Guys,

I originally published this on my original blog back in July of 2008. I thought it would be MUST READ material for the MGTOW Survival Guide...

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Sudden Divorce Syndrome

Divorce may be the worst thing that can happen to a man's health, finances, and emotional well-being. Yet one in four men who will get divorced this year don't have any clue that it's coming. Here's how to avoid the surprise.

By John Sedgwick, Best Life

Hey, here's a good way to avoid divorce-don't be a dumb ass and get married-duh!

Like every husband who suddenly turns into an ex, Martin Paul, a pleasant, unassuming 51-year-old, knows exactly where he was when it happened. He was sitting on the back porch of his pricey hilltop house in the Boston suburbs one sunny Saturday morning, relaxing over coffee.

Paul is a professional collector, primarily of coins, but of other rare objects as well: Sonny Liston's ring belt; a submarine that appeared in the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me. It wasn't easy to build up his collecting business, but he had finally got it humming, and he was pulling down close to seven figures a year. Plus, the oldest of his three sons had suffered a frightening brain injury, but after two years of treatment, he had finally recovered enough to go to college. For the first time in a very long while, life was good.

Ah, you thought that, after all your hard work, you'd get to enjoy it, didn't you? Didn't you, pal?! Your hard work was paying off, so you were ready to enjoy the FRUITS of your labor; not only that, you'd actually get to SHARE it with your wife-finally! Why work hard if you're not doing so with the goal of ENJOYING the fruits of that work? Can't fault a guy for thinking that...

And so, that Saturday, he wanted to tell his wife he was thinking about finally easing off a little. They'd started going on expensive vacations in Europe and Hawaii, and he figured she'd be pleased at the prospect of taking more trips together, or at least at the prospect of seeing him around the house a little more, and not buried in his basement office. He had met her in graduate school over a quarter century ago, and they'd had their ups and downs, but he was still crazy about her. And he thought that, with a little more time together, she'd be crazy about him again too.

You thought that she'd be crazy about you too again?! Come on! Oh, she'll be crazy for you, but not in the way you were hoping for...

Dude, where did you get the SILLY notion that she'd appreciate you?! Don't you know that women cannot be satisfied? Didn't you ever learn that, if they're happy, then they'll INVENT shit to gripe about? Guess not...

But no. She scarcely listened to any talk of retirement, or of vacations, or of anything he had to say. She had plans of her own.

Yeah, she had a plan of her own, all right-dropping the HAMMER on her poor, hapless husband!

"I want a divorce," she said.

Ah she wants a divorce, huh? No wonder she waited until now to give you the 'good news'-you're worth money now, pal! And, now that you have some serious coin, she's going to help herself to some of it, hehehe...

Paul was so stunned that he thought he must have misheard her. But her face told him otherwise. "She looked like the enemy," he says. He started to think about everything he'd built: the thriving business, the wonderful family, the nice life in the suburbs. And he thought of her, and how much he still loved her. And then, right in front of her, he started to cry.

She looked like the enemy because she WAS the enemy! Bad move on your part to cry in front of the enemy; you're showing weakness, which will only breed contempt on her part for you. When your wife tells you she wants a divorce, she's ALREADY viewing YOU as the enemy, and has done so for months! When a woman says she wants a divorce, she's been planning it for months, if not years, and she has viewed you as the enemy for at least that long...

That night, he found a bottle of whiskey, and he didn't stop drinking it until he nearly passed out.

With all the surprises your wife had in store for you, it's too bad you didn't drink yourself to death; you would have been better off dead after she, with the help of Big Daddy Government, put the hurtin' on you! I got a taste of this 10 years ago when I got falsely accused. Though I dodged a bullet, I saw just how men are viewed & treated in family court during divorce. Sorry, but I don't want to go in there again, since it'll only mean one thing: my destruction. Any man who marries nowadays is a DUMB ASS, pure & simple. Why would ANY man (with two or more brain cells knocking together) would get married after seeing story after story like this is beyond me...

