Category: Commentary

Modern Day Debtor’s Prison

HeligKo
Philadelphia Co. Prison Debtors' Wing (demolished) from HABS

There are many things That are un-American, but few things as much as debtor’s prisons. Child support is a funny thing. It has changed over the years, and the national focus on forcing dead beat dads to pay up is on the verge of insanity. I have talked about child support a lot. This is a touchy issue for me. So much so, that I am willing to give up a larger chunk of my fortune freely to avoid having the state in my bank accounts collecting this money. My views stem from the idea that controlling people’s behavior through the courts is a bad plan. Both parties go into a sexual act knowing the risks, but the courts are trying to impose the risks of the woman onto the man. The man’s risks are smaller. He risks never seeing his child if he isn’t married to the mother. He risks STDs. She risks pregnancy and STDs. So long as the woman retains the sole right to determine what happens with the child up unto shortly after birth, the man should have no requirements forced upon him. She can abort, put up for adoption, or keep the baby. Now if she puts up for adoption, and the father knows he can be granted custody of the child in that process. Generally speaking she gives up nothing if the father keeps the baby. She won’t be asked for child support, and yet will retain some modicum of parental rights with the child. The father on the other hand will have to fight for parental rights if she keeps the child, and will be forced to pay child support whether he sees the child or not.

Child support is not bankrupt-able. It is not a debt, but a fine. I say fine, because it is a required payment for past behavior. There is no benefit that is bestowed on a father for paying child support. Legally he has no more parental rights, and may not have any relief to paying for the costs of the child out of his own pocket. He can be put in jail for failure to pay, even if he cannot reasonably afford it. That’s right. It doesn’t matter if the amount is made up by the judge based on a salary he never earned. That is a fine. Because it is treated as a debt as well, it also gets reported to the credit reporting agencies. This makes no sense to me. If I don’t pay my fines for parking tickets, I go to jail, but it doesn’t go on my credit report. Here we get both. So it is a fine and a debt. How is this so, I don’t know. The end result is we have debtor’s prisons.

Now many people reading this will think that it doesn’t matter. They got their shit together, and this won’t impact them. Lets understand that the same civil court system that handles family law also handles other law suits. A credit card company can choose to sue you for the debt you owe, and instead of getting a judgement that is bankrupt-able, they get a court imposed fine that is now something that can be used for contempt of court. BOOM, you now go to debtor’s prison for not being able to pay your credit card. Google search this, and you will see that is already happening. The use of family courts prejudice against the dead beat dad, and their liberal use of contempt of court to jail these men is carrying itself into the other areas of the courts. People are being jailed for debt under the guise of contempt of court or failure to appear. The use of procedural penalties to punish and bully people into compliance is something we should all be disturbed by. Its is something that we can become the victim of without any real process to protect us.

There is an increasing use of administrative judges that effectively dole out default judgments. They are often hand tied by the law, and are simply their as a way to bypass the jury system. This is the case when it comes to your driver’s license. In most states this is controlled by the treasury or similar department. A jury trial, even for most DUI cases would end up with people not losing their licenses, because most people recognize that the cost exceeds the crime. People could have died, but in truth most cases only involve the driver who hadn’t harmed anyone. Most juries would recommend a much lower sentence in the form of fines for first time offenders. This didn’t please the law makers under pressure from groups like MADD, so they move the decision making away from the real courts into a kangaroo court to solve the problem. There are more things moving to these type of courts over time. Family law is a good candidate for this type of move. This would lead to more problems, and would politicize your family issues more than they are now. These judges are granted many of the same tools to punish as any other court, so they can use the contempt of court and failure to appear to subject people to their rule.

Be watchful of your government. It is a beast that has the sole purpose in life of controlling other people. Left unchecked it will place its mark on every part of our daily lives. It is the warning in much of Orwell’s writing.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

I Am Not A Racist, Am I?

HeligKo
Racists_04

Soccer season is approaching, and I am always a left a bit slack jawed by the things I see in youth sports. The behavior of parents is nothing short of crazy sometimes. There is a lot of emotional investment by parents in the success of their kids in sports. So much so that some parents will intentionally keep their kids playing at lower levels than they belong, so their kid is not only on a winning team, but is the star that makes the wins possible. Soccer in my community is a diverse sport. You see many Latin American and other international first and second generation kids playing. No one thinks much about it on the surface, but there is a trend that I have noticed over the years. There is still a lot racists out there.

My boys have played on teams that have a large number of Mexican and other Latin American kids on them. My daughter is black, and also plays on a team with some Hispanic kids on it. My other daughter now plays on a team with Hispanic kids. They have been coached by Hispanic and Nigerian coaches over the years. My view of this is from the other side most of the time. I see the racists, because kids I care about are their targets.

I remember the first few times I would run into parents I knew at the soccer fields or the indoor facilities and they would say something along the lines of, “I hate playing the Mexican teams, they play dirty.” I would cringe at the words, but didn’t think much about it. Then I was talking to a dad on my daughters team. He pointed out that the parents on the other team would get mad every time the Hispanic girl did something. We started joking that they would do the same when my daughter did something. She delivered a perfectly legal hip check to win the ball, and the other parents almost lost their mind as one of their precious little girls was knocked to the ground. We observed this for a while, and joked that if his daughter did something they wouldn’t be bothered. Shortly there after his daughter plowed through another girl with a stiff armed push. She knocked the other girl down hard, and it was clearly a foul that the referee didn’t call. The other parents didn’t respond at all to the obvious foul, even when the other girl took a while to get up. That is when I started watching all the games with a different set of glasses. I noticed that this was a trend. The darker the skin, the more likely the parents were to believe that the child was doing something on the field that they shouldn’t be.

The problem is that we have closeted discussion about racism. People don’t want to believe that they are influenced by the appearance of other people. They don’t talk about it, so they don’t realize that they respond badly to someone different than they are. The argument generally is they have friends and co-workers from other races, and aren’t bothered by them. Most people in the USA are prepared to discard their preconceived ideas once they have a personal relationship of some sort with someone, but that doesn’t discount the fact that they have them. If I were to mention to any one of these parents the idea that they are responding to skin color and not actions that happened on the field, they would be outraged. This is taboo. Only bad people are racist. I have been faced with racism through my daughter. My own, and others. The truth is we all judge people from what we see. It is a much healthier thing to recognize this, and then be able to intellectually manage it, than to pretend that somehow we are immune to this very basic human reaction to people who are different than us. It is natural for us to regard people who are different from us with suspicion. It is seen even now throughout Europe. People who are all essentially white and similar in so many ways, see the differences in each other and judge each other based on ideas held internally about those people. These ideas don’t matter much once you know each other’s names, but to ignore that you have them is silly.

