leave. Period. Poor "emasculated" men who are "forced" to cheat. (What does that even mean? You don't talk of taking away a woman's power as a woman, but somehow women take away Men's Power all the time.) Here's a little tip: divorce exists for those who can't keep their promises. Blame the woman, though. God, I really hate people who put out this kind of crap.

I never fault anyone for wishing to have multiple partners. A-OK with me, but if one is married or even in a commited relationship they should, at a minimum, have the decency to be honest about it BEFORE committing any sexual acts with others.

To deceive someone on this level is the sign of a selfish coward.

Know what kind of bird doesn't lay eggs? A swallow.....

az

Did you see that the bitchy wife in question is now also accused of cheating? Of course, women never offer excuses for their transgressions right? "My husband doesn't give me the attention I deserve", blah, blah, blah. There is no difference whatsoever.

God, I really hate hypocrits.

Good morning doctor, ,,,No group wants to lose power, and for 40 years the feminists have fought long and hard to impose their extremist ideas on the rest of us, and have been very successful..Feminist will say, what is extreme about getting paid for doing the same job? Nothing is, and that should never have been a problem, however, the studies and reports I have read, are so twisted and only supply part of the equation, and always support their bias. I find it absolutely amazing that the group to hate now, and hate is exactly what it is, is directed at a minority as though all white males are rich, old , powerful and bigots..Its the same bullshit other hate groups say..I firmly and believe ALL people should be treated the same..Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, male,. female. Judge INDIVIDUALS on their merit, not GROUPS. Males are now foregoing marriage more than anytime in this country's history..Many have been raised in divorced homes, I wonder if perhaps they see what happens to the fathers in this case, and understand what a huge risk they take in marriage, much more than females,,No, at this point in time, marriage is a bad contract for men, not so for females , who initiate it 75% of the time..

thanks for the reply logic

It seems obvious that, at this point, everyone should be treated equally, but the gender debate is framed solely by women and is so biased as to be ridiculous.

Divorce laws will undoubtedly change when enough parasitic men get alimony and child support that the unfairness of the current laws will become "obvious" to women.

For the record, I'm happily married to my "first" wife...not planning on having any more.

Its changing now, but any social change happens at a snails pace, and one group or another always suffer,,Marriage, when entered into by sane, people willing to give 100% each, is a mind boggling, beautiful partership..And for those who think my opion on marriage now, is because I am divorced or bitter because I got screwed in a marriage, that simply is incorrect, I am not divorced, I am widowed..And would give anything to have her back..We were a team, I walked beside her, not in front or behind, and would change places with her now, not because i want to die, but because i would give my life for hers. I believe you and your wife will raise beautiful and intelligent daughters, who will understand our positions..I wish the best for you and yours....

thanks for the reply...sorry about your wife

Males are now foregoing marriage more than anytime in this country's history..Many have been raised in divorced homes, I wonder if perhaps they see what happens to the fathers in this case, and understand what a huge risk they take in marriage, much more than females,,No, at this point in time, marriage is a bad contract for men, not so for females , who initiate it 75% of the time..

I'm a little confused. So women initiate marriage 75% of the time? Are women marrying other women then? In droves, I mean - thereby far exceeding all of the marriage contracts between men and women and between gay men?

Also I'd always understood drops in the marriage rate to be tied to the economy. Most people would say that the economy is as bad as its been in many, many decades. And mind you, I have only my anecdotal evidence to go by, but in my experience, men are marriage happy.

So what does happen to fathers, and how would you change things?

Not sure about 75%, but I would opine that women usually are the ones driving the marriage train. Not all the time, but a majority of the time. I say that based (like you IWonder) purely on anectodal observation, looking at friends and family over the years.

Now what I do know is that around 70% of divorces are initiated by women. That does come from a scientific study (although one that is now about 7 years old FWIW).

Not saying any of it is good/bad, just interesting. The institution of marriage, despite feminist theory that it is an institution of patriarchy to keep women down, seems to be desired, talked about (sometimes incessently at a certain age), and controlled by women in a majority of cases.

