Divorce and the inevitable Male Crash-Burn

[joko104]

One lawyer can't honestly represent two people with opposing interests. When one lawyer handles a divorce, he will actually represent the person who is paying him, which is usually the man.

The majority of divorces are filed by wives.

 

[joko104]

What I mean by "walk away clean", is that the guys were willing to just break up and walk away without making it into a fight. It has been my experience that when a man and women break up, usually the woman makes it an ugly breakup, not the guy. Theoretically, if you are getting a divorce, you should both use the same lawyer, and split the holdings fairly. Make it simple and inexpensive. However, the typical divorce lawyer will crank up the animosity to start a fight. This prolongs the divorce and ups his fees. And due to the greater emotional nature of women, they are more prone to fall for this trap, at least IMHO.

I have heard lawyers who handle divorce cases justify dragging it out for child custody fights claiming sometimes the only way to stop it is to financially starve them out with legal fees - or at least one of them. Thus they see running up their billing as a good thing of its own right. Keep asking for hearings, more discovery, more motions, more interviews, more mediation fees and costs... until at least one of them can't afford the fight anymore or otherwise gives up. Usually this will be to push it in the direction the court appointed psychologist recommends for the children. Going up against that is going up against a tidal wave, and most of those are women tending to be more sympathetic to women claiming "psychological abuse" and that he is an abusive "control freak." That is almost standard pleading language in divorces involving children - claiming he is verbally and emotionally abusive. However, men sometimes do win custody and for older children, particularly teens, the teenager's opinion weighs heavily and often decisively. Not all women want the children.

 

[calamity]

Another crash-burn I know of has even more drama. This one occurred about 5 years ago, give or take.

Same deal as the original. Guy likes to drink. This one liked to hit the bars until all sorts of hours. Some nights he'd close them, other nights he'd head out early. But, he never got home before 7PM.

Ten years ago, I sat there with him on plenty of occasions that covered both ends of the spectrum. However, once I settled down, I quit being his bar buddy unless I needed to score some drugs (long story). Anyway, one night he tells me about his situation.

Turns out, the wife got tired of his crap and found a boyfriend. I'm like, "Damn....that sucks." He shrugs it off, mumbles something about her not ****ing him for years anymore anyway. My eyes grow wider. "TMI, Broh, but tell me more."

In the end, they worked out a deal. He'd quit hitting the bars, and she'd drop the boyfriend. The dude could not hold up his end of the bargain, though, falling off the wagon within a week. I heard they finally divorced. Then, he lost his job. He found a new job and landed a cute girlfriend. I saw her. She was definitely hot. But, the job was short-lived and the gf kicked him out...she kept catching him at the bar. From what I gather this pattern continued with other jobs and girlfriends.

I shake my head.

Come to think of it, this all happened a lot longer ago than five years. I'd say add at least five to ten years to the timeframe mentioned above because all this happened long before I came to DP, which was in 2013. Man, time flies.

 

[joko104]

I suspect both crash and burn to some degree in a divorce. Rarely is the grass really greener on the other side.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

I see it all the time. Female leaves man; man falls apart, resorts to heavy drinking, loses job, loses home, gets arrested or worse--shoots to kill the partner who left him and takes own life. It almost never fails. The only remedy for the inevitable Male Crash-Burn is the good fortune of finding a new woman with the strength to keep him on the straight and narrow.

Now, is this CB condition a 100%? Well, I am sure there are exceptions to prove the rule. However, for the most part, show me a dude whose life fell apart, and I'll say, "He just got divorced, didn't he?"

Thoughts?

Sometimes it's the chicken, sometimes it's the egg.
I married a beautiful and intelligent lady who worked as a screenwriter, business manager and associate producer, and she was previously married to a powerful Hollywood producer whose career arc dwarfs my own by a country mile, and yet she shared her connections with me for my benefit.
Being that I was so infatuated with her I chose to downplay a couple of her serious personality flaws, like the fact that she was a (functional) alcoholic and a coke addict.
And sure enough, in due time, not only did I make disastrous personal choices that led to me becoming a coke fiend, but her own functionally went down the tubes as time marched on.
We both pitched our lives down that rabbit hole.
I made the decision to seek help, which didn't sit well with her, and then the 1994 Northridge Earthquake wiped out my business.
And a couple of months later I (newly sober) returned home from work to find the house empty of any sign of her.