Things turned sh---- very fast. His wife took out a temporary restraining order, accusing him of attempting to kidnap their youngest son. The claim was never proved in court. Then, with the aid of some high-priced lawyers, she extracted from him a whopping $50,000 a month — a full 75 percent of his monthly income. Barred from the house, he was not allowed regular access to the office he used to generate that income. (On the few times he was permitted inside, his wife did not let him use the bathroom. She insisted that he go outside in the woods.) "My lawyer kept telling her lawyers, 'You're killing the Golden Goose,'" recalls Paul. "But they didn't care."

You know, when I see stuff like this, it makes it difficult for me to argue with Christopher from Oregon when he says that women are evil; that they have no morals; that they have no honor; that women have no scruples; that they hate men more than we can imagine. How can I argue with him now?! I mean, we have a false accusation. We have her extracting $50K/month in alimony from him-$50K/month! Never mind the fact that, with all of the divorce's mental, emotional, and spiritual fallout and the concomitant effects on Mr. Paul's health that he wouldn't be able to EARN the salary he had before; he wouldn't be able to earn enough money to pay that amount of legal extortion. Can you believe that?! She demanded and got $50k/month! Shoot, that's more than many people earn in an entire YEAR! We have her barring him from the house, so he can't work his business to pay her these exorbitant sums. His ex-wife WAS killing the Golden Goose, proof positive of her hatred for her husband.

Crushed by the payments, and unable to work, he soon faced such a severe cash-flow crisis that he had to declare bankruptcy. His wife still did not relent. She charged that Paul had been abusive toward one of their sons. Paul says the charge is absurd, but it did its work, limiting his visitation rights.

Isn't it wonderful how women can do these things with TOTAL IMPUNITY? I've heard guys say that, given the legal nature of marriage, the wife holds the Sword of Damoclles over her husband's head. Best part of all is that women can do this with the impunity of knowing that, no matter how HEINOUS her deed, she will not be punished for it. She's in the driver's seat, and she knows it...

Paul was sleepless and nerve wracked; his spirits plunged. He still missed his old life with his family. He missed the sound of it — the bustle of all the activity, the life. "I can't stand the silence," he says. "I miss hearing my wife breathe as she lay in bed beside me." In his desperation, he twice overdosed on prescription medication, but managed to call 911 each time before the drugs took full effect, and medics rushed him to the hospital in time. "I don't want to die," he says wearily. "I want to live. But I can't live with this torture." He did manage to keep a few mementos of his former life. Pictures, mostly. But also the kids' baby shoes. "I was always the emotional one," he says. "But that's all I have — the shoes, a few pictures. That's all. I used to be jovial, happy. But not now. I'm a broken man."

Read that again, fellas-especially if you're still ENTERTAINING the foolish hope & dream of getting married! Read it again! Oh, you don't want to? Why not? Afraid to think the unthinkable, are we? Afraid to acknowledge the harsh truth just beneath the surface that, if you take the plunge, that this could be YOU?! Go ahead, read it again, and let it sink in, Pal. If you haven't married, do yourself a favor-DON'T...

Sudden Divorce Syndrome. You won't find it in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, that bible of psychiatric illnesses, but you will find it in life. In a 2004 poll by the AARP, one in four men who were divorces in the previous year said they "never saw it coming." (Only 14 percent of divorced women said they experienced the same unexpected broadside.) And few events in a man's life can be as devastating to his physical, mental, and financial health.
"I meet men all the time who are going through breakups, and it's very common for them to say it caught them by surprise," says Los Angeles-based sex therapist Lori Buckley, PsyD, host of "On the Minds of Men," a weekly relationship podcast on iTunes.

Maybe because wives make an effort to CONCEAL what's coming! Deception has always been a part of warfare; there are sound tactical and strategic reasons for this. If your enemy doesn't know what you're REALLY up to, then it's harder for him to counter your next move. Someone who's interested in working things out does NOT undertake a strategy of deception, nor does this person engage in the tactics of deception; these are the actions of a determined enemy.

Do these wives ever really come out and tell their husbands what's REALLY on their minds? Do they ever say, "Hey Pal, I've got a problem with you. Here's what it is, and here's what I want you to DO about it.."? No, they don't. Women engage in giving hints that are so vague & nebulous that even Sherlock Holmes himself would have a problem even discerning their presence, let alone meaning! If a woman is vague with me, then she's gone-end of story. Sorry, but I'm not a mind reader, and I don't appreciate you expecting me to be one...

