**DISCLAIMER**
The contents of this post are simply an exercise in dealing with a theoretical situation. It in no way constitutes a threat or some kind of ominous portend of some pending action on my behalf, nor is it related to any possible real life situation at this time. It's simply ruminations on a horrible topic I've oft wrestled with in my own mind.
In the comments to my last post, I made a statement that might seem a bit hyperbolic or perhaps a bit of false bravado. I responded to J. Dantes of Koanic soul,who made the argument that nothing is worth a man losing his honor, including his own children.
I disagree vehemently with this sentiment.
As a young Father (well, I'm not young, but certainly young at Fatherhood), I now realize there is nothing I would not sacrifice for my child, including my honor.
Because I love my child more than my life itself.
I've been at this blogging thing in the manosphere for almost 5 years now, and over all this time, I've thought long and hard about the various topics we discuss regarding marriage, divorce, and the entire racket of child support designed to enslave men and force them to subsidize the destruction of their own family, while enduring alienation and kept from even minimal contact with their children.
What would I do, faced with the same scenario?
How could I handle going through the kind of hell Bill Price has painfully documented at the Spearhead?
I am fully aware of the risks I undertook in purposefully having a baby with my wife.
She could one day fall out of love, and play the "I'm just not haaaaapppy!" card and take my child away with the assistance of the law. And there is nothing legal or law abiding that I could do to stop it. I don't think it's highly likely, yet I'd be foolish to think it was impossible.
So what would I do?
I've come to the conclusion that the only remedy to this potential scenario is a policy of mutually assured destruction.
This is not something I need to ever say or do IRL. I would never threaten it as some means of trying to scare or manipulate my wife. And no, I have no intent to ever lay out the specifics of my planned response either here, nor anywhere else.
This is only something that would become expressed in real life should the worst case scenario occur first. I will only say this: my plans do not involve murder, wanton destruction or any other sort of random act of psychosis that seems to be increasingly more frequent in occurrence in our rapidly declining civilization.
For instance, where I to discover my wife were having an affair and she were contemplating divorcing me -- or any of the other scenarios we in this sector of teh interwebz regularly write about and discuss -- I have already determined my course of action in response to the potential loss of custody and a basic rights as a Father to my child. I hope this never happens, but I'm mentally prepared for it just the same.
If you take my child from me, you have effectively taken all meaning from my life. I will have nothing to live for. You will have destroyed me. I will have nothing to lose. Faced with such a scenario, I will issue Fair Warning....and no, I would not lash out at innocent bystanders. I would focus my actions on the people solely responsible for which I can identify and actually reach.
As I wrote in the last post's comments:
I'll tell you this much, if anyone tries to take my kid from me, you'll hear about the "crazy dude in Hawaii" who went out with a bang.
What do I mean by "bang?" May you never find out, but rest assured, I am not going to blow anything up.
But I digress.
The chances of this happening based on my current assessment of my relationship with my wife and my family make this scenario extremely improbable, if not near impossible. But if there's one thing I've taken from immersing myself in the anti-establishment sector of teh interwebz, it's that I now know that faced with the possibilities of a system that is designed to chew up and spit out any Father at any moment, and to use his own children against him, I know that I must always consider the worst case scenarios and plan.
But don't worry. At this stage, it's purely theoretical...but the convictions behind it are strongly held after close to 5 years of rumination on this particular subject.
What would I do?
I'm curious to know if any other married with children bloggers read my blog have ever thought of the possibilities and what you would do if you suddenly found yourself faced with the impending horrors of the Divorce/Family Court industry? And please, no specific references to illegal actions...but I wonder if anyone else has reached the same conclusions I have?
Many Game/PUA proponents will say "it won't happen to me because I understand Game and how to manage my LTR." I've implied that myself. But I'm not foolish enough to believe it could NEVER happen to me...because it could. I've seen it happen up close and personal to family and friends. I had a long time friend commit suicide over these precise issues, and I had to clean up the mess he left behind.
I've seen little children's entire worlds come crashing down on them because one or both parents decided to destroy their families through the "family" court system.
I'd be a fool to think I've got it all figured out and delude myself into thinking "it couldn't happen to ME!"