Perhaps it is the history of slavery in our country that has made the idea that any hint of racism makes you a bad person. I don’t believe that this is how it should be. Racism is natural. We should not succombe to our natural racist reaction to people who are different than us, but to acknowledge that you respond to someone based upon what you see, at least initially, is not a bad thing. Our modern world gives us the luxury to go against our base instincts, but these reactions are natural defense mechanisms. The more different than your mother, father, sisters, brothers, cousins, etc. that someone looks, the more likely they are a threat to you in all parts of the world that are not first world nations. This is the way that people have had to defend themselves over the course of human history. Skin color and other dramatic physical characteristics are easy marks of someone being different from your family. To see the difference and recognize the reaction, and then to alter your natural reaction is a sign of first world social mores and a developed intellect.

Watch what you see out there. I think you will be surprised by the amount of racism there is out there, and how much you respond to race in your own life. I don’t say this as a negative judgement on people. I think it is natural. It is something that if you recognize in your own life, I think you will begin to accel in relationships with people not only of other races, but of your own, because you are paying better attention to the individuals around you.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

Playing with Fire

HeligKo

I am a man, and I know that fire is cool and fun. It is also dangerous. Dealing with the modern woman is playing with fire. The MGTOW group out there likes to call men who can’t or won’t walk away from women pussy addicts. Its more than that though. There is nothing like the emotions a woman can bring out in a man. The problem is that women know this, and often manipulate it. We were built for these partnerships. I don’t think the solution is to run away from them as a gender. I do sympathize with men who choose to do so, and have no harsh words for them as they pursue other interests with the additional time that they surely will have. It is playing with fire for all the reasons these men have gone the MGTOW route. They have all the legal power. They have all the social power. Men will surely stand up for them when someone says something not nice.

The flip side of this, is most women don’t realize the real power that they have. They coast through life and these things happen around them, but they don’t register the power. They can be self righteous princesses about the things they get, and believe it was just the right thing. They don’t realize the greater ramifications of how they got what they got. Some do, and they are ones generally to either stay clear of, unless they do because they have take the red pill and are in favor of changes. Women have always liked to be fought over, so they will stage scenarios for this to happen. It is best to avoid the fight, and walk from a woman who plays you like this, because she doesn’t see you as strong enough for her, and is choosing to test you again and again and again.

I decided that I did not want to live out the rest of my life without female attention. Wise or not, this is what I decided. I did the friends with benefits thing. I picked up random women and did or didn’t do things with them as I chose. Honestly this was all boring to me. I like to spend time with a thoughtful woman. One who is not completely self absorbed to the point of not being able to recognize he people’s needs around them. I went on a few dates. I met some interesting women, and I encountered red flags that told me that I wouldn’t get the best long term deal. Women who quickly wanted me to jump on their side on things between their ex and them. Trying to paint them as a bad guy early. Women who make it clear that some of the traditional things that I enjoy are out with them. Women who have to be in charge of every moment. I also met some women who very clearly were looking for a new daddy for their kids. Not that the old daddy was not present, but that they wanted to replace him. I met a couple who thought that they should just have someone to pay for their entertainment. All these women were out the door for me.

The one I met that stuck probably isn’t that different as for how and why she broke up her marriage. She wasn’t very introspective at the time about how she was feeling. She was just feeling. I hadn’t realized it until we were dating for a while that I knew her ex-husband as a child. He was a few years older than me in Boy Scouts. I knew the kind of guy that he was, and all that she has said about him and how he reacted to her seemed to jive well with the young man that I knew. There are a few things that have really drawn me in with her.

She early on when we started talking mentioned that she is always worried about how men will receive her, because she knows that most men did not seek their divorce and that most divorces are initiated by the wife. She explained that she knew that for many men she could be a constant reminder of the pain that their ex-wife left them with. The cost of her actions was not lost on her. This was true in how she engages her ex-husband as well. She is aware that her actions forever affected the relationship that they have, regardless of whether at the end of it all, he also wanted the divorce.

When it came to the issue of sex, she was much more quickly ready for us to sleep together. She came on to me physically, and when I told her that I wanted to wait longer before we did anything sexually, she responded with a joke of she has never had to be beaten back before, but then told me that I was in charge and to let her know when I was ready. I didn’t want to have sex too early for many reasons. The most important one is that I have had too many women who after having sex become too attached and hard to deal with while the relationship outside of the physical realm just stops. She thinks she has a boyfriend, and I am thinking about how to get rid of this boring woman. I took some time, and made sure that this woman was truly engaging, and that we were able to talk through disagreements on many issues. I wasn’t waiting for a fight, but just to see that she wasn’t just reflecting what I was saying back to me to appear more attractive. When we did finally have sex, it was great. Much different than the sex with women I barely knew. Much different than the sex I had with my wife. It was the kind of sex I had imagined I would have in marriage. The kind where we were both emotionally and physically satisfied. This of course turned on my red flag radar extra strong. I do not plan on having another relationship like my marriage. In my marriage we didn’t have sex until our marriage night, and up until that time she was extremely erotic and alluring. After that night, she was demanding and selfish and quickly (before the honeymoon was over) stingy with sex.

She does not think that marriage is a good deal for the couples involved. She hasn’t quite put her finger on the whole issue yet, but has made it clear that at a minimum the level of complacency most couples have in marriage is horrible for both people. That the demands and expectations that simply wearing a ring gave each were ridiculous and allowed no room for the couple to develop a healthy partnership based on the needs of their families. She wants a long term relationship. She really wants a forever relationship, but she is not sold that has to happen in marriage. I am very much of the same mind. I am extremely loyal, and will not run away from a woman during hard times, if we are committed. Its worth the argument, the discomfort, the tears, if there is the respect that when we are done with this problem we will grow from it. I have no patience for the grudge holding that destroys so many relationships. If either person is bitter and can’t get over it, then it is time to move on. Its not going to work, and that person doesn’t see the value in the other person to get right in their head about the relationship.

She has told me that her pussy is only for recreational purposes now. She has kids the same ages as my oldest and youngest. She enjoys sex more than any woman I have encountered. There is no blackmail for sex with her. She wants it from me. She joked about it once, and then quickly responded that she could never hold out, and she wasn’t willing to torture herself just to punish me. It would be better to have the sex and forget whatever the issue was. Now we haven’t had any real issues, and when we do, it will be an interesting test of how we handle it.

