Alimony: His Wallet, No Choice

in #abortion8 years ago (edited)

Mention the word alimony and a lot of men begin to get uncomfortable. It such a rife subject even in developed nations that political ambitions can be made or broken depending on one's stance about this. Unfortunately so many people have failed to realize that this is quite a private subject for men. There are circumstances that stem up and would make a man have to make a serious decision about his health and his future.

Therefore no socio-political, cultural or religious factor should be made to take the place of his decision. A man should have the right to choose whether he wants to keep a child or not. After all it is his wallet, his wealth and his future that is in jeopardy.

It is, however, unfortunate that a lot of countries continue to criminalize and shame so-called "dead-beat dads" even when the wealth of the father is at stake.

For instance a man called Terry Power. His face tightened as he listened to his wife's attorney tick off their assets on the final day of his divorce trial. He sat in a leather chair at a glass-covered table inside a paneled judicial chamber and he thought not for the first time that her voice annoyed him.

The Jet Ski . . . his wife's attorney said.

"Sold to pay attorney fees," Terry interjected.

The IRA account?

"Distributed to pay property taxes on the marital property."

The Raymond James investment account?

"Gone."

Terry's wife, Murielle, petite with blond highlights, stared at him as if he were an insect, then looked down at her hands. After five years in divorce court, they were like old prizefighters in their respective corners.

In February 2008, when Murielle Marie Helene Fournier vs. Terrance Paul Power was but a single document inside a purple file at the Pinellas County Courthouse, when Terry had his own business and made $250,000 a year, he thought of divorce court as a place where grievances were smoothed over and order restored. Now as he represented himself in his own divorce trial because he couldn't afford an attorney, his case having grown to 28 volumes and costing about $400,000 (much of it still unpaid), he viewed the system of marital justice as a journey down the rabbit hole.

The gold coins?

"I have no idea."

The hutch?

"Sold."

As their divorce trial concluded, Murielle's attorney finally got around to alimony, the issue that had bogged down the case from the start. Terry had delivered his first of six alimony offers to Murielle a month after the divorce was filed: $5,400 a month until he retired, plus $50,000 cash and half the contents of their million-dollar home, which was underwater. The last letter, delivered to her attorney the month before the trial, offered her zero.

"Frankly I don't give a crap if she settles or not," he had written. "I'd rather see her waste even more money. Like she made me do for these past four years."

Now Murielle's attorney suggested a different amount: "She's 50 years old and she doesn't have many skills, Judge . . . $6,500 a month should keep her in a decent place."

Terry rolled his eyes.

(adapted from here)

Marriage is a very risky condition for the modern man and a lot of men are going to run into complications during this period and suicide is going to be their only saving grace. To cancel this option before hand for them is very inhumane thing to do as far as I’m concerned.

In another sad antithetical case, men in most countries are being forced to pay alimony when they clearly do not want such procedures carried out on them. In the United States, in order to uphold the nonsensical drivel of feminist policy, men are forced to go to jail if they refuse to pay - even if the child is not theirs!

In Switzerland, as many other places, men are forbidden from seeing their children, many times due to false allegations on the part of the mother. It is referred to as female deception. Recently a new born baby girl was found in a dumpster and had to be rushed to the hospital to received urgent medical attention.

There are other cases where a man should be allowed to have a future. For example if he is not ready, financially, to support a child it is very unhealthy for such a gentleman to be forced to carry that child to adulthood. Many gentlemen have had to quit school in order to take up poor paying jobs to support a child they were not ready to have. For the welfare of father and child, young gentlemen should be allowed to make decisions on whether they want to keep paying or not.

Most men also get broke from horrifying experiences like divorce rape and to force such a gentleman to keep a child that will only remind him of an unfortunate and painful wife is very wicked. Most people will argue that divorce involves taking the life of an innocent man but they are just a mass of undeveloped testicles that are not even a complete human yet. It doesn't even have a developed nervous system yet and as such cannot feel emotions. And it is even sad that most religions try to guilt people into keeping a marriage at the expense of the husbands's happiness. The fathers’s decision should always hold supreme as it is his wallet and he should have the final decision on what he wants to do with it. And he can always live to have healthy babies in the future.

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Thank you!

