Gonna Get Me A Mojo Hand

[AlexEN]

Hi FB2,

As the LBS and the primary wage earner, I feel and struggle with exactly the same anger that you were feeling when you wrote. My W is not being very aggressive in her walking away, but her opinions and beliefs about what a "fair" separation / divorce would be are frightening and make me angry.

...

This leaves the WAW with a house, salary to support her without having to work, unlimited time to spend with her kids, and someone to watch the kids for her on the weekends when she want's to go out with her new love life.

This leaves the LBS living and starting over, forced to work hard and live on half of his income, panicked of the prospects of layoffs, etc which could reduce his income, and only able to see his kids on the weekends or otherwise at the whim of WAW.

This is the panic, worst case scenario that FB2 was describing. I also understand his anger at the courts, because in defending the W's ability to leave a controlling or abusive M, they seem to set up the ability of a WAW to walk away with all the benefits and leave the LBH carrying the burden - in effect punishing the LBH when it is the WAW who refused to stay.

Thinker/FB2,

This is so true in my sitch, too; and, unfortunately, in my sitch, it'll be the next target for me...

Smiley,

Can you hum a few more bars on this one? We all know that you are a master at certain forms of DB-Compartmentalization, but I'm not following why -- conceptually, emotionally, psychologically -- divorce is the opposite of DB'ing and only about the $?

@fb2 and @Thinker -- I get that your sitch's are different. But (as WAW has been all-too-ready to point out) "divorce" is only about the money; divorce -- conceptually, emotionally, psychologically -- is about the flip-side of divorce-busting: You, your mental wherewithal, etc. So it has been useful for me to not confound the one with the other -- to firewall off the juridical from the emotional. Lawyers are for the former; this board is (among other things) for the latter (for me, anyway).

It's hard in FB2's, Thinker's and my shoes to have faith that the courts will do the right thing by us, too, because they are set up as Thinker says. That can't help but seep into the DB equation when it gives the WAS so much more power in the present. If one of the goals is to shift the power as you have been able to do, it makes the hurdle that much higher which, doesn't it?

-AlexEN