Another thing that has been very nice, is that with our kids schedules we are separated for days and sometimes more than a week at a time. During that time we have lots of time to think and reflect on our relationship. We also spend a lot of time simply chatting and talking on the phone. This allows us to not become immersed in the physical relationship and stop developing in the rest of it. Its a cross between the early relationships that I had as a teenager, and then the completely adult ones that I see others having. I am really enjoying it. We talk about the lessons learned from our pasts. We catch each other falling into old habits, and we both seem to have a genuine desire to move forward in a different way than our past.

One of the things that is important to me, is that I have a playmate. Not just in the bedroom, but in life. I want to ride bikes, compete, hike, and see the world together. I want to root her on as she runs a race, and here her cheering for me as I play a match of soccer. These are things where we can celebrate each other, and have memories to remind us why we want to get through the tough stuff. This is something I did not have in my marriage. I thought it would come, but it never did. Now I know that very little comes after you get married. If it is not there when you get married it is unlikely to ever come. Some things can be lost in marriage, because she is putting on fronts to encourage you to accept her. I will be watching for the red flags of this behavior. Facebook and other social media help in deciphering things like this. Sixteen years ago I had to rely on what I saw to determine what to expect. Now I can look at a social media archives and see if she shows that she has been interested in these things in the past, or if this is just a front for me. I found that one lady I dated didn’t give me any emotional chemistry to feed off of, but she is becoming a soccer buddy of mine. She is a woman I can play with, but there is little other attraction. I am not sure why. She is athletic, sexy, smart, and engaging, but she doesn’t make my heart race at all. This is just another way I have matured. In the past I would have had trouble not pursuing her, because she is desirable to others, but now it is all about me and what I want. I don’t feel bad in saying that, because I want someone to give to as well receive from, so it just has to match.

The lessons I am taking with me into this are these. I must ensure that I am getting what I want from the relationship. No one else will do that for me. I have to be physically and emotionally satisfied, while being intellectually astute to the realities around me. Kids are an obstacle to be overcome in the process of developing a love life of any kind. They always were, even in marriage. This is not said to diminish my children in my priorities, but to acknowledge that even as first in my priorities, they cannot be my exclusive priority or I will fizzle and burn out. I will speak my mind, and without fear that she will leave. Not because she won’t judge what I say and leave, but because if she does I am better off for it. We can disagree, even dramatically if we are allowed the room to speak our minds. I expect this room, and will use it. The ramifications will play out. I spent way too much time trying to make peace in my marriage over issues and ideas.

I no longer view any relationship as life long. That is up to both people involved and the test of time will answer the question, not some piece of paper filed with the court or vows taken before a minister. I would very much like a life long partner, and that is the single biggest thing that I begrudge my STBEW for in all this. She was never a good partner, so that is a philosophical grudge not one that I want remedied by her. If this woman or the next or one down the road proves to have the staying power, I will enjoy that very much, but I will not sacrifice my person-hood to achieve it ever again. I will be vulnerable to the pain that comes with sharing my heart with someone, who may or may not have my best intentions in their heart. I will never know until I let down the shield, but I will also never feel the things that I desire if I don’t take the risk. I no longer view women as the tender flower that need protecting that I used to. The are more like the porcelain. It is more fragile than stone, and very beautiful and delicate looking. It is quite hard though. Stronger than you expect when you first look at it. I will risk relationships, but with the knowledge of the red pill, and my own lessons as I go forward. I know that I am playing with fire, but fire is fun as well as dangerous. Fire serves a great utility as well as being destructive.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

Child Custody: Get It Out Of The Courts

HeligKo
Plymouth Court

Child custody is the giant sledge hammer used to make men submit. It is also the single thing that people complain about causing harm to the kids. The courts are adversarial in nature, and thus they encourage both parties to make the other party look bad. As a general rule it is not good for the kids to see their parents rip each other’s characters to shreds. The psychological impact of each part of the kid being scrutinized is awful. There are several problems with the current system, if it is left to the more accepted custody arrangements. One is that the mother is presumed to be the best care taker, because she has been the primary care taker. This has been the norm in many marriages, and has been accepted as the best end result as a matter of course. The stabilizing factors that fathers bring to the household just don’t seem to be considered.

Its time to make the default legal status of custody one of shared custody. Schedules should be required to be as close to 50% time as possible. The reason for this, is it will take the negotiations to room with the parents rather than in front of a judge. If the judge is going to view these cases based on the idea that there must be something horribly wrong to justify giving one parent a preference over another, then fathers would no longer be negotiating in the shadow of the law. They would have confidence that within reason their considerations will be considered. If mothers and fathers know that the judge isn’t going to consider anything that doesn’t show a risk to the kids as a reason to modify this would work out the details on their own.

I also think that any contractual agreement entered into should not have to go to court at all for approval. Parents were free to do just about any stupid thing they wanted to when they were married. I don’t understand why this should change if they are both able to work it out. Why should the state in a free society suddenly become a larger stake holder the moment parents split up. Contracts are nullified all the time without the court being involved. Parties are able to do this in business all the time.

As for child support, as I have said before. The parent with the kids should be responsible for the kids expenses. When both parents are involved, they should share the expenses as they agree upon for school and medical expenses, or the assumption should be that each will pay half whenever there is no other agreement. There should be no compulsary transfer of funds from one parent to another, not ever.

At the core of the argument that happens in court, is which parent is better. That argument should be replaced simply with is one parent dangerous. The couple had the child together. If one is a stupid mother fucker and trains the kids to be the same, that is life. Sorry kids your mom or dad was a complete idiot and taught you how to be too. When the parents stay together that would be the case too.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

The Problem: Putting Kids First

HeligKo
Presents 29

The mantra I hear in divorce circles is that you need to put the kids first. There are multiple problems with this. One of the more common terms is child-centric divorce. I have stated so many times before, that if it were about the children, then the divorce wouldn’t be the event that they are having to adjust to. Lets just put the idea to bed that there is such a thing as a good divorce for children. As I sit here happier than I have been in most of the last fifteen years, I still believe that divorce was the wrong course to take. I also have to recognize that for so many reasons, I can’t go back. Number one of course is she doesn’t want to, but as I have thought about things, neither do I. For different reasons. For me, it is about the kids. I won’t put them back on that roller coaster just to wait and see when it will happen again. I don’t trust her. This has been covered before, so read the rest of the blog to understand why, because that is a long story.