The warning signs are usually there, claims Buckley, but the male mind is simply not very adept at recognizing them. "When women make up their mind that the relationship is over, they stop talking about the relationship," she says. "Men interpret a woman"s lack of complaining as satisfaction. But more often, it's because she's simply given up."

So, according to Dr. Buckley, a man can't win! If she complains, you can't win; you can't do anything that'll please a woman who's complaining. If you, as a man, find a way to address or satisfy her complaint(s), the bitch will just dream up new ones! Then, according to Dr. Buckley, if a woman stops complaining, it means that she's given up, that she's given up, and is looking to bail out on you. Boy, you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't-a classic Catch-22! Wow, just what I always wanted! To live with a nagging, ungrateful bitch, or be on the receiving end of her divorce antics when she stops being a nagging bitch-what a deal! Sorry, but this sort of thing does not qualify for my time or interest...

To understand how common this scenario is, consider figures provided by John Guidubaldi, a former member of the U.S. Commission on Child and Family Welfare. Nationwide, Guidubaldi reports, wives are the ones to file for divorce 66 percent of the time, and, in some years, that figure has soared to nearly 75 percent. "It is easier to end a marriage than it is to fire an employee," says Guidubaldi. If she wants out, it's over. "You can get a dissolution of marriage on the basis of nothing."

And that's PRECISELY why men are not lining up to be slaughtered, er married-precisely why! Why would a man marry, knowing that his wife is likely to bail on him? Why would he marry knowing, that if she divorces, then his life could end up destroyed? Why would a man marry, knowing that there is ABSOLUTEY NOTHING he can do to stop the divorce?

Oftentimes, men have a divorce sprung on them in midlife, when their kids are more self-sufficient and they've finally started to think they were over the hump. Like Martin Paul, they could start to relax. But that's exactly the time of life when the instance of divorce begins to swell (another occurs shortly after marriage). Joe Cordell, of the law firm Cordell and Cordell, which specializes in representing men in domestic cases, attributes this to wives deciding as they approach age 40 that it's now or never for getting back into the marriage market. It's the same phenomenon as rich guys trading in their long-time partners for trophy wives. Only it's the women who are shedding men.

Just HAD to get that obligatory canard about rich men trading in their wives for the younger, newer models! Never mind the fact that women file for divorces 70% of the time (see above in this article); never mind that, by a TWO TO ONE MARGIN, women file for divorce first. I beg to differ with Mr. Cordell here.
I also beg to differ with him on another point: why women bail at 40. Though they may see it as 'now or never' in the marriage market, I think it's due to a more selfish, more base reason: to wit, they know exactly WHEN to cash out! They know that, if they wait until a man has reached midlife, then: 1) he's progressed sufficiently far in his career, and is earning more money; and 2) the longer she's married, the more she gets, especially in CA. In CA, after a couple has been married for 10 years or more, then Wifey gets ALIMONY FOR LIFE. No Mr. Cordell, women bail out at this time not only because they want to use what's left of their looks to land another sucker; they bail out because it's the most lucrative TIME to do so...

It didn't used to be this way. While divorce has been legal for nearly two centuries, it was long a topic of such mortification that it was considered a last, desperate resort. The 1960s changed all that. The free-love decade both increased the inclination to divorce and dropped the social resistance to it. The rising financial independence of women began to free them from a need to stay in a stultifying or abusive marriage. As a result, divorce soared, doubling by most measures. But the stereotypical divorce story — man marries, starts a family, meets a younger woman, and leaves his wife — just isn't as common as we are led to believe.

What MSN DIDN'T mention was that 'no fault' divorce became legal during this time period! In 1968, Governor Ronald Reagan signed the nation's first, no fault divorce law. By the 1980s, all but one state (NY, believe it or not) had no fault divorce laws of their own on the books. By the early to mid 1980s, no fault divorce was the law of the land. Women quickly found out that, if they divorced Hubby, then they'd be richly rewarded for it. How richly, you ask? Let me put it this way: author Gabrielle Hartman says that, if a woman isn't driving a Porsche after three divorces, then she's doing something wrong! Oh, and this was before VAWA and the crazy DV laws that make anything Wifey doesn't like a crime for Hubby to commit...