I think marriage is down amongst men (assuming it is) for a number of reasons.

• First, the expectation (from the community, church, family, etc...) that a man get married simply isn't there like it used to be.
• Second, before widespread birth control and the rise of sexual promiscuity (or freedom, whatever) marriage was the most reliable way to sexual relations. Crass? Maybe, but for men this is very important. Cow/Milk/Free/etc...
• Third, men and women delay most major life decisions now more than in the past, not just marriage but child birth, moving out on their own, etc...
• Fourth, marriage as an institution has been the butt of pop culture for close to 40 years now. The message is that the best you can expect from marriage is a life of sexless docile boredom. More likely is betrayal, divorce, horrible children, etc... In contrast the single life is portrayed as endlessly fascinating, exciting, and rewarding (unless you end up on CSI or something). These messages impact human behavior. If you don't believe it, ask advertisers.

Random thoughts.

that's a good start dude

It's pretty clear that women don't do 75% of the asking, but they do at least that percentage of harassing, threatening, cajoling their partners to ask. Do you really doubt this Iwonder?

Marriage is a contract for which the rules have changed. Simplistically, historically men brought home the bacon and women cooked it and fed it to the children that they also raised. Right? Everyone agree with that? Many feminists like to paint this as abusive and evil, but in fact this model works very well for many couples, and young women are embracing this concept in greater numbers than have in a couple of decades, much to the annoyance of their older feminist sisters (there are many Slate articles on the subject). The feminist movement, for all it's early importance and worth, has simply swung the pendulum way too far in the opposite direction, and has created an environment where men are portrayed as bumbling, moronic pigs. Many women have embraced this. Kate Gosselin or whatever her name is, is the prototypical modern American/Western wife; the exact sort that would drive men to shun marriage in droves. No one has mentioned the burgeoning mixed marriage rate in this country; white men marrying asian and hispanic women in increasing numbers. The Gosselin's of the world like to portray these women as "docile", which is laughable in my experience (living in Southern California at least 75% of the couples we know are mixed). Rather, these women are often just not so poisoned by the more extreme feminist dogma.

I hate overly long posts, but there are other issues. Entirely bogus "research" in the 90s suggested that the standard of living for women plummeted after divorce, while that for men improved. This was swallowed whole by the press and judicial system, and the rules governing alimony and child support in place today are there principally because of it. Later studies thoroughly refuted this claim. When someone like Madonna or Elizabeth Taylor gets saddled with ridiculous alimony requirements many women seem to realize that the rules are unfair, but they are mystified when men complain about divorce law. Child custody outcomes are also wildly skewed to the point that it seems a woman has to be a convicted murderer not to be given custody.

It's not one thing, but a collection that would make any man, particularly a successful one, think long and hard about marriage. Iwonder, I have obviously used gross generalizations and my own experience is nothing like this. But to be bewildered at "what happens to men" in divorce seems unconvincingly naive.

Dude! Good random thoughts, and you deserve a thoughtful reply. Unfortunately I am really, really busy at work right now and going on call for two weeks starting tomorrow, which means it's not likely to get better any time soon so let me just throw out the following:

If 70% of divorces are initiated by women, I have to question whether women are as fond of marriage as anecdotal evidence would have it. Of course, men could just be determined to make women unhappy in droves so that they can be freed of those oh so onerous marital bonds without expending any serious effort, but then why get married in the first place? I have to think that most men don't go into marriage thinking that they will drive their wives into divorce court when the marriage becomes a drag, but it takes two people to get married and only one to file for divorce. The numbers kind of suggest that men generally like being married better than women do.

And I've got to come back to my previous point, which is that unless all these marriage happy women are marrying each other, I am thinking that the desire to marry is about proportional. And again, going back to my anecdotal evidence, I've met a lot of marriage happy men so it would seem to me that the truth doesn't quite follow the stereotype - at least not when taken in broad strokes. I know I'm quibbling with this last point, but Logic threw down the gauntlet with a rather vitriolic and not at all logical post, and people are acting like he is dealing in fact when, as far as I can tell, he is just having a fit.