The Fallacy of Child Centered

Divorce by its very nature puts aside what is very best for the children for the benefit of one or both parents desires. The very act is not child centered, except in rare instances where it is done to protect the children from the other parent. That is not what is considered when people say child centered. In a child centered divorce, the children become the focus. The parents throw themselves into the children’s lives as they are dealing with the trauma of divorce. The core ideas of trying to create the softest landing for their kids as possible are good, but they become such the focus that the parents aren’t seeing the bigger picture for the family, which by the way includes themselves. Divorce at its core is a selfish act, and doing things the child centered way makes the parents feel better about the divorce, but more often than not its still about the parents. They get wrapped up into competing with their old partner in life over who is the better parent. It should be noted that one parent is always better than the other, and it may not be the same parent as last week this week. This new child centered ideal for divorce has moved children from the same position as the furniture to a new position of actors in the parents’ play. They get confused over which parent to try to please and when. It is about the kids looking like they are doing as well as the kids from intact homes. It becomes yet another way for people to keep up with the Jones. The kids are not doing as well as similar kids in intact homes. They just can’t. They may develop new skills, and there are plenty of bright sides to their new life, if they can overcome the trauma of divorce. Everyone should understand that the child centered divorce is not about the children, but about alleviating the guilt the parents feel about the divorce regarding their children. I often see that the initiator or causer of the divorce uses the child centeredness of the the other parent as a way to get their way. It is rare that both parents are truly trying to be partners in this. It become a lever for manipulation.

Why Is It A Problem

Most people I know who have tried the child centered approach to divorce have a common problem in their marriage. The marriage became about the kids. All the couples time together was with children, or exhausted from children. One or both people never got out to do things without the kids, and they certainly never got out together. This is something that opens the marriage up to all sorts of problems. Men and women have affairs. They develop interests and don’t share them with their partner. They grow apart while spending most of their time together, and they stop enjoying each other at all. They lose patience for the things that bothered them, but they decided to accept when they took their vows. I think this happens often by accident, but initially when the kids are little they need lots of care. As the kids become older it is easy for one or both parents to stay completely engaged as if the kid needs them every moment. The longer this goes on, the harder it is for the couple to come back together. One of the things my wife told me when she asked for a divorce is “We are great partners, but horrible lovers.” There is truth to that. I know what I have written here played a part in that, and I was the one who ended up hiding in the kid stuff. As the rest of the blog explains, this is probably less true for us than many others I have seen. My response to her was that we wouldn’t necessarily stay as good a partners, because without the marriage bond our desires and interests for the kids would diverge, and probably sooner than we know. In the past year to year and half that has certainly been the case. We have fought over medicating my son, and what soccer team the kids will play on. These are the issues I am holding strong on, or at least for one soccer team, since my niece plays with my daughter. On many issues I state my opinion, and ask her to take time and think about it, and if she doesn’t change her mind, then I will usually acquiesce. I do believe that too much conflict will only hurt the kids, and she is high conflict. The only way to avoid conflict is to not take on every issue ready to fight.

The Balance

In marriage and in divorce there is a balance. I am not good at it, but I see where I need to get. As parents we need to allow the kids to develop and make mistakes. We have to tell them no sometimes not because we can’t do something, but because we need the time. In my case, we should have divided and conquered more for kids events. We should have taken time out together. That is one thing in divorce that I am not going to do wrong. I will take time for myself. I will take the time to play for me. I will not feel guilty for missing 1 or 2 games in a weekend when there are 8 to 12 games. With the tougher schedule of separation, I will not go to the late games if I have other opportunities most of the time now. I need to get out and see friends. I needed to to do that within the confines of marriage. I am spending my time rebuilding relationships that would be strong if I had done some of this before. If I need to clean the house, and the kids are with their mom, then I might not make it to a couple of events. I hate to miss them, but my world comes crashing down on me, if I don’t take the time to do the things I need to do. In the US we are not good at balance. I have known men and women who’s life stops because of divorce with the kids. They devote all of their time to the kids. Not just put kids first when the kids need the parent, but in every moment of every day they devote to the kids. They are usually praised and their egos are fed through this. These people become bitter as their kids don’t devote that same kind of attention on them as they grow up. Just as the married couple who fails to connect and devotes everything to the kids has nothing when the kids move out, so is true for the divorced parent who always puts the kids first. They are alone, and many make their children feel guilty about it. It is not the children’s fault that they are alone, it is their own. They didn’t have a balanced life. I know that I did not, and its tough to get there, but I find more and more joy as I do, and I enjoy my children more, because they become less of a burden. A word I would not have described them as before, but as things change I realize that I allowed them to become that to me.

Final Thoughs

Its not about the kids. The divorce, the marriage, the future none of it is about the kids. The kids are but one piece to the puzzle. If it is all about the kids, then you will be unhappy, and the kids will be spoiled and unhappy. The children raised in poorer cultures learn the lessons of family, and grow up to be much more balanced themselves. This is why these children can come to the US with no money and no skill, and end up running businesses that are successful. It is better for our kids to see us live. They will not appreciate us for giving up everything for them as they grow into adults, they will pity us. They will not visit to be our companion or friend, but out of guilt for all that we gave up for them. Family matters. Family is the most important thing in your life. Remember that your family includes you, and your well being matters as well.

Ten Foured,

JeD

When 1/2=6+

HeligKo
Happy Pi Day - P versus NP

No this is not a math problem. Its the dynamics of what happens to the family after divorce. When parents of kids split, there is not two families created. There are at least 6. Some of them are created by how the kids interpret what is going on, and how they decide to handle it, but there are some patterns that I have seen as this has happened in my life. I will use my family as an example throughout, but I have observed this from the sidelines of a lot of families that I interact with. I will touch on each of the six individually, but then I will explain the plus side of this.

The Families Created

Mom’s Family With The Kids

This is an obvious one. Mom interacting with her kids as a mom. Dad is gone, but most times its not a lot different than the life of a family with a dad that that travels for a living. Mom may have to work more than she did before, and fix things around the house she didn’t before, but the care of the children doesn’t change as much. Where it becomes different is when mom needs a dad moment. Does she call dad or does she try to be dad. This choice is critical to how the children handle the split up. Super mom trying to be the dad when he isn’t there makes things hard on the kids. There are really three ways to handle this. Moms are much more likely to hover and supervise than fathers. Its is harder for the kids to get some freedom to grow up in a mothers house.

  1. Mom tries to fill the role of the dad. This is problematic because she isn’t masculine. There is more to being a dad than acting like a dad. Dads are better at it, because they are masculine, and the things that need a dad truly need the masculinity. This is the case in comforting and disciplining. Dads and moms are different.
  2. Mom explains to the children that she is not the dad, and she is not willing to be the dad, because their dad does that for them. She can then go on to allow them to call their dad, or tell them to wait until they see their dad,
  3. Mom can call their dad and ask him to come over to help or take the child to him. If mom and dad are really working for the best interest of their children, they will figure out how to do this for any big issue. Big being defined by the child’s emotional state and age at the time as much as the issue itself.

