Lee said:
Meade:
“I lost half of my assets in the divorce…”
Therein lies the mindset, in either sex, that leads to 90% of divorces: Once married, under the law, your assets are no longer just yours; they become marital property. **Don’t want to share?** Don’t marry.
Try this: “I received half of the marital property in the divorce, along with owing half of the obligations.”
Oct 31, 2007 11:27 AM
Many men are questioning this long held cultural and societal value.
-Why should a woman get half of a man’s assets he had when they married?
Men and women are equal, she worked, he worked. So why does he pay Alimony and CPS?
-Why is a woman entitled to half of what a man earns during marriage?
How on earth is Heather Mills deserving of anything more that, say, £5mln?
-Why does a woman deserve to continue to live in the manner in which she has become accustomed to?
Does her ex-husband deserve to continue to have sex with her?
Does her ex-husband deserve to continue to have her cook, clean and garden?
Many Men are questioning these long held values, and find them to be unneccessary, unequal, sexist, unfair or just out of date.
Thanks for posting that, Lee. I understand Meade’s greater point in questioning my statement “I lost half of my assets in the divorce”, and I will say that it is difficult not to have that perspective once you have been divorced, regardless of how you felt during the marriage.
It is because of the accounting that is required during a divorce that this happens. And quite literally, in the case of my marriage, they truly were my assets, as I discovered when I was asked to prepare the petition for divorce:
I brought a house and investments into the marriage. My ex-wife brought student loan debt. I was the only one working throughout the marriage. We had no children. We shared the housework. Eventually I hired a cleaning service. We spent incredible sums of money and time on an idea for her own business. It didn’t work, and I was left to clean up the debts and the pieces after the divorce.
So quite honestly, it isn’t a question of “if you don’t want to share, then don’t get married.” I did share. I did support. I was glad to, up to the point where my ex-wife began endangering our finances to indulge her personal insecurities. Because she didn’t share. She didn’t support.
Read the remainder of my comment, and you’ll see that I will risk this type of loss again. I will share my assets again. The right person is the key. The right person will understand that these will become “our” assets in the marriage, and will treat them as such, and not as their personal means to self-actualization at the cost of the marriage.
To another comment, it is very possible to be a loving, honest, charitable, supportive person and attract the exact opposite mate. (My ex-wife’s attorney even asked her, “Are you sure you can’t stick it out for a few more years?”) Not that my ex-wife was that opposite person, but she clearly was not the mate for me, and I was not the mate for her.
I don’t mean to chase men away from marriage. My point was: “marriage is worth it, for the right person.” But don’t expect your mate to magically become that person just because you get married.