Divorce did lose its stigma, no question about it; shoot, even growing up in the late 1970s, people GASPED at the news of a couple's divorce! It was not something to be proud of; it was a badge of failure, not of honor. At least when I grew up, people had enough morals and decency to be ASHAMED of such a shameful act...

"Marriage changes men more pervasively and more profoundly than it changes women," explains sociologist Steven Nock, author of Marriage in Men's Lives. "The best way to put it is, marriage is for men what motherhood is for women." Marriage makes men grow up. Nock observes that many men before marriage are indifferent workers, and, after hours, are likely to be found in bars or zoned out in front of a TV. After marriage, they are solid wage earners, frequent churchgoers, maybe members of a neighborhood protection association. But divorce takes that underpinning away, leaving men strangely infantilized and unsure of their place in the world. They feel like interlopers in the stands at their children's soccer games or in the auditorium for their school plays.

No, Mr. Nock, marriage doesn't make men grow up; it emasculates them, you idiot! Men aren't indifferent workers before getting married; they just don't have to be so driven when they're single. After all, they only have themselves to support, not some demanding, nagging bitch who has a bottomless pit of wants that can never be satisfied! No, married men don't earn more because they're married; they earn more because they HAVE TO...

Compounding this pain, men find the deck is stacked against them. The divorce system tends to award wives custody of the children, substantial child support, the marital home, half the couple's assets, and, often, heavy alimony payments.

What have we here? Truth from MSN?! I don't believe it! And some said that the Age of Miracles was over...

This may come as startling news to a public that has been led to believe that women are the ones who suffer financially postdivorce, not men. But the data show otherwise, according to an exhaustive study of the subject by Sanford L. Braver, a professor of psychology at Arizona State University and author of Divorced Dads: Shattering the Myths. "The man is in a lot poorer condition than the popular media portray," he says. "This idea of the swinging, happy-go-lucky, no-worries single guy in a bar... that's just not it at all." The misconception was fueled by Harvard professor Lenore Weitzman's widely cited book, The Divorce Revolution: The Unexpected Social and Economic Consequences for Women and Children in America.

Weitzman's 1985 tome claimed that postdivorce women and children suffer on average a 73 percent drop in their standard of living, while the divorced men's standard of living increased by 42 percent. Years later, Weitzman acknowledged a math error; the actual difference was 27 percent and 10 percent, respectively. But Braver says even that figure is based on severely flawed calculations. Weitzman and other social scientists ignored men's expenses — the tab for replacing everything from the bed to the TV to the house — as well as the routine costs of helping to raise the children, beyond child support. Even the tax code favors women: Not only is child support not tax deductible for fathers, but a custodial mother can take a $1,000 per child tax credit; the father cannot, even if he's paying. As "head of the household," the mother gets a lower tax rate and can claim the children as exemptions. If the ex-wife remarries, she is still entitled to child support, even if she marries a billionaire. Indeed, every year men are actually thrown in jail for failing to meet their child-support obligations. In the state of Michigan alone, nearly 3,000 men were locked up for that offense in 2005.

I just LOVE how these feminazis never, ever, ever count men's costs or deeds. Here, they didn't let the readers know that their figures were arrived at because they didn't account for the fact that a man would have to REPLACE everything he lost in the house, that went to Wifey, BTW! The house that, though Hubby can no longer live in it, he can still PAY for it! That's fair; let someone else have something of mine, yet make me pay for it-wow! Where do I sign up?! Ok, sarcasm is off. In all seriousness, this does not qualify for my time or interest...

These same quacks are the ones who talk about women working 'the second shift', doing all the domestic chores! They never, ever, ever count a man's dirty work (e.g. cleaning the gutters, fixing stuff, et al) as time done doing domestic work-never! They never tell you that! All they say is wahhhh, wahhhh, women do all the housework-waaahhhhh! The clear implication, of course, is that Hubby does nothing to help out, when nothing could be further from the truth.

