a divorce thread

Some will, and I think especially in California.

My sister is in the same situation, akm and it's been very, very difficult to find a lawyer who isn't a total sleeze.

I guess he and I both know some lawyers in our social circle, maybe even some in family law, so I'll see if he can talk with them. Will be somewhat awkward since our kids all went to preschool together but he needs to find someone trustworthy.

Yeah, the best way to find a good local lawyer is to ask another lawyer -- and the specialty doesn't matter when you're asking. A real estate lawyer or criminal defense attorney will know who the good divorce lawyers are. The phone book is no help.

very difficult to be seeing a friend thru this right now. i am not fully equipped for it.

she confides in me every day. i am honored that she trusts me, but a little scared by it all. i am not the most put-together person i know.

trips me out that every single instance of divorce among my peers in my immediate social + professional circle has involved the woman leaving the man because they are, basically, tired of their husbands.

Hm. There have been two in my old circle of Twin Cities high school pals lately but both of those were the flipside of that situation.

Don't have any recent examples from my current social+pro circle though to compare...

husbands tend to be tiresome xp

Well this is timely--my sister just texted me "It's done." I think she means filing for divorce, but I imagine there are still some steps left...?

Almost all the women I know who are divorced outgrew or got tired of their husbands, yes. One was actually abusive, but the rest just didn't keep up in life or in personal growth.

8 year anniversary in a month, minor miracle considering previous track record of me being outgrown by gf's

It often seems like the guys are just looking to...coast? Like get to an OK stage and leave it there and not have anything change. But the women ended up doing most of the housekeeping, cooking, child care (if applic), shopping, plus their part- or full-time jobs even up to equal wage-earning status. For my sister it definitely was like having 2 kids instead of 1 kid and a spouse--although it's fair to say she probably shouldn't have married a complacent youngest child whose mother had always done everything for him if she wanted a full partner.

It often seems like the guys are just looking to...coast?

This is the goal, yes.

yeah I don't know what to attribute it to, can't make too many generalizations. a couple instances have been wife-gets-bored/cheats on husband/ditches him scenarios. not so sure about what really drove the others, but in all cases the husbands seem blindsided.

part of me wants to make some sort of terrible sub-David Brooks extrapolations about what this all means on a broader social level but the more sensible part of me knows this is just some fluke of my own personal experience

In my anecdotal experience also, the husbands always seem to think everything is okay--or at least they have more to lose by rocking the boat so they'd rather not make any drastic changes. But that's...the problem?

^^^ feels v true to me, like the oldest story known to mankind kinda true

weird that with my 2 high school buddies it was the wife who performed the wilfully ignoring/evrything's okay role.

or at least they have more to lose by rocking the boat so they'd rather not make any drastic changes

this seems u&k to me, especially given CA's divorce laws

I don't know anything about divorce laws, that could be part of it. I meant that their lives are way more improved by being married than the women's are. The guys usually want to get remarried right away and get back to "normal," and the women can't imagine why they would ever get married again--or at least there's a very vocal strain of that.

but the rest just didn't keep up in life or in personal growth

what does this actually mean?

we don't know, that's why they divorce us ;_;

in CA a wife divorcing her husband gets 50% of his assets for the rest of his life

that's what she's entitled to by law, anyway. she could end up getting more, of course.

A lot of different things, probably too many to talk about like that, my bad. But from what I hear, just not expecting to grow as people or get more interesting or more cultivated or work on their emotional issues any more because they had what they wanted and it wasn't worth the effort going further?

Yeah, sorry for the lol, lauren, but it's funny that your sister didn't know that she had married a man.

basically, dudes who treat marriage as a paper transaction and do not expect to change anything about who they are or what they do?
if so, that's my sister-I-L's husband, tho they do not appear close to divorce

seems weird to marry someone with the expectation that they will later be a different person from the one you married, i dunno

some really great definitive anecdotal data in this thread update, good research everyone

Anyone ever notice how men drive one way and women drive a different way?

just happy to be part of the team

wasn't aware this thread was only for certified researchers my bad

maybe I will grow into it

obv haven't dug into sociological data, any1 w new information on why women are leaving their mans is heretofore asked to post here

this is an ilx thread, not a thesis

― congratulations (n/a), Thursday, July 26, 2012 1:26 PM (Yesterday)

Oh that was the cool thread you started, n/m.

is there a happily married thread? I SHOULD START IT /marital braggin

how about "this is the thread where we talk about how awesome our marriages are"

I said it was anecdotal and so did shakey; I even specified that one of the examples is my sister. I never claimed to be impartial or w/e.

I'm sorry for posting that in the divorce thread, seems insensitive
I'm still p young so I dont know many divorcing couples. don't know that many married ones, either, I just married young I guess

yeah i'm being a dick but it's just weird how the anecdotal evidence is like 100 percent indistinguishable from every shitty sitcom of the past 30 years

But with all due respect, because I'm very fond of both pp and sunny and lots of you, the idea that a man is someone who got what he wanted when he got a wife and now he can just sit back and that that desire is crucial to "manhood" is a) even more of a generalization than anything I've posted, and b) in cases where it is actually true, seems like a big part of the problem?

Fair enough, but remember, I'm a wannabe shitty sitcom writer.

I thought sitcoms were all baout lazy jerks being married to sassy women way hotter than they are

tbf I haven't watched a sitcom in like 20 years or something

Archie grew IN the relationship, Edith grew OUT of it.

"every shitty sitcom of the past 30 years"

Yes we know, we wear their fake corporate logos across our chests proudly, quit hating on our national pastime please ...

Edith "grew out" of the relationship by dying of a stroke, I don't think that's really comparable to divorce

feel like i have a take on this even though i'm a man with a man. 1) i'm basically my mother. 2) i feel like i'm changing/growing faster than he is (i'm ten years younger). i've thought about making this cause for "moving on" but i sense 0 resentment/weirdness from him for my changes/choices (from what i can tell his heart is totally in the right place wrt "supporting" me), and it would be really unfair to him and to me to end things because i have expectations of him he can't meet. i find i have a lot of them! (based on poor models.) i think it's hard to to redefine expectations, basically. (if you're outgrowing a relationship, aren't you really just outgrowing expectations, and shouldn't you be able to redefine expectations if you want a relationship to keep happening.)