children go to their prescribed visitations, because it shows them why I am not living with their dad.

I had decided a long time ago not to enter into any new relationships, because that is not the reason that I left to begin with, and how disrespectful to my children to have to witness the instability that is inherent in broken relationship after broken relationship. As parents, regardless of our marital status, we need to place our children’s needs before our own desires, so as to present an example of perfect love for the others in our lives. I do feel that if I am meant to marry, it will be in God’s will and time, and not before then. My children absolutely come before all others, except God. What would help many, I believe, is to find groups that help us to focus on ordering our priorities correctly, to bring glory to God through our willingness to maintain a chaste lifestyle even after divorce.

This question is for Louise, since you have shared your story.  You say you got a divorce because of the children.  I ask you, is there another man in your life?

You also insinuate that your husband secretly wanted a divorce.  Well, maybe you have to say that, since you are the one that actually GOT the divorce.  Who is fooling him-or herself here, really?  Maybe you just couldn’t hack it.  Marriage was too much for you.  Hey, St Francis de Sales says it’s the best cross there is!  So I wouldn’t blame you for feeling that way.  But the bottom line is, marriage means you have to put up with what the other person does to make you unhappy.  If you don’t get that, then I don’t care if your H was a big jerk, you still have no right as a Catholic to chuck him.  So, you are wrong to divorce on that basis, simple as that.

But I am being charitable in assuming that your story is true.  I have little doubt that your husband would tell a different story.  Maybe your kids wouldn’t tell the story you expect they would, either.  You could be a big fat liar.

So if you could begin to establish your bona fides by telling us that even though you divorced your husband, you did it only because there was no way to live with him; but that if he were to repent, you would take him back, and that there is no other man in your life; that your divorce is really more along the lines of a separation, because your have the greatest respect for the sacrament of marriage; then I think we might begin to believe that maybe you are the victim.  Well?

How woman defines ‘abusive situation’:

‘this doesn’t feel good anymore.’

I want to see the hospital bills for all those women that love to casually drop the charge—a mortal blow to father’s custody rights and his standing with the court—of, ‘he physically abused me.’

The usual response to this inquiry is ‘there are all kinds of physical abuse which aren’t really, um, physical; and besides there is emotional abuse which is even worse; and, regardless, women are all princesses and never do anything deserving of any treatment that makes them feel unhappy, waaaaaaaaa!  He hurt my feelings when he pointed out that he worked 12 hr days and that I do nothing!’

Really.

And these are God’s precious creatures to which we give power to initiate divorce proceedings without having to show cause or fault, and which regardless of fault, are usually at an advantage in family court because, well, the whole thing is run almost entirely by women.

It would be funny except that the use of this power destroys lives, families, and souls; and pertaining to the latter, the soul especially of the person that uses it.

It would be funny maybe if the destruction of the family didn’t also mean the destruction of the entire social fabric of our civilization.

It would be funny maybe if it didn’t cause so much suffering to men and children.

Put simply, women cannot be permitted to wield this power.  This power is given to them by the law.  The power is: ‘you are permitted to divorce your spouse and are not required to state why you are doing so.  No one may contest your right or your reasons for dissolving a valid marriage.  No one may ask whose fault it is that the marriage is ending.  If you were at fault [and we will not know if you are, because we are not permitted to inquire if you are], the law will not take this into consideration when it divides marital property, or when it determines the amount of spousal support, or when it determines who will have the kids, and when, and how often.’

The issue is not women.  The issue is the law.  But women, it is true, stand in the way of changing the law.

Men: arise and lead.  Women of good will: follow us.

I could not comprehend the pain and trauma of divorce before I had it happen to me.  My wife, without warning or even arguments, decided to leave and marry an old friend of hers right after he got out of prison.  In California, unilateral divorce (a more accurate term than “no fault” - there was surely fault here) denies the respondent any due process.  There was no way to fight for my marriage or to even keep my daughters away from a non-violent recidivist felon.  I will say, I do have 50/50 for a “modest” fee.

The worst experience for me so far has been the discovery that there is nothing in the church for the separated.  Yes, there are divorce groups, but what about working for reconciliation groups?  Catholics are the most serious about marriage, but it was only through protestants that I found help.  I found there is an enthusiasm to promote an annulment; to a man with a hammer, the whole world is a nail.  When there is a possible case to consider annulment, at best it will take a couple years, and how is that to help the separated?  Honest experience and real research shows it takes a LONG time to recover before even considering remarriage, which is the main reason to consider annulment.  If this is the prescription for the trauma of separation, we should reconsider because 4 out of 5 times, it fails, makes the patient worse and it is never good for children.  The well-meaning eagerness for annulment feels like marital euthanasia.  Physician: do no harm.

