Spinoff: Should Divorce Be Easy To Obtain?

[patteeu]

This is one of the question's in Rain Man's "Pick A Fight" thread. It started to generate some discussion and rather than hijacking that thread I thought I'd move it here:

Originally Posted by el borracho

Why wouldn't people want divorces to be easy to obtain? What is the advantage in having unhappy unions?

Originally Posted by tk13

I think the thought process being that if it's hard to obtain a divorce, people won't be so quick to jump into marriage before they're ready...

Originally Posted by morphius

My understanding is that it is good that it is difficult so that people may work harder to keep a marriage going instead of giving up just because things get a little rough.

Originally Posted by morphius

And thats probably a better point.

ugh.

Originally Posted by tk13

I was about to say the same thing about your post....

Originally Posted by patteeu

Every union is unhappy at times. If there isn't an easy way out when the chips are down, many of those marriages would be salvageable.

Originally Posted by J Diddy

That, in my humble opinion, is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. What say you about domestic abuse or other odd situations. Buck up, you can't be done with this asshole, however take comfort in knowing that you have a better chance of being with him/her until the end because no other option presents itself.

It's a myth that fault-based divorce prevents abused spouses from getting out of marriage. As far as I know, abuse has always been a ground for divorce so your concern on this point is largely unwarranted. Even in cases where the abuser is so crafty that he/she can perpetrate the abuse without leaving any evidence, the abused spouse has always had the option to leave the situation with or without a legal divorce. The abuse argument for easy divorce is a canard IMO.

Back in the day, the economics of single income families was more likely to keep an abused spouse in a marriage than the administrative/judicial hurdles to divorce. Nowadays, we don't have nearly as many single income (two parent) families. Women are liberated and are welcome in the workplace.

Making divorce harder to get (i.e. going back to a fault-based system) would keep individuals who have grown bored with their marriage or who have gotten frustrated with the way their spouse loads the toilet paper upside down from walking away in search of a more perfect union.

Do we really not have enough broken homes today that we need to keep whimsical divorces cheap (not counting the support payments, loss of custody, and division of property of course), legal, and relatively common?

[Bob Dole]

Bob Dole's divorce was neither whimsical nor cheap. The financial ass-raping Bob Dole took is reason enough to remain single for the forseeable future.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by bobr17

Bob Dole's divorce was neither whimsical nor cheap. The financial ass-raping Bob Dole took is reason enough to remain single for the forseeable future.

I believe you.

If you were the one who wanted the divorce, would you have been able to get it in a jurisdiction that required fault or mutual agreement?

If you didn't want your divorce, would your spouse have been able to get the divorce in a jurisdiction that required fault?

[Bob Dole]

Originally Posted by patteeu

I believe you.

If you were the one who wanted the divorce, would you have been able to get it in a jurisdiction that required fault or mutual agreement?

If you didn't want your divorce, would your spouse have been able to get the divorce in a jurisdiction that required fault?

It started out as a mutually agreeable divorce in Texas, which is a community property state. However, as things progressed, she got increasingly more greedy and bitter (at the prodding of her parents, primarily), changed legal representation 3 times and dragged the process out over a year, even though there were no children.

On the day scheduled for the actual hearing (or whatever it's called), her legal counsel managed to postpone the thing after Bob Dole sat at the courthouse for 3 hours, then finagled a last-minute change of venue (or whatever its called) later in the day. After getting dressed and driving the 25 miles to the new location, the judge was already in a pissy mood because they had been waiting for 45 minutes, completely ignoring that the was no advance notice of the time and location change. On top of that, she managed to manufacture claims of infidelity out of thin air while offering no evidence of such behavior and sobbing uncontrollably.

The end result was an irritable, Bible-thumping judge who decided that Bob Dole was such a POS that the whole concept of community property wasn't worth observing, and he gave her pretty much everything. Bob Dole got a lot of debt that wasn't even his (50% of her student loans, for example), the automobile with a bank note attached, his La-Z-Boy recliner, and not much else.

Bob Dole was left so financially crippled that appealing the decision (which Bob Dole was told that in Texas, would have gone right back to the same damned judge that made the decision for the first level appeal) wasn't really a viable option.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by bobr17

It started out as a mutually agreeable divorce in Texas, which is a community property state. However, as things progressed, she got increasingly more greedy and bitter (at the prodding of her parents, primarily), changed legal representation 3 times and dragged the process out over a year, even though there were no children.