In MY case, first my life fell apart, and THEN my wife left me.

Can that be called kicking a man when he's down?
I suppose it could but I am not purely the victim here.
Some of the factors leading to her walking out were things I am responsible for.
So I can't pretend to be the victim and blame all of it on her, it would be dishonest.

My own tragedy resolved itself because I put in the work to fix my life, so my "tragedy" ended and I managed to survive and return to normalcy, or something like it.
Her tragedy is that she never quite managed to get away from the drugs, and she died under some pretty horrific circumstances about five years ago from an overdose.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

if we examine our bad relationships, we will see (usually) every red flag was there from day one.

Guilty as charged!
I knew my first wife was a coke fiend and an alcoholic the first time I went to her apartment.
I made the foolish mistakes of (A) thinking with the little head instead of the big head and (B) thinking she could just somehow "manage" her use, which of course was an illusion.

In retrospect, she did some incredible and marvelous things for me, kindnesses I could never fully repay.
But it didn't change the fact that it would have been better for the both of us had I just "dated" her and not moved in, and not married her.
But the fact is, not only did we date, she asked me to move in with her less than two weeks after our first date and I accepted, and then four years later we married.

There were so called red flags everywhere by then but I continued to ignore them, until nothing could be ignored any longer.
At first my friends and family joked "She's crazy....but in a good way!" but after a couple of years the "in a good way" appendix fell by the wayside, and some of my better friends simply said in sotto voce:
"She's crazy" ----- PERIOD.

And I didn't listen.

 

[calamity]

Sometimes it's the chicken, sometimes it's the egg.
...

Oh yeah. I'm far from innocent in this mix of messes I write about. After all, I was good friends with both crash-burners for years, decades even. But, I always managed to pull back, pull-back far enough to save the marriage, keep the job, stay out of legal problems, avoid the addiction issues, you name it. Calamity always had a good sense of where the line was drawn, and he clung to mountain-sized rocks to keep from being dragged across it.

Nonetheless, there is a proverbial rule in the jungle. Once you crap in the Wheaties, you're never getting the stench out of the bowl. So in the end, as a result of bad decisions, marriages were ruined, career opportunities squandered, court cases fought, and more than one trip to AA and/or drug counseling experienced, if for no other reason than to ensure that if by chance I lost the court case my bases were covered.

I guess what I am trying to explore in this thread is the willful actions that exceed all boundaries. If the wife says, "quit the drinking and I'll quit the boyfriend," as was mentioned in post 28, I'm putting the bottle down without question. If I sense that, due to my behavior, my paycheck is about to evaporate, I change that behavior. If I get stopped for DUI and manage to luck-out due to good lawyering on my part or bad policing on theirs, I'll be damned if I head out to drink and drive as I celebrate the acquittal. If I find myself wanting to get high or drunk the minute I get out of bed, I'd probably camp out in the office of one of those drug counselors and sign right up for his twelve steps.

 

[Lursa]

Some of it is due to the inequity of divorce court. Then some is due to women being better at backstabbing their partners.

I've seen quite a few divorces in my time. In almost every one, it was the wife who turned it nasty. The guy was willing to walk away clean, the woman wanted to hurt the guy. And due to the laws of divorce court, they can.

Which one cheated? Or why did they split? That usually explains a lot.

 

[Lursa]

What I mean by "walk away clean", is that the guys were willing to just break up and walk away without making it into a fight. It has been my experience that when a man and women break up, usually the woman makes it an ugly breakup, not the guy. Theoretically, if you are getting a divorce, you should both use the same lawyer, and split the holdings fairly. Make it simple and inexpensive. However, the typical divorce lawyer will crank up the animosity to start a fight. This prolongs the divorce and ups his fees. And due to the greater emotional nature of women, they are more prone to fall for this trap, at least IMHO.

