Divorce Lessons

I sometime hesitate to post content like the video below, not necessarily because they are wrong, but because of the perception people will have. What do I mean by that? To be perfectly honest there are many so called "men's rights" people who are fairly misogynistic and sometimes just wrong. I'm sorry but if your reason for not paying child support is because you were somehow lured into sex, you need to get a grip. 

This video is worth watching but only with a grain of salt. All men are not ideal fathers and it seems to imply. The real issues in divorce are justice and equity. With maybe a little less equity in the interest of children but never in the interest of the spouse.  

Why So Few Men Receive Alimony

An article in Forbes from a few years ago, explores why so  few men receive alimony:  

Of the 400,000 people in the United States receiving post-divorce spousal maintenance, just 3 percent were men, according to Census figures. Yet 40 percent of households are headed by female breadwinners -- suggesting that  hundreds of thousands of men are eligible for alimony, yet don't receive it.

The reason? Die-hard gender roles, a bitter fight from breadwinning wives and macho pride, say family attorneys. And in some parts of the country, judges are flat-out sexist.

"Gender equality is a relatively new concept in the span of history, and old stereotypes die hard," says San Francisco Bay area divorce attorney Mark Ressa. "A successful man is considered a breadwinning man, and asking for alimony is considered emasculating."

I certainly did not receive alimony and had to pay child support (which my ex-wife barely if at all used for the kids)  along with all the expenses for the kids who, by the way, chose to live with me.  Clearly two of the reasons she received alimony were her fighting hard, if you classify committing perjury as fighting hard, for alimony and sexist judges. 

What the article misses are the unethical and illegal actions of lawyers and judges in cases involving alimony. Lawyers directly and judges indirectly make lots of money from alimony awards. At a base level alimony awards are a litigious process which means they get paid more than they would otherwise. 

The obstacles in front of a man attempting to receive alimony are nearly insurmountable.

Federal Judges Often Not Held Accountable

From NPR, federal judges have a code of ethics but often aren't held accountable. True, but the article underestimates the issue. First off, it isn't just federal judges and, secondly, the level of outright crime and corruption throughout the legal system as well as the wholesale violations of the lawyers rules of professional conduct by attorneys is astounding. Look here. 

The NPR article does, however, point out a lot of issues, including paid junkets:

So every year, a bunch of different groups like bar associations, nonprofits, law schools, they host what they call judicial education events. And one of the biggest hosts over the decades for these events is George Mason University, which has a conservative-leaning law school. It's based in Virginia. They put together these weeklong seminars for judges on a bunch of legal topics. And they often take place at luxury resorts, five-star hotels. We're talking places like Palm Beach, Fla., around Aspen, Colo., Alaska, even London. And judges get free rooms, free meals and free money towards those travel expenses.

And the events can be pretty ideologically slanted. We found that judges have heard a presentation from a far-right German politician along with corporate CEOs, members of an advocacy group that uses lawsuits to challenge environmental law.