Dad’s Family With The Kids

This is similar to the one above, but it is different. Its different in the fact there are a lot of things dad may not have done on a daily basis that he does now. This does depend on how involved dad was in the mundane things of their kids life before. I pass no judgement on what worked in the marriage partnership to parent. I am sorry that the courts do. Dads are much less likely to try to be mom. They have the same resolutions as stated above. Dads will tend to play more with their kids, and encourage independence as they grow older. Dads do less to protect their kids from themselves, though they are very protective from others. This is the balance that is lost in a split household, and the parents working together to ensure that when one is not resident, they are not absent. This is hard, and both parents out of pride may struggle with this.

Dad’s Family Without Kids

Dads will tend to find distractions. They go out with friends and work more. They get back into hobbies and sports that they had abandoned for the sake of their marriage. Things that probably weren’t really healthy for the marriage, but the stresses of time management made them think so. Once the kids are a bit older, dads are much more likely to wait for the mother to call if there is something that needs talking about, and to wait for their kids to call if they need or want to talk. Part of this, is they don’t need the constant contact for the closeness to be there. Again we are dealing with the masculine vs the feminine in how things are handled. There is often a renewed connection to the dad’s family(parents, brothers, sisters, etc). It is al too common that a married couple spends more time with the wife’s family than the husband’s this is often the case, because she is the one that is scheduling things, not some evil plot.

Mom’s Family Without Kids

I don’t have the insight for mom’s family that is required to go into great detail. What my experience tells me from being the dad with the kids on the other end. She calls me two to three times a day. In the morning to check on the kids. During the day about school stuff. After school about activities. The only necessary call is the last. She may or may not call them during these times. There is a part of the mom that can’t let go of the things she used to own in the marriage as the care giver. She knows that she doesn’t have the control over these things, nor does she have the right to try, but she has to touch base with it. I think this will become less as time goes on, but I doubt it will completely go away. Moms are much more likely to make extra contacts to the school when she doesn’t have the kids as well.

Mom Has The Kids At An Event Dad Is At

There is a tendency for the mother to hold tight. To keep them close. Its almost like they are afraid at some baser level that the father will take them away from her. There is also a tendency to return to requesting the father to do things that she would have expected when they were married. In the more mild cases, it is just things for the kids, but in more extreme cases it is things that he would have done for his wife not his kids. The Dad has a tendency to absolve himself of disciplining the kids. In his mind they are in her care, and whether its a detachment or avoiding stepping on her toes, I don’t know. I am intentional about not being her husband, but being their father, so the balance works out for me without too much stress or inconsistency for the kids.

Dad Has The Kids At an Event Mom Is At

There is a tendency to let mom take over parenting at these things, which often leaves the kids without a parent, because mom thinks she is there to just see the event and get some hugs from the other kids. Again I am intentional about not letting this happen. Little kids are drawn to their mothers anytime she is around, so its easy for a dad to let them go and absolve himself of responsibility. The situation tends to resolve itself as the kids get older. The kids are more autonomous, and it is easier for the dad to assert his rules.

Increasing The Multiples

There are many things that can increase the multiples. Stepparents with kids can change things a lot. Imagine that sometimes the step-siblings are there together and other times they are not. The dynamics of whose house it was if the family moves into a house one of them owned already.

One child has special emotional needs that has them living with one parent or the other or following a different schedule than the other kids. This can create distance and closeness that doesn’t exist for the other kids. And affect how the kids respond to each other.

God forbid that a parent get married more than once again, because this just continues to extend the family and its complicated interconnections.

The Effects On The Children

Its stressful. Their little minds are not mature. Their emotions aren’t in check with their logic centers. They are going to be stressed by even the best situations They don’t like change. Children do better when the parents stay together, even in the worst marriages. People can judge the break-up all they want, and whether it was good or not. Many will use the children as the filter. The problem is that it is too late for that. The decisions are made, and action has already been taken. I hate the argument that children are resilient. They really aren’t. They are pliable, and it takes time to bend around their new world. Much longer than it takes an adult. Part of this is the adult has much more control over what is happening than the child does. The best the parents can do along the way is ensure to the kids that their mom or dad is not being replaced or leaving, and neither are they. Reinforce, reinforce, reinforce this idea to them all the time. Their dad, even a bad dad, is their dad, and is irreplaceable. Their mom, even a bad mom, is their mom, and is irreplaceable. Don’t let your feelings get in the way of whatever relationship the kids can have with them. If they are flakes, then be their to catch them, and cry with them. Save your tears for them that are tainted by your anger and hurt until they are out of sight.

Ten Foured,

JeD

Gladiators

HeligKo
#10: Gladiator

This is phenomena that I have been following the last few weeks. I haven’t done any studying, but have used the experience of having 4 kids who play on 8 different sports teams right now. Moms are treating their children as their personal gladiators. They push and push their kids to do better and better. This doesn’t sound bad on the surface. We should all like our children to pursue excellence. The problem is that it seems to be very comparative in nature. Women are constantly looking for their hero. Go out to any dating sight and you will see headlines referring to knights and heroes. Now this is a phenomena that seems to exist in all women and their children, but it is decidedly stronger in the single or divorced mother. What I have seen is women, particularly those with weak husbands or no husband begin to drive their children to perform better and better. This doesn’t only apply to sports. You will see this in school, the arts, and other areas where kids can be compared. This also isn’t just their male children. There are plenty of women driving their daughters to perform for the sake of being the best. All you have to do is turn on TLC and watch some of those _______ Mom’s shows. I don’t think this is a new phenomena. My reading of history tells me that any society that life has become to easy, and that the wars that are fought are far away begins to have this. Just as women used to give men something of theirs to have when they fought as knights, mothers see their children as fighting for them on the pitch or grid-iron. Somehow they feel like they are a part of it. Language can give this away in some nuanced ways. I used to get caught up in saying we had a bad game like I played. I never was that emotionally involved, but the language was there. I have realized over the last year of separation that my language has changed. Hers hasn’t. Its like she is a part of the game through them. I do think that this is worse in a world where these women don’t have men as heroes. Dads and husbands are not important in their life, or don’t exist. These women have displaced the adult masculine archetype with their little gladiators.