Since there is nothing in the U.S. church for the separated, a small group of us have teamed up to aid and comfort, with the hope of reconciliation and to avoid common mistakes.  There is an existing separated ministry in Italy.  We have self-published an English translation of their book, “The Gift of Self” and more can be found about the book by searching for “Mary of Cana”.  There is also a monthly phone conference for prayer and to discuss a chapter of the book and there is open discussion after.

I couldn’t imagine how bad of experience this would be, and it continues to be.  Don’t do it alone.

“My ex husband was an abusive, controlling, cold hearted, sexual pervert.”

Translation: My husband was addicted to pornography, got moody sometimes, said some nasty things to me, etc. He had an edge to him, a humanity, I couldn’t handle. It was hard to be married to him and I couldn’t figure it out. He painfully disappointed me and now I am bitter and angry with all men. I’m coming here to take it out on men who may very well be decent fathers, and I don’t care whom I hurt in the process, or what unjust ends I may unwittingly be serving.

“Only the children and I knew the difference.”

I am very skeptical when people make claims such as this. The reason is that children understand little more than what their parents teach them. It is not as though a child really has the experience or the wisdom to judge his parents’ behavior - to say, “My father shouldn’t do this,” or “My mother should be doing that.” This is why children who are the victims of child abuse always blame themselves for their parents’ misdeeds: they presume their parents are right about everything.

This means that Louise was the only one who “knew.”

“He made a huge deal of my wickedness for leaving him, and acted as if he was the victim.”

However lousy of a husband he may have been, he never divorced you. You get to take that trophy home.

“I tried to pray for 20 years that he would be a good and loving husband. I finally divorced him for the sake of the children.”

Louise prayed for twenty years. How old were her children by the time she divorced their father?

Translation: Protecting the children had nothing to do with it.

Louise: Don’t come here thinking you can fool us.

Can’t help but add one more thing -

Louise, did you ever pray, during those twenty years, for the strength and the awareness to love a difficult man?

All of this shows why there should be no presumption for either husband or wife, and why unilateral divorce should be done away with.

This topic is an important one, men are often treated unfairly in family courts and many of the comments have been poignant and thought-provoking, but it does no one any good to pretend abuse does not happen in marriage (and by saying this I acknowledge abuse by either spouse).  David, you wrote, “I am tired of women who do not listen, who see things solely from their own perspective, who freely insult me to my face with full cultural sympathy, who speak to me callously and coldly and who otherwise treat me as someone less than human.”  You would prefer to be treated with God-given respect and I don’t think (I hope) this means you believe you are always perfect or that you want to be treated like a “prince.”  The demeaning treatment you describe is pretty much what I dealt with on a daily basis for 19 years with my ex-husband (left him when our daughter went to college).  That and marital neglect due to pornography and strippers, gambling, economic deprivation (even though he made a six-figure income), spiritual abuse (he was an atheist who tried to prevent my conversion) and yes, verbal abuse and I think anyone would agree a wife and young daughter should not be subjected to being called b****** and wh**** and fu***** idiots on a regular basis and that the desire to avoid this kind of soul-crushing denigration from the one meant to love and protects us as Christ loves the Church means we believe we are blameless “princesses.”  It went WAY beyond “it doesn’t feel good anymore” to the realm of “I cannot listen to the voice of God or obey the will of God because the man I married (non-sacramentally) has put himself in that role.” 

Yes, by all means, don’t come here thinking you can fool us.

Regarding:

‘I think anyone would agree a wife and young daughter should not be subjected to being called b****** and wh**** and fu***** idiots on a regular basis and that the desire to avoid this kind of soul-crushing denigration from the one meant to love and protects us as Christ loves the Church means we believe we are blameless “princesses.”  It went WAY beyond “it doesn’t feel good anymore” to the realm of “I cannot listen to the voice of God or obey the will of God because the man I married (non-sacramentally) has put himself in that role.”’

People put up with this kind of abuse all day long from their bosses in many jobs, but they stay in their jobs for economic reasons—it’s the only job they have.  When you take a job, you don’t promise ‘for better or for worse’, yet most people suck it up and hack it if they have to.  There is no moral obligation to stay, yet they stay anyway.

On the other hand people are morally obliged to stay in difficult marriages.  So get over your precious self and your suffering which is no doubt real.  Assuming you are already doing everything in your power to make things better—since, people don’t usually get called names for no reason whatsoever—show what kind of Catholic you are by enduring suffering, not avoiding it.