For example, at work we had a four day weekend over Fourth of July; we work Mon-Thu, doing four 10 hour days vs. five 8 hour days. Since the Fourth was on a Friday, and since we didn't work that Friday, we took off that following Monday as a paid holiday. For me, it was nice; I had a four day weekend in which to do what I wanted. However, a guy I work with wasn't so lucky. No, he was doing projects around the house the entire weekend, no doubt doing Wifey's long ass 'Honey Do' list! This is the sort of stuff that women don't count when they bitch about their husbands not helping out around the house-what liars! Yes, this guy is married-what a surprise he didn't get to enjoy the long weekend relaxing...

Though MSN did tell more truth than I've come to expect from them, they didn't tell ALL of it. They didn't tell the reader that: 1) the hapless ex-husband cannot deduct child-support from his taxable income; 2) for the ex-wife, CS is TAX FREE INCOME FOR HER; 3) the ex-wife is not legally required to spend CS on the children, nor is she required to account for the money at all; 4) MSN didn't mention the big elephant in the room-imputed income. Imputed income means that, rather than taking the ex-husband's income into account when deciding the amount he has to pay for CS, that the judge can decide that he should be able to earn more, and set the amount on the basis of what the judge THINKS Hubby should be able to earn!

But for many men, the real pain isn't financial, it's emotional: "Men depend on women for their social support and connections," says Buckley. "When marriages end, men can find themselves far more alone than they ever expected." In a large-scale Canadian survey, 19 percent of men reported a significant drop in social support post divorce. Women are customarily the keepers of the social calendars, and all that is implied by that, providing for what University of Texas sociologist Norval D. Glenn calls the "intangibles" that can create much of a man's sense of place in the world. More often than not, wives send out the Christmas cards; they stitched that cute Halloween costume their daughter wore in second grade; they recall the names of the neighbors who used to live two houses down. The men who bear all these unexpected burdens do so alone, in a strange place, while their ex-wives and children live in the houses that used to be theirs. For an ex-husband to enter that house can feel like trespassing, even though it was paid for with his own money, or sometimes, built with his own hands.

What isn't said is that, prior to marriage, many women ISOLATE their boyfriend from his friends; they deliberately sabotage his support network, so he'll need her more! Women do this with the thought that, if the man needs them more, then he's more likely to do something decidedly against his best interest-get married...

Women also do this as a means of control. If a man isn't hanging out with his buddies, particularly if they're single, then, she figures, that they can't fill her man with crazy ideas-crazy ideas such as that she's a nagging, controlling bitch; that he should stay single to retain his freedom; that he is a human being, and as such, has all the rights thereof: to have his own life, his own thoughts, his own desires, his own dreams, his own hobbies, and the opportunity to FULFILL his dreams and exercise his rights as a human being-wow! That is an ANATHEMA to a vast majority of modern women-an anathema! Is it any WONDER men are saying 'no' to marriage?! As Warner Wolfe would say, Come on!!!

Then, to add insult to injury, they lose the house that they spent untold hours on; they spent countless weekends doing Wifey's 'Honey Do' list of projects that they never got to have time to themselves, let alone time to enjoy the fruits of their labor...

Long before his wife came along, a frame-store owner named Jordan Appel, 55, had built a fine house for himself atop West Newton Hill in one of the fancier Boston suburbs. He loved bringing in a wife and then adding two children. "It felt so wonderful to say 'my wife' and 'my children' and feel part of a community." He volunteered for the preschool's yard sale; his wife took up with a lover. Sometimes she slept with him in Appel's own house; in time, she decided to divorce Appel. As these things go, he was obliged to leave the house, and, as it happened, the community too. Money was so tight that he ended up sleeping in a storage room above his frame shop two towns away. His ex-wife works part-time on the strength of Appel's child custody and alimony payments, and spends time with her boyfriend in Appel's former house. She lives rather well, and he has to make $100,000 a year to support her and the children, which amounts to 70-hour workweeks. One day, he went back to his house and discovered many of his belongings out on the sidewalk with the trash. "My body feels like it's dissolving in anger," he says. "I'm in an absolute rage every single day."

Who says divorce isn't lucrative for women?! Look at this bitch; she made out pretty well, huh? She gets to live in a lovely house in a great location; gets to work part time; and, she bangs her paramour in HIS house-wow! No wonder women file for divorce all the time; they make out like freakin' bandits...

