From The North Shore Weekend newspaperContrary to the stereotype of the strong silent type, Evanston
resident John Frank has LOTS to say about divorce. His two-act play,
which will be staged two weekends in November, is the tip of the
iceberg.
“Men don’t talk about how they feel; they just kind of soldier on and
people around them think, ‘oh, he’ll be fine.’ But there is, in fact, a
lot of pain that men don’t talk about,” said Frank, who divorced after
16 years of marriage to his first wife. “For example, only seeing your
kids every other weekend is a terrible way to live. I have no trouble
talking about that.”
And so it was that he wrote Boys in the Basement, described as “a
unique look at divorce from the perspective of men who have lost their
families and everything they once held dear.” It is inspired by the
network Frank developed over the years after his divorce.
“In the suburbs, a divorced man is kind of a non-person. I created a
network of divorced men friends, as we were all sort of stuck in limbo,”
he said.
Frank explained to me that the script tells the story of the tenants
in an apartment building – efficiency apartments, that is, located close
to several of the tenant’s children and therefore the tenants’ ex-wives
– who meet nightly in the basement of their building to share stories
over beers.
Among the tenants Frank described there is a player, who is twice
divorced; a younger guy who is working up the courage to talk to women;
an attorney (played by Frank) who is having an affair with his second
ex-wife, though she has gone back to her first husband; a new tenant,
who thinks he still has a chance to reconcile with his ex-wife; and the
landlord, a still-married guy who flaunts to his tenants that he knows
what it takes to be successful in marriage.
(There are a few women in the building, too, who cross paths with the gentlemen throughout the play.)
“It’s about the fine line between love and hate,” Frank said of his
play, “how quickly love turns to hate, and how men deal with loss. In
many ways divorce is like death, as it changes your dreams and your life
so quickly.”
Frank purposefully recruited a female director, Mary Reynard, to
counter the male perspective from which he wrote the script. But he is
firm: the play will wake audience members up to the man’s mindset during
and after a divorce.
“I want people to think about how the other person feels when they’re
fighting and finding ways to separate themselves. I want people to
think about how traumatic divorce can be and yet how people can go on,
and whether there can still be true love.”
Frank believes in it – heck, he remarried in 2007 – but he admits that it’s hard.
“We’re still people and we still have feelings. Some will change and some will never change, but that’s just how life is.”
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A new law will eliminate Maryland's one-year wait for some who want to divorce.
When spouses in Maryland agree to split up
and amicably hammer out a separation agreement, state law still makes
them wait a year to file for divorce.
That will change Thursday —
at least for some couples — when a new law eliminates the waiting period
for those without minor children who mutually consent to divorce and
agree on a property split. Couples with children will still have to live
apart for a year before they can file, even if they have resolved
custody and support issues.
The change is the result of legislation sponsored by Sen. Robert A.
Zirkin and passed in April by the General Assembly. Zirkin, a Baltimore
County Democrat, said the measure will help thousands of Marylanders to
move on with their lives.
Lindsay Parvis, a Montgomery County
attorney who co-chairs the Maryland State Bar Association's section on
family law, called the change "a huge development."
She said it will be a relief for many people to know
they can move forward "rather than a law telling them they have to wait
12 months."
The current law starts the one-year clock on the day
one spouse moves out of the common home. If the two later stay under the
same roof for even a night, the clock resets to Day One.
Parvis said the law will get the courts out of the business of asking eligible couples about that aspect of their lives.
Del.
Kathleen Dumais, a family lawyer and vice chairman of the House
Judiciary Committee, said clients come to her with settlement agreements
and are shocked to learn they have to wait a year.
"They just look at me like I've lost my mind," said Dumais, a Montgomery County Democrat. "It just seems so crazy."
There
are exceptions to the waiting period in current law for cases in which a
spouse has committed adultery or been abusive. Lawyers point to cases
where couples didn't want to raise adultery charges in an uncontested
divorce, but did so to avoid the waiting period. In other cases, spouses
accuse themselves of adultery to expedite a ruling.