On the day scheduled for the actual hearing (or whatever it's called), her legal counsel managed to postpone the thing after Bob Dole sat at the courthouse for 3 hours, then finagled a last-minute change of venue (or whatever its called) later in the day. After getting dressed and driving the 25 miles to the new location, the judge was already in a pissy mood because they had been waiting for 45 minutes, completely ignoring that the was no advance notice of the time and location change. On top of that, she managed to manufacture claims of infidelity out of thin air while offering no evidence of such behavior and sobbing uncontrollably.

The end result was an irritable, Bible-thumping judge who decided that Bob Dole was such a POS that the whole concept of community property wasn't worth observing, and he gave her pretty much everything. Bob Dole got a lot of debt that wasn't even his (50% of her student loans, for example), the automobile with a bank note attached, his La-Z-Boy recliner, and not much else.

Bob Dole was left so financially crippled that appealing the decision (which Bob Dole was told that in Texas, would have gone right back to the same damned judge that made the decision for the first level appeal) wasn't really a viable option.

I'm sorry to hear your story. It's all too common IMO. This is the kind of thing that leads me to my position. If she had no evidence of misbehavior on your part, she shouldn't have been able to take you to the cleaners like she did. It's not right. Thank goodness there weren't children involved.

[Bob Dole]

Originally Posted by patteeu

I'm sorry to hear your story. It's all too common IMO. This is the kind of thing that leads me to my position. If she had no evidence of misbehavior on your part, she shouldn't have been able to take you to the cleaners like she did. It's not right. Thank goodness there weren't children involved.

It is doubtful that we would have divorced had there been children involved.

[Mr. Kotter]

Originally Posted by bobr17

Bob Dole's divorce was neither whimsical nor cheap. The financial ass-raping Bob Dole took is reason enough to remain single for the forseeable future.

All you wealthy bastards deserve to be ass-raped--without lube.

[Saulbadguy]

I think they should be relatively easy to get. I think the costs for a divorce is outrageous. I also think they need to stop making the women the victim in all cases. They get the money, the other assets, and the kids in most cases, even if the dad is a good father. That is bullshit.

[memyselfI]

A divorce decree should be no more easy or difficult to get than a marriage certificate...

only fair that if it's 'easy' to get INTO it then it should be just as 'easy' to get OUT of it.

[Mr. Kotter]

Originally Posted by memyselfI

A divorce decree should be no more easy or difficult to get than a marriage certificate...

only fair that if it's 'easy' to get INTO it then it should be just as 'easy' to get OUT of it.

You'd know....wasn't that what your HS yearbook said: "Mrs. Easy...easy to get into, and easy to get out of..."

[InChiefsHeaven]

I hate no fault divorce. It's somebody's fault damn it. Rarely do both parties just up and decide together that they want to end the marriage. No fault makes it easy for people to not have to work on their marriage and just "break up" like they were in high school. This is why marriage is a religious institution, or should be anyway...

[Eleazar]

If it were harder to end then people would probably think harder about getting into it in the first place, I see the logic there.

[Mr. Kotter]

Originally Posted by Cochise

If it were harder to end then people would probably think harder about getting into it in the first place, I see the logic there.

The theory of that sounds good; but in reality, when a couple is in 'love,' would it honestly make a difference? I don't know.

Personally, I wouldn't object; but makin' it "harder" in a society based on instant gratification, is unlikely and probably pointless.

[Eleazar]

Originally Posted by SDChiefsfan

The theory of that sounds good; but in reality, when a couple is in 'love,' would it honestly make a difference? I don't know.

Personally, I wouldn't object; but makin' it "harder" in a society based on instant gratification, is unlikely and probably pointless.

I was just thinking how women already have little to lose on the deal, because if it doesn't work out then they just get to take the man to the cleaners.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by SDChiefsfan

The theory of that sounds good; but in reality, when a couple is in 'love,' would it honestly make a difference? I don't know.

Personally, I wouldn't object; but makin' it "harder" in a society based on instant gratification, is unlikely and probably pointless.

As a teacher, do you notice any difference in the kids who live in broken homes versus the kids who have intact families (generally speaking of course)?