10/8/02 

So you want to get married and live a happy good life.

Posted By: cubalife

Date: Sat, 10, Aug, '2002, 10:08 p.m.

If I could offer a young man one piece of sage advice, it would be this:

Don't get married.

Don't do it. Come the divorce, as come it probably will, the courts will systematically shear you of your children, your house, and huge amounts of your income for twenty years. Don't do it. It isn't worth it. Nothing is.

My saying this usually brings, from women, cries that I'm an extremist or woman-hater. No.

The problem is not women, but the courts. Men can behave every bit as reprehensibly as women, though they go about it differently. But the judicial system, which is politicized to the gills, utterly favors women over men in divorce cases, without remorse, decency, or concern for children.

Should you doubt this, read, before you pop the most foolish of questions, "From Courtship to Courthouse", by the divorce lawyer Jed Abraham.

Writes Abraham, "If you're like most men, you're married, or you hope to marry some day. You think you deserve to live happily ever after, but if things don't work out that way, you'll get a civilized divorce and move on. You'll stay pals with your ex, and you'll see your kids as often as you want.

"You have no idea what you're getting into."

And you don't. Not the faintest freaking clue.

A few facts from Abraham:

"The odds are 50% that your marriage will end in divorce. The odds are 70% that your divorce will be filed by your wife. The odds are 80% that your wife will get custody of your children-plus child support, alimony, and/or a hefty chunk of your property."

That is how it is.

Yes, I know: You don't think this applies to you. Cup Cake loves you. She would never behave in such a way. Think again. You have no conception of the hatred that divorce engenders. Men are callous; women are mean. When a family breaks up, when a life dreamed of disappears in flames and emotions go limbic, women are not the kinder sex, and certainly not the more rational. And Cup Cake will have the absolute upper hand, with the full power of the state to help her express her dissatisfaction with you.

Abraham: "If your wages are not withheld and you fail to pay your child support, the State will garnish your pay, slap liens on your property, intercept your tax refunds, report you to credit agencies, discontinue your driver's license, suspend your professional and business permits, hold you in contempt of court, put your face on a wanted poster, throw you in jail, and deny you food stamps. But if your ex doesn't spend that very same support on the children, the State will do. . . nothing."

It gets worse. There is, for example, "imputed income." This means that your child support will be based not on what your children need, not on what you earn, but on what the court decides you could earn.

Don't do it.

If you love Cup Cake, live with her. Be kind to her. Be loyal to her. She may be as nice as you think she is: Many women are. Buy her roses. Just don't marry her, or have children with her. If the laws were even-handed, marriage would be an admirable institution. The laws aren't equal.

But it's the kids she'll use, should things get nasty, to tear your guts out. If you're sure that Cup Cake won't do this, you're crazy. True, she may not. Not all women do, or not to the same degree. But you won't know until it's too late. And the courts will do anything she wants.

Abraham: "Your ex will warm to calling all the shots. She may cancel your visitation now and then. If she's truly mean-spirited, she'll go much further. Under the cover of her court-appointed role as sole custodian, she'll systematically sever your relationship with the children. She'll badmouth you to them. She'll schedule their extracurricular activities during your visitation time. For good measure, she may accuse you of domestic violence and child abuse."

Think "joint custody" is the answer? The courts won't enforce it. What are you going to do-sue Mommy? The kids will hate you for it. Do you believe in pre-nups? The courts ignore them. Read Abraham. It's all there.

Then, says Abraham, there's the killer: "More efficiently, your ex may simply move with the children to a distant community, with the law's acquiescence."

Kids are the crunch, guys. They hurt. And she will know it, and use it. The courts will help her. At bottom, the position of the courts is that the children are her property, like furniture. Judges don't care about you at all.

Ever drive away from what used to be your home, with your daughter of four streaking across the parking lot, yelling, "Daddy! Daddy! Please come back!"-and you can't?

Ever have your little girl of four say, "Daddy, can I get my birthday present early?"

"Why, Pumpkin?"

"Well. . . after the divorce we might move, and I won't see you again."

That's what you are in for, guys. Don't do it. You'll be suicidally depressed, miss your kids to the point of desperation, be almost frantic-and the courts will make sure you can do nothing about it. The ex will probably enjoy it.

That's the reality. Don't believe it? Talk to men who have been there.

Why do women do these things? Not because they're evil. Cup Cake is probably a perfectly decent woman in her dealing with the rest of the earth. She'll do it because she hates you, which is the normal outcome of a divorce. She'll do it because she can. She's furious because the marriage didn't work, which will be entirely your fault.

And the law gives her every incentive: She will get the house, the kids, the child support-and she knows she will. If women knew they had an even chance of not getting custody, of having to pay child support, the divorce rate would drop like a prom dress and joint custody would suddenly mean joint custody. Women love their children as much as men do.

But that's not how it is. The courts encourage divorce, and they rape men. Get used to it. "The odds are it doesn't pay for you to marry and have kids."