Dumais, who
helped steer the legislation through the House, said some delegates were
concerned that Zirkin's original bill did not include enough
protections against one spouse taking advantage of the other. She said
the House committee added an amendment excluding parents of minor
children from expedited divorce and another requiring that both spouses
attend the court hearing in person.
Currently only one spouse has to
attend the hearing on an uncontested divorce.
The House passed the
bill 104-34, with most Republicans opposed. The Senate, which earlier
passed the bill 40-7, accepted the House changes and Gov. Larry Hogan
signed the bill.
Lawmakers acted after hearing stories such as that of Rachel London and William Atwell.
In
joint written testimony, London and Atwell told senators that after
deciding in June 2011 that they no longer wanted to be married, they
quickly reached agreement on a property split and the support and
custody of their 4-year-old son. But because neither could afford to
leave their Anne Arundel County home immediately, they lived under the
same roof in separate bedrooms until Atwell could move out in October of
that year.
It wasn't until a year later they could file for divorce, which was granted in November 2012.
"Allowing
us to file for absolute divorce when we were ready more than a year
before would have decreased the stress, burden and uncertainty," they
wrote.
Under the new law, a couple in their position still would
not be eligible for a quick divorce because a child was involved. But
Dumais said the legislation nonetheless represents meaningful change.
"What I find in family law is that baby steps are important," she said.
Zirkin,
who said divorce law is a small part of his practice, said he hopes the
legislation will encourage separating couples to reach agreements.
"It
creates an incentive for people to work it out," he said. "Because the
last thing you want in a divorce is people fighting over every last
thing."
And if couples aren't fighting it out, that could save them on legal fees, Zirkin said.
"If this bill works the way it should ... it's a bad thing for divorce lawyers — which is a good thing," he said.
Sen.
Michael Hough, a Frederick County Republican, said the amendments made
the bill less objectionable, but he still is opposed.
"Right now
there's a cooling-off period that's in the law," he said. "I just don't
want to make it so you can get a next-day divorce, and that's where the
law is headed."
The bill was one of several that passed this year
removing obstacles to divorce. Another that becomes law this week
shortens to six months, rather than a year, the time someone must live
in Maryland to file for divorce here — an issue important for military
families who move frequently.
Zirkin said such changes are part of a broader re-examination of Maryland's approach to divorce.
"We
have a lot of remnants of very old common law and very old statutes,"
said Zirkin, who chairs the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. "This
is not the end in terms of modernizing our law."
Other new laws
These are among new Maryland laws effective Thursday: Rape kits: Requires police agencies to report backlogs of untested rape kits to state. Mental health: Requires Baltimore and county police to create units by next Oct. 1 trained to deal with mentally ill people. Police review: Expands mission and changes membership of Baltimore's civilian review board. Public information: Creates new compliance board with authority to enforce public records law. Speed limits: Allows state highway officials to set speed limits up to 70 mph. Human trafficking: Allows someone charged with prostitution to use as a defense being a victim of human trafficking. mdresser@baltsun.com
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Expectations for a spouse are much higher than they used to be.
For most of Western history, marriage had
little equality. Wives bore the brunt of child care and housework,
depended on their husbands for financial support and enjoyed little
social autonomy while men openly had affairs.
Fast-forward to the age of rom-coms,
Valentine's Day and a $50 billion wedding industry. It's all based on
finding, marrying and keeping “The One.”
“Today, Americans want not only a spouse
who is reliable and reasonable, but also someone who is their best
friend, and a great lover, and someone who pays the bills ... but is
also really fun,” said Stanford sociologist Michael Rosenfeld.
According to research that Rosenfeld
recently presented at the American Sociological Association's annual
meeting, these heightened expectations can leave women feeling worse off
in marriage than men. In a survey of 2,262 adults in heterosexual
partnerships over the course of five years, Rosenfeld found that women
initiate divorces 69 percent of the time.