Another driver is the constant comparison that women do. They compare husbands or boyfriends. They compare houses and schools. They compare kids. They want their kids to be the smartest, fastest, strongest of all their friends. They will get angry, actually angry when their little one gets beat by another kid on the field. They aren’t just being overly critical, but are having a visceral emotional reaction to the event as if they experienced it themselves. Their champion isn’t the best. I see this as my wife isn’t happy unless my kids play on the best teams. They are good athletes and normally can play with whomever they like, but I have no desire for them to constantly be seeking the next best team. I was an athlete, and the relationships with teammates and coaches ultimately is far more important to me than being the best. I want the kids to learn and develop not only in their sport, but through their sport. I see very little of this from the moms. They seem to be looking for wins. An example that I see right now in my life is my oldest daughter. Her coach has pushed the team up a division. She wanted to test them, and see some different competition than the last season. They were a .500 team in the lower division. They haven’t won a game yet. The testing is working though. The division is small, and so they get to play most of the teams twice. So far they have played better games against each team they have played twice. They are becoming stronger and more skilled. They are also learning to overcome adversity of a stronger opponent, and get to see the results by playing the same teams again. I think it was a good choice. My STBEW does not. She was furious last week when my daughter was asked by her coach to help with a lower division team right before her game. She said something along the lines of “She is one of her best players, what is she thinking wearing her out before her own game.” I like that if my daughter wants to play she gets to. She is a good player, but at this level of play the best player changes from week to week, and that is how it should be. That is how they get better.

The craziest thing I have seen happen, and its creeping into my STBEW’s arsenal, is punishing for poor performance. Not taking them out for a promised treat. Actually being angry at a kid for not being their best. Making them feel bad about having a bad game. They feel bad enough. The best kids already take on the weight of the entire game on themselves. Sports in my opinion serve many purposes, but ultimately the kids aren’t going to learn most of those if they aren’t having fun. I have only punished my kids for things that happened in sports when they disrespected a coach. The rest of what happens on the field is up to the coach. I will talk with and partner with the coach on solutions for ongoing issues. Poor performance in competitive sports is generally punished with less play time. The kids learn quickly that if they do what the coach wants then they get to play. Now my experience is competitive sports. My opinion about recreational sports is that the parent may have to discipline poor behavior more, because play time incentives are hard when every kid should have equal time. Performance should not be a big issue in recreational sports. Many of the same lessons can be learned, but the intensity is very different.

This is similar to the previous one. Women are always looking to climb. They are much more likely to push their kids to change teams to find a better opportunity. Men seem much less likely to do this. They understand the value of the camaraderie of a team. I like the idea of my kid being on the same team for a long time. They develop lifelong friendships there. They can be a part time mercenary, if they want more games, meaning they can go play with other teams anytime they want. Kids who change teams constantly may be better at the sport than the other kids, but they are mercenaries. Just like the military has very little respect for the mercenary, even when they need them, so does the team that brings on a mercenary for a season. That kid will not be accepted, because everyone knows that he will be gone next season or next year. My daughter is on a team with her cousin. It is a good team. There are some moms trying to convince everyone that the coach isn’t very good. They are disrupting what is a pretty good thing for most of these girls, and especially good for a couple of girls I love. She wants her to change teams to a more prestigious coach. She has never seen a team he has coached. He just has the right credentials to be impressive to her. All her arguments about the team my daughter is on now, and why it is bad, also apply to the group of girls this guy is supplying. The icing on the cake to try to convince me to let her move is that another coach is going to allow his superior athlete daughter to play on the team. She misses the point. Its not actually about winning more games. Winning more games when they are young demonstrates development. I like to push my kids. This daughter already plays on a top division with team an age group up with this same girl. The problem is all these moms are missing the reality of who their kids are and what they have right now as they look for the bigger and better deal.

The final thing I see moms do, and this one is particular to the broad category of “single moms” is the tendency to try to imitate fathers. A harsh word from a father is taken differently than the same harsh words from a mother. As much as the world wants to deny that men and women are different, and that we fill different roles in our kids lives, it is true. They end at screaming at the kids for every technical detail of their play. I know some dads do this, and coaches tend to have a chat with them. The truth is the coach may have different desires. I find that I have stepped back. Having been a player and a coach, I have insight. Its not insight he needs during the game. I cheer, I encourage, and sometimes I have something to say about general game play, but I let the coach do the details. I can always talk to him about details on another day. I hear moms literally threaten punishment for poor play. I know the the quintessential overbearing dad shown in movies does this kind of thing, but I rarely see him. There is no more than one per team, if that many. Now I see multiple moms doing this. They are almost always “single moms” that are imitating what they think a father brings to the game for the kids.

My words to any mother who is in a situation where the father is not there, whether its a co-parenting situation, dad travels, or a true single motherhood, you are never going to be dad. Don’t try to replace dad. When dad isn’t there, the kid needs his mom to be the best mom she can be, and she can’t be that while trying to be a good dad to. Sure throw or kick the ball around with them, but coaches, male teachers, and neighborhood dads are going to give him a better dad experience than you are. Don’t force who gets to do this for your kids, especially boys. Sure guide them, but let it happen. If you are truly being a great mom, they will choose wisely. Now I say this with a forked tounge, because I don’t find that most women end up without the fathers around by making the best choices for their kids. If they did, then the father would be there in most cases. I do hope there are a few women who have turned around, and recognized the past mistakes, and are trying to do things right from here on out. This message is for you. You are not a dad, and can’t do it any better than I can be a mom. Dads are important, but a mom cannot be the missing dad. Being the best mom will soften the blow of not having their dad. I say this as a man who constantly is telling his kids that I am not your mother. I will not try to be your mother. I am your father, and I will continue to be your father for as long as I live. Your mother is your mother, and if you need your mother right now, I will do everything I can to get you to her. I do this with an ache in my stomach mourning that my kids are not in a two parent home where mom and dad are there together. I then go on and act like a dad. I hope my STBEW does the same, but I know she doesn’t. She tries to act like a dad, and my sons respond to her in ridiculous ways. She then calls me in a panic to get me to handle the problem she has created, if only she had been the mom, and handled it like a mom, or called me as the dad in the beginning to handle a situation that required a dad.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

Observations over the weekend

HeligKo
White Knight

This weekend was a busy one. One of those crazy run all over town my kids are doing too much kind of weekends. I had 3 kids in 4 tournaments in 3 different places. This presented some time to take in the world. As I ran around, I spent a lot of time with different people in different situations. So here are three things that struck me over this weekend.