Iwonder, I have obviously used gross generalizations and my own experience is nothing like this. But to be bewildered at "what happens to men" in divorce seems unconvincingly naive.

kuru, you also deserve a better reply than I can give so I'll need to come back to this later, but let me suggest that divorce is horrible for everybody involved. To state that it is only horrible for men seems ridiculously biased.

Now I know that you may have read that I never shed one tear over my divorce, and that's true. But I shed so many over my marriage that, by the time I left, I was done crying. There was nothing left to cry about. But that was MY marriage and MY divorce, and I would guess that there's a wide range of experiences with both marriage and divorce.

Still I've seen many good marriages, but never a good divorce. The best you can do after a divorce is take care of your children if you have them and move on as quickly as you can. That's what I did, but it wasn't easy getting there, and the best that I could say once I'd gotten there was that all of us were much, much better off, which isn't the same as saying that we had something to celebrate.

Regarding the statistics about how men and women fare financially following a divorce, I've read that women are typically much worse off than men are initially, but women generally do much better one year out, while men stay about the same. That only stands to reason, though, when taken together with statistics on income disparities between men and women, given that men and women earn about the same when all variables are considered save one - married men far outstrip married women in earnings. It stands to reason then, when those formerly married women have to support themselves, they overcome the disparity, but there is a cost involved.

Just think about what I've posted, though. Please don't reply yet because I don't have a lot of time to reply right now and would not do any reply you could give justice, and there is still a lot I could say about what you've already posted.

kuru:

It is apparent you are using opinion and anedotal information to sway the masses here. Lets start here:

"Simplistically, historically men brought home the bacon and women cooked it and fed it to the children that they also raised."

Since about the seventies, the entry into the job market by women increased the the income of families while the income of men decreased or stagnated. One of the biggest problems we have today is "The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class" (Warren) resulting from increased costs and expenses wihout a parallel increse in income. The paradigm of men bringing home the bacon to the family decreased substantially since the seventies. "Simplistically" your opinion is out of date and biased.

"Entirely bogus "research" in the 90s suggested that the standard of living for women plummeted after divorce, while that for men improved. This was swallowed whole by the press and judicial system"

It is no mistake that 99% of the families living in poverty have heads of households that are women ("The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class," US Census). The very same study (Warren) does not cite men heads of household statistics as the numbers (not the families) are insignificant. While it points to a larger issue of inequities amongst people and families, the numbers certainly cause your statement to appear questionable. I don't believe women have caught up in income parity either.

"It's pretty clear that women don't do 75% of the asking but they do at least that percentage of harassing, threatening, cajoling their partners to ask. Do you really doubt this Iwonder?"

A study by the US Department of Health and Services, May 2006, did a study on marriage, men and women, and sex called "Fertility, Fatherhood, and Contraception." In this lengthy study, this question was asked:

"'It is better to get married than go through life single,' 66% of men agreed, compared with 51% of women.'"

By tradition it may still be that men do the asking; but, it appears that women are not convinced anymore that marriage is the only way out. It appaears that men are now the leaders in viwing marriage as a positive over women. I suspect women have found alternatives to marriage in the western world while marriage in other parts of the world is still beneficial given societal standards.

I believe your views are somewhat outdated and quite frankly silly.

run:

you seem to be arguing just for the sake of it.

Does the word historically mean only going back to the 70s? I never heard that before. There is just tons of history you are missing...Romans, the Spanish Inquisition...heck, there were even a couple of world wars in the last century.

99% figure - well there are far more households headed by single mothers right? so it stands to reason that far more of the one parent households in poverty would be headed by women. I'll bet that of all the Toyota Corollas driven by parents in single parent households, 99% are driven in household headed by women. The statistic doesn't prove your point at all.

The survey - I think women have been brainwashed by ridiculous feminists into thinking they are not supposed to say they want to get married regardless of what they actually think - this is seen as a sign of weakness, that somehow it means you need a man. In this context women are far more likely to answer the question about marriage negatively. That stat still doesn't refute my assertion regarding who cajoles who to get married in any case.