On the whole, they also reported less satisfaction with their marriages than men.
Scientists have known for decades that
wives are usually the ones asking for a divorce. But Rosenfeld's study
also surveyed people in nonmarital romantic relationships, from casual
flings to couples who had lived together for several years; in those
relationships, women and men initiated breakups at equal rates. So,
there's something about marriage that makes it harder on women.
“The expectation is that marriage has a
whole bunch of benefits and positive characteristics for women that it
didn't have in the past, but the truth is much trickier than that,”
Rosenfeld said.
Though he stressed that most women surveyed
were happy with their marriages, many of those who weren't cited
controlling husbands and a loss of independence as causes of discontent.
He also speculated that, although most men
today espouse egalitarian values, many probably still harbor
subconscious expectations of a wife's traditional role in the household.
This could explain why, after all these years, women still shoulder
twice as many domestic responsibilities as men. (In contrast, studies
have shown that couples who equally divide their child-care duties have
better sex lives.)
Rosenfeld's survey checked in with the same
individuals every year for five years. In cases in which someone was
married the first year of the study and divorced in the last, his team
was able to gather details in the breakup's immediate aftermath.
One woman, who was 23 when the study began
in 2009, initially reported a “good” (4 out of 5 points on the
satisfaction scale) relationship with her husband-to-be: “He is very
clever, fun, and sweet. I respect him and feel like we are equals on
values, intellect and humor.”
She noted, however, “It is not ‘excellent' because I wish that he was more romantic. He's very practical.”
Four years later, the couple got divorced.
In early 2015, she said, “I used to be a very happy, optimistic person,
and it was like he was slowly starving my soul.”
She realized that the relationship had become emotionally abusive and promptly filed for a divorce.
Rosenfeld said respondents' stories had
echoes of “The Feminine Mystique,” Betty Friedan's feminist treatise
about unhappiness among middle-class housewives. Instead, many of
today's disgruntled wives have full-time jobs — and, hence, no practical
need for husbands who don't make them happy.
So, while the institution of marriage hasn't completely shed its inequitable roots, women can afford to be a lot choosier.
Yanan Wang is a staff writer for The Washington Post.
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Now
that hackers leaked the email addresses of 37 million users of Ashley
Madison, the dating service for married people in search of an affair,
New York City divorce lawyer Morghan Richardson’s “phone lit up like a
Christmas tree,” she says.
“People are struggling to deal with how this information may impact their divorce and their life — if at all,” says Richardson.
Here is how catching a cheating spouse can affect your split:
Power. “I often hear from the wronged spouse: ‘I
knew he was cheating! Now that I have proof I can get the house, the
kids, the …’” says Richardson. The reality is that most states have
no-fault divorce laws. That means that a judge doesn’t care why you are
splitting up. Their job is to make sure that the money is split fairly
and custody and visitation are in the best interest of the kids. In cases
of infidelity, the “wronged” spouse is so hurt and angry, they assume
that a judge will take that into consideration. They won’t.
On the other hand, it is common that the cheating spouse will feel so
guilty, or won’t want the divorce, or be afraid of losing face to
friends and family that they concede to their husband or wife’s
demands. Guilt is a powerful negotiating tool in divorce.
2. Finances. Again, just because they were cheating doesn’t mean you
get more than your share of money money. Divorce, technically, is not
about reparations. However, document through credit card and bank
statements how much money he spent on the site, and if he was
successful, how much he spent having the affair (hotel rooms, gifts,
dinners, etc.). This spending is called “marital waste,” which can be
recaptured during the divorce proceedings. If he bought her a Cartier watch with marital money, he better be prepared to pony up at least half the cost.