But the admonition to endure suffering does not imply that we should be in favor of laws that promote the dissolution of marriage.

SC,

Yes, it sounds clear from your description that you suffered tremendously while you were married to your husband. I am very sorry to hear that he treated you and your daughter so poorly. You’re absolutely right: he should never have treated either of you that way. He was supposed to love and protect you both, not spend two decades or more demeaning and degrading you. My heart breaks for each of you. Just remember that in the end, all the scales of justice will be balanced. Christ Himself will make sure of it. Where your husband failed, He will not; and from your daughter’s perspective, where her father failed, Christ will claim the victory on her behalf. As Our Lord said to Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” For those who love Him.

Your story reminds me of another one I know through a friend. This friend’s niece, a very pretty woman whose faithfulness to Christ I hope some day to achieve myself, is getting married soon (I’d better hurry up and get married; all the good ones are getting taken!). Her father asked to walk her down the aisle during the wedding ceremony. This request, which she has chosen to honor, will be a source of great pain for her, she has told us; and the reason is that this man rarely attempted to father her in any way. In fact, many things this man has done are downright evil. I don’t say such a thing carelessly. This good woman said (to my friend, her aunt, who then shared her story with me), that she always wanted very much to be daddy’s little girl. When she realized she never would be, she was overcome with profound sadness and wept terribly for many days. Her father would never love her, and there was nothing she could do about it. Of course, she couldn’t do anything about it because it wasn’t her fault. Her father was an evil man.

“Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court with him. Otherwise your opponent will hand you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.” (Mt 5:25-26)

Louise - I am terribly, terribly sorry for having been so harsh with you before. I should not have been. I do not know all the details of your case, and I should have refrained from speaking about it. I apologize sincerely. I hope my words did not cause you too much pain.

I was - and am, still, a little - upset with you and other women who came here telling their own stories. The reason is that when I first read this article, I thought, “Wow! These guys are finally getting a chance to tell of their pain in a pretty mainstream place.” And what happens to this article? Some women, rather than simply acknowledging what these men are going through, interrupt with their own stories, or, in the worst cases, flatly deny that these fathers are victims of any kind of injustice at all. Again, why not refrain from speaking about your own pain, and use the opportunity to extend some understanding and compassion to those on the other side of the line?

As I said in some earlier comment, much of my frustration stems from the fact that our culture is basically steeped in women’s stories as it is. We are very conscious of women’s issues today. Is this a bad thing? No, I don’t think so at all. But it doesn’t seem like men per se get the chance to talk about what’s going on with us *as men* - maybe I am wrong, but this is my impression. So here we are, with this article addressing perplexed fathers specifically, and… what happens? Again, we have maybe four or five women justifying their divorces, or at least attempting to explain why their marriages were so hard. I am very sorry for all those who suffered with difficult husbands, but this does not seem like the place to air your grievances. If you’ll excuse me, this seems like a place for us all, women and men, to listen to fathers talk who wanted their marriages to remain intact but lost out anyway for one reason or another. As for you women, it seems to me that, culturally speaking, the case has already been well-made, and has in fact been established for decades, that men can be lousy husbands. It’s time for us to hear the other side of the story.

All of this said, once again, Louise, I extend to you my sincere apology for my earlier comment. It was very unfair of me.

You’re right David, we don’t often hear stories of men traumatized by divorce.  That’s exactly why many of us are reading this blog. I am very close to several men who were hurt in this way and it’s a serious problem.  However, comments speaking of the “tyranny of the female” and those which trivialize abuse are not “sharing” stories nor do they promote empathy or understanding.  I believe the intentions of the women who shared stories was not so much to “butt in” on the topic of conversation but to help clarify that the high incidence of wife-initiated divorce might be due to the fact that men who abuse (and statistically men are more likely to be aggressive in this way) are perfectly happy doing so and are unlikely to file for divorce.

Yan, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued the following statements:  “As pastors of the Catholic Church in the United States, we state as clearly and strongly as we can that violence against women, inside or outside the home, is never justified. Violence in any form”—physical, sexual, psychological, or verbal”—is sinful; often, it is a crime as well. We have called for a moral revolution to replace a culture of violence. We acknowledge that violence has many forms, many causes, and many victims—men as well as women…The Catholic Church teaches that violence against another person in any form fails to treat that person as someone worthy of love. Instead, it treats the person as an object to be used. When violence occurs within a sacramental marriage, the abused spouse may question, “How do these violent acts relate to my promise to take my spouse for better or for worse?” The person being assaulted needs to know that acting to end the abuse does not violate the marriage promises. While violence can be directed towards men, it tends to harm women and children more.
Finally, we emphasize that no person is expected to stay in an abusive marriage. Some abused women believe that church teaching on the permanence of marriage requires them to stay in an abusive relationship. They may hesitate to seek a separation or divorce. They may fear that they cannot re-marry in the Church. Violence and abuse, not divorce, break up a marriage. We encourage abused persons who have divorced to investigate the possibility of seeking an annulment. An annulment, which determines that the marriage bond is not valid, can frequently open the door to healing.” (http://www.usccb.org/laity/help.shtml)

As for your suggestion to me, I suggest you do likewise.

