No, orion. You’re entirely wrong here. You lack experience and are talking out of your ass. We’re adults with goals that match, and if I had to guess, concerns that match. Actually, I don’t have to guess - the concern is “are we well suited in the long term?” Everything else is a go. Financials are good separately and better together; social lives are good separately and nicely combining, families same; long term goals and ideas about what constitutes “a good life” are similar. We now live together and find it warm and joyous.
What possible motivation could either of us have to play hard to get? Why would either of us NOT go the extra mile? We each do that in every area of our lives. Work, play - neither of us is lazy or indifferent. Both of us LIKE going an extra mile (I’m a runner, remember?). We both know who the other was in relation to our past relationships, who we are in relation to friends and family, how we view work and coworkers. Character tends to be consistent across the board. We are both people who nurture our relationships and jobs and belongings and savings and etc.
Which is why I think I might like to do forever with him. And also because of how much fun we have when we’re together. He’s solid and kind and adventurous and funny. I sort of think he feels the same way about me.[/quote]
Doesn’t anybody just get married for love? :p[/quote]
Oh Broncoandy, you silly, deluded fool. NO. Women get married for financial gain and men for no good reason whatsoever.[/quote]
Oh bugger. That’s 25 years down the drain then…[/quote]
Ha! Boy did you get tricked!
Orion, as to your question of why ruin forever with a piece of paper, I guess I’m starting to want the legitimacy that paper offers more than I want to remain safely separate. You seem to have a very hard time wrapping your head around the fact that women can have assets to protect, but I do. I didn’t want to have to pay to divide them. I no longer worry that I’ll have to.
To me “legitimacy” is the state of officially belonging to one another. Before God and man and all. Having our families actually be OUR families. It’s important to me. Because I’m a girl, maybe. I don’t know.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
I have a personal anecdote to tell you, Em, along those ^ lines should you wish to hear it. Not sure I’m going to do it here. I suspect it will disgust you.[/quote]
Obviously I want to hear it! If you’re not comfortable here, I think you have my email address. I don’t check that account often, so if you email mention it here, okay?
Hurry up and decide! I want to hear an anecdote that sickens me, lol. And by the way, I had a dream about you last night. There was someone else from TN involved, as well as your girl, but I can’t remember who it was. We were in your neck of the woods and you wanted to show us some sort of giant gear thing. You weren’t being sexually provocotive in the least, which I appreciated.
In looking back over what I wrote re: legitimacy I realize that it wasn’t entirely honest. Sure, the division of assets is preferably done without throwing money at an attorney, but what I dread about divorce is the utter failure it represents and the toll that failure takes on everyone in the vicinity. The security it purports to provide goes far beyond the couple involved. This is probably more true of long first marriages than brief, but I think it holds true in many shorter or second marriages as well. My father would have been DEVASTATED if he’d been alive at the time of my divorce - though to be fair he would have been devastated over and over again if he’d known more about the relationship. Kids, parents, friends/communities. . .there are all sorts of stakeholders in a marriage. And OMG, I hate letting people down.
But now I’m beginning to feel a responsibility to those stakeholders to make promises that go beyond “we’ll see!”
Had an alcohol-fueled talk about divorce at 1 AM in a bar with a friend of a friend. He’s been divorced for 6 years and has one child with his ex. His new wife just received a stack of legal docs at work. His ex is seeking an injunction to prevent the new wife from giving any medicine including OTC pain reliever to the child. Apparently, 4 weeks ago the child had a fever and the new wife - who is a pediatric oncologist! - administered OTC children’s motrin.
His ongoing legal fees are up to $150K and his ex’s fees are north of $250K and show no sign of slowing down.
[quote]Dr. Pangloss wrote:
Had an alcohol-fueled talk about divorce at 1 AM in a bar with a friend of a friend. He’s been divorced for 6 years and has one child with his ex. His new wife just received a stack of legal docs at work. His ex is seeking an injunction to prevent the new wife from giving any medicine including OTC pain reliever to the child. Apparently, 4 weeks ago the child had a fever and the new wife - who is a pediatric oncologist! - administered OTC children’s motrin.
His ongoing legal fees are up to $150K and his ex’s fees are north of $250K and show no sign of slowing down.
What a nightmare.[/quote]
What did his X do for a living?
She is in upper management at the world’s largest shipping company.
The child resides with the dad and his new wife, although both he and the ex share custody. She apparently is bipolar and works from home during her most extreme periods.