3. Custody. “My husband listed a number of
‘unconventional’ sex preferences. How can I use this in my custody
fight?” For the most part, what happens in the bedroom is not for the
eyes of children — 0r the ears of the court. Your husband’s 50 Shades of Grey
disclosure on his Ashley Madison profile is not likely to be equated
with bad parenting. Of course, most custody fights are about character
assassination and depending on the preferences listed, his BDSM admissions may help tilt the legal scales in your favor.
4. Settlement. “My wife is really angry. I was just
curious when I signed up. I don’t want a divorce.” Again, judges don’t
care, and courts have no interest in making couples stay married. Your
wife can get a divorce if she wants, period. Second, don’t let your
guilt or desire to “win her back” force you into a divorce settlement
that is not in your favor. Giving her the sun and the moon now will lead
to impossible to pay for deals that crush you. Finally, think about
getting your own therapist to cope with the process, and your own guilt.
You are far from alone in your infidelity (studies of American couples
show 20 to 40 percent of straight married men will have an
affair), though you may be finding yourself alone in trying to save this
relationship.
5. Legal Fees. While infidelity doesn’t contribute
to the legal process of divorce, the discovery of an affair nearly
always skyrockets the emotional hurt. And when people are angry, they
need to fight. And fighting in divorce means higher legal fees. If
a husband wants to try to punish his unfaithful wife through a
contentious divorce and driving up her legal fees, hopefully it won’t
take him long to realize he’s punishing himself by racking up the same
costly fees with his lawyer.
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Lawyers
think the leak of 37m names from the membership list of the Ashley
Madison database, an online club aimed at unfaithful spouses, is going
to create a boom in divorces this autumn - a 'Christmas in September',
according to one practitioner.
Steve Mindel, a lawyer based in Los Angeles, said: 'We're all saying:
'It's going to be Christmas in September. Pretty soon all of this stuff
is going to surface and there's going to be a lot of filings for divorce
directly as a result of this.'
Facilitating adultery
Nigel Shepherd of UK law firm Mills & Reeve was asked for advice
from an unhappy wife within hours of her husband's name being listed on
the leaked database listing. He said: 'If someone finds out if their
partner is set up on a site which exists wholly for facilitating
adultery, it's hardly surprising they are taking advice about it.'
Source: Daily Mail
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Women are more likely than men to initiate divorce, but they are
no more likely than men to initiate breakups in a dating relationship,
according to a new US study.
"The breakups of non-marital heterosexual relationships in the
US are quite gender neutral and fairly egalitarian," said study author
Michael Rosenfeld, an associate professor of sociology at Stanford
University.
Rosenfeld analyzed data from a 2009-2015 survey on couples in
US. He looked at 2,262 adults, ages 19 to 94, who had opposite sex
partners in 2009. By 2015, 371 of these people had broken up or gotten
divorced.
As part of his analysis, Rosenfeld found that women initiated 69 per cent of all divorces, compared to 31 per cent for men.
In contrast, there was not a statistically significant
difference between the percentage of breakups initiated by unmarried
women and men, regardless of whether they had been living with their
partners.
Social scientists have previously argued that women initiate
most divorces because they are more sensitive to relationship
difficulties.
Rosenfeld argues that were this true, women would initiate the
breakup of both marriages and non-marital relationships at equal rates.
"Women seem to have a predominant role in initiating divorces
in the US as far back as there is data from a variety of sources, back
to the 1940s," Rosenfeld said.
Perhaps women were more likely to initiate divorces because, as
Rosenfeld found, married women reported lower levels of relationship
quality than married men.
In contrast, women and men in non-marital relationships reported equal levels of relationship quality.
Rosenfeld said his results support the feminist assertion that
some women experience heterosexual marriage as oppressive or
uncomfortable.
"I think that marriage as an institution has been a little bit
slow to catch up with expectations for gender equality," Rosenfeld said.
"Wives still take their husbands' surnames, and are sometimes
pressured to do so. Husbands still expect their wives to do the bulk of
the housework and the bulk of the childcare," Rosenfeld said.
