On Sunday in Church I had one of those deja vu moments. I looked at the end of the pew in front of me and there was a young woman who looked pretty much like my wife did when I first met her, including the casual formal style of dress she used at that time. After thinking about that and how things imploded (see below) I was woken this morning by the ex. She thought it was a work day, (April 2 ie Easter Tuesday is when my employer takes the provincial holiday) She was wanting to work out when the flights to bring son two back to Dunedin were. I’ve been thinking about how marriages end what your role is after that all day. Which is not that good for one’s mood.
So, while I am not nice I want to consider for a second what our current system of nuclear divorce is doing to our society. For divorce is damaging. Elusive Wapiti notes that it happens after holidays, like now. .
Apparently, after several near-sexless years of emotional turmoil and lots of arguing and fighting, he caught her in an affair with a physician from the office, an affair that thus far she has refused to stop. Consequently, they are well on their way to Splitsville, he a 42 yo father, emotionally devastated and financially stressed, she an attractive-for-her-years 39 yo mother who is likely happy to be rid of a fellow she doesn’t love anymore. In a pattern that many readers will readily recognize, conveniently, she’s still keeping his three middle school-aged boys, a nice 5 bedroom Colonial in the country, and a fat monthly chalimony check that, frankly, an entire family could live on in most areas of the country. All secured with an emergency ex parte TRO strategically obtained to forcibly separate a legally unimpeachable man from his children and his property–all on the mere word of a vested-interest adulteress.* This while his standard of living has taken a sharp turn for the worse in a tiny rental house in a far less tony, much more vibrant neighborhood. To my friends’ woes, I’ll add my own unhappy experience, for it was ten years ago in early February that my former wife, the woman I loved and implicitly trusted, my confidante and effectively my only close friend, absconded with my kids across the continent in a pre-emptive nuclear divorce strike.
I learned about the divorce via a phone call from her father. She didn’t have the sac or the decency to tell me herself. And for the next year, she busied herself regaling mutual friends, her family, the Archdiocese of Washington, and her attorney with fancifully horrific tales of psychological abuse, physical abuse, child abuse, and, or course, rape, at the hands of big, bad, old me.
This story is now a cliche. And it is one reason why I am very cautious about committing to any woman, including churchian women, because if you have done this before you can do it again. One divorce damaged my sons enough. I don’t want them to see a second one. EW, who wrote the post, has seven warning signs he and his friend ignored, which I will come back to … but consider for a second the consequences of this.
You see, men are not stupid. As Dalrock notes,
Through a combination of legal and social “reforms”, the US now has what appears on the surface to be a dual family structure but is in legal reality a single family structure organized around the concept of child support. Where in the past a woman needed to secure a formal promise from a man in the form of marriage before she could expect him to support her and the children she bore, in this new structure the law declares that any man she has children by are bound to support her and her children whether she marries or not, and whether or not she honors her own marriage vows.
While men were motivated under the old family structure, they absolutely detest the new child support system of family formation. Under the old system a man who married before fathering children could reasonably expect access to his children and the opportunity to direct their upbringing (in concert with his wife). Under the new system the children are de facto considered the property of the mother, whom the state compels him to pay so she can direct their upbringing generally as she sees fit. Since the new system has removed the incentive for men to work hard to provide for their families, it has to rely instead on threats of imprisonment to coerce men into earning “enough” income
Now, some numbers, on income.
- Aaron Clarey (Captain Capitalism) reckons he can live on under 20K US. In real money (Kiwi) that is around 30k. That is more than enough for a single person to live on in NZ, assuming you rent cheaply.
- If you are married, living in rural NZ (average house well under 200K, you can probably live on 60K if you budget well.
- If you are in one of our bigger cities, that is much more like 100K. If you want to live in a good school zone, double that.
Now, if I was not a solo father, I would not live in a three bedroom house. I would not live in a good school zone. And I would easily be able to support myself doing locum (relief work). FWIW, doing locums IS my retirement plan: move to a warmer province of NZ, have a reasonable car and a small house (preferably close to the kids) and then travel to remote parts in NZ for weeks at a time.
But that will lead to a decrease in my economic activity. Every man who goes his own way (also known as going Galt, enjoying the decline or the Cappy plan) moving from providing for kids drops your needed income from around 100K to a third of that. That’s a hell of lost tax revenue. And that is a lot less spending: you learn it is not the gear you have but the experiences you get that matter as you get older, and you stop using the mall to cover your unhappiness.
The consequence of this is simple. We are in a recession. And we do not have the money to pay our debt back, so we are confiscating the savings of the moderately well off, thus removing the trust of the average person in the banking or financial system.
It makes sense to batten down and keep things simple. If you are single, living frugally makes a huge amount of sense. If you are divorced, earning extra does not help you but your ex. There are no incentives to produce, but that of enjoying the act. It is completely unsurprising that we have PhDs making coffee in our ski fields and middle aged men working a few days a month to keep their hobbies going. People do respond to incentives. The fact that when the incentives change, this will not work is beyond them.
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Back to ES for a second. He has a list of seven reasons why his marriage and his friends failed. I’ve tabulated the mistakes he and his friend made: I made at least five of them. I hope this helps others avoid the death of their marriages.
| EW list | Pukeko’s comments. |
| that of being unequally yoked to one’s spouse. Both myself and my friend were nominal Protestants, Baptists actually, wedded to nominal Catholics. No problem, right? Both Christians, right? Well no, not really, for both faith traditions contain enough conflicting tenets–Luther didn’t nail his 99 theses to the Wittenburg Church door for nothing, | Presbyterian Pentecostal, baptized and confirmed (me) and Anglican, leading church (her). Did not know she was not baptized until YEARS later. |
| the woman you are seeking as a wife must, must, be accountable to something more authoritative than her rationalization hamster. And yes, I’m talking God here…for if she’s not accountable to God, and her hamster-gonads (e.g., “follows her heart”) and/or the State is the utmost authority in her life, run, not walk the other direction. | Both of us outliers here. |
| both of us married someone for whom we weren’t all that passionate. Both of us married a close female friend for whom we had affection, and thought at the time that was simply how it was done…the natural progression of things | I was very passionate. But there was inequality here. |
| neither my friend nor I really cherished our wives. Sure we loved them, and were committed to them, but we didn’t really value them as the priceless mates set apart for us by God | In the end, I… did not. His initial passion and value was abraded away. |
| both of us ignored warnings from disinterested third parties. Both of us had family and / or friends warn us off about the woman we were fixing to marry | Yes, I was warned. By her sister. |
| we both married talented and intelligent women who over-valued career and work…and who later resented both the career impact of children and a less-than-egalitarian division of childcare responsibilities subsequent to children. | In spades. |
| neither my friend nor I at the time followed the Biblical model of marriage, which for my secular readers roughly boils down to Athol Kay’s captain-first officer model, with God as the captain’s (and first officer’s one-degree-removed) Fleet Admiral. | We thought you you could have an equalitatrian marriage. We were wrong. |
Our society will either rediscover marriage and reform the rules of the family court, or it will fail. It;s that simple.
