Ex-Wives Understand Hypergamy
In the course of a high-conflict divorce, the soon-to-be ex-wife has an iron clad grasp of hypergamy. She knows that by getting as much of her husband’s assets and income, she is reducing his level of attraction to women. A guy who is paying out the nose for alimony and child support is going to lose major points in the post-divorce sexual market place (SMP).
The ex-wives know this. As they were likely hypergamous in their marriage decision, they know that by limiting their ex-husbands access to resources they are limiting their ex-husbands dating options. It’s cold revenge, nothing more. Is it any wonder why the demand for alimony reform is coming from second wives? Those second wives discovered that their own incomes are also at risk by a vindictive first wives.
When kids are involved, the potential drop in the ex-husbands assets and income is too good an opportunity to pass up. Combine that with almost no custody enforcement and ex-wives have the ultimate form of revenge – the ex-husband has no money to attract a new woman and he can’t even see his own kids. He gets to enjoy his drab two bedroom apartment and empty bank account all by himself.
Please note that I am acknowledging amicable divorces where this scenario doesn’t play out. Not all divorces are like that (“NADALT”?). Such revenge tactics by ex-wives are far more visible than two former spouses who successfully manage to make the dissolution of marriage work. But the opportunity for ex-wife revenge is a structural weakness in the divorce process. “For the children” becomes a handy excuse for exceptionally bad ex-wife behavior. Woman-as-perpetual-victim plays into this quite conveniently, as well.
“He only cares about his money” is a common refrain when ex-wives discuss such issues. Of course he does, cupcake. You only cared about his money when you were about to embark on a voyage on the cruise ship Hypergamy 1. There have been some moves toward alimony reform, 2nd wives and all. There will likely be no moves toward child support reform because a few, vindictive ex-wives will always play the “for the children card” with the willing cooperation of White Knight politicians.
Getting married and having children is such a huge risk for men that it’s mind-boggling that men want to go this route. Of course, there is the option of taking the Red Pill and managing the marriage successfully. Sadly, too many potential husbands see the Red Pill as poison and too many women are enjoying the privilege of the blue pill, gyno-centric cultural landscape.
The Private Man 
Absolutely NADALT!!! Well call me a fool if you will (most of my female friends certainly do), but IMO it is much better to live a lifestyle that doesn’t require alimony or child support. Granted, that may not be possible for some women. I personally wish some other woman would latch onto my ex and divert his attention for good. She can have every dime. I will GLADLY work 60 hr weeks and eschew subsidy of any kind. It is far more important to me to know that any future man in my life is there 1) because he wants to be, and 2) because I want (not need) him there.
Wow – can I meet you?
🙂
The whole ‘for the children’ argument makes no sense. Wouldn’t the father have the kids’ interests in mind and be willing to opt for putting the kids in college, etc?
You could argue that he would maliciously sabotage his kids’ future in spite of his ex and leave them out in the cold, but come on, its his money and if he wasn’t being taken advantage of, he has no reason to be spiteful.
Its more feminism: the woman wants to decide her childrens’ social status at the cost of the man’s social status. Divorce is hardly a failure that could hurt her social status anymore: its more like a win-win situation
Amen. In my case, no alimony no child support. Just wish he would find someone else so I could actually finish setting up a face book page without getting hacked (or accused of having multiple boyfriends.) The reality of taking care of a toddler, a teenager and a terminally ill parent makes that laughable.
As for nasty divorces, I sympathize. But I owned my choice of husband, even when I was too sick and powerless to stop him from destroying everything we’d spent our adult lives working for. Again, I sympathize with the men, I know what it’s like to lose your home, business, have nothing but the clothes on your back, and 28 dollars to your name. But, you picked her. And though I support my children on my own, I don’t agree with changing the support laws. If places were reversed, I’d darn well pay support.
When I read posts like this, it reminds me of how amicable my divorce with my ex-wife was; so amicable, that five and half years of sorting through my own emotional fallout, we are back living together as friends. Why? Because I take my role as father to be primary. I love my six year old boy, and this is the best situation for all of us. My ex and I love each other, but are happy to remain divorced and platonic. We both contributed to the destruction of our former marriage, and we both acknowledge that. We also recognize that it’s easier for us to band together in some way.
