Wow! Suicide Risk for Divorced Men

For years I have always thought the risk of suicide for divorced men was four times that of women. Boy, was I wrong. It is actually 9.7 times.

These results dramatise the terrible consequences of being a divorced man in America, and lead to the question: why are divorced men killing themselves? Some analysts argue that the research community has ignored a plausible explanation for the excess suicide risks experienced by divorced men. As Perrault and Farrell observe, while social, psychological, and even personal problems facing women are readily denounced, societal institutions tend to ignore or minimise male problems as evident in suicide statistics. For instance, in many jurisdictions in the US there seems to be an implicit assumption that the bond between a woman and her children is stronger than that between a man and his children. As a consequence, in a divorce settlement, custody of children is more likely to be given to the wife. In the end, the father loses not only his marriage, but his children. The result may be anger at the court system especially in situations wherein the husband feels betrayed because it was the wife that initiated the divorce, or because the courts virtually gave away everything that was previously owned by the ex-husband or the now defunct household to the former wife. Events could spiral into resentment (toward the spouse and “the system”), bitterness, anxiety, and depression, reduced self esteem, and a sense of “life not worth living”. As depression and poor mental health are known markers of suicide risk, it may well be that one of the fundamental reasons for the observed association between divorce and suicide in men is the impact of post divorce (court sanctioned) “arrangements”.

In my case, custody of the children was joint although in reality I have had sole custody. Yet despite that and despite a vocational evaluator determining Spring could make just as much money as me, not to mention the clear and overwhelming evidence of fraud on her part, I am required to work the rest of my life for her.

Why divorced men commit suicide at such a high rate can be debated, but does anyone really thing that the fact that it is the man who pays alimony  98+% of the time is unrelated? 

Lack of Due Process

Medium has an interesting article on the lack of due process in family court. The articles focus is on veterans but what is true for them is true for all.

Due process is often subverted for many individuals in divorce and custody ordeals — often for reasons of players in the court covering up one track after another in situations where transgressions have transpired both on procedural and substantive grounds whereby established precedents and rules have been disregarded — resulting in rights being terminated without parties being afforded proper adjudication.

“Disabled Veterans are encountering tremendous financial and emotional distress in various forms on a regular basis because of this injustice. Some to the point of suicide…other sufferings include illegal garnishment of entire bank accounts, inappropriate liens on personal property acquired with Title 38 compensation, driver license suspension, and even incarceration. Tragically, many are denied a meaningful relationship with their child(ren) as a result.”
— LT(J.G.) GREGORY PARSONS, U.S. NAVY, PDRL

Real Sexism

I ran across the Real Sexism Project and think you should take a look. I am not going to comment much other to say that it does make you think and the fact that sexism against men exists does not mean sexism against women does not exist and is just as wrong.

The Saddest Option

I once visited the Nazi concentration camp Dachau which is located in a town of the same name near Munich. Dachau was the first of Hitler's concentration camps and served as the model for many of them. An interesting fact about Dachau is that although gas chambers were constructed, they were never used. Unlike some camps such as Treblinka, which were pure execution camps from the start, Dachau started as a political rehabilitation camp.  By the time they built the gas chambers, the labor shortage in Germany was so severe the Nazis decided it was better to use the prisoners as forced labor in the munitions industry rather than kill them outright.

For some prisoners, making weapons for the enemy was unacceptable.  Rather than do so, they chose to touch the electric fence which surrounded the camp or step into a grassy zone where Nazi soldiers located in towers would instantly shoot them. It was a horrible choice but I can understand their rational. The idea of making a grenade that would be used to kill those fighting the Nazis could easily lead one to decide that death was the more moral choice.

We do not have hard data on how many acts of violence and crime are caused by injustice in family court but it is reasonable to think it is high.  Not only does crime beget crime but the perpetrators of crime in divorce court have a near zero risk of getting caught.

We know that divorce causes a three-fold increase in suicides among men; however, we do not know how much higher the rate is for those paying lifetime alimony. But I think that like those Dachau prisoners who could not in good conscience work to support immorality and crime; many people obligated to pay lifetime alimony to those who committed immoral actions and crimes decide that the correct moral action is death. The fact that this is quite rational and understandable is just incredibly sad.

Crazy

Harvey Weinstein has reached a tentative deal with his accusers. He, actually his insurance companies, will pay out $44 million as follows:

About $30 million would go to the accusers, studio creditors and former employees of Weinstein Co. who said they felt they might be punished in a hostile work environment, according to the Journal. Another $14 million would pay for legal fees that Harvey Weinstein's associates faced.

Note that some of the money will go to his former employees because they worked in a hostile work environment. WHAT! That is like SS guards who worked at a concentration camp receiving money from Germany because they worked in a hostile work environment.

If Weinsteins's employees did not like working for him they should have left.

$44 million paid out to people because Harvey Weinstein is a lewd scum ball. Yet people like Nelly Wince, who clearly committed serious crimes, not only get away with their crimes but the victims (i.e. me) have to pay her.

Insanity.

Girls Only?

I am one of those people with a wide range of interest. Maybe too wide my kids would say. I both love art and science. I've never been in a museum, of any type, that I did not love. I read books in all genres and all subjects. 

Fundamentally I do not like limits. And I really do not like limits placed on others. I cringe when someone says a child/spouse/whomever is "not good" or "doesn't like" something. Such statements tend to become self-fulfilling. And, when you think about it, it is a small leap from that to classifying whole groups whether based on race, national origin, sex or sexual preference. It used to be thought that women did did not have the capacity to think scientifically. Now most graduates from medical schools are women. 

A girls STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math) camp is currently being promoted in Minnesota. Now I get that the motives may be good but why on earth would you segregate girls into a gender based STEM camp? Does it mean that girls are less able than boys? Or that they cannot compete with boys? Or is it the opposite - girls cannot excel because boys drag them down? Unfortunately, everyone will come to their own conclusion on why the segregation is needed and none of them will be good. The solution is to avoid the segregation in the first place.

Guilty!

Insys Therapeutics founder John Kapoor and four co-defendants have been found guilty of a racketeering conspiracy for paying doctors to prescribe its powerful opioid medication and then lying to insurance companies to ensure that the expensive fentanyl-based painkiller would be covered.

This was a criminal conviction which is significant. Kapoor will almost certainly go to jail.

Kapoor's conviction is a step in the right direction to more just society. Someday we may see similar convictions in the family law system but the reality is that will be a much more difficult hill to climb because the guilty parties are the lawyers and judges who are supposed to be ensuring justice.

Justice - it's a long road.