SC,

I agree with you that trivializing abuse is never a productive avenue, and that when it comes to divorce, we must remain aware of the pain and suffering that sometimes leads one party (you are speaking of wives in this case) to end the marriage. Your point that men who abuse are not likely to file for divorce is also well-taken.

That said, I must disagree with you when you say, “[T]he intentions of the women who shared stories was to help clarify that the high incidence of wife-initiated divorce might be due to the fact that men who abuse… are perfectly happy doing so and are unlikely to file for divorce.” This may have been true in some cases, but what about these comments? -

“I lived in the court system for 10 years, this [article] is a crock… No one gets divorced against their will, its’ nuts!... [A]n article like this makes a Dad look like he is under Parental Alienation Syndrome which is a false diagnosis.” (The thrust of this entire comment was, in short, to villainize all fathers who dispute custody of their children and to deny that men can be victims of injustice in family court.)

Another commenter wrote, “I no longer trust any man who claims to be the “victim” in the marriage, and who “claims” to have not wanted the divorce.” In my view this comment is outrageous. This woman’s personal experience does not give her just cause to trivialize (as you put it) the sufferings of others. This comment is flatly abusive to men.

These comments do not seem fair or reasonable in the way you described. Nor do I believe they deserve defense. In fact, they are as reactionary and defensive as they are cruel, selfish, and insensitive. It is one thing to point out, in the spirit of honest and reasonable discussion, what drives some women to divorce; it is another thing to deny altogether that women are capable of error when they divorce.

Still, this article was designed quite simply to draw attention to the fact that some “men… are divorced against their will and denied the right to be a father to their children.” There is no need for women to come and justify their divorces here. None at all. It is not the point. That they may have been justified in divorcing *their* husbands does *not* detract from the fact that some men are divorced who do not deserve to be divorced - *and who*, moreover, are subsequently robbed of their children by their uncaring wives with the *help* of the court system - the “justice” system. These men are told, in effect, that the only worthwhile fatherhood *they* have to offer comes from their paychecks. Their ex-wives thus succeed in maintaining access to these men’s financial support even while they a) partially or completely destroy the men’s most precious relationships, which is to say their bonds with wife and children, and b) have forefeited their own responsibilities to their husbands. Such men are, in effect, reduced to dollar bills when they are total persons, total husbands, total fathers. It is a complete violation of their personal dignity and a travesty against the Sacrament of Marriage. The fact that many men *are* good fathers and husbands is one that gets dismissed out of hand today, so hasty are we to talk about the evil men do to women, which, as I said before, is a fact that has already received widespread attention over the last fifty years. We simply cannot seem to acknowledge that sometimes, the harm goes in the other direction. And if you ask me, it happens more than we care to admit. Mind you, I am not speaking of the “tyranny of women.” I am speaking of women as human, and of men as human, too.

As for the women who have responded to this article by justifying their own divorces, whether or not this was their intention, they are effectively moving the spotlight away from the men described by Ms. Bean so that they may have it for themselves, and only for themselves. They are behaving selfishly.

I agree the comments you quoted were inflammatory.  However, others wrote ones that were less so and still got raked over the coals.  “It is one thing to point out, in the spirit of honest and reasonable discussion, what drives some women to divorce”  “There is no need for women to come and justify their divorces here. None at all.”  Which one is it?  You admitted to being “bitter and very, very angry”  I also believe you have issues with control.  The Pope needs to write this, and blog threads need to run like so, and all would be right with the world IF…In spite of all your (and the other “charming gentleman’s) eloquence and justified anger; your monster is showing.

Yan - “I want to see the hospital bills for all those women that love to casually drop the charge—a mortal blow to father’s custody rights and his standing with the court—of, ‘he physically abused me.’

“

Would you be satisfied with the police photos of the bruises my brother-in-law left on my sister’s neck? If their son hadn’t called 911, he would have killed her. He escaped the house just before the police arrived, and eventually managed to plead down from attempted murder to domestic abuse.  Yes, she’s divorcing him.