This arrangement has been ‘evolved to’, arrived at over the last couple of years. I never lost touch with my boy- this is one of the benefits of webcams. Coming back into the situation as co-parent roommates is actually much easier for us than being married was. We’re both free to pursue relationships with other people, and we share in the joys and responsibilities of raising our little bundle of precosciousness. If the women I am interested in can’t handle this situation, I just move on. I find that some women relate, and some don’t.
That said, I am thankful that things worked out this way. And, yes, I think the way things are generally stacked against men is horrible. The impression sometimes comes across in these situations that the women involved are not really concerned with the welfare of the children involved, just a bunch of selfish cunts. And, to clarify, I use cunts in the British sense, so it’s not a gender reference.
So it’s true then?
Women created the problem … and the women after can demonstrably solve it.
Good on the sisterhood. 🙂
The only way this will change is when outraged and vocal women find the roles reversed and a lap dog media that will speak up about their supposed “injustice”. Especially in the era of the breadwinner wife who more than likely will grow to resent her stay at home partner. And pay him alimony in the likely divorce.
The ex-wives aren’t thinking this through when they get a divorce. The wife gets child support and the house. The child support will eventually end. The house is a depreciating asset that will eventually require expensive repairs that she won’t be able to afford after the child support ends. If she gets laid off from her job, she doesn’t have that second income from her husband to fall back on. She’ll end up broke and living in a rundown trailer park. Men are more career oriented than most women so, as her ex-husband gets older and gets more job experience, his income will usually continue to rise. In that case, in the long run he’ll end up having more money to enjoy life and will have plenty of divorced women to pick from and will probably be able to date someone several years younger than his ex-wife. The ex-wife will have trouble finding someone since she’s older and has lost her looks and looks are important to guys. This is all what eventually happened with me and my ex-wife. When contemplating divorce, she looked only at the immediate benefits and, because of her ego, overestimated her ability to get another guy. There are a lot of other women just like her.
Yeah, I’ve come across one or two women who are in the position of paying their ex-husbands c/s and alimony. One is a law firm partner who wanted shared physical custody when she divorced so that she would have more time to focus on her career, and she still pisses and moans about her ex spending the c/s on his GF and trips and so on — makes me chuckle inside when I hear it. However, these cases are still outliers. Most women seem to still want full physical custody precisely because of the financial impact *not* having it can have on c/s payments. It’s a serious financial issue, and in most places continues until the “child” is 22 nowadays, so it’s not chump change. I doubt that anytime soon we will ever reach a critical mass of enough women paying c/s and/or alimony such that there will be much impetus to change those laws. A much more productive tack would be to encourage rebuttable presumptions of joint physical custody and shared parenting (capable of being rebutted in cases of actual proven abuse, addiction and so on) — this would be better for kids in most cases, but harder on the parents, which is as it should be in a divorce, rather than easier on the parents and harder on the kids, as it mostly is today.
Musicman’s situation is interesting. It’s good that it has worked out for you like that. My ex and I also get along well, but we could never live together like that — we would drive each other completely bats after a day or two, just as we did when we were married. I think it’s a good goal to try to get along with your ex if you have kids with them, and I think it’s good for you that you’ve been able to do it the way you have that works for you, but it seems a pretty unrealistic approach for the vast majority of divorced people.
In a logical and rational world, child support would be commensurate with custody.
If one has sole / full custody, then they have sole / full responsibility for paying for the child.
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Great post. The reality is, a man’s affluence is correlated with his attractiveness to women, and a divorcing wife knows this.
The reverse equivalent – can you imagine if divorcing women were forced to give up 50% of their looks?
My husband and I met in the Army. When I broke my neck on duty, he made it pretty clear that he didn’t want a “sick wife,” “you’ll never get better,” and he was going to “trade me in for a new model.” I got as well as I could, got a civilian job, and I left him. I left him everything–the house, his car, his retirement, alimony, etc. I signed over my rights to anything of his despite my lawyer and lots of my friends screaming at me that “It’s the law! You should get 1/2!” I only wanted his love and friendship, and I would never let a man have that story about his evil ex that stole everything from him. There were many years of struggling to work 10 hours a day while being in physical and emotional pain. But I’m now completely healthy again, work > 50 hours per week, bought my own Porsche, and exercise everyday. Look for character and honor in a mate, regardless of their gender.