- Kathleen is attractive, successful, witty, and educated.
She also can't find a husband. Why? Because most of the men this thirty-something
software analyst dates do not want to get married. These men have Peter
Pan Syndrome--they refuse to commit, refuse to settle down, and refuse
to "grow up."
-
- However, given the family court policies and divorce
trends of today, Peter Pan is no naive boy, but instead a wise man.
-
- "Why should I get married and have kids when I could
lose those kids and most of what I've worked for at a moment's notice?"
asks Dan, a 31 year-old power plant technician who says he will never marry.
"I've seen it happen to many of my friends. I know guys who came home
one day to an empty house or apartment--wife gone, kids gone. They never
saw it coming. Some of them were never able to see their kids regularly
again."
-
- The US marriage rate has dipped 40% over the past four
decades, to its lowest point ever. There are many plausible explanations
for this trend, but one of the least mentioned is that American men, in
the face of a family court system which is hopelessly stacked against them,
have subconsciously launched a "marriage strike."
-
- It is not difficult to see why. Let's say that Dan defies
Peter Pan, marries Kathleen, and has two children. There is a 50% likelihood
that this marriage will end in divorce within eight years, and if it does
the odds are two to one that it will be Kathleen, not Dan, who initiates
the divorce. It may not matter that Dan was a decent husband--studies show
that few divorces are initiated over abuse or because the man has already
abandoned the family. Nor is adultery cited as a factor by divorcing women
appreciably more than by divorcing men.
-
- While the courts may grant Dan and Kathleen joint legal
custody, the odds are overwhelming that it is Kathleen, not Dan, who will
win physical custody. Over night Dan, accustomed to seeing his kids every
day and being an integral part of their lives, will become a "14 percent
dad"--a father who is allowed to spend only one out of every 7 days
with his own children.
-
- Once divorced, odds are at least even that Dan's ex-wife
will interfere with his visitation rights. Three-quarters of divorced men
surveyed say their ex-wives have interfered with their visitation, and
40% of mothers studied admitted that they had done so, and that they had
generally acted out of spite or in order to punish their exes.
-
- Kathleen will keep the house and most of the couple's
assets. Dan will need to set up a new residence and pay at least a third
of his take home pay to Kathleen in child support.
-
- As bad as all of this is, it would still make Dan one
of the lucky ones. After all, he could be one of those fathers who cannot
see his children at all because his ex has made a false accusation of domestic
violence, child abuse, or child molestation. Or a father who can only see
his own children under supervised visitation or in nightmarish visitation
centers where dads are treated like criminals.
-
- He could be one of those fathers whose ex has moved their
children hundreds or thousands of miles away, in violation of court orders
which courts often do not enforce. He could be one of those fathers who
tears up his life and career again and again in order to follow his children,
only to have his ex-wife continually move them.
-
- He could be one of the fathers who has lost his job,
seen his income drop, or suffered a disabling injury, only to have child
support arrearages and interest pile up to create a mountain of debt which
he could never hope to pay off. Or a father who is forced to pay 70% or
80% of his income in child support because the court has imputed an unrealistic
income to him. Or a dad who suffers from one of the child support enforcement
system's endless and difficult to correct errors, or who is jailed because
he cannot keep up with his payments. Or a dad who reaches old age impoverished
because he lost everything he had in a divorce when he was middle-aged
and did not have the time and the opportunity to earn it back.
-
- "It's a shame," Dan says. "I always wanted
to be a father and have a family. But unless the laws change and give fathers
the same right to be a part of their children's lives as mothers have,
it just isn't worth the risk." ___
-
- This column first appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer
on 7-5-02 http://www.glennsacks.com/have_antifather_family.htm
-
-
-
-
- Comment
-
- From Patricia Springmeier
7-12-2
-
- It was refreshing to see the truth written in plain English
by Glenn Sacks and Dianna Thompson in their article about what happens
to men in this nation. While their article was a breath of fresh air, it
was also hard to hold back the tears because I began living the nightmare
they write about nearly 25 years ago.
-
- Without any warning of the impending destruction of my
whole life, I came home one normal day to find my family gone, and two
out of the three cars gone. For two weeks I didn't know if someone had
murdered my family or what.
-
- The police didn't even care. It turns out I got to join
the ranks of millions of good fathers who have their lives totally destroyed
in every way by the way the system treats fathers in divorce. For my birthday,
my sister said she was afraid to give me anything, because the system had
taken everything from me and was wanting more. She gave me underwear as
a gift, it was the only thing she could think of that they wouldn't take.
-
- People, who have not experienced the nightmare, often
do not have a clue as to how millions of good men are being destroyed by
our divorce courts. Men who had created productive companies go down the
tubes and are forced into criminal activity to try to satisfy the greed
of the system. People wonder how ordinary Germans could have ignored what
happened around them in WW II, but we have done the same thing. After 25
years, it was refreshing to see the plain sad-but-true truth at last.
-
- My big dream growing up was to be a good father and have
a family. I wanted to be a family man. For years I planned and prepared
for being a father. Today, I would not recommend marriage created by the
system to anyone. If you want to marry, do it before God, and leave our
tyrannical government out of it.
-
- Thanks also go to Jeff Rense for having a site where
the truth can be told.
-
-
- Sincerely,
-
- Fritz Springmeier
Author,
Oregon
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