Here’s how he found out he was getting divorced: He takes a job in a new city, flies out there to start on a Monday, she and their child will fly out on Friday. Friday comes around, he’s at the airport and his wife and child don’t get off the plane. He finds out they never boarded. He calls her, no answer. Calls her friends, family, neighbors, etc., no one knows where she is. He flies back home on Sunday and their house locks have been changed. He breaks a window, and alarm goes off. He goes inside and all of her stuff and the child’s stuff is gone. Police come because alarm is going off, he explains what’s going on, they can’t help him find his wife and child. He gets the alarm turned off and the sheriff shows up to serve him with divorce papers and a restraining order. He’s not to call his wife, go to her place of employment, etc.
Three weeks later, he goes in front of a judge and sees his wife for the first time since all the shit goes down. Judge revokes the restraining order and sets up visitation for another 2 weeks. He went five weeks without seeing his kid, not even knowing if the child was ok, where it was staying, etc…
[quote]Dr. Pangloss wrote:
She is in upper management at the world’s largest shipping company.
The child resides with the dad and his new wife, although both he and the ex share custody. She apparently is bipolar and works from home during her most extreme periods.
Here’s how he found out he was getting divorced: He takes a job in a new city, flies out there to start on a Monday, she and their child will fly out on Friday. Friday comes around, he’s at the airport and his wife and child don’t get off the plane. He finds out they never boarded. He calls her, no answer. Calls her friends, family, neighbors, etc., no one knows where she is. He flies back home on Sunday and their house locks have been changed. He breaks a window, and alarm goes off. He goes inside and all of her stuff and the child’s stuff is gone. Police come because alarm is going off, he explains what’s going on, they can’t help him find his wife and child. He gets the alarm turned off and the sheriff shows up to serve him with divorce papers and a restraining order. He’s not to call his wife, go to her place of employment, etc.
Three weeks later, he goes in front of a judge and sees his wife for the first time since all the shit goes down. Judge revokes the restraining order and sets up visitation for another 2 weeks. He went five weeks without seeing his kid, not even knowing if the child was ok, where it was staying, etc…
[quote]Dr. Pangloss wrote:
She is in upper management at the world’s largest shipping company.
The child resides with the dad and his new wife, although both he and the ex share custody. She apparently is bipolar and works from home during her most extreme periods.
Here’s how he found out he was getting divorced: He takes a job in a new city, flies out there to start on a Monday, she and their child will fly out on Friday. Friday comes around, he’s at the airport and his wife and child don’t get off the plane. He finds out they never boarded. He calls her, no answer. Calls her friends, family, neighbors, etc., no one knows where she is. He flies back home on Sunday and their house locks have been changed. He breaks a window, and alarm goes off. He goes inside and all of her stuff and the child’s stuff is gone. Police come because alarm is going off, he explains what’s going on, they can’t help him find his wife and child. He gets the alarm turned off and the sheriff shows up to serve him with divorce papers and a restraining order. He’s not to call his wife, go to her place of employment, etc.
Three weeks later, he goes in front of a judge and sees his wife for the first time since all the shit goes down. Judge revokes the restraining order and sets up visitation for another 2 weeks. He went five weeks without seeing his kid, not even knowing if the child was ok, where it was staying, etc…
[/quote]
That’s fucked up. [/quote]
Yes, that’s revolting. You’d think there would be some sort of protection from mentally ill people, and for them, for that matter, so they wouldn’t be able to impoverish themselves and everyone around them during manic/paranoid/whatever episodes.
[quote]EmilyQ wrote:
Hurry up and decide! I want to hear an anecdote that sickens me, lol. [/quote]
Maybe I over dramatized and got your hopes up for something bizarre. It’s not. It just exemplifies what has been repeated here many times over about men getting the divorce shaft by the legal system.
We’ll have to call in the dream interpreters and see if we can develop this some.
Yeah, well, I can hide the beast within me. Sometimes. You got lucky (unlucky?) this time, Missy.
[quote]Dr. Pangloss wrote:
Here’s how he found out he was getting divorced: He takes a job in a new city, flies out there to start on a Monday, she and their child will fly out on Friday… [/quote]
I have an acquaintance who took a new job on the West Coast, moving from the East Coast. Her husband was still trying to line up a new job. If I have my narrative straight: she drove out, moved into her new place, and when her husband said he’d be driving out to join her for a while, she informed him that they would be divorcing. Not nearly as bad as your story, but apparently he didn’t see it coming. No children involved, either, and she wasn’t trying to screw him in the divorce (at least, according to her).
[quote]EmilyQ wrote:
I don’t see it as security, exactly. After all, I’ve been divorced and there were good reasons for making that decision, none of which were an overabundance of security. I see it as a promise. A most excellent, heartfelt promise. Which brings emotional security, no?[/quote]
I fully support your (or anyone’s) considered decision to get married to someone who treats them well.
