the road goes ever on and on...

[Zues126]

Thanks for the post painter! Are you living in MN now?

I understand what you're saying about financial settlements. I think the difference is that a business endeavor is 100% financial, whereas marriage is not.

Right or wrong, marriage has often played out as a socially accepted form of prostitution, in which a man wants a partner to meet his sexual needs, and a woman wants a man to provide for her so she can raise children. This is biological and has played out this way historically. Whether that is 'right' or still entirely accurate is open for debate.

My point is if that is the deal that men and women are making, there is a big difference post marriage. Men are expected to provide for women's financial needs, but women no longer have to consider men's physical needs. Chris Rock did a bit about this as well. He talks about the judge ordering a man to pay alimony for years because a woman became accustomed to a certain lifestyle. He joked about how it would sound if the judge decreed that he should be able to stop by his XW's place 3 times a week because he became accustomed to frequent sex.

This is just a joke, of course. But i don't think it's as simple as saying 'you were a team so you should both get half of everything', because money was only one dimension of the deal which was made, and is why I believe women are the majority of divorce seekers; they can get some of what they wanted post D (in terms of financial support), men can't.

In the end I know that men and women will feel differently on this topic, and even within the genders there will be a wide spectrum of opinion. And of course every situation is different, and I realize there are men getting maintenance, and all kinds of exceptions to these generalizations. I am not trying to pick a fight, just pointing out it is complicated. And the fact that the majority of D's are filed by women doesn't change the fact that millions of men are walking away and these boards are full of wonderful women like yourself that are now picking up the pieces of their lives. In the end no one wins in a divorce.

As for the bit about there being positives with the elevated standards required to maintain a relationship...I have thought of this too, and I am mixed. Obviously I am grateful that women aren't trapped in abusive relationships because of financial dependence. And I've tried to twist my perspective to look at it as a good thing, that the entitled attitudes force us to grow and step up our games, so the marriages that do survive are higher quality. But does that help us if they don't last at all? Somewhere between people being trapped and forced to endure abuse, and the institution of marriage ending as we know it while people jump from fling to fling protecting their individual freedom, is there a middle way? I'm not sure that we'll find it on this Earth, maybe a few individuals will, but as a society I think that a happy marriage as we conceive it is a unicorn that we all chase. I don't think there has ever been a culture in which happy marriages as we would define them exist in any real quantity, and the fact that we think we're so special they just HAVE to because we WANT one doesn't change that fact.

So again, my cynicism regarding what marriage is all about, why it doesn't work, and what a raw deal it is, all lead me to saying 'good luck y'all!'. This could come off as negative, but for me it feels like accepting reality, adjusting my expectations to what the world offers, and being appreciative for what I have instead of resentful God didn't make the world the way I wanted it.

PS- Painter, I'm following your thread too. Congrats on the job, and keep hanging in!