Both can get emotional. Again, it depends on who and why they're divorcing. If he cheated, why shouldnt she be upset? And same for the guy and I'm willing to bet that if she was cheating, he'd be just as upset.

If one or the other was a drunk, addict, asshole, manipulative, abusive, etc etc etc...and the other had had it...again...being emotional is a justifiable reaction...for either.

 

[AmNat]

I have heard lawyers who handle divorce cases justify dragging it out for child custody fights claiming sometimes the only way to stop it is to financially starve them out with legal fees - or at least one of them. Thus they see running up their billing as a good thing of its own right. Keep asking for hearings, more discovery, more motions, more interviews, more mediation fees and costs... until at least one of them can't afford the fight anymore or otherwise gives up. Usually this will be to push it in the direction the court appointed psychologist recommends for the children. Going up against that is going up against a tidal wave, and most of those are women tending to be more sympathetic to women claiming "psychological abuse" and that he is an abusive "control freak." That is almost standard pleading language in divorces involving children - claiming he is verbally and emotionally abusive. However, men sometimes do win custody and for older children, particularly teens, the teenager's opinion weighs heavily and often decisively. Not all women want the children.

In a country plagued by malignant racket institutions, family courts are among the worst. While not unique in existing primarily for the benefit of their bureaucrats, they are unique in the degree of harm they inflict in the process.

 

[reflechissez]

What I mean by "walk away clean", is that the guys were willing to just break up and walk away without making it into a fight. It has been my experience that when a man and women break up, usually the woman makes it an ugly breakup, not the guy. Theoretically, if you are getting a divorce, you should both use the same lawyer, and split the holdings fairly. Make it simple and inexpensive. However, the typical divorce lawyer will crank up the animosity to start a fight. This prolongs the divorce and ups his fees. And due to the greater emotional nature of women, they are more prone to fall for this trap, at least IMHO.

Nope. And "fairly" is in the eye of the beholder. As to the rest of your post: opinion noted.

 

[calamity]

In a country plagued by malignant racket institutions, family courts are among the worst. While not unique in existing primarily for the benefit of their bureaucrats, they are unique in the degree of harm they inflict in the process.

I imagine the judge says pretty much the same thing about the idiots standing in front of her.

 

[reflechissez]

I have heard lawyers who handle divorce cases justify dragging it out for child custody fights claiming sometimes the only way to stop it is to financially starve them out with legal fees - or at least one of them. Thus they see running up their billing as a good thing of its own right. Keep asking for hearings, more discovery, more motions, more interviews, more mediation fees and costs... until at least one of them can't afford the fight anymore or otherwise gives up. Usually this will be to push it in the direction the court appointed psychologist recommends for the children. Going up against that is going up against a tidal wave, and most of those are women tending to be more sympathetic to women claiming "psychological abuse" and that he is an abusive "control freak." That is almost standard pleading language in divorces involving children - claiming he is verbally and emotionally abusive. However, men sometimes do win custody and for older children, particularly teens, the teenager's opinion weighs heavily and often decisively. Not all women want the children.

Where are you getting nonsense this from?

 

[AmNat]

I imagine the judge says pretty much the same thing about the idiots standing in front of her.

I'd assume they say all sorts of things to justify their dishonorable profession.

 

[calamity]

I'd assume they say all sorts of things to justify their dishonorable profession.

I've had good luck in court. Shame you can't say the same. May I suggest hiring better lawyers.

 

[rocket88]

I've been to several divorce courts. The equity there was fine. Of course, you gotta outsmart the opposition.

My take on your post is that the dudes failed to use their noggin. Have you never heard of making an offer she cannot refuse? It works great.

I extricated myself from a toothache by making the deal too palatable to turn down, even though the opposition was hellbent on dragging it out. Throwing some cash on the table solves a lot of problems. Few people turn away from money they can immediately have in hand.

Sorry no. They ought to put up a sign at divorce court "Abandon all hope if you have a penis."

After my divorce, I hardly ever saw my kids. Bitch turned them on me, convinced them that I was abusive.