I was chatting with a mom at the batting cages. I didn’t know much about her situation. I know that the STBEW had been talking to her the day before. She opened the non-baseball talk with something along the lines of “Its great how you and her can work things out for the kids sake.” Now understand that was referring to us getting along well enough to get the 4 kids to their activities. She then went on to explain that she has been a single mom since her youngest was four and a half months old, and how their Dad wouldn’t always take the kids to everything on the weekends he had them. I listened as she finished with “Its all about them isn’t it” meaning the kids. First if it was all about them, I would meet far fewer women like her, because they would have figured out a way to stay with the Dad. Most of the time men are easy to keep. There was a time not long ago, I may not have judged the man harshly, but I would not understand why he wouldn’t take his daughter to both a softball game and a soccer game on the same day. Now I see it with a different set of eyes. This man has his kids every other weekend, that’s it. She moved from a town 30 minutes away, leaving him there. He chose not to pick up and leave. This happened to me, and I made a different choice, but I can understand not following her around. Mine wants to move again, and I will probably stay where I am at, so my kids can have some stability. Now if I only had my kids 4 days a month, I think that I might choose to filter their activities such that I got to spend more time with them. Now she painted this picture without saying the words that made him seem like a dead beat of sorts. She told me I would see him at the game. I found this woman attractive before she started talking. I lost some of that shimmer for her as she spoke. I found myself saying “that’s too bad” a lot during the conversation. She probably thought I was agreeing with her sentiment, but the truth is I meant that its too bad that this man was missing out on his kids life for whatever reason. I watched this man at the game. Not hard for me to do at a baseball game. I don’t like baseball much. He came with a daughter from another woman. He obviously had her full time or close to it. He interacted with her and his other daughter as a very genuine father, who knew that people had already judged him. He talked to no one else at the game except one of the coaches. I also watched that he multiple times gave this woman a chance to engage him, and she chose not to. I feel this man’s pain. I am forever changed by my experience, and I know what torture he must go through knowing that he does not have the right to protect his children as a father should.

The next one happened on Facebook. A girl I went to high school with posted one of those “support me, I have been wronged” posts I find that mostly single mothers post about the “son of a bitch” they chose to have kids with. She had sent her child to another city on an airplane to see their father. The father missed getting the child back on the plane in the morning, and she was incensed that not only did she go to the airport and not get her child, but didn’t get a phone call. She called and asked what the hell happened. He explained he thought the flight was in the evening not the morning. Now I saw the comments. Most from similar women saying OMG, and other trite things. They all called this man a pig. How dare he, blah, blah, blah. A few white knights stepped in saying they would kick his ass if they ever saw him. I am thinking to myself, why would this man call if he didn’t realize that the flight was at 5AM instead of 5PM. It would be hours before he realized the mistake. He acted completely reasonably, but everyone wanted to kill him. This again was a woman I once found attractive, but the shimmer was lost with posts like these. My new eyes made me see that this was the continuation of parental alienation. She would now have a reason and the support to deny the father of her children access to the kids they had together. He will probably now see them even less than he already does. I know from her posts that she moves around the country freely, which probably also complicates things for this man. I feel this man’s pain. I am forever changed by my experience, and I know the torture he must go through knowing that he does not have the right to protect his children like a father should.

The third is more personal. After my son won his soccer tournament. It was late, and I was ready to get my kids home. The youngest was tired and ready for bed. The oldest was just hanging out. The middle girl was at a friends and I needed to pick her up, and get some stuff she left in her mom’s car. The one who one who won needed to get his stuff from the car of his team mate’s grandma who had taken care of getting him from game to game over the weekend. I left with the three I had. Shortly after leaving I get an annoyed phone call from my STBEW. She had parked across the park in another lot. Something I would have no idea about, since she was there before I was. She was annoyed I hadn’t sent the boys or a boy with her to escort her to her car. She didn’t ask them to go. Somehow I was not doing my job as a man to think of her, and send a boy, and was also failing to train the boys how to properly treat their mother. If we were together, I would have known, and would have sent a boy with her, and we would have been going to the same home, so he would stay with her. Instead we are not together. My thoughtlessness should have been expected, because when she left my home and asked for a divorce, she also gave up my protection. I don’t understand how she believes that she should have my protection by proxy through the boys. I wasn’t going to argue the point with her. I also wasn’t going to agree to have a chat with the boys, because as I wrote before, chivalry is dead in Chivalry Lost. I see no reason to train my sons to treat women with deference, and their mother in particular. This is different than respecting her as a parent. Had she asked, I would have sent one, even though to get to her I would have had to make multiple u-turns and drive about 3 extra miles to get to the other parking lot. I struggle with how to handle this. I used to think that chivalry was something I should teach my sons. I used to believe that it was important, and it was my job to teach them that women were precious and deserved special care. The problem is the deal is broken. The social contract that was in place that chivalry was a part of him meant that women treated men with a certain respect for being men, and that her men were treated with even more deference. Now that she has left, she no longer has my protection. Our contract is broken. Why then should I train my sons to treat her in a way that I myself would not treat her any longer. Chivalry was taught from father to son mostly through interactions with their mother. Once you are separate that just isn’t going to happen. Now the other problem is that chivalry is something enforced by men for men. It is completely disrespectful for a woman to demand it, and to demand that I a man would teach it in the way she believes it should be done. Feminism has changed chivalry, something they were the beneficiary of but had no part in, into yet another female privileged they believe they deserve. I am sorry, but my sons will not be taught by me to treat women as princesses. They will get the respect they have earned and no more. They will get the protection and service my sons desire to give and no more. I will also teach my daughters that they do not deserve these things for just existing. Its sad the world is here, but surviving requires a new understanding of the social contract. It is time that the women in each of our lives understand that we know the social contract is broken, and they don’t get to write the rules all by themselves.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

Facebook Stories

HeligKo

First, no this will not have anything to do with the use of Facebook to destroy marriages. That topic is fairly uninteresting, because it is not Facebook that facilitates cheating, it is just a means of communication, and the women who want to cheat will find a means to communicate and connect to willing men. This is about how Facebook tells the stories of people who go through divorce.

Recently I was told that an acquaintance of mine was divorced. He was one of my U6 coaches that went ahead and continued to coach in the U8 age groups. I liked the guy a lot. His wife was beautiful and engaging and his children were pleasant to be around. His wife was a friend of mine on Facebook. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t use Facebook. I went back through her history. Pursuing the story she was telling. There was very little there about her husband. I saw pictures of them happily on a cruise in January of 2011 with friends. That was it. Then after all the noise there are pictures of the Holidays without him. I was dismayed. I saw them out and about town on a regular basis. They were always a pleasant couple. So why does this couple get divorced with two kids under the age 8. All I have is rumors, but it seems she wasn’t happy, and wanted to pursue opening her own photography studio full time. His family business took too much time, and so she didn’t have time to do what she wanted full time. So shortly after the kids are all in school, she forces the issue with divorce. Now he has to take the kids, and she will have that time to do her thing. Oh but wait there were other pictures that showed up right after the divorce was final. The pictures of her and another man. As a matter of fact, it became her cover picture. I am sure the rumors play their part, but she was running a photography studio, and with both kids in school, she had the time to do that full time. A studio that she would not of had the luxury to open if it hadn’t been for that husband and his job supporting her getting it started, with the expensive cameras and equipment, and general lack of income until her name became known.