SC,

“I agree the comments you quoted were inflammatory. However, others wrote ones that were less so and still got raked over the coals.”

Yes, but you’re straying now from your original point. Granted, some women (e.g., Louise) were harshly criticized for their comments, and no, I don’t think that was appropriate. But the case you were making before, and the case to which I was responding when I quoted those inflammatory comments, was that the women respondents here were all arguing, quite innocently and harmlessly in your view, that women sometimes divorce on legitimate grounds. I was trying to show why I didn’t think this was really true. And I still don’t think it’s true.

“Which one is it?” you asked. It’s the latter - this is not an appropriate place for women to come and justify their divorces, as if, again, acknowledging that men can sometimes suffer from illegitimate divorces means denying that women sometimes divorce on just grounds. The two points are not contradictory. My reason for drawing the distinction (only the first part of which you quoted - “It’s one thing to…”) was to show that some of the comments could not be construed as pointing out valid reasons for divorce, as you earlier suggested.

“I also believe you have issues with control. ... Your monster is showing.”

Well, I guess you don’t feel like being nice any more. I’m not sure where this hostility is coming from; I had not detected it until your last post.

If you’ll excuse me, SC, you really wouldn’t know whether I have issues with control, and I think you overstep your boundaries when you say such a thing. It is really not necessary to attack me to continue the conversation, which I frankly do not care to do with you any further, given your rudeness. Perhaps your monster is showing?

If you take issue with the fact that I am able to look at the world around me and see things I think should be changed, then I say to you quite simply: Grow up. There are things worth fighting and things worth defending.

The following discusses divorces with children and without the presence of an actual unfit parent.

In a marriage there are, beyond spousal love and affection, two things that ordinarily accrue: financial assets and children.

In your ordinary bad marriage where neither parent is a genuine unfit parent and one spouse, for whatever reason, decides to leave, overwhelmingly the wife ends up with a substantial financial advantage and retains the ability to raise the children. The husband, in almost all cases, is reduced to visitor status in his childrens lives and also pays his wife substantial sums of money to do what he once did himself under the marital roof; raise his children.

You can perhaps imagine the relief of a wife in a divorce situation to learn that her circumstances will not radically change post divorce. On the other hand a husband will likely be quite unhappy at what he faces post divorce. After all the husband will not only lose financially, but also lose emotionally in that he will no longer be able to meaningfully parent his children.

Given the above, which is the situation in the overwhelming number of divorces, the system is set to make the worst of an already acrimonious situation by arbitrarily assigning a “winner” based on gender.

The best way to tame the divorce beast is to change the foregoing preusemptive outcome by having equal outcomes for both divorcing spouses. Imagine if the following were the presumptive arrangement post divorce.

First. The children would equally split their time with each parent. To accomodate school years the equal time could be measured over a 2 year window such that the children would live with one parent during school year one, and the other parent during school year two. Courts could accept any accomodation that resulted in each parent having equal time to raise his or her children. For instance, the parents - rather than the children - could shuttle between a house and an apartment on an interval that they find suitable.

Second. The parents are presumed to remain in the same area such that the children are not uprooted from schools or friends. If a move is needed then the two parents would be free to move together to a new area and in such case the equal parenting presumptions would endure. Otherwise should one parent move away from the geographic locale at the time of divorce (or bi-parent post-divorce move) such as to prohibit equal parenting time, then the moving parent would lose parenting time and pay some measure of child support to compensate the non-moving parent. In such cases the presumption is that the moving parent would have children for the entire summer and the non-moving parent for the school year.

Third. In cases where the parents equally raise children there would be no presumed child support as each parent would be obligated to provide for the children during their share of the parenting time. In cases where one parent moves, child support would need to be paid to compensate the non-moving parent for the additional 3 months of parenting time that they assume due to said move.

Fourth. The courts would rigorously enforce the above provisions and act to uphold the parents that seek to live out the same. The courts would need to make clear that the two parents, regardless of their differences, are expected to parent their children together and work with their former spouse to accomplish the same and that a parent that cannot get on board with such concept will not be rewarded with more parental responsibility or child support.

The above would go a long way to make the best of a tough situation, reduce the acrimony during divorce, encourage divorcing spouses to continue to work together for the good of their children, and give children as much as possible of their God given and natural right to be raised by their mother and father.

I know that there are circumstances where a spouse legitimately feels blindsided when handed divorce papers. But I am also sure that this is what my ex-husband was telling family and friends when after 10 years of dealing with his alcoholic behavior I gave up and moved on.