I did fall apart. My depression had played a role in the ending, and definitely since. Spent a week in the psych ward and started smoking again. It improved, but I miss those kids. They are technically adults now, so....not much I can do.

 

[justabubba]

I see it all the time. Female leaves man; man falls apart, resorts to heavy drinking, loses job, loses home, gets arrested or worse--shoots to kill the partner who left him and takes own life. It almost never fails. The only remedy for the inevitable Male Crash-Burn is the good fortune of finding a new woman with the strength to keep him on the straight and narrow.

Now, is this CB condition a 100%? Well, I am sure there are exceptions to prove the rule. However, for the most part, show me a dude whose life fell apart, and I'll say, "He just got divorced, didn't he?"

Thoughts?

thoughts? yea
no sympathy/empathy for the self-interested loser
will save that for the victims of the crazy person's insane behavior

but my concern is more heavily invested in parents who have shown the state that because of their abuse/neglect they do not deserve to remain in custody of the child(ren)
when the kids become wards of the state, that trauma usually follows them for their lifetimes
it manifests in often dark ways
now, those are true victims. young, succeptible kids, who did nothing to deserve their circumstance
however, because the state now has legal custody of the children, therapeutic services do become available to those parents. they are given state funded help to learn how to become responsible parents. the very minimum that they must do to show the court they are able to provide a stable, safe environment for their kids has been delineated for them
the road map to recovering their kids has been drawn and help to get to that achievable destination has been provided
and yet many refuse to make the effort to modify their behavior to regain custody of their children, while simultaneously telling the court and the service providers that they truly want their kids back. and they are to be believed; because emotionally, they DO want their kids back. but they do not want that enough to modify their behavior
and all too often, the kids lose, too. besides losing contact with their family they are most likely going to be again displaced into an environment that nominally meets the state's expectations. while the state has standards, they are not very high. high standards cost money the state cannot/will not provide
then when these children reach the age of emancipation they are left to make it on their own with little ongoing support
so calamity, i do find it unfortunate for the victims of those adults who can't get it together. but for the asshole who feels justified in victimizing others only because his life has become hard because he is an asshole. (s)he gets no sympathy from me. i'm saving that for the kids described above

 

[ecofarm]

So the purpose of this thread is to point out it's always the man's fault. How pathetic. I see a lot of people that seem to have issues from their own experience.

What a childish wanna-be-victim reaction.

 

[justabubba]

In a country plagued by malignant racket institutions, family courts are among the worst. While not unique in existing primarily for the benefit of their bureaucrats, they are unique in the degree of harm they inflict in the process.

[emphasis added by bubba]

horse shit !!

what bureaucrats benefit from the actions they take in family court?

as to the harm they inflict, how can the justice system not dissatisfy one party in each family court dispute?*
had the family not failed, the need to address that family's issue in court would not be found necessary

* from your post, it would not surprise me to learn that you are someone who lost their case in a family court issue

 

[noonereal]

Excellent point.

The person I have in mind for the latest report on a male crash-burn was given an ultimatum a year ago. "Quit drinking, or I'm gone."

He obviously chose option "B."

Good choice!

 

[ecofarm]

Exactly...prime example...my previous husband...his drinking got worse and worse, until I said enough is enough...we were separated a year, ready to sign the final papers when he died right beforehand of a heart attack...

A likely story.

 

[noonereal]

One lawyer can't honestly represent two people with opposing interests.

Of course not, there would not be enough work for them.

 

[noonereal]

you should both use the same lawyer, and split the holdings fairly. Make it simple and inexpensive.

LOL

It is few and very far between that can work a split up on their own.

Even people that are fair are fair to themselves, first second and 3rd.

Humans, a failed species.

 

[Daisy]

A likely story.

No story, it's the truth...he was only 44 when he died and I was 41...I had a 9 year old and 6 year old to think of, so I told him to either quit drinking or leave...he left...

 

[Mongidig]

I was thinking about getting back into the dating now that the Pandemic is over(sort of). I think I'll wait until after the next pandemic when things calm down.