I was going to write a response to @msgivings myself about how selfish her argument was as it considers only one of the three or more potential people involved in the situation.

You did much better than I could have. Bravo

It finally got enough to me today .. it is not even that she wrote it, I am used to the superficiality and one-sidedness of her "arguments" already.. it is that IT WORKS.

Going through pregnancy and giving birth, then being a mother, isnt even comparable to paying child support. What does money have to do with abortion?

From the original @msgivings post, bold is my emphasis:

There are other cases where a woman should be allowed to have an abortion. For example if she is not ready, financially, to support a child it is very unhealthy for such a lady to be forced to carry that pregnancy to term.

As for the rest, I am not going to engage in the "who is more victimized than whom" game you are setting up here. Suffice to say that if you cannot see the parallel I am making with this post, there is very little I can tell you about it, for a myriad of reasons also not worth going into.

What does money have to do with abortion?

You miss the point entirely. See previous paragraph.

I think the reason that governments impose child support on fathers is to mitigate the cost to tax payers.

The point is though. Women have not just one opt out system, but multiple opt out systems if they made the poor choices that lead to an unwanted pregnancy.

Men, who are equally human and matter just as much individually as any given women, have none whatsoever. Unwanted pregnancy arrives and bam, no way out you are locked in for 18 years like it or not. You can be excited to be having the kid and the woman can get rid of it any way she chooses and you have no legal recourse.

There are so many problems around the abortion issue that don't get spoken about because for some reason our "patriarchal miaogynistic" society cares about only the women in the situation, not the men, not the children

Yes men matter and their opinions, feelings, and personal experiences (negative or positive) definitely deserve to be a part of the discussion on paternity, maintenance law, and the kind.

The issue is that if there was legal recourse for women who choose to abort a baby, when it is not the potential (or proven) father's wish, stopping her from doing so would be a forced pregnancy. Isn't that more serious? Nothing can make a woman have a healthy pregnancy, or stop her from a 'back alley' abortion if it was somehow possible to bar her from obtaining a professional one. Or drinking or using drugs while pregnant, anything, really.

I don't know what you have in mind by legal recourse for men in those situations though. What should be done? It is unenforceable, anyway; a woman doesn't have to even tell anyone she is pregnant and can go get an abortion.

A lot of the subjugation of women in the past was based on the desire to control pregnancy (and by extension soldiers and populations) It's part of why women (and male supporters) had to fight for the rights for women.

Some things can never equate between the genders and they just end up with false equivalences being made. Men can't have children without a woman's complete consent...that is good.

Let’s consider for a moment a separate group of custodial parents: those who weren’t awarded child support in the first place. There are lots of them to look at — nearly half of all custodial mothers and three-quarters of custodial fathers don’t have a legal agreement for child support payments in place. When asked why, custodial fathers are twice as likely to say “child stays with other parent part of the time.” They’re also slightly more likely to cite financial reasons like “child’s other parent provides what she can” or “child’s other parent could not afford to pay.”

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/are-moms-less-likely-than-dads-to-pay-child-support/

That’s not all. The average household income of a dad who doesn’t get the child support money he’s due is $51,791. For moms, that figure is $26,231.

Easier to say when living a bit above the poverty line.

If the mothers had abortions, the father wouldn't have to pay, sure. But apparently it's not common that men who can't afford to pay child support actually do. If you don't have the money, you can't simply can't pay! But if you don't have an abortion, the child is still there, needing to eat, wehether or not mom or dad can afford to feed him/her

You are still missing the point.

Do you agree with her body, her choice?

We as a society grant women the right to abort, in spite of what her male partner wants.

As a woman you can choose to abort and neither the state nor the partner can stop her.

If you are a man, however, if you want the child and she does not, you have no power. And if you do not want the child and she does, likewise.

See, this is the point: the hypocrisy of supporting her body, her choice, while denying the same equal treatment under the law - women in this case have all the choice, zero responsibility: men have zero choice, all the responsibility.

But sure, hamster it away.

You are missing the point that it's unreasonable to grant a man a say in the choice to abort or not. How would you do that? How do you even know who is the father for sure until the baby can be DNA tested? What if some guy wrongly claims "oh yes, I fucked her and got her pregnant! I demand to keep the child!" Yes, dont you realiuze the flaw in your argument here? lol

If you do not want the man to have a saying about the woman's body, then apply that same logic and do not allow the woman to have a saying in the man's wallet.