Another couple I have known for years went through a divorce. I had to remove the wife as a friend. Her posts became so toxic. Her Facebook story is one of a woman who was abandoned by a man who wasn’t taking care of her kids. A man who didn’t care about their fate. He just left and wasn’t fixing things at the house he promised to. The kids missed him because he was spending all his time with his new girlfriend. Now this couple I know the real story. You see it is a part of my story. The wife was a lifelong friend of my wife. She is a toxic, whorish, overbearing woman. She decided that she wanted a divorce. She hadn’t married the man who produced her first child. She had two children with her husband. She began picking fights with him whenever he was home about not doing enough around the house. She was a stay at home mom, who didn’t fix breakfast or dinner, didn’t vacuum, do laundry, or just about anything else. Oh and both the kids were very much school age. She then said she needed a social life. She began going out to bars, and hooking up with random guys. My wife would go also, supposedly to make sure this lady stayed out of trouble. I took this at face value, but since she wasn’t staying out of trouble, then what was my wife doing. Right, of course she was getting into her own trouble. This woman eventually kicked her husband out, then moved out. He moved back in, and then things went back and forth again. As they divorced. He paid the entirety of his paycheck to her, and then delivered pizzas at night for his living money. He has been chastised for not being more supportive with his fucked up stepson, who he was never allowed to be more than a baby sitter for. Well I recently had dinner with this man. Turns out she began turning the kids against him to the point who couldn’t handle having them with him the four days a month he was allowed. He got the child support adjusted to something that allowed him to have a life. He is now considering moving to another state for work, because he there isn’t much hope for him seeing his kids. I feel sorry for him. I know how he got there. I would make different choices, but he is of a generation a bit older than me. He also isn’t much of a fighter.

I find it interesting how things go on Facebook. It seems that when someone is talking about custody and divorce on their, well they are trying to control the conversation and shape the view others have. I generally find these people unbelievable. Other’s its the subtext that is there. The tone of their posts. The character of their pictures that tell the story. These are the ones that I am interested in. The story is partly there. You see it, but its not all there. Oh and I can make up the rest. I look for the hidden story. Sometimes I will send a message to a man to find out his story. Surprisingly most respond, and seem a bit surprised that anyone cared to ask. Women talk, even if no one wants to hear them. Their story will get out. Men tend to keep it in. They don’t want to air their dirty laundry for everyone. I have found though that this is not the case of its a privacy issue. They lost that with their wife’s blabbering most of the time. It is the case that they don’t want to force people to take sides, and they don’t want to force their burden onto someone else. Many men think telling the story without being asked is akin to asking for help. Keep this in mind. It has been a good thing for people to ask my story. It has let me know people care, and has helped me think through things as I share them with someone else.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

None Of It Matters

HeligKo
Aghori

I have been thinking a lot lately about the things my wife told me when she said she wanted a divorce. As I said before, she gave me a laundry list of things that was wrong with me, that needed to change for her to stay. She had been challenged by her sister to give me a chance, so she told her she would. Her tactic was to pick a fight with me, and almost guarantee that I would not do anything different. Of course when I did change some things, I was told it was too little too late.

What horrible things could I have done to have her so firmly planted on leaving me, you might ask. Well I chew tobacco, have since I was 12, and never hid it from her. This of course was also an excuse to not kiss me after we got married. I was careful to make sure that I chewed gum, and brushed my teeth often to ensure that she would not be impacted by a stray piece of tobacco or the flavor. For the first few years, I never chewed around her, until I figured out it didn’t matter. I also very rarely did loads of laundry. This was a constant complaint with her. Of course the early years of our marriage she was so particular that I couldn’t get it right if I tried, and she just did mine. When we had kids, she was a stay at home mom. I always helped fold the laundry when the kids were in bed, and she was folding. I also didn’t get up with the kids in the morning often. I am not a morning person. I will admit that freely. She would wake up at the first noise, and I would not. She would get them ready for school, and poor the milk in their cereal, because the Lord knows she didn’t cook. From the time we had kids, I took over parenting when I got home. I would take care of all their needs, bath them, and put them to bed. When we had foster babies that needed to be fed in the middle of the night, I would stay up and do that, so she wouldn’t have to wake up and try to go back to sleep. Oh, and of course the kicker of all kickers. I rarely went to bed at the same time as her, and never got credit for doing so when I did. There were a lot of reasons for this. For first year of our marriage she worked nights, then I was in school and studying, then I had an IT job that required me to do much of my work in the middle of the night. When I did go to bed with her, she rarely wanted to be touched, or would complain that all I wanted was sex when I touched her.

None it matters. These were excuses. She actively rejected me getting up with the kids, doing laundry, and going to bed with her. I stopped chewing, but have started again. I enjoy it, and her opinion doesn’t count anymore. She would nit pick what I did in the morning with the kids, and complain about something every morning. She would get mad that I didn’t do the laundry exactly like she did. She would stay up long after I went to bed. None of it mattered. These were truly small things. The big thing was the rationalization hamster kept giving her more reasons to leave. It had found another man that would replace me, if only she could get rid of me. Ha, the joke is on her. That man ran away before they ever were able to get together, because she left me. He didn’t mind being the side guy, but a boyfriend for a middle aged woman with 4 kids, yea right. I had beat myself up over not doing these simple things. Of course these were the few things she did around the house. I did most of the cleaning, and all of the repairs and outside work. I also did most of the cooking. I mean actual cooking, where ingredients are bought and combined to make food, not just heated up to eat. She was fairly worthless.

Why do I reflect on this? What purpose does it serve? Well I spent a lot of time beating myself up for these things. I had to realize that none of it mattered. Once she opened Pandora’s Box by using the word divorce, there is no way to put it away. Game over. Anything she did from there on out was rationalizing her decision. The first time that word was used, was years before she said she wanted a divorce. Capitulating to her demands makes me weak. Not meeting her demands justifies her decision. Either way I lose. What it demonstrates is that she has no idea what love and marriage is all about. Its not about her. It should have been about me to her, and her to me. Self sacrifice for the betterment of your partner. That’s the deal in marriage, and the trust comes from seeing your partner do this for you. Its not hard to sacrifice for someone who is sacrificing for you. You don’t have to worry about your benefit, because your partner is. Sadly this is not what marriage was for me. I have seen it. My parents practiced it, and when they didn’t do it together, one was doing it for the other. It always came back around over the years to the other one. They were never worried about the fairness of the deal, or gaining advantage over each other. If your wife talks about divorce even in passing, prepare for divorce. Its only a matter of time. She is beginning to let that hamster run.

Ten-Foured,

JeD