"On the other hand, I think that non-marital relationships lack
the historical baggage and expectations of marriage, which makes the
non-marital relationships more flexible and therefore more adaptable to
modern expectations, including women's expectations for more gender
equality," he said.
The study will be presented at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association in Chicago.
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WHEN mother of two Sarah suddenly found herself single at age 30, she
came to the daunting realisation that meant getting back into the world
of dating.
The Ipswich woman said many people shared her fears of getting back
into the dating game, though it wasn't an issue many spoke openly about.
"My now ex-husband was my first boyfriend. We met when I was at
university so to find myself back in the dating game at age 30, on the
other side of a 10-year relationship with two young kids, was
horrifying," she said.
"I hadn't had dating experience of any kind and had quite relished the fact I found the one first time around.
"That wasn't to be though and I had to get back out there again.
"A lot of my friends are still happily married or in relationships, so
to even find someone to be my 'wing-woman' was difficult.
"I've met women and men in my situation and we all agree it's so hard to find someone and go through this dating process."
Two years after her separation, Sarah - whose name has been changed to
protect her privacy - decided to bite the bullet and agreed to go on a
blind date set up by a friend.
"Turns out the guy wasn't great and after a few dates I did tell my
friend she could never do that to me again, but it did get me back out
into the dating scene," she said.
Sarah said balancing work and motherhood made her take a different approach to dating than when she was younger.
"I have a lot less tolerance. I know this time around who I am, want I want in life and what I won't stand for," she said.
"I guess that might mean my standards are too high and that's okay
because I think I settled too much on my first (relationship).
"My children are also important to me, I am upfront about them when dating."
Since her first date, Sarah has tried meeting people through friends, online and even through speed dating.
"I am trying to be open to putting myself out of my comfort zone just to see what these avenues are like," she said.
"As with anything in life, you could meet fabulous people but you could also meet some 'crazies'."
Sarah offered her advice to others who are now finding themselves in a
similar situation and assured those feeling nervous that they were not
alone.
"Oh gosh, it is scary (and) it is fraught with unknowns, but at the
same time if you don't try it how will you know what it's like?" she
said.
"I know people who have had fabulous success at events or online and
it's those success stories that are great motivators for others to try
or to keep going with it.
"But (I would like) to tell people there are plenty of us out there, you aren't alone.
"Take comfort in the fact there are many people as frustrated as you are.
"Dating is hard in general, not just as a single parent or divorce.
"You have to persist with it, sometimes it works out, most times it
doesn't, and then you have to start again with introducing yourself,
going 'back to the drawing board' again and again.
"But I think if you know who you are (and) what you want from relationships, you can't go wrong."
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The book Divorce Hell covers break-up rituals, horror stories, sex and the seven year itch. It’s complete with the author’s own story, the history of divorce, and possible ways to avoid divorce. Look for it soon in bookstores. Other books from Charles Irion's Hell Series: Autograph Hell, Remodeling Hell, and Car Dealer Hell
Charles G. Irion is an award-winning author, publisher, entrepreneur, philanthropist, Executive Producer, actor, and adventurer. A founder and publisher of Irion Books, LLC he has written a series of murder mystery novels set against the backdrop of the Seven Summits. The Summit Murder Mystery series includes Murder on Everest, Murder on Elbrus, Murder on Mt. McKinley, Murder on Puncak Jaya, Murder on Aconcagua, Murder on Vinson Massif and Murder on Kilimanjaro.
In addition, Charles has also authored the Hell Series which are Remodeling Hell, Autograph Hell, Car Dealer Hell and Divorce Hell. Irion also wrote the cookbook every camper should own, Roadkill Cooking for Campers: The Best Dang Wild Game Cookbook in the World!
Irion also supports other humanitarian-relief organizations, such as Project C.U.R.E. and the Phil-Am Lions Club. He has traveled all over the world conduction medical assessments and helping those in need.
A successful investor and businessman, Irion is the founder of U. S. Park Investments, a company that owns and brokers Manufactured Home and RV communities.
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