Then, to add insult to injury, this bitch TOSSED HIS STUFF OUT IN THE TRASH! She didn't even have the decency to let her ex know that she had X, Y, and Z of his, let alone ASK him if he'd want to keep it! No, she not only stuck the knife in; she twisted it to intensify the wound! I'd be upset, angry, depressed, flabbergasted, and many other things if I found myself in such a situation as Mr. Appel-again, if I were foolish enough to get married. Though part of me wants to feel sorry for this guy, another part of me wants to say that he got what he deserved for his foolish stupidity. And that's what any man marrying today is-foolish, reckless, and stupid...

"What are five of the biggest stressors a human being can face?" asks Ned Holstein, MD, executive director of Fathers and Families, a Massachusetts-based reform group for divorced dads. "One: the death of a child. Two: the loss of a spouse. Three: the loss of a home. Four: a serious financial reversal. And five: losing a relationship with a child. All of these except the first are combined in a father's experience of divorce. People always think the man is a lone wolf and he can take care of himself. Well, he's also a human being, and people don't think through what that means for men."

This is yet MORE truth from MSN! I don't believe it! They actually tell the truth that men have always known-that divorce just plain SUCKS-end of story. Not only that, they cite the multiple stressors that divorce brings into a man's life. Hey guys, you want to avoid all these stressors? Easy-don't be a fool and get married! Then, you don't have to worry about all this heartbreak and pain finding its way into your life...

Maybe because men AREN'T seen as human beings nowadays! No, we're just male chauvinist pig subhuman Neanderthals if you listen to women. We aren't seen as human beings, and THAT is the problem! No, women see as walking wallets and sperm donors; they view us much the same way they do their handbags or jewelry-as an accessory, not a thinking, living, breathing human being with thoughts, feelings, and desires of his own. Since women don't view us a human beings, they see no need to treat us as such now, do they?

As hard as such deprivations are on the psyche, they can be devastating to a man's health. Recently divorced men are nearly nine times more likely to commit suicide than their female counterparts, according to a study by sociologist Augustine Kposowa. "It's not so much the loss of money," he says, "but the loss of children that propels men to suicide." Or it could be a combination. Infuriated by his obligation to pay child support for three children he rarely saw, Perry Manley snuck a hand grenade inside a federal courthouse in Seattle last year and was shot to death by security personnel after they spotted it. The death was termed "suicide by cop." Kposowa has also detected an increased incidence of motor-vehicle accidents among divorced men, either due to a lack of concentration, sleeplessness, or, more darkly, suicide "cloaked as an accident," he says.

Mr. Manley was probably trying to kill the the thief in the black robe who'd impoverished him is more like it! He was trying to kill the judge, and he was killed before he could do the deed...

Compared with married or single men, divorced men are nine times as likely to be admitted to the hospital, to report difficulties at work, or to suffer significant depression. According to a study in the American Journal of Psychiatry, they suffer the effects of divorce with the intensity that their wives experience the death of a close friend. And they suffer physical maladies. "Their blood pressure goes up, and so does their cholesterol, and that drives up hypertension, heart disease, coronary artery disease, and peripheral vascular disease," says psychiatrist Arnold Robbins, associate editor of the Journal of Men's Health & Gender. Researchers at the Texas Heart Institute have noted that emotional stress can lead to a dangerous ballooning of the left ventricle, which they term "broken heart syndrome." Says Dr. Robbins: "A lot of metabolic syndromes kick in too, like borderline and type 2 diabetes. There's cirrhosis of the liver from too much drinking. Even prostate problems. It's not a pretty picture."

What they didn't mention, though they should have, is this: stress increases the likelihood of illness, not to mention the severity thereof-duh! If you're under stress, then your body will be more susceptible to illness, and it'll have less energy to fight illness once it's present. Didn't they just say that divorce brings MULTIPLE stressors into the husband's life? Didn't they also say that they were all the most serious ones a human being can experience? So, why did MSN not follow this to the logical conclusion that stress makes illness more likely?
And why wouldn't divorced men be more likely to commit suicide? Who wouldn't want to kill themselves after getting screwed like the typical man does during a divorce?