Examining myself on the matter, I think I wanted a marriage the same way I want a mansion: picturing all of the upsides and none of the maintenance or inconveniences. Which is all the more problematic when there is another human being involved who has her own needs and desires that will, at some point, conflict with my own.
One thing a reasonable person can take away from Orion and his ilk is that marriage is an option, not a given. It is just one of many possible life paths one can choose, but it should be chosen thoughtfully and after considering the alternatives.
[quote]Dr. Pangloss wrote:
She is in upper management at the world’s largest shipping company.
The child resides with the dad and his new wife, although both he and the ex share custody. She apparently is bipolar and works from home during her most extreme periods.
Here’s how he found out he was getting divorced: He takes a job in a new city, flies out there to start on a Monday, she and their child will fly out on Friday. Friday comes around, he’s at the airport and his wife and child don’t get off the plane. He finds out they never boarded. He calls her, no answer. Calls her friends, family, neighbors, etc., no one knows where she is. He flies back home on Sunday and their house locks have been changed. He breaks a window, and alarm goes off. He goes inside and all of her stuff and the child’s stuff is gone. Police come because alarm is going off, he explains what’s going on, they can’t help him find his wife and child. He gets the alarm turned off and the sheriff shows up to serve him with divorce papers and a restraining order. He’s not to call his wife, go to her place of employment, etc.
Three weeks later, he goes in front of a judge and sees his wife for the first time since all the shit goes down. Judge revokes the restraining order and sets up visitation for another 2 weeks. He went five weeks without seeing his kid, not even knowing if the child was ok, where it was staying, etc…
[quote]Dr. Pangloss wrote:
Here’s how he found out he was getting divorced: He takes a job in a new city, flies out there to start on a Monday, she and their child will fly out on Friday… [/quote]
I have an acquaintance who took a new job on the West Coast, moving from the East Coast. Her husband was still trying to line up a new job. If I have my narrative straight: she drove out, moved into her new place, and when her husband said he’d be driving out to join her for a while, she informed him that they would be divorcing. Not nearly as bad as your story, but apparently he didn’t see it coming. No children involved, either, and she wasn’t trying to screw him in the divorce (at least, according to her).[/quote]
Not that this is the case here: I have done the midnight move and it was for good reasons. It can be a a high risk situation to tell a man with violent tendencies that you’re leaving and this time for good. If I were to leave my guy now, I wouldn’t dream of ‘sneaking out’ like I did but that’s because he is sane and reasonable. Even in my youth that I was naive enough to wind up shacked up with an abuser, I was not ignorant of the frequency of police standoffs and murder suicides that are triggered when someone tries to leave one. The leaving itself involved weeks of planning, moving money into a secret account and getting ready to go.
I obviously only know as much as anyone else about anecdotes, but I would expect in any of these scenarios, there is more to the story. There is always more to the story.
[quote]debraD wrote:
Not that this is the case here: I have done the midnight move and it was for good reasons. It can be a a high risk situation to tell a man with violent tendencies that you’re leaving and this time for good. If I were to leave my guy now, I wouldn’t dream of ‘sneaking out’ like I did but that’s because he is sane and reasonable. Even in my youth that I was naive enough to wind up shacked up with an abuser, I was not ignorant of the frequency of police standoffs and murder suicides that are triggered when someone tries to leave one. The leaving itself involved weeks of planning, moving money into a secret account and getting ready to go.
I obviously only know as much as anyone else about anecdotes, but I would expect in any of these scenarios, there is more to the story. There is always more to the story.[/quote]
I’m sure there is much more to the story, but according to her he was in no way violent or abusive. He was too meek for her, actually. I absolutely understand sneaking away if you fear for your safety. Sneaking out for your own comfort and to avoid the emotional fallout is something else.
[quote]EmilyQ wrote:
I don’t see it as security, exactly. After all, I’ve been divorced and there were good reasons for making that decision, none of which were an overabundance of security. I see it as a promise. A most excellent, heartfelt promise. Which brings emotional security, no?[/quote]
I fully support your (or anyone’s) considered decision to get married to someone who treats them well.
Examining myself on the matter, I think I wanted a marriage the same way I want a mansion: picturing all of the upsides and none of the maintenance or inconveniences. Which is all the more problematic when there is another human being involved who has her own needs and desires that will, at some point, conflict with my own.
One thing a reasonable person can take away from Orion and his ilk is that marriage is an option, not a given. It is just one of many possible life paths one can choose, but it should be chosen thoughtfully and after considering the alternatives.[/quote]
I agree, there are many viable options depending upon your tolerance for the particular sacrifice each choice requires.
In considering your mansion metaphor it occurs to me that my perspective would be different in that I see life itself as the mansion. Having someone else there with you to caretake it allows both the burden and the joy to be shared. It reduces the negative and enhances the positive.