I'll do my best to try and ensure it won't, and I do think having the kind of awareness gained from blogging and reading in this part of teh interebz would make it much more likely that I could recognize trends, patterns and behavioral changes that would give me an early warning that the chances of my family destruction are increasing, and that I'd be able to address the problems head on, with a clear mind and wide open eyes, and that I'd face ugly truths head on and not fall prey to rationalizations.
As I've written before, my personal motto is Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.
To reiterate, this post was nothing more than a mental exercise of planning for the worst-case scenario. It's nowhere near close to being a real situation...but one never knows what the future holds, eh?
Rest assured, unless you ever log onto this blog and find I've changed my blogging name from "Keoni Galt" to "Keoni Kaczynski," chances are this post may be the first and last time I ever feel the need to express such a dark, nihlisitic sentiment ever again. God willing.
26 comments:
This is a bitter pill exercise, Keoni.
I now realize there is nothing I would not sacrifice for my child, including my honor.
That's the crux of the matter for me and something I hate admitting, but I'd focus on the kids. If the wife was willing to not drag me through the mud, a big if for an unhaaappy woman, if she didn't try to steal my children away from me, I'd suck it up like a punk, swallow my pride, and do the best I could to remain a father and disabuse my daughters of the eat/pray/love mindset that Ms. Unhaaappy would most likely be attempting to inculcate in them.
I wouldn't vanish, I wouldn't use them as pawns, I wouldn't ask them to take sides. (I would, however, attempt to subtly open their eyes to the truth.)
It's not a comforting admission. It's not an inspiring one. But for me, the goal would be to sacrifice my pride and admit that my decision to procreate was also a decision to live for something other than myself.
But I'd also find a younger woman instead of pining over the bitch who served my ass with papers.
The whole point of the doomsday machine is lost if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world, eh?
Mutual Assured Destruction worked because the Reds knew we could and would vaporize them. In the case of marriage, she knows she can vaporize you. The question is, even if you have a way to vaporize her, how exactly are you going to make that capability and intention known to her? "Here's what I would do if you said you would divorce me" is hardly a conversation you want to have when everything is lovey-dovey. For one thing, that's going to put the idea in her head that you're planning on divorcing her. For another thing, it's going to show your hand and get her thinking about countermeasures. And how do you make the threat credible? We all know that if she's decided to divorce you, at that point she holds you in such utter contempt that she will likely have little respect for any threats you might make. Plus, she has already launched her missiles, so to speak, and is unlikely even to try to recall them. She'll just be glad she hired a totally evil divorce lawyer.
Maybe if you have a friend who was getting divorced, you could say "here's what I would do in his shoes" just to let her know somewhat obliquely that you have the bomb, too. Otherwise I am hard pressed to think of a good way to introduce the subject.
I am at a loss to understand why the wife in the Bill Press account got him fired, since that eliminated his ability to pay her alimony and child support. The first threat I'd think of if divorce was on the table would be, "I'll quit my job and you won't get a dime from me" -- but if she got me fired, that threat would be moot.
"The question is, even if you have a way to vaporize her, how exactly are you going to make that capability and intention known to her?"
Sneak it into the wedding vows. "In sickness and in health, for bettor or for worse, and if you ever leave and take the kids I will murder your whole family"
But seriously it's good to hear about your commitment to your child. It often seems to get lost in the MRM that the ideal is not for men and women to be truly equal, but for women to start being women again. The role of a man as protector and provider should not change.
Certain damage methods are not to be puzzled with "insurance" methods such as retaliatory business charges that are merely designed to cover the aggrieved or to gain circumstances to the pre-existing "level enjoying field".
I've thought a fair bit about this, actually, and its one of the reasons I've decided that expatting is the only reasonable course for me.
Most women (IMO) would be sufficiently deterred from stealing a man's children if the price of doing so was being cut off from his resources. While it's pretty hard to arrange matters so that you can escape to a new country with your money should your wife turn viper, it's considerably easier to arrange to escape back to your own in such a circumstance ... and, having expatted once, to then move to a third if necessary before the lawyers can catch up to you. (In the event such cross-juristictional action can even be pursued.)