Scientists have recently come to some possible conclusions as to why this might be so. It may be as simple as a loss of being touched. James Coan, PhD, a psychologist in the departments of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Virginia, found that, for a husband, just holding his wife's hand is enough to reduce the stress associated with the anticipation of pain. Regular sex helps insulate a man from chronic stress, and that can pay off in increased longevity: In a study of 1,000 middle-aged men by researchers at Queen's University in Belfast, men who had sex at least three times a week had half the risk of heart attack or stroke of men who had sex less frequently.

Distressed by such facts, men's groups are springing up around the country. "Think of it," says Stephen Baskerville, president of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, in Washington, D.C. "A father could be sitting in his own home, not agreeing to a divorce, not unfaithful to his marriage vows, and not abusive, and the next thing he knows, the court has taken his house, his children, and a lot of his money, and then forced him to pay his wife's legal fees and even her psychologist's fees. And he can be threatened with jail time if he resists."

Ka-ka-kaboom! Baskerville NAILS it! All this INJUSTICE of divorce, and women wonder WHY men are no longer interested in marrying them?! Come on! How stupid can you be, Ladies?! Haven't you ever heard of this little thing called 'Cause & Effect'? What did you EXPECT men to do after you all kicked us in the teeth for decades?! You didn't really expect us to bend over, and say, "Thank you, Ma'am; can I have another?", did you?! You didn't really expect us to come groveling for your love in the wake of all this hatred, did you?! If women are THIS stupid, then it's no wonder you all were denied the right to vote; you're not capable of EXERCISING it...

So, how to avoid Sudden Divorce Syndrome? One way, of course, is to avoid marriage. Another way is by working on your marriage when it can still be salvaged. Statistically, end-stage marriage counseling is rarely effective, despite what the counselors might say. Instead, husbands might be wise to pay attention to the essential ratio that — according to John Gottman, PhD, a world-renowned researcher of marriage stability — governs marital success or failure: five to one. That means husbands (and wives) should direct at least five positive remarks or actions to their spouses for every negative one. Any less and the marriage is in trouble. Or, following the much-admired work of Howard Markman, PhD, who holds couples workshops (loveyourrelationship.com), husbands should attune themselves to their wives' "bids" — for attention, for affection, for all the things that sustain a relationship — and do their best to provide for them. In truth, husbands are not built for the demands that wives often place on them; they are less inclined to talk things out or to display emotion. But then, marriage isn't easy for either party. When a wife wants out, it is usually not out of selfishness or senseless cruelty. Sometimes the love simply runs out. Husbands should do what they can to keep that love alive. That way, they might hang on to the many delights that marriage affords and spare themselves the countless horrors that divorce can bring.

The first sentence of the paragraph is all you need to do-avoid marriage, and you can avoid ALL this heartache and bullshit, fellas...

Though there is some merit in working on a marriage before it gets to the point of divorce, that advice is predicated on the assumption that women will be happy with what you, as a man, do. Though such women do exist, their numbers are so small as to be statistically insignificant. The vast majority of AW and WW are so spoiled and narcissistic that there is NO satisfying them; that is, as a man, there's NOTHING YOU CAN DO to make her happy, and it's best to proceed with that assumption when dealing with women. IOW, assume that they're all like this, since a vast majority of them are; then, you avoid marriage or serious entanglements with women. To borrow a line from Wargames, one can say that marriage is a strange game (not to mention hopelessly rigged against men); the only winning move is NOT TO PLAY...

But such advice comes too late for the many men like Martin Paul and Jordan Appel, who have already fallen victim to the syndrome. For them, the best, and perhaps only, cure will be time — time to forge a new relationship that can undo the ravages of the previous one. After all, most divorced men, like most divorced women, do remarry. A second marriage is a triumph of hope over experience, yes, but it's the best chance to restore the health and security that so cruelly has been taken away. Even without remarriage, the overwhelming sense of upheaval will gradually fade if the men can only persevere. And, in time, the experience will evolve into a
memory that, however bitter, yields a gift of wisdom.

Sorry, but many men, like myself, see no need or desire to play such a rigged game. Can you believe the NERVE of these people?! Yeah, guys, we know you got royally screwed; we know you got a bad deal from marriage. But, it's ok to do it again! All you need is hope, forgiveness, etc. I'm all for hope and forgiveness, but I'm not at all for being stupid. Thank you...