On the heels of my positive article called Why I Like To Date Divorced Men, I now want to disclose the top three things that turn me off some divorced DADS.  Please read that again -  I said SOME divorced DADS.  And no, this is not meant to undermine the positive stuff I said in my other piece. 

Turn off #1:  They bitch and complain about having to pay child support and/or alimony. There are very good reasons why the laws are the way they are and men are required to pay support.  Do they always seem fair?  No.  Can it make life challenging, if not downright tough for awhile?  Absolutely.  But there are two sides to every story in divorce, and quite frankly, no matter how a man tries to convince me he’s been totally screwed over, I don’t buy it.   He has financial obligations to his children – PERIOD.  If he has to pay spousal, those are his responsibilities too.  If the situation is truly THAT unjust, he should bring it before a judge.  Otherwise, he needs to accept that this is the way it will be in the short term, stop complaining and MOVE ON. 

I know it can be really hard to be a divorced dad – in many ways.  And I know it sucks having to get up every single day, go off to work, deal with that stress, only to juggle parenting with doing laundry, exercising, cooking meals, and running errands.  But that doesn’t abdicate you from your financial responsibilities.  Nor does it give you free reign to devalue your ex and her life; who are you to put a dollar amount on her head?  Why should you complain about paying her to validate the busyness of your life?  Your personal happiness is not based solely on what’s in your wallet so stop acting like she took away your soul.  I want to know that your spiritual evolution has surpassed the value you place upon your wallet.

Turn off #2:  They sing the woes of being a ‘single dad’, when in fact, what they REALLY are is a ‘part-time dad.’  A single dad is a man who has half-custody or more of his children.  He really understands what goes into being a parent and understands the challenges and complexities of his job.  A man who sees his kids every other weekend or in any part-time capacity does not merit that single dad status.  Whether he knows it not, his ex’s parenting responsibilities far supersede his and are deserving of respect.  Chances are, he doesn’t even know what half of them are.

Turn off #3:  Part-time dads who attempt to bow out of their scheduled time with their kids – and are self-righteous about it.  Men who say their kids are important but don’t show it through actions don’t have their priorities straight.  I find it shocking how many men religiously carve time to go to the gym or promptly attend business meetings, or participate in monthly golf tournaments, yet they are consistently late and/or cancelling when it comes to their scheduled time with their kids.  I’m not saying it isn’t challenging at times.  But in the end, we always make time for that which is truly important to us, so excuses become nothing more than lame-assed excuses very quickly.  If a man wants to gripe and complain instead of tackling his new life challenges with  intelligence, integrity and a sense of humour, sorry – I don’t play the violin; life is too short to listen to the non-stop whining. 

Delaine – www.iamdivorcednotdead.com

Other Articles:

Surviving Low-Income Hell As A Divorced Single Mom

Sexually Invisible

Emergency

I recently saw Terry Hekker on the Today Show and was struck by her story. Terry, now in her sixties, was a traditional housewife during the 70s and 80s.  She even wrote a book, Ever Since Adam and Eve at the end of the 1970s extolling the virtues of staying home and raising the kids.

Her book countered the rising feminist tide of women giving up the housewife role to find careers. It illustrated the stories of so many women who I interviewed for my book, He’s History; You’re Not: Surviving Divorce After Forty. 

Back then; there was a huge amount of controversy about career women.  Most women took on the housewife role as a matter of course.

Terry, with admirable honesty, has now written:  Disregard the First Book. It seems her husband handed her divorce papers on their 40th wedding anniversary, leaving her financially and emotionally destitute. 

The judge only gave her “rehabilitative” alimony for a few years.  Somehow, she was supposed to find a job at age 67, with no training and no job experience—during a recession when even 27 years olds can’t find work.   In the meantime, her ex husband was in Cancun with his girlfriend.  This story is all too common among divorcees of a certain age, mostly over 55.

I was a feminist early on, but so many women of my generation missed the feminist revolution completely.  They were isolated in the suburbs with their families, and that is the way they liked it.   Or at least, like Terry, they said that’s the way they liked it. 

 Those women, the ones who stayed home to raise children and help promote their husband’s careers are now being blindsided by husbands who are going through the stereotypical midlife crisis.

Their husbands are trading in the older model for the latest one.   We feminists shot ourselves in the foot—or pocketbook—by convincing the courts we were independent women and didn’t need alimony.   Alimony for life, which I think should be standard in cases like Terry’s, is now a rarity, especially in my state, New York, which is where Terry also lives.

Eventually the argument that women should stay home with the kids became moot because most families needed two incomes to survive.  Women had to go to work to keep their families afloat. 

However, we’re now experiencing a backlash where mommyhood is being extolled as a new route to sainthood, and  “helicopter” moms spend so much time hovering over their kids they barely have time for a job.   Terry is out there speaking to college classes convincing young girls that they must have a career and not depend on husbands, who may or may not stick around.

I totally agree, but this isn’t going to solve the problem of today’s older divorcee who doesn’t have a career and isn’t likely to find one in her fifties and sixties.  I believe lifetime alimony has to be restored as the default for women who spent their lives as homemakers.  

Those women’s contributions to the marriage have to be calculated in dollars.   How much would it have cost their husbands to hire someone to cook, clean and raise the kids for 40 years?  That’s what their wives contributed to the marriage and that asset has to be taken into account,  just like the house and the IRA and other marital assets.

More Articles:

What am I Going to do For Work?
Are You a Selfish Woman?
Self-Loathin & The Cheater