This unstated but obvious fact, together with the more sensible matrimonial laws found outside the anglosphere (and the healthier -- if imperfect -- attitudes towards marriage and family generally) seem to me to provide an adequate "nuclear" deterrent to bad judgement.
While I have other ways of conjuring such deterrence, they're a little darker and more self-destructive than I'd really want to pursue. So: No marriage in the US for me!
Keoni:
I have thought about what I would do, and what I would have to do, if faced with the prospect of an evisceration in divorce court. The only viable route is mutually assured destruction and telling her in effect "destroy me, and you'll destroy yourself and our children."
deti
Does anybody know of anyone who manages to stay out of a custody battle?
My last 3 friends who divorced made custody arrangements outside of court.
I don't think a divorce HAS to mean "mutually assured destruction". Not every woman wants full custody and a ton of child-support.
I'm just saying this so a guy doesn't blow himself up the second his wife and him get distant. Not all divorces are horrific so at least wait and see what happens before investing in explosives.
Being willing to compromise your honor to protect something is an invitation to your enemies to threaten it.
It's safer to be willing to make the hard choice.
This is particularly true since the largest threat your children face is their own capacity for self destruction.
That which is held with an open hand, is most secure.
Yes, I have reached the same conclusion. I am not, however, entirely sure if I would be able to show the same kind of constraint that you claim that you will show.
I would certainly and irrevocably destroy the car, burn the house down, quit my job, reap everything from the bank accounts and move to Hawaii. I heard is a nice place to live. From the Lilo & Stitch cartoon, but still.
One thing that I have never understood is that so many men get victimised and everything taken away from them and then...... nothing but whining.
It genuinely surprises me that judges, lawyers, social workers, marriage counsellors, writers.. the people who make up the divorce industry are not being punished by their victims.
I don't have children and my wife never tried to rob me in the divorce. But she knew I have a vindictive ruthless streak for anyone who becomes my enemy and knew not to trigger it (though I think she made the separation easy due to her personal values rather than fear of retribution).
I do expect, as an empirical prediction rather than a recommendation, that many of the evildoers in the divorce industry will be suffering from personal retribution from the men they have wronged.
I just like to tell you. It is all survivable. I am the father of a 17 year old woman. In the last three years, I lost everything: House, english mastiff, truck, car, cat, furniture, license to practice law, everything.
What kept me alive was my daughter. Even before I lost everything, the most important thing in my life was the relationship with my daughter. I made sure I would exercise every bit of my visitation. I would call my daughter, send her post cards. Nowadays, there are many sources of communication to keep those ties. Anyway, when I lost everything, I surely did think of suicide. But, as a father, I have an obligation to my daughter to be here for her. So, I manned up and dealt with the depression. Being a dad isn't a part time job that ends when she turns 18 and the child support obligation ends. It is a lifetime job.
We have joint custody in Australia.
Mine kind of worked out with she, her words, "knew I kept a hunting club lease with extensive swamps and alligators". Kind of made her more amenable to a not so bad agreement. Hate to say it but sometimes that's what it takes...But I see my girls whenever I want to.
My hypothetical plan?
Full-on scorched earth policy. Other than the clothes on her back she's leaving our house with nothing, not the kids, not alimony, nothing.
And if she tried I'd make good and goddamned sure there wasn't anything for her to take.
I know how to liquidate every asset I own within 12 hours and already have another home in a non-extradition country. She'd never see me or the kids ever again.
And the best part? I'll never let her see it coming.
"Oh, you think we should get divorced sweetie?", I'll say in a concerned voice. "Well, if you think that's best. Let's set up an appointment with lawyers on Monday."
Meanwhile my plan is already in place and she's left wondering what the f*ck happened come Monday in a empty house she can't sink her claws into, and no kids to fund her suddenly single new life.
I remember my girlfriend asking me;
"What if I got pregnant and decided to have the child?"
I told her, point blank,
"I would change my name, move, do whatever was necessary to make sure you didn't find me. And if you did find me, I would quit my job and if necessary go to jail."
Now that I'm older, I realize I may have just dodged a bullet.
