Unfavorable Divorce Settlements to Men -- LiveWire Teen Forums

Quote: from Power Girl at 1:17 pm on Jan. 4, 2009

It is one of the last battles which in my opions should be fought by all who value justice, men, women, straight, gay, feminists and pro-men. Every one should simply rise up against the injustices in divorce settlement.

Often times, I think a signed agreement on the terms of a potential divorce as you're filling out those marriage papers for the state (I know, doesn't sound romantic to think about possibly splitting up someday, but filling out paperwork hardly ever is anyway ) would be most appropriate. At least then if you're screwed over, whether you're male or female, it's basically your own fault.

I would not say that settlement always favors women, since many do end up in poverty or often suffer more financially from divorces than men from a statistical standpoint.
But it certainly does a great injustice to men.

Of course there are always exceptions, but I think this is the prevailing trend, which is largely rooted in sexist notions in court that are largely outdated today which served to protect women (such as the idea that men need to support their divorced wives financially, but not the other way around).

In the end I have noticed that lawyers involved in the disputes are generally those who profit the most from the situation.

That's honestly nothing new.

Those false assumptions are:
- Women are always more capable of rearing children than men
This is not the situation in this case but one wonders why he couldn't even keep his dog since he was the one doting on it.

I get the impression that both loved the dog, hence why they were fighting over it so much. Why she got the dog and he didn't, I'm not sure, but I suspect it has more to do with the fact that he got the house and that she basically got the rest, which if we go by its dollar value, probably isn't as much (but ironically, is worth more than his house given the current state of the housing market - something I'm sure the woman's divorce lawyer conveniently argued was irrelevent and not the point). I doubt the child rearing stereotypes came up so much when it came to deciding who gets the dog, but you're right - you can be sure that lawyers will use whatever they have at their disposal to argue for what they want, and that is indeed one of the key tools. Never underestimate the power of emotional appeals.

First the fact that women do statistically earn less than men. The reasons for this are multiple, have been discussed before and are not really the subject of this discussion, But it is sometimes a factor which may be taken into account in the financial settlement decisions by some judges

While true, this ought to be irrelevent in almost all cases given that a judge should be able to see each individual's annual income and decide from that.

Still, the gender pay gap is fallacious in that it is far too broad - it compares all women to all men (whether employed or unemployed) and then applies it to every single occupation out there as if this rule is universal, as opposed to comparing women of a similar educational background working a certain occupation compared to men with the same thing, where I'm pretty sure the gender pay gap would be found to be not so large. But you're right, save that for another topic.

Unfortunately, as I have said in another post, the court do not always take into account the changes in financial status by either parties
As we have seen in the example you gave, the more affluent party (often male) may lose his job. Conversely, the less affluent party (often female) may suddenly find a more higher paying job or revceive a substantial amount from other sources (family, etc..)

Well, you have to give the court credit for one thing - they did waive the spousal support to his ex-wife since he lost his job.

But what they don't take into consideration is any foresight - they don't have any automatic waives in case of a job loss, and they don't seem to consider the fact that the housing market makes the man's house very difficult to sell, and thus may initially put him in a worse financial position than the woman.

Then the divorce occurs. Shorly after the man night lose his job because of exterior forces (or even because he might be so absorbed by the divorce ordeal that he can't concentrate on his job). Meanhwile the woman might suddenly return to the workforce and ern far more than the man.

And you must remember, there are those lawyers who would argue that such things are not relevant to coming to the terms of a divorce settlement, and can do so in a rather convincing manner (in that they are partially right - it's splitting what they have as opposed to what they might have).

In conclusion (sorry I went on a rant ) I believe it is high time this whole process changed and truly the support payment system and the divorce laws need fundamental revising and overhauling.

Yes, I agree. It's obvious that they're far from perfect, and I doubt they ever will be, but there's a lot of room for improvement.

The main thing is just getting rid of a lot of these notions that the woman is always the victim, always the one who doesn't have the job or is being underpaid compared to the man, etc.

A final note about that overabused term "irreconciliable differences". When I first was aware of the term (during my uncle's divorce) I was simply appalled at the frivolous way in which it was often used. No real serious is needed. Basically all that is required is simply a desire to cut off the bonds. While I agre that people should be free to break a cntract at any time I do not understand at all how someone who initiated the break should also receive any money or compensation.

The idea, I believe, is rooted from that if your spouse is abusing you in some way and you want to break yourself free from them, that you initiate the divorce and automatically get this kind of divorce settlement to help protect them (which might encourage them if they were afraid of what their financial situation might be).

Thing is, with this kind of thing happening so much, you have to wonder how valid it is. Perhaps it would be a good idea to make "irreconciable differences" much more strict, as I do agree - right now you can hypothetically get a divorce for irreconciable differences over an argument about what color to paint the house.

The problem, again though, is how would you prove irreconciable differences? Physical abuse, for example, is pretty easy and would probably get the spouse doing them charged with assault, but verbal abuse is much more tricky.

The reason for their repentance is not because of financial (since they are also often the ones reciving the most money) but emotional. Suddenly they realize that they made a mistake, and desroyed a relationship that even if not perfect, could have been maintained with happiness for both.

As far as that sort of thing goes, though, there is little you can do outside of your own personal support without mandating some sort of marriage law, such as a requirement for seeking marriage counselors or a minimum length of time before a marriage can be divorced - and that veers to the very far right of social conservatism, usually a little too far than most are comfortable with.

In all others, people are capable actually of forgiveness and change and sometimes a simple separation is needed.

Unfortunately (as I noted in the romantic comedy thread), too many are under the impression that a truly loving marriage should go perfectly smoothly, and if some big bump comes in the way (especially if it's as big as divorce, or even wanting to divorce), that a relationship cannot be saved because the couple were not "meant" for each other.

It's a shame more isn't done outside of churches that focuses on solving arguments and problems that would arise in a relationship / marriage, and paint a more accurate picture of what such things look like. Ideally you'd see them be done in high school where not much else of value is done, but it's usually painted as "not fitting" for school as it's not academic, unlike similar things in a health / sex ed class would be.

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