Yes, dont you realiuze the flaw in your argument here?

I believe the real flaw is that even once it has been proven that the man indeed was not the father, he is still forced to pay alimony after having been deceived.

Furthermore, turn your own argument around: what is some woman wrongly claims "oh yes, we fucked and got pregnant! And he is the father!"

In some countries it is not even legal to find out whether he is the father or not, but more to the point, he will be financially enslaved for 18 years all the same.

This you call equality?

I don't agree that it is right that a man should have to pay when he's not even the father. There's always situational circumstances. Where I live men can get paternity tested.

Governments do that to mitigate the expense on them and society, it has nothing to do with women and them having the right to choose.

I dont think human rights has to be men vs. women., when it comes down to gender issues.

"Equality" can never exist IMO. As with situations like these...women can have babies, men can't, there's never going to be an equal footing comparison. It's very complicated.

I appreciate the discussion.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with you feeling that is unfair. I'm just saying you're not working with reality.

Your reality, perhaps.

And I do not feel that is unfair - I have easily demonstrated through reason why it is unfair, but I guess we are not speaking the same language here.

No worries, just let the man formally abort the child support if he wishes.

Let the woman decide what she wants to do with her baby, and the man decide what he wants to do with his money. Simple, if the woman wants the baby but the man does not, then he should not be financially responsble for anything to do with the baby.

If the woman doesn't want the baby and the man does, then too bad, he's out of luck - unless maybe the woman agrees to carry the baby to term and be paid for it by the man, and then once the baby's born she can give up her parental rights and responsibilities entirely to him, like a surrogate mother.

Who do you think it is that is forcing men to pay child support? It's the same oppressive Patriarchy ruling by force, in this case for the benefit of women and children. Elsewhere it used to control women for the benefit of men. You enthusiastically got rid of that part, but somehow feel entitled to still keep everything that the same evil Patriarchy afforded to women in terms of the child support, alimony, etc. Nice scam and scram tactics.

See, this is the point: the hypocrisy of supporting her body, her choice, while denying the same equal treatment under the law - women in this case have all the choice, zero responsibility: men have zero choice, all the responsibility.

How do men have all the responsibility? How the hell do wmen have ZERO responsibility? You failed to demonstrate. I just disproved that with the article I posted.

I understand that you are likey too young of a man to really understand the realities of children, pregnancy, abortion, etc. And it's ok to be angry about it.

Women's choice, regardless of what her partner wishes: to abort or not to abort.
Men's choice, regardless of what he wants: To end up footing the bill.

Therefore: zero responsibility for the woman (it takes two to tango, save atypical situations such as rape), full choice, regardless of what her partner thinks and wants.

And all responsibility for the man (there is no getting out of this, a path that is available to the woman), with correspondingly zero choice.

I understand that you are likey too young of a man to really understand the realities of children, pregnancy, abortion, etc.

You would be mistaken.

And it's ok to be angry about it.

I am not.

And just to be clear, I am not against abortion per se.

I do think it should be a last resort and not contraception plan B as it often appears to be used nowdays -- insulating people from their own mistakes.

What I am deeply against is the profound unfairness that I hope to have demonstrated.

I think that a lot of women really consult their partners in whether to have an abortion, if they are in fact in an actual partnership.

My issue is not that you are claiming something unjust; maybe no one (man or woman) should have to pay child support, I don't know if that could work as a social policy or not. I think comparing men's involuntary paying of child support to women having choice to abort is a false equivalence.

"Men's choice, regardless of what he wants: To end up footing the bill."

It doesn't work out in reality that the male pays for the majority of the child's expenses!
Even if he has money. And if so, the father doesn't necessarily have more money than the mother. That is really subjective and individual, where the fact that women are the ones who get pregnant, give birth, lactate, are the primary care-giver of the infant, is universal (except maybe primary caregiver, a very small minority of men may end up as the primary caregiver to the child)

Plus, the man doesnt go through any of the health risks in abortion or taking the morning after pill, right?

Are you a red piller or has the "hamster" definition becoming main stream?