Forget prenuptuals. Just a mere warning early on in the relationship with a dead serious face and dead serious intent, and I think a lot of problems will go away.
I'm the same age as Keoni. I don't have any kids but I can applaud his honesty all the same. Prospective parents should read this essay and consider the depth of feeling involved in parenthood.
I've though along similar lines and like many of us, I know too much about what the system is designed to do to men when the relationship fails. My wife understands too, so I'm similarly fortunate to have very little worry in this regard.
My personal decision is that I couldn't imagine not having my son fully in my life as now and I simply would not allow the system to chew me up. The how of doing that, is something which I hope to never have to deal with.
I think one practical option is to teach your kids about the immorality of frivolous divorce as soon as they are old enough to understand. This is of course something you should do anyway, since they will otherwise fear that what has happened to so many of their friends and classmates will suddenly happen to them. I've written on my own blog about the little boy who had our daughter losing sleep at night after telling her that "sometimes mommies and daddies just stop loving each other". After a week or so of her trying to make sure we stayed in love, we finally heard about it. My wife put an instant end to our daughters worries by simply telling her "He was wrong. His mommy was a brat. But don't tell him this because you will hurt his feelings". Likewise our daughter came home from kindergarten and asked why so and so went to stay with his father on weekends. My wife told her (no joke) "So his mommy can date." I'm not haaaapy divorces are predicated on the expectation that the wife (or sometimes husband) won't be judged. Teach your kids right from wrong about marriage as soon as possible, and you make this much less likely in your own home.
Other than this, I tend to agree with Ulysses' take on it. I know of three different people roughly my age who suffered because their father responded badly to the mother's decision to EPL.
Two girls I knew as a child had their parents divorce when they were around 10 years old. The father was a police officer, and our families used to go to the shooting range together. The mother got unhaaaaapy and kicked the father out and filed for divorce. He claims she was cleaning his revolver and accidentally shot herself in the abdomen. Twice. A jury disagreed. This left these little girls with neither a mother nor a father, since he ended up in prison.
I had the chance a few years back to meet the son of one of the men my father rescued in Vietnam (M from my flashlight post). He wanted to thank my father (he wouldn't have been born had the rescue not occurred), and I was invited along. The man is very nearly my age and I felt too guilty to go. It probably isn't rational but the parallel was too strong for me. Both of our fathers served with honor in Vietnam and made it back alive to conceive us. But I was able to grow up with a father and he was not. When M's son was around 3 years old, his mother kicked the father out and divorced. M had struggled with PTSD after his experiences and had problems with addiction. He shot himself when his son was 3. This man is roughly 40 years old now, and never knew his father.
I agree with anonymous and Twenty Said. After getting divorced and going through the ringer of the family court system, remarrying in church and then finding out about MRA after wards(shit, too late) I would just leave the country and start all over again. in a non-extradition, non-child support country. probably in one of those former soviet union countries.
Couldn't you just put a clause in the marriage vows, or some other legally binding document? "In the case of divorce, child custody is split equally" or somesuch.
This is so interesting. I'm a recent widow, no kids, (and only 56 {sigh}) reading these thoughts. It makes me think of the wisdom in Michele Weiner-Davis's book "Divorce Busters" (or maybe her second book, or maybe it was on her forum -- which saved my sanity, and eventually my marriage, when my husband had an affair). Her *mission* is to keep marriages together.
Because men and women do not know or understand how each differs (and make no modern liberal mistake -- men and women and HUGELY different: biologically, psychologically, emotionally, and so on), they make assumptions about the motivation of their partner. (Alison Armstrong describes it perfectly: she says women think men are "big hairy women who misbehave"; and men think women are "emotionally driven, weak men." That is -- we (all) assume the other is choosing, doing, and saying things for the reason THEY (or another of their sex) would -- when really it's about intersex differences.
To continue:
Because I educated myself about these things (I also recommend Dr. Pat Allen, Deborah Tannen, Suzette Hadyn Elgin), I could react to my husband's ASTONISHINGLY "wrong" (if I judged him as if he were a woman doing it) actions by realizing he was NOT "being a bad woman' -- but being a normal, masculine man. HE, because HE was also educated about these differences (partly by his own interest, partly because I read these things to him while he drove), knew my motivations when I did things that annoyed or offended him (which, of course, I tried not to do -- but hey, (nearly all) women are feelings-centered, and thus driven by a wholly different "logic" than men).)
(Our neighbor teen was astonished, on hot day, when my husband was out mowing the lawn, and I -- as I always did -- brought him paper towels and a glass of ice water.. He wanted to know "how my husband "got" me to do that?" I pointed out that he took great care of me -- he (in Pat Allen's words) "provided for me, protected me, and cherished me" and so it was easy - and my pleasure -- to 'pay him back' with respect and "giving back" in small ways for all the great ways in which he gave to me (first!).
But women (and men) don't understand that when a woman complains that a man doesn't 'show her he loves her' -- and so he mows the lawn, or washes her car -- or works longer hours -- by which action(s) he IS showing her very clearly (by a MAN'S measure!!) that he loves her. SHE doesn't speak that "language" and so sees it as proof he's ignoring (not loving) her.
(Chapman's "The Five Love Languages" is another excellent book at learning some aspects of this stuff.)
Men also need to realize that women will complain and bitch and whine right up until they lose any hope that he will "figure it out." (And they don't know how men and women differ either, so THEY usually can't tell him what's wrong in a way he can hear.) But when they lose hope, they shut up and begin planning (silently) how to get away from 'the man who doesn't love them.' The MAN thinks, "oh, all is well now."
My Michael used to tease that a "chirping woman is a happy woman; it's when they go silent you need to worry!"
I know most men are completely uninterested in male-female dynamics. It's not men's 'field,' not their forte. But if you intend to have daughters, if you intend your sons to have successful relationships, if you intend to keep your wife from going silent with despair and then hate... then you need to learn about these differences, and help your woman to learn about them too! (LEAD your marriage, eh? You learn, and share your learning! OR join with her so you both learn!)
The problem I see with PUA/MRM (and I run an advice list for women so I study this stuff! -- I joke it's about rescuing women from the damages of feminism, one woman at a time!), is that they mostly refuse to consider that women (are biologically built to) see things differently -- or they try to figure out how to FAKE a solid relationship without understanding the other sex.
"Playing the Game" may get you casual sex -- but it sure doesn't set you up to create a solid healthy long-term relationship. Any more than "The Rules" teaches women how to actually FORM a relationship with a man! BOTH 'systems' are about finding an *enemy* and trying to trap him/her and make a go of an actual relationship.
Education -- of both partners -- will go many miles toward preventing a divorce -- and even more miles towards a happy marriage! Good luck to you all!
I like your blog in general, but this post is absolutely riddled with cognitive dissonance and contradictions (and false alternatives). I am not going to get into in detail, but here is one examples that is pretty much the pattern;
1) Maintain an air of quiet competence.
2)I s this being "manipulative" or "putting up a false front"......?" Nope.
Do you genuinely not notice the contradiction in these two statements?
What if I dont FEEL quietly competent? Isnt pretending I do obviously *putting up a false front*?
Why should I CARE what she thinks of me? Does that make me stronger or weaker?
Let me put it to you this way - the man who HIDES his feelings of insecurity out of fear of what others think is WEAKER than the man who is insecure and openly admits it. BOTH are weak - but one is weaker.
Another clue - needing to pretend you are confident when you do not feel that way merely becomes another source of fear - fear of being found out - and makes you even less confident.
The way to achieve GENUINE confidence is to STOP CARING what others think, EVEN if it means letting them see your insecurity and lack of confidence. It takes courage, daring, and honesty, but it is worth it.
These distinctions are somewhat subtle and may take some time and meditation to finally sink and be absorbed. I realize most guys have mental blocks that make it hard to understand what might appear to me obvious distinctions. But I guarantee you it is well worth the effort for the payoff in growth in genuine confidence.
No offense, you write a great blog, but this entire post depends on systematic contradictions of the above described nature, and a systematic failure to understand basic distinctions.
I hope one day you can grasp that. Cheers
What can I say? Insane threats of murder coupled with profligate generosity and eager helpfulness worked for me.
You have to win